What a difference one week makes. Just last Friday I was thinking to myself that I had so much time to dive headfirst into the few injuries that were being reported. Now that it’s Week Two and games have been played, the injuries are stacking up. Here are the most notable Week Two Injuries with in-depth analysis.
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Julio Jones
No longer on the injury report. Giddy up for a Week Two bounce back against the Eagles’ “defense.”
JuJu Smith-Schuster
The same goes for JuJu as he was upgraded to a full practice participant on Friday. Giddy-up as well.
Tyler Lockett
No longer listed on the injury report, the pride of Wildcat land is a sneaky play against a Steelers defense that was just shredded by Josh Gordon, Julian Edelman, and even Phillip Dorsett. Add in the fact that the Seahawks are road dogs and you get yet another horse reference: giddy up.
Mike Williams
The opposite is true here for Williams. As of Friday, Williams had drawn a questionable tag and has been limited all week by a mystery knee injury. Considering that the Chargers’ skill players are going down faster than chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday, part of me believes that pressure from the coaching staff (and probably Williams’ own internal pressure) is pushing him to play this Sunday. I’m avoiding Williams and living with the result because all signs point to red flags for him in DFS.
Marquise Brown
Brown is still on the injury report as he was last week. The reason I’m concerned about putting him into lineups is that even though he blew up last week while playing through an injury designation, he was still limited in snaps. Let’s also acknowledge the fact that the Dolphins are undoubtedly the worst team in the league. With all that said, if he has another giant performance, it will be in spite of injury concerns.
Sterling Shepard
There’t not much to say here other than concussions are volatile and despite players’ progress in concussion protocol, their availability is never a lock. He’s been ruled out.
Now, on to running backs, as there are a couple of guys who are risky plays this week.
Joe Mixon
I said all week that I was unsure if Mixon would suit up on Sunday, but all signs point to him being on the field as he practiced on Friday with no setbacks (as of now). It’s worth noting that when players come off injuries like Mixon’s, availability and production are not guaranteed to be correlated. If his lateral mobility and ankle stability isn’t quite where it needs to be, he might struggle or worse, re-injure himself. Unfortunately, re-injury to lateral ankle sprains are very common. Mixon is another player I’m willing to leave out of my lineups. Even if he balls out this week, from an injury perspective the conservative move is to avoid him.
Le’Veon Bell
Bell’s situation is extremely odd as “precautionary” MRIs are virtually unheard of in the medical community. It’s also worth noting that despite the MRI being “clear” imaging and pain reports are terribly correlated. That means that Bell can still be in a significant amount of pain while playing on Sunday, which would mainly limit him in the passing game. Additionally, he was limited in practice on Friday, but planned to practice Saturday. With all of that said, Darnold is out and the offense will likely have no choice but to run through Bell, so he’s a volume play for me this week. Even though it makes me slightly nervous, he’s nowhere near the Joe Mixon level of concern for me.
James Conner
Conner was a full participant in practice Friday and is seemingly recovered from an illness. If you’re in a pool with people who have been scared off, slide him as the Steelers are home favorites against a post-Legion-of-Boom defense that was just shredded by Andy Dalton.
Everybody else
Whoa there! (I hope you picked up on the horse narrative) A reminder that Jordan Reed, Hunter Henry, Derrius Guice and Tyreek Hill have all been ruled OUT.
There are your Week Two Injuries (with a few horse references). Make sure you check in with us on Sunday morning for another quick hit injury report. Good luck setting those lineups!
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