Welcome back to Lucid Streams. Our goal here is to help you find emergency help that’s potentially available on the waiver wire or on the back of your bench when you’re scrambling for options due to injuries or plain old poor drafting at wide receiver and tight end. We also want to equip you with the tools to go out on your own and find the best fantasy football sleepers yourself in case the options listed here each week aren’t available to you. Our goal is to find WRs who have at least a reasonable chance to contribute 10+ PPR points to your lineup this week and TEs who can chip in at least seven points in PPR.
Last week, we went two for four on our WR recommendations. That’s not including Michael Wilson, who earned seven targets, which is the volume we were looking for, even if the results fell short of our goal. We also hit on three of our four TEs. I’d be thrilled if we could do that every week. Let’s go find some more gems this week!
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The Process
What we are looking for each week is to find the players most likely to pop for one of several reasons. They may have an increased role in their offense due to the misfortune of a player ahead of them on the depth chart, or they may be facing a defense that will have trouble defending them due to a positional mismatch. Maybe that’s a chronic problem of the defense, or maybe it’s due to injuries in the coverage units, which will allow a unique opportunity for success by our streamer. At the intersection of high opportunity and low ownership is where we want to pan for gold in the stream. Remember, these are recommendations for those who are really in a bind for a starter and should not be played over anyone you’d normally start.
We’ll use a variety of tools to help us, including schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to the WR and TE positions. If you’re not familiar with this metric, it removes the variance that can skew fantasy points allowed by a defense due to the quality of the passing attacks they’ve faced. For example, if Defense A has faced four top-tier passing offenses in the first four weeks while Defense B has faced only weak passing offenses over that same period, it could appear that Defense B is better at defending WRs than Defense A, when in reality, Defense A might be the tougher matchup.
The further we get into the season, the more relevance this analysis will have. To start the season, we’ll be using data from 2023, which may or may not continue to be accurate for 2024, but it’s better to at least know where a defense left off at the end of last season than to know nothing at all.
Streaming Wide Receivers Week 5
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Someone has to pick up the slack for Rashee Rice. Travis Kelce will certainly see more targets, and we have to assume that Xavier Worthy will take the fast track to being a reliable fantasy weapon as well. But there’s still room for another receiver to eat at this table, and my bet is on JuJu, who already knows the offense well and operates in the same area of the field as Rice.
Jordan Whittington
Sean McVay has been talking up Whittington since training camp started, and the injuries to Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp have opened the door for him to be an integral part of the Rams’ offense. Two weeks ago, he began to work his way into the offense. Last week, he led the team in both targets and receptions. This week, he faces the Packers’ defense and their #27 ranking in schedule-adjusted points allowed to WRs.
Tre Tucker
Davante Adams and his balky hamstring appear to be headed out of town soon, leaving Tre Tucker and his 4.4 speed as a starting WR against a tough Broncos defense. While the defense is tough, it’s Jakobi Meyers who is going to be put in jail by Patrick Surtain, leaving Tucker as the receiver most likely to earn heavy targets, as he has the past two weeks. This week’s waiver run was probably your last chance at him in deep leagues, so stick him in your lineup if you need him.
Dontayvion Wicks
Another receiver who was still available in even a few very deep leagues this week, Wicks saw 13 targets last week when Christian Watson went out with a sprained ankle early in last week’s game. We can’t expect that many targets again, but Wicks has thrived when he’s a fixture in 11 personnel in this offense, as he should be this week. The Rams’ secondary is beatable, and it’s quite possible this game shoots out.
Honorable mentions
- Jalen Tolbert: Brandin Cooks is out for a few weeks with an infection in his knee, making Tolbert the WR2 on a prolific offense
- Tutu Atwell: Anytime you can beat your opponent by using a 5-9, 155-pound WR, you pretty much have to do it
Streaming Tight Ends Week 5
Tyler Conklin
The Vikings’ defense has been surprisingly solid this year, but their Achilles heel has been covering tight ends. Enter Tyler Conklin, the Jets’ TE1, playing in that early London game this Sunday. Aaron Rodgers is likely to be looking for safety valve receivers against a fierce pass rush, so Conklin should extend the streak of TEs running roughshod over the Vikings.
Tucker Kraft
Kraft is fresh off of a big day against the aforementioned Vikings’ defense, so we’ll back the hot hand vs. a Rams defense that’s strictly middle-of-the-road at defending TEs. Add in the fact that Kraft’s fellow TE, Luke Musgrave, is in danger of missing this week, and we have a TE who should be locked into a useful workload.
Cade Otton
Peppered with 17 targets over the past two weeks, Otton has reeled in 13 of them. Once again, the Buccaneers figure to be shorthanded in the passing game, with Trey Palmer and Jalen McMillan both ruled out with injuries. The Falcons have been somewhat stingy against TEs so far this year, but Otton is likely to get enough volume to render that a moot point.
Colby Parkinson
Beggars can’t be choosers, and that’s as true for Matthew Stafford with a receiving corps short on talent and experience as it is for us fantasy gamers who are desperately searching each week for fantasy football sleepers at the TE position. This week’s opponents, the Green Bay Packers, are a beatable defense.
Honorable mentions
- Taysom Hill: Check the injury report, but if he plays and is eligible at TE in your league, Hill is very active around the goal line.
- Erick All Jr.: He’s getting four targets a week on a regular basis, and TEs can beat the Ravens’ defense
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