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 was a tough week. We only batted .500 on our WR and TE recommendations. We’re going to shake it off and continue with our commitment to dig deep rather than take the easy way out with midrange options.
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.
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Streaming Wide Receivers Week 7
Jordan Whittington, Los Angeles Rams
After his bye week and with rumors of Cooper Kupp returning, Whittington was ejected from a lot of fantasy rosters. Hopefully if you rostered him you held tight, or else you can scoop him up. With or without Kupp, Whittington is still a viable play in Week 7 since he draws a beatable Raiders pass defense.
Demario Douglas, New England Patriots
With Drake Maye in at QB, all the Patriots receiving options get a boost. With a six-catch, 92-yard, one-TD stat line on nine targets, Douglas saw plenty of action as Mayes’s “easy button” in Week 6. Presuming he’s on your waiver wire, you need to fix that.
Noah Brown, Washington Commanders
The Commanders’ WR2 slot has been up for grabs all season, but Noah Brown is the best bet to seize it. Last week, he earned a team-high eight targets and turned them into four catches for 58 yards. This week, the Panthers’ pass defense is on tap, and Brown should have another productive day.
Xavier Legette, Carolina Panthers
We turn now to the other team in the Commanders/Panthers tilt and find Xavier Legette earning targets and scoring touchdowns while still languishing on waiver wires across the fantasy landscape. He’s a great pickup for teams in need.
Honorable Mentions
- Rashod Bateman: He’s earning a handful of targets weekly and making the most of them. This week’s tilt vs the Buccaneers could be a shootout.
- Tim Patrick: It will be a shocker if the Vikings and Lions game isn’t one of the highest-scoring games of the week. Patrick has locked up the WR3 job for the Lions.
Streaming Tight Ends Week 7
Colby Parkinson, Los Angeles Rams
Even if Kupp makes it back, look for Parkinson to stay heavily involved in the Rams’ offense. The Raiders struggle to defend the TE, so Parkinson should make the most of his looks.
Jonnu Smith, Miami Dolphins
Snoop Huntley is no Tua Tagovailoa, but he made good strides from his first start to his second start. One of those strides involved peppering Jonnu Smith with targets. The Colts’ defense has been less than stellar vs. TEs as well.
Juwan Johnson, New Orleans Saints
Johnson barely missed our threshold for a winning pick last week, but we’re going back to the well again this week. Chris Olave is certain to be out with a concussion, and Rashid Shaheed is out as well with a knee injury. Johnson is still standing tall and should get plenty of targets as one of the Saints’ few available options
Hunter Henry, New England Patriots
Hunter Henry also stands to benefit from the switch at QB to Drake Maye. He’s always had a nose for scoring TDs, and Maye is likely to put the Patriots in scoring territory more often.
Honorable Mention
- Lucas Krull: The Broncos are settling in on Krull as their primary receiving TE, and the Saints aren’t particularly adept at defending against TEs.
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