With the start of the playoffs one short week away, we must start fortifying our rosters for a title run. In many cases, that means prioritizing handcuffs and identifying players with favorable matchups in the midst of the playoff schedule. This also marks a shift away from upside stashes who are simply running out of time to realize their potential, making many of them the likely cut candidates as you consider adding some of the players below.
John Metchie III – WR, New York Jets | 10% Rostered
John Metchie III is one of those classic whiplash-type players that we love to target. Two weeks ago, he was among the hottest adds of the waiver wire run following a 6/65/1 performance against the Ravens. Last week, however, it was Adonai Mitchell who posted a spike performance and is the darling of every waiver article in fantasy land, leaving Metchie to be dropped in nearly half the leagues where he was rostered. The reality is that the Jets’ receiver usage isn’t a zero-sum game. There is enough volume to support FLEX-range production for both Mitchell and Metchie, and while his fantasy points dipped in Week 13, Metchie still had a 100% route participation rate and set a new season high with eight targets. With Garrett Wilson still sidelined for at least a few more weeks, Metchie is a solid option for those in deeper formats or who are navigating injuries in the playoffs. He simply should not be available in 90% of leagues.
Pat Bryant – WR, Denver Broncos | 2% Rostered
Pat Bryant was a favorite draft-season darling as a sleeper that would impress all your league-mates when you put his sticker on the board. He offered the frame, short-area quickness, and contested catch ability that had many prognosticators naming him as the heir-apparent to Courtland Sutton. Then the reality of a slow ramp-up to playing time set in, and he was largely jettisoned by the teams who drafted him within a few weeks of the new season. But a season is not defined by just a handful of weeks. Starting around Week 6, we saw Bryant’s snap share and route participation start to tick up, and the targets held a similar trajectory in short order. Fast forward to the last two weeks, and Bryant is running a route on roughly 70% of dropbacks and is averaging 6.5 targets per game, including two red zone targets. Obviously, this isn’t earth-shattering production, but tracing the progression back from Week 6, it stands to reason that he could be on the verge of a breakout, and I’d prefer to get him on the cheap ahead of that point.
Keaton Mitchell – RB, Baltimore Ravens | 3% Rostered
Honestly, I was a bit surprised that Keaton Mitchell‘s rostership didn’t spike during this week’s waiver run, given that he is coming off his best fantasy performance of the season, where he found the end zone en route to a double-digit outing. Mitchell stands to be the next man up should Derrick Henry miss any time due to injury, which is justification enough for him to be rostered by all Henry managers. Looking at his usage, though, Mitchell’s value isn’t exclusively tied to his implied value as a handcuff. Despite a fairly limited workload of just 32 touches this season, Mitchell has already accumulated 9 red zone opportunities and is forcing a missed tackle on nearly 16% of his plays. These underlying stats make a clear case that even a moderate uptick in opportunity, like that made available by Justice Hill heading to IR, could introduce week-to-week upside for Mitchell.
Photo by Kevin Langley | Adapted by Parker McDonald (@CarbonFoxGFX on Twitter/X)