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A Tight End to Lock in on
Don’t look now, but Evan Engram has carved out a nice regular role in the Jacksonville offense. The tight end out of Ole Miss posted a line of 7/93/1 in last week’s Wild Card game against Los Angeles. He ended the regular season hauling in at least four catches in five of his final six games. Engram isn’t the only pass catcher that Trevor Lawrence can rely on but on a weekend featuring Travis Kelce, Dallas Goedert and George Kittle as other DFS options at TE, Engram might be worth a play for those looking to invest big dollars elsewhere. We’ll also note that Denver TE Albert Okwuegbunam was the Broncos’ leading receiver against Kansas City a few weeks ago and scored a touchdown. Perhaps there’s something Doug Pederson’s staff finds to exploit for Engram versus the Chiefs defense and it could be enough to produce another good stat line from Engram.
Buffalo Backfield Starting to Crystalize?
It’s taken a while, but Buffalo rookie running back James Cook appears to be taking control of a backfield that has long awaited someone to take over. Sure, the Bills don’t run the ball a lot, but there’s always been enough scoring in this offense to warrant using one of its running backs in DFS lineups. The problem was, for the longest time, we never knew which one we should use. Now, it appears the rookie out of Georgia is that guy. Cook had more carries than Devin Singletary in last week’s victory against Miami and also in the Week 18 must-win game for Buffalo against New England. If you can do that back-to-back weeks this late in the season, you’re certainly in the coaching staff’s circle of trust. Singletary appears to be the preference on passing downs for Buffalo and Nyheim Hines could certainly be mixed in when those situations arise, but Josh Allen usually looks downfield more anyway so we wouldn’t worry about passing game involvement with Buffalo’s backs. The bottom line is that it appears there is enough rushing equity for Cook to be trusted in DFS lineups this weekend against Cincinnati and likely for the remainder of the playoffs should the Bills advance.
Take a Swing on this San Francisco WR
We hit on both of our flyers at wide receiver last week with Gabe Davis and DeMarcus Robinson both finding the end zone. We’re going to try for a similar long shot type of play with San Francisco wide receiver Jauan Jennings. Kyle Shanahan has an embarrassment of riches at his disposal from a skill player standpoint in San Francisco. Defenses are going to have to pick and choose who to blanket and hope some of the other weapons have bad games. Last week Seattle did a nice job covering George Kittle but Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel both exploded. However, that still left room for an Elijah Mitchell touchdown as San Francisco coasted in the second half, pulling away with a 41-23 victory at home. Jennings is the clear WR3 in San Francisco after Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk and of course McCaffrey and Kittle are going to get their fair share of production in the passing game as well. I understand there’s only so much to go around, but Jennings was still able to eclipse 40 receiving yards last week. Of course that’s nothing special, but we’re writing this to say we don’t think he’s been written off as a contributor in this offense either. Let’s hope for another dart throw to hit the bullseye this week with Jennings.
By Greg Frank
@G_Frank6
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