Fantasy Football Player Notes

Despite DeAndre Hopkins seeing 10.1 targets per game over the last two years, Fuller has seen at least six targets in 11-of-18 games. He's also totaled at least 51 yards and/or a touchdown in 10 games. Now that Deshaun Watson has a new running back and two new receivers, Fuller is the only one who's continually played with him, so it's not like he's going to get targeted less often. If you look at the boxscore from the matchup against the Chiefs last year, you'd see that Fuller finished with five catches for 44 scoreless yards. What you won't see is that he had three drops that would have all been touchdowns. It would have been a week-winning performance. You then fast forward to the postseason and see that Fuller saw eight targets and turned them into 5/89/0, you can say he has the Chiefs' number. You then factor in that Bashaud Breeland, one of the Chiefs starting cornerbacks will be out for this game (suspended), and you have yourself a plus matchup. While the Chiefs did allow just 154 receptions to receivers last year (lowest mark in the league), Fuller isn't someone who relies on a lot of receptions to provide value. The Texans are also big underdogs in this game, which should lead to 35-plus pass attempts. Knowing the Watson/Fuller connection is already established, he should be in your lineup as an upside high-end WR3 while healthy, even if it is a tougher matchup than most know.

There were a lot of factors that led to Parker getting 128 targets last year, but maybe none more obvious than Preston Williams getting hurt and missing the second half of the season. There were just three games where Parker didn't total at least 55 yards last year, and one of them was against the Patriots. In fact, he totaled exactly zero yards on seven targets in their first matchup. He got payback in Week 17, though, racking up eight catches for 137 yards. I had to double-check that Stephon Gilmore played in that matchup, and he actually allowed almost all of it in his coverage. That was the only game all year where Gilmore allowed more than five catches or 86 yards in his coverage. My bet would be that Gilmore shadows Parker again in this game, and that Parker comes back down to earth. Gilmore has allowed a 56 percent or less completion rate in his coverage in 5-of-8 NFL seasons, including just a 46.6 percent catch-rate over the last two seasons. Parker should be considered a risky WR3/4 this week. It surely doesn't help that he's missed practice time throughout the last week, and has been limited throughout practice this week.

He was considered a long shot to make it back on the field for Week 1 after a Week 9 ACL tear, but Williams has apparently been balling out in training camp. He'll be out there in Week 1 and while DeVante Parker deals with Stephon Gilmore, he'll deal with Jason McCourty. That's not an easy task, as McCourty allowed just 5.31 yards per target in his coverage last year and didn't allow a single touchdown on 49 targets. Williams did catch four passes for 63 yards in their meeting last year, so it wasn't a completely useless performance. With it being the first game he'll play off his ACL, you should probably play it safe, especially when you consider there were just four wide receivers all of last year that finished as a top-24 option against the Patriots. Three of them were slot receivers. Williams is going to have some starter-worthy performances this year, but betting on one here to produce anything more than WR4/5-type numbers would be going against the odds. There's just not enough upside to justify playing him here over other sturdy options.

There have been a lot of people suggesting Gesicki will be the "big slot" receiver in Chan Gailey's offense, though that's a straight-up guess. Is it possible? Sure, though far from a guarantee. The Patriots were a brutal matchup across the board last year, and that included tight ends, as there were just three of them who topped 44 yards against them. Gesicki played against them twice, totaling just 1/11/0 on two targets in the first meeting but then 4/34/1 on seven targets in the second meeting. The Dolphins were lacking receiving options in the second game, leading to Gesicki's high target total. It also didn't hurt that the Dolphins threw the ball 41 times in that Week 17 game. The Patriots opponents averaged just 59.2 plays per game last year and knowing their offense will slow the pace down with Cam Newton, we could see a low-volume game for the Dolphins offense in general. The changing Patriots defense does make the matchup more appealing, especially knowing safety Patrick Chung opted out, so if you want to play Gesicki as a low-end TE1/high-end TE2, go ahead. He's one of the tight ends in that range I feel somewhat confident saying he'll see at least five targets, though it's not a lock in a new offense, especially knowing he was listed as the No. 2 tight end on the depth chart.

Malcolm Brown should be involved in this game if Darrell Henderson is not fully ready to go, but it is not going to equate to enough for standalone fantasy value. Brown can remain on your bench in deeper leagues or even on your waiver wires.