Through his fairly brief NFL career, Curtis Samuel has shown flashes of production, but he’s never been consistent enough to be trusted as a fantasy starter. After a run of a few great games, has he finally reached the point that you can plug him in your lineup confidently?
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Player Profile
Samuel has always been a generally low-volume guy with big-play potential. He has also been utilized in the running game as well, 53 rushing attempts in 46 games, including 22 so far this season – already his highest career total through only eight games.
Samuel has scored at least 17.3 Points Per Reception (PPR) fantasy points over the past three weeks, catching 19 of 20 targets (!) for 184 yards to go along with seven rushing attempts for 41 yards. He’s scored four total touchdowns (two receiving, two rushing) in that span.
In Week 9 specifically, Samuel erupted as a receiver with nine receptions on nine targets for 105 yards and a touchdown. His 105-yard performance more than doubled his best receiving output so far this season, and it is also a career-high for him.
Samuel has always had big-play ability, but this is really the first time he’s seen a consistent number of touches, plus, most importantly, he seems to be making strides as a receiver.
State of the Offense
The Panthers offense has largely been better than anyone expected, currently sitting smack dab in the middle of the league at 15th in offensive yards per game. That isn’t anything spectacular, but, if memory serves, the Panthers were one of the clear “favorites” to have the worst record in the league prior to the start of the season. Imagine thinking that wouldn’t be the Jets.
Undoubtedly the Panthers’ most important offensive player, Christian McCaffrey, missed a few weeks, which definitely throws a wrench in the involvement situation once he returns. He may, however, miss some time after seemingly tweaking his shoulder in Week 9, so keep tabs on that.
From a passing game perspective, Teddy Bridgewater has at least 216 yards in all but one game this season, and he’s thrown for over 300 yards on three occasions. The issue in the passing game is that they don’t throw for many touchdowns: Bridgewater only has 11 passing TDs on the season, an average of 1.2 per game.
Samuel has out-targeted D.J. Moore – generally considered the Panthers’ best receiver – in each of the last three games. I wouldn’t expect that trend to continue, as Moore was clearly the most productive receiver last season and has had plenty of great games this season as well. It is, however, definitely something to keep an eye on. Robby Anderson has been the most productive Panthers receiver this season, as he is currently the WR10 in PPR.
The Panthers offense has decent passing output, but there are a lot of mouths to feed between three solid receivers and a pass-catching RB.
Samuel’s Outlook
It’s very hard for me to look past Samuel’s three-plus year career of generally low-volume outputs with the occasional good game, undoubtedly while he’s sitting on your fantasy bench. There does seem to be a trend with Samuel of late, as he set a career-high in receiving yards and has an exceptional 38 receptions on 43 targets this season, a catch rate of 88.4%. Anecdotally, that says to me that Bridgewater has confidence in Samuel catching the ball, which can only mean good news going forward.
As far as I’m concerned, Samuel is still a relatively-high-risk, high-reward play over the next few weeks. Their next three games are against the Bucs, Lions, and Vikings. The Lions and Vikings are both bottom-nine in points allowed this season, which should mean good news for Samuel. The Bucs on paper are a good defense, but they’ve allowed a surprising amount of production over the past two weeks, including getting absolutely decimated by the Saints on Sunday night.
I’m not fully on-board with Samuel quite yet, but he has graduated from “frustrating bench player that’s never in your lineup at the right time” to high-upside FLEX consideration for now, especially as the bye weeks make everything more challenging.
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Donald Gibson is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Donald, check out his archive and follow him @DonaldGibsonFF