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.
As expected, last week was a tough one as mostly chalk hit at the WR position. Only DeMario Douglas hit out of my six recommendations. The news was better at TE, although the Tequila and Darts recommendation was probably the real winner. Nevertheless, we got home with two hits out of the four recommended plays (Luke Schoonmaker and Ja’Tavion Sanders), while Theo Johnson came up just 0.1 fantasy points away from being a third hit. This week, we’re back to a full slate of games, so hopefully, you don’t have to dig this deep, but we’re here for you if you need it.
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 rostership 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 has.
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Streaming Wide Receivers Week 13
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Tennessee Titans
It’s hard to find a WR getting less respect in the fantasy community than this man. He’s been the WR18 over the past five games and has scored a TD in six of the last seven games. Folks, he just might be good at football. Forget the one-week rental, it’s time to just roster Mr. NWI if for no other reason than to just block your opponents from doing so.
Devaughn Vele, Denver Broncos
He’s the WR24 over the past three weeks and has earned 18 targets over that same period. There’s very little we can count on in Denver outside of Bo Nix and Courtland Sutton, but Vele is working his way into the circle of trust. Cleveland has the 26th-ranked schedule-adjusted defense vs. WRs, so the matchup isn’t too intimidating. If Vele gets it done again this week, he should probably stick on rosters.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling, New Orleans Saints
Few teams are as thin on talent at WR as the New Orleans Saints, so the well-traveled MVS has become interesting on a weekly basis. In his past two games, he has turned a “scant” seven targets into five receptions, 197 yards, and three TDs. This week’s opponent for New Orleans, the Rams, have a pretty average pass defense. If you need to play hero-ball at WR off the waiver wire, MVS probably had the most upside of any available option.
Noah Brown, Washington Commanders
What can Brown do for you? Over the past five weeks, he’s easily been the WR2 for the Washington Commanders with 33 targets. He’s hit our 10-point threshold in three of those weeks despite scoring only one TD. If none of the above three options are available and you’re digging this deep, Brown might be able to help you out against a Tennessee team that is suddenly finding itself in shootouts.
Honorable Mentions
- Adam Thielen: Carolina draws the WR-friendly Buccaneers defense this week so there’s some potential upside here for a veteran target-earner like Thielen.
Streaming Tight Ends Week 13
Just a quick reminder that to qualify for recommendation in this column, players must be less than 30-percent rostered on most major fantasy platforms. It’s getting hard to find decent options below this threshold, so If for some reason there is a Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith Zach Ertz, or similarly talented TE available to you, they will all be better options than what you see below.
Luke Schoonmaker, Dallas Cowboys
The Schooner came into port last week as the TE9 with a 3-55-1 line on four targets. This is an offense that relies heavily on tight ends, and Jake Ferguson is again a long shot to play this week since it’s a Thursday game. With that in mind, we’re going to set sail on the Schooner once again.
Noah Gray, Dallas Cowboys
I’m kicking myself for not having Gray in my recommended plays last week, but he had been struggling to earn targets in the Chiefs’ diverse offense. So, of course, he came in as the TE3 on the week. Given that he has now earned nine targets over the past three weeks, we’ll go ahead and give him the thumbs-up for this week. This play is especially solid since the Raiders’ defense is one of the worst in the league vs. TEs.
Austin Hooper, New England Patriots
The “other” TE for the New England Patriots is starting to become an option for streamers, if for no other reason than the Patriots WRs are uniformly terrible (other than perhaps DeMario Douglas). Beggars can’t be choosers, so just like Drake Maye, we’re begging for Hooper to hoop it up in the end zone for our squads that are in desperation mode.
Juwan Johnson, New Orleans Saints
I strive to provide a minimum of four options at TE each week. This week, it’s been a real struggle to come up with a fourth option that I can feel good about recommending. So here’s Juwan, just so we can hit our quota, but honestly, if you’re seriously thinking of starting him, it might be time for the Honorable Mention option below.
Honorable Mention
- Dartboard and Tequila: For the second week in a row, this is as good as it gets if all the above options are taken. Sure, you can stick Tyler Conklin, Cade Stover or someone similar into your lineup if that is where your dart lands, but tequila is likely to be a necessary solace once the weekend’s games are finished.
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