Welcome to the Monday edition of the Daily Dose newsletter, our “Fantasy Fallout” day. In this article, you will get a quick rundown of the relevant things we learned from the week’s games from Thursday through Sunday. 

We won’t talk about every single player and we usually won’t spend time on studs who go nuts (no one needs to be told to start CeeDee Lamb right now!), but rather, the idea is to update you on usage trends, injuries, and other relevant things to help your decisions with your teams.

49ers at Seahawks

• Niners RB Jordan Mason, the NFL’s leading rusher at the time of his exit, left the game with a shoulder injury. A situation to monitor. Rookie Isaac Guerendo would be the top waiver priority if Mason were to miss time.
• For the fourth time in the past five games, Jaxon Smith-Njigba saw more targets, snaps, and receptions than Tyler Lockett. He appears to be locked into the WR2 role in Seattle, which is noteworthy as Geno Smith leads the league in both pass attempts and passing yards. 
• George Kittle scored two TDs and led the 49ers in receptions and targets. He will likely continue to be inconsistent, but is a must start at TE each week.

Jaguars at Bears (London)

These are the top players to consider adding from waivers this week. Unless otherwise noted, all players below are available in greater than 50% of Yahoo leagues (as of Sunday evening).

Week 7 teams on bye: Bears, Cowboys 

QB Streaming Special

Matthew Stafford, LAR, Week 7 vs LV

• An “Early Waiver Add” recommendation from Sunday morning; Stafford and the Rams are coming off of their bye and reports are they could be getting star WR Cooper Kupp back from injury. The Raiders have given up 66 points to the Broncos and Steelers the past two weeks.
• Low-priority add. Stafford is a fine streaming option this week.
• 5% or less of FAAB.

RB Pickups

We are just under halfway through the regular season for most fantasy leagues and a lot has changed in the first six weeks. Each league is different and has its own settings, standings, and nuance so evaluating where you are at and where you are going is important at this point. Some teams near the top of standings may be open to making some moves to take on an injured player or one whose offense is struggling right now that could help you when it matters most in the playoffs. Some teams near the bottom may be in desperation mode and can’t wait for players to get healthy or their team’s offense to figure things out, and need to make moves now to keep any playoff hopes alive. 

Those in the middle have options to hold course or make a move. There are only two teams on bye in Week 7 and two on bye in Week 9, with NO BYES in Week 8. So we are heading into a short stretch where not as many teams should be stressed with short-handed bye-week-related situations as we saw in Week 5 and Week 6.

With all of that in mind, here are my updated “rest-of-season” rankings for you to use when evaluating your teams. It is more of an art than a science doing this in the middle of the season, as you have to weigh what we’ve seen with possible regression to preseason expectations (some players have already played their best football, while others have already played their worst). Obviously these are fluid, and even injury news throughout this week will change things, but this should give you a rough idea of where players should currently be valued, in my opinion. 

QB

Tier 1 ::

These are truly elite players who have proven themselves and are mostly matchup-proof. You can start them every week, and in the case of Hurts, who already had his bye, you can feel confident with no other QBs on your roster:

1. Lamar Jackson
2. Jalen Hurts
3. Josh Allen
4. Jayden Daniels

Tier 2 ::

We are just under halfway through the regular season for most fantasy leagues and a lot has changed in the first six weeks. Each league is different and has its own settings, standings, and nuance so evaluating where you are at and where you are going is important at this point. Some teams near the top of standings may be open to making some moves to take on an injured player or one whose offense is struggling right now that could help you when it matters most in the playoffs. Some teams near the bottom may be in desperation mode and can’t wait for players to get healthy or their team’s offense to figure things out, and they need to make moves now to keep any playoff hopes alive. 

Those in the middle have options to hold course or make a move. There are only two teams on bye in Week 7 and two on bye in Week 9, with NO BYES in Week 8. So we are heading into a short stretch where not as many teams should be stressed with short-handed bye-week-related situations as we saw in Week 5 and Week 6.

With all of that in mind, here are my updated “rest-of-season” rankings for you to use when evaluating your teams. It is more of an art than a science doing this in the middle of the season, as you have to weigh what we’ve seen with possible regression to preseason expectations (some players have already played their best football, while others have already played their worst). Obviously these are fluid, and even injury news throughout this week will change things, but this should give you a rough idea of where players should currently be valued, in my opinion. 

WR

Tier 1 ::

The true alphas. These players are heavily targeted and are the engines of their offenses. Tyreek needs Tua to come back sooner than later, but if/when that happens, he has an argument for the top overall spot.

1. Ja’Marr Chase
2. CeeDee Lamb
3. Chris Godwin
4. Justin Jefferson
5. A.J. Brown
6. Tyreek Hill
7. Malik Nabers

Tier 2 ::

Some things in fantasy football are easy. We know we should start Ja’Marr Chase and Saquon Barkley. We know we should bench the backup running back who is only on our roster in case of injury. A lot of the decisions are made for us. However, there are a lot of things that are not so simple. All of the “in between” situations are what can make the difference between a few wins and losses, and therefore it can be the difference between a successful season or a failed season. Every Friday, we are here to help!!

I’ll take questions each week in our #fantasy-football channel in our Discord from people looking for Start/Sit advice and give my thoughts. This article on Fridays will feature a few of those questions and responses, so join our Discord to be a part of the conversation or ask questions of your own!!

Question 1:: Patrick Mahomes or the “Red Rifle” (Andy Dalton)? (Engineer Price)

Answer:: Mahomes has disappointed his fantasy owners for the last year and a half now, and he is far more focused on winning than box scores at this point in his career. However, there will still be a few spots where the Chiefs will be pushed and this 49ers offense is one team that can potentially do just that. The combination of San Francisco potentially pushing him to be more aggressive and the Chiefs coming off a bye week where they may have figured some things out offensively make me want to give Mahomes another shot this week.

Question 2:: Xavier Worthy or Jaylen Waddle in the Flex? (MSG6)

The weekend is here and it’s time to get our lineups set before Sunday’s full slate of games. Each week, the Saturday edition of the Daily Dose will feature my rankings for all players who have yet to play a game this week. Obviously this will not include the Thursday games, but feel free to hit me up in Discord if you have some tough decisions around guys who play on Thursday. 

Most of the leagues I play in are full-PPR, 12-team leagues and these rankings are designed for those settings – you may need to make some slight adjustments based on your own league settings.

QB :: 

1. Jayden Daniels
2. Lamar Jackson
3. Jalen Hurts
4. Josh Allen
5. Jordan Love
6. C.J. Stroud
7. Joe Burrow
8. Sam Darnold
9. Kirk Cousins
10. Patrick Mahomes
11. Anthony Richardson
12. Kyler Murray
13. Baker Mayfield
14. Brock Purdy
15. Geno Smith
16. Trevor Lawrence
17. Aaron Rodgers
18. Jared Goff
19. Andy Dalton
20. Daniel Jones
21. Drake Maye
22. Matthew Stafford
23. Deshaun Watson
24. Justin Herbert
25. Tyler Huntley
26. Aidan O’Connell
27. Russell Wilson
28. Will Levis

RB :: 

The theme of this article is, “Work smarter, not harder.” Every week we will give you the top Waiver Adds in our Tuesday article. However, you can make things a lot easier and less stressful by getting ahead of things with some players and situations. Doing so in a smart way can help you save FAAB or preserve high waiver priority in your league. 

Every Sunday I will give you a few players who stand out to me as great potential additions that can give you a leg up on your league mates. Look to add these players if you have players you are willing to drop, who get late-week injuries, or who are ruled out of their games and allow you to move them to an IR spot once they are officially inactive on Sunday morning.

Tua Tagovailoa, QB, MIA

• The Dolphins have been a mess since Tua went on injured reserve, but reports are that he will return in Week 8 for a home game against a Cardinals team traveling cross country to play an early game, on a short week after playing the Chargers on Monday night. This is about as good of a spot as you can ask for, and with his weapons…..wheels up. The best part is if your league has an IR spot, you can pick up Tua now, stash him on IR for this week, and wait to drop a player until you activate him next week. Tua is available in 74% of ESPN leagues and 55% of Yahoo leagues.

Jaylen Warren, RB, PIT