Week 10 of the NFL season is here, and we get a break from bye weeks with everyone playing this week. Hopefully, this gives Fantasy Football managers a reprieve from having to make difficult decisions about who to plug into their lineups this week.
Make sure to check out our Fantasy In Frames IDP waiver-wire article every week to fill in your open roster spots.
Below are my educated guesses of players to Play and others to Fade for Week 10 of the NFL season. As we continue to get more data, we get a better idea of who to lean on throughout the season.
As always, I am going to give you some players I think could have a better week than expected or might have a worse game than predicted.
Here we go!
Plays
- Arden Key, DE Titans at Chargers
- I was fading Key earlier in the season, but the former third-round pick out of LSU is starting to heat up. Key has four sacks in the past three games. He played 87% of snaps in Week 9, his highest total of the season. He also had a 73.8 pass-rush grade per PFF.
- In the past three weeks, Key has scored 12, 23.8, and 16 points in Fantasy Pros scoring. Now Key goes against the Chargers, who just gave up six sacks to the Browns. Los Angeles has given up 15 sacks in the last four games.
- Dorance Armstrong, DE Commanders vs Steelers
- He had a 19.7% win rate on a 66.2% snap share in Week 9. Armstrong has 24 total pressures and four sacks this season. He is currently PFF’s eighth-rated edge rusher against the pass.
- Now Armstrong gets Steelers right tackle Broderick Jones, who has been absolutely awful this season. Jones has given up 21 pressures and seven sacks this season. He has been absolutely awful. Armstrong should be able to take advantage of Jones all day long.
- Montez Sweat, DE Bears vs Patriots
- Sweat has a fantastic matchup this week as he goes against the Patriots’ Demontrey Jacobs. The offensive tackle has allowed the seventh most pressures in the league this season. Jones has also given up five sacks, the fifth most among tackles this season, and four QB hits.
- Sweat missed the Week 9 matchup with the Cardinals, but in Week 8 against the Commanders, he played 50% of snaps with an elite win rate of 30.4% and 26.1% pressure rate. He scored 14.3 points in Fantasy Pros with four tackles, three solo, and one sack. Sweat has three and a half sacks in the last four games that he has played.
Fades
- Kwity Paye, DE Colts vs Bills
- Paye was able to get a sack in Week 9, his second of the season, but he has been extremely inconsistent this year. Paye is getting an opportunity; he is playing over 70% of snaps, but he just isn’t getting much production. In the two weeks before he got the sack last week, Paye had a total of two tackles. Since coming back from injury in Week 6, Paye has five total tackles with three solos and two assists to go with that one sack. It hasn’t been pretty.
- The Colts get the Bills this week. Quarterback Josh Allen doesn’t get sacked very often. Buffalo has only given up more than one sack just once in the last five games. It’s going to be a tough day for Paye and his fellow Colts pass rushers.
- Haasan Reddick, Jets at Cardinals
- Reddick finally signed his contract with the Jets and is now practicing with the team. He saw his first game action in Week 8, but only played 39% of snaps and he didn’t record a stat. In Week 9, Reddick was able to get half a sack and an assisted tackle on a 57% snap share.
- He still needs time to get fully in the mix in New York. I’m not ready to start playing him in leagues yet. I would much rather play Will McDonald at this point. For me, I want to monitor Reddick’s snap share and production over the next couple of weeks before I pull the trigger on him.
- E.J. Epenesa, Bills at Colts
- He played a brutally low 39.3% snap share with a 0% win rate and a 0% pressure rate in Week 9. Epenesa had a good two-week stretch in Weeks 6 and 7 where he was able to total three sacks, but has struggled since then.
- Epenesa just can’t seem to take control of the second edge rusher spot opposite of Greg Rousseau. He is splitting time three ways with Von Miller and Dawuane Smoot. As long as this is the Bills rotation, I can’t play Epenesa.
Plays
- Anthony Walker, LB Dolphins at Rams
- Walker has worked his way into the starting lineup. He played 100% of snaps in Week 9 with a 15.2% tackle rate. David Long was benched for the game, and it appears Walker has taken over as the full-time starter for the foreseeable future.
- He was LB32 with 10.5 points in Fantasy Pros scoring in Week 9 as he garnered 10 total tackles. Walker has battled injuries the last couple years, but now he is healthy and the Dolphins are turning to the veteran. The Rams are giving up the third most fantasy points to linebackers this season, according to The Fantasy Six Pack, making Walker a player you should dust off this week.
- Christian Rozeboom, LB Rams vs Dolphins
- Ever since Troy Reeder went down with a hamstring injury in Week 6, Rozeboom has actually become a legit IDP play. He is getting nearly 100% of snaps and producing with those snaps. Roseboom had a 14.1% tackle efficiency rate and racked up 11 tackles, eight solo, for 19.3 points in Fantasy Pros scoring against the Seahawks in Week 9.
- Rookie Omar Speights was the star of the preseason, but he and Jake Hummel have not been able to unseat Rozeboom from the Rams’ LB1 spot. Now Los Angeles gets the Dolphins, who have quarterback Tua Tagovailoa back under center after a concussion scare and stint on the injured reserve. Miami wants to protect their QB. The Dolphins will run the ball as much as they can with their stable of running backs.
- Kaden Ellis, LB Falcons at Saints
- The Falcons linebacker core has been banged up all year, but the one mainstay this season has been Ellis. He has solidified himself as Atlanta’s LB1 with Nate Landman and Troy Andersen taking a backseat.
- Cooper
Fades
- Cody Barton, LB Broncos at Chiefs
- With Alex Singleton out for the season with injury, Barton was expected to be the beneficiary. That hasn’t necessarily worked out the way IDP managers were hoping it would. Barton is getting 100% of the snaps, but the production has been extremely inconsistent and a bit disappointing.
- In Week 9 against the Ravens, a run-heavy team, Barton was able to record seven tackles, but only one of those was a solo stop. The week before that, he had just two tackles, with eight tackles the week before that, and then another eight tackles, but only one of them was a solo stop. I just can’t do it anymore. I’m getting off the Cody Barton Train. I just can’t take it anymore.
- Josey Jewell, LB Panthers vs Giants
- He played nearly 100% of snaps in Week 9, but had a 7.6% tackle efficiency rate, and ended up with six tackles, but only one of those being a solo tackle. Jewell is getting the opportunity you would expect, but he isn’t getting IDP managers the production they have come to expect from him.
- Jewell isn’t playing next to IDP stud Alex Singleton in Denver anymore, and it shows. One would think that playing on a bad team with a bad offense would be a recipe for IDP success, but that hasn’t been the case this season.He is getting a ton of opportunities, but he isn’t producing with those opportunities. Jewell only has one double digit tackle game in four games.
- Raekwon McMillan, LB Patriots at Bears
- The Patriots linebacker group has been a mess this season. Every time you think a player is going to take over the LB1 spot, they disappoint. Jahlani Tavai has been up and down all season. Then it looked like Christian Elliss was going to be the Patriots’ LB you wanted, then he took a step back last week and now has an injury to his abdomen.
- If McMillan gets the call to start for Elliss this week, don’t take the bait. He has 42 total tackles this season in nine games, but only has 10 total tackles in the last three weeks. Even if McMillan gets a healthy snap share, which has been few and far between this season, I wouldn’t trust him to produce.
Defensive Backs:
Plays
- Demani Richardson, DB Panthers vs Giants
- Richardson played 98.8% of the total snap share, 20.3% of box snaps, also played in the slot 19% of the time, while he split the deep safety reps with Xavier Woods, with Rishardon getting 55% of snaps deep and Woods getting 59% of snaps deep. The Giants should be running the ball a lot this week giving him ample opportunity for tackles.
- He finished Week 9 as DB15 with 16.5 points according to Fantasy Pros scoring. Richardson had 12 tackles and a pass defensed. Eight of those tackles were solo. Richardson is not a mainstream name yet, which means he is a guy you can probably go out and get off the waiver wire in your league.
- Tykee Smith, DB Buccaneers vs 49ers
- Smith saw a snap share of 85.7% in Week 9. Of those snaps, 84.7% were in the slot and 13.9% were in the box. He was injured in Week 7 and missed Week 8 while recovering. But before that, Smith had 20.5 points and 18 points in Fantasy Pros scoring in Weeks 5 and 6.
- The Buccaneers used Smith to help cover Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce for most of the game, which helped Smith score 18.3 points in Fantasy Pros scoring with nine tackles, eight solos, and a pass defensed. Tampa Bay gets the 49ers this in Week 10, and I would expect the Bucs to use Smith in much the same way this week as they did last week.
- Quentin Lake, DB Rams vs Dolphins
- Lake has moved back to Deep Safety more in the last couple weeks, but Lake is still being very productive as they are continuing to move him around. Lake has played 100% of snaps in every game this season and scored double-digit points in six of eight games, according to Fantasy Pros scoring.
- While Lake is playing 58.8% of snaps at deep safety, he is also mixing in box snaps (21.3%) and slot snaps (17.5%). Kamren Curl has been a little banged up of late. If he loses playing time to rookie Kamren Kitchens, then I would expect Lake to see an even bigger increase in box snaps.
Fades
- Camryn Bynum, DB Vikings at Jaguars
- When you play almost exclusively deep safety, you must make splash plays to warrant a spot in IDP starting lineups. Bynum is playing 81.5% of snaps but also 79.5% of those snaps are coming at deep safety.
- The Vikings are giving all the snaps near the line of scrimmage to Harrison Smith (26% box snaps) and Josh Metellus (50% box snaps). Metellus (20.5%) and Byron Murphy (25.9%) are splitting the slot snaps. Now the Jaguars might be without quarterback Trevor Lawrence for Sunday’s game. If that happens, I would expect Jacksonville to concentrate on the run and not try to push the ball downfield with Mac Jones under center.
- Jason Pinnock, DB Giants vs Panthers
- He is playing 64.3% of snaps at deep safety and only 21.4% of snaps in the box. I don’t like those percentages. But what I don’t like more is Pinnock has just been an overall average player this year. He hasn’t given you any impact plays since Week 3 of the season.
- Pinnock has scored 36.1 points in seven games this season. In the two games he recorded a sack, which was Weeks 2 and 3, he scored 38.3 points. He hasn’t scored more than 6.8 points in a game outside of those two outlier games where he had an impact play. Rookie Tyler Nubin is the Giants safety I would want to own right now. He’s being moved all around the field and is playing 51.6% of snaps in the box.
- Darnell Savage, S Jaguars vs Vikings
- Savage has taken over as the starting strong safety for the Jaguars. He took the job from Antonio Johnson, who was one of my fades last week. Johnson was playing nearly 100 percent of snaps in the first six weeks of the season, but saw his snap share drop to 32%, 16%, and 6% the last three games.
- Now I’m fading Savage as well. Even though Savage is getting nearly 100% of the snap share, and playing 41% in the box, the production hasn’t been there. He has 13 total tackles and one pass defensed in the last three games as the starter. Give me another option at this point.
