Each week we have been taking a deeper look at some of the top waiver wire adds available in fantasy leagues. With T.Y. Hilton inactive last week, Colts WR Zach Pascal stepped up to lead the team in receiving catching five of six targets for 76 yards and a TD. He ranked as the WR12 on the week heading into Monday Night Football. What makes Pascal a more intriguing add is the fact that he was able to produce with Brian Hoyer under center as Jacoby Brissett left the game early with an injury.

So, let’s take a closer look at who Zach Pascal is as a player, what the state of the offense is for the Colts, and what we can expect from him going forward.

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Player Profile

Pascal came into the league as an undrafted free agent in 2018. He played his college ball at Old Dominion where he was a consistent contributor putting up stat lines of 59-743-7 as a sophomore, 69-975-8 as a junior, and 65-946-9 as a senior. He was an all-purpose threat as he also compiled 310 rushing yards and one rushing TD over his final two seasons combined in college and was used on special teams as a kick returner as well, a role he still has today with the Colts. He’s currently the all-time leader for receptions at ODU.

Pascal has average size for an outside receiver at 6’2″ and 219 lbs. His NFL Draft Profile noted him as having “decent size and ball skills but his routes and separation are just okay.” They also noted that he would need a solid combine showing to get better noticed in the NFL Draft due to the low-caliber of competition he faced in college. He wound up running just a 4.55 40-yard dash at the combine and thus went undrafted. He has spent time with the Redskins and the Titans before the Colts claimed him off waivers last Summer.

Last season, Pascal had just two solid games for the Colts while averaging a 46.7% snap share on the season according to Player Profiler. Both of his noteworthy games came against the Texans last season. In Week 4 he put up a 6-56-1 stat line in a game where Andrew Luck threw for 464 yards and four TDs, finishing as the WR21 with 17.6 fantasy points. His second solid game was a similar performance with a final line of 5-68-1, good for 17.8 FPTS and a WR13 finish in Week 16. This was also a product of Luck throwing for 399 yards and two TDs.

He has been a different player for the Colts this season at the halfway point as he has already surpassed his receiving yardage and TD totals from last season. His snap share is up just over 66% this season and he has spent slightly less time in the slot, which has helped his yard per reception total go from 9.9 last season all the way up to 16.9 this season which ranked 10th in the NFL heading into Week 9. His best game this season again came against the Texans where he had a 6-102-2 line in Week 7, finishing as the overall WR2 that week. He has shown the ability to put some incredible catches down on film this season though like this catch against the Steelers:

ZACH PASCAL. PLAYMAKER. #INDvsPIT pic.twitter.com/P1U1Fv5AOe

— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) November 3, 2019

State of the Offense

The Colts entered the season in peril as Andrew Luck shockingly retired just before the season kicked off. Things have gone better than expected with Jacoby Brissett under center, but he is now looking like a game-time decision heading into a Week 10 dream matchup against the Dolphins. This would put Brian Hoyer in a position to start his first game since Week 6 of 2017 when he was a member of the 49ers.

Coach Frank Reich stated last week that T.Y. Hilton’s calf injury is generally a three-to-four week injury which firmly puts him into highly-questionable territory for Week 10, especially considering Hilton started to practice on a limited basis last week before trending the wrong direction into DNP status last Friday. This hints at a late-week aggravation, meaning he likely gained no ground on his recovery last week. If we learned one thing from Luck’s tenure with the Colts, it’s that they have no problem mismanaging injuries to their star players.

Outlook

Pascal is in a great spot to be the lead receiver of a suddenly depleted Colts WR corps that was already missing its star wideout in Hilton and also lost rookie WR Parris Campbell to a fractured hand that required surgery. There is very little behind him right now with the likes of Chester Rogers and Deon Cain likely his primary competition for targets at WR alongside tight ends Eric Ebron, Jack Doyle, and the RB targets Marlon Mack and Nyheim Hines will see.

You would like to see Brissett return sooner rather than later, but Hoyer has shown the ability to chuck it as he had two games with over 300 yards and two TDs in five full games as a starter for the 49ers in 2017 and four games over 300 yards as a starter with the Bears in 2016. The Colts WRs are also gifted with the third-easiest remaining strength of schedule according to our report. Here is how their rest of season matchups look and how they rank in fantasy points allowed to the position according to our matchup calendar (the lower number the better):

• Week 10 vs. MIA (5th)
• Week 11 vs. JAC (20th)
• Week 12 at HOU (3rd)
• Week 13 vs. TEN (21st)
• Week 14 at TB (1st)
• Week 15 at NO (17th)
• Week 16 vs. CAR (14th)

Just looking at immediate value, Pascal is a player you absolutely want to flex at worst in two of the next three games, which are crucial games to win if you’re fighting for a playoff spot in your fantasy league. We know Hilton is unlikely to play this week against the Dolphins which puts Pascal squarely in the WR2 conversation. Then we also know he has a tendency to crush the Texans in the past, setting him up as a flex start at worst regardless of Hilton’s status in Week 12. You also get a juicy matchup against the Bucs who currently give up the most fantasy points to WRs in the first traditional week of the fantasy playoffs (Week 14).

Pascal is currently only owned in 21% of fantasy leagues on Yahoo. I would expect that number to jump potentially past the 50% mark after waivers clear this week, but realistically, he deserves to be owned as a bench stash at the very worst in all 12-plus team leagues. I would drop somewhere around 40% of my remaining FAAB on him and more than that if you’re a Hilton owner or hurting at WR in general. Unless he gets severely outplayed by Rogers or Cain, he should be expected to retain the WR2 role on this team at worst for the remainder of their generous matchups this season.

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John Ferguson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from John, check out his archive and follow him @FantasyFerguson.