We don’t normally do a Thursday update. We set the initial board on Wednesday, and then we offer the revised version on Friday evening, after the injury situation becomes more clear.
But there are a couple of notable revisions required prior to the kickoff of the Thursday night game.
Doug Martin isn’t going to play. He’s practiced some and is coming around, but not this week, apparently. It will be Bobby Rainey, and that puts Rainey on the map as a possible top-10 running back this week.
I re-watched most of the Bucs-Rams game yesterday. Rainey isn’t anything special. He’s really more of a college running back. He’s not big enough, and he’s not fast enough. But he’s running hard right now, and he’s their guy. He went for 144 against the Rams. Atlanta hasn’t been good against the run. So he might muscle out 80-100 yards in this game. We’ve got him now at 8th on our board this week for running backs, just ahead of Zac Stacy and Alfred Morris. He’s a much better pass catcher than either of those guys (who are both terrible in that regard).
Also a big change on the Atlanta side. Roddy White won’t be active. In itself, that’s not a huge deal. Everybody with White knew that they would have to check his status before putting him in a lineup.
But now that White is out, we can more carefully consider the possibility of using Harry Douglas and Devin Hester as fill-in players. Douglas is a damn good receiver. He went over 1,000 yards last year, when White was hurt for most of the year and Julio Jones was out. If Douglas is available in your league, you probably will want to plug-and-play him for Week 3. He looks like one of the top dozen receivers in my eyes.
In a larger league, I would even consider Hester. In both the preseason and early in the year, he’s jumped out as a player who’s a lot more comfortable as a situational receiver than as a go-to guy, like they tried to use him in Chicago. They’re using him on better routes, it seems. He’s catching balls and doing damage after the catch. Now that White’s out, Hester will play a whole bunch in this game. He also might score on a punt or kickoff return. Enough to put him in the top 40 at wide receiver in most formats, I think.
I have plugged in those numbers and sent along the updated file. It’s been updated to the site, so if you want to see how these guys move in your exact scoring system, you may do so. Just go to “Your stuff” and you’ll find the numbers. The other 30 teams are all the same, but the Bucs-Falcons numbers have been changed.
The regular Friday supplement will address the changes with the other 30 teams.
—Ian Allan