Kansas City might not have Travis Kelce or Tyreek Hill on Sunday. Both are on the COVID-19/reserve list. But I’m not sure they have anybody that I would be excited about plugging into a fantasy lineup.
Mecole Hardman was a second-round pick back in 2019 – selected before DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson, Terry McLaurin and Hunter Renfrow in that draft. But they’ve given him plenty of opportunities, and he hasn’t never really launched.
Similarly, Demarcus Robinson has had a decent role in that offense for a few years (opportunities, anyway) but has never really got it going.
Kansas City signed Josh Gordon during this season, but he’s hardly been a factor. He’s caught 4 passes for 27 yards in nine games, never displaying the unique size/speed attributes he had earlier in his career.
The best of their lower-level receivers, I’m leaning, is Byron Pringle (pictured). In Week 10, they started using a rotational approach with these four. None of them are “starters”; instead, in each of those games, they’ve all played plenty. Pringle has played the most of them in four of those five games. Hardman was previously a starter, but he’s played the least of those receivers in each of the last five games.
In these five most-recent games, Pringle’s also got two of the three games where one of these guys at least caught 3 passes.
If you’re in a large league (a really large league), perhaps consider Pringle (if Hill doesn’t play). Preferrably, though, your replacement starter would be coming from another team.
Below are the stats for these guys in KC’s last five games. I’ve got them ordered by fantasy production (PPR scoring).
| KANSAS CITY'S LESSER RECEIVERS: LAST FIVE GAMES | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Week | Opp | Result | Tgt | Rec | Yds | TD | PPR | Snap% |
| Pringle | 10 | at L.V. | W 41-14 | 5 | 4 | 46 | 1 | 14.6 | 61% |
| Gordon | 14 | L.V. | W 48-9 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 1 | 8.9 | 36% |
| Hardman | 14 | L.V. | W 48-9 | 2 | 2 | 59 | 0 | 7.9 | 35% |
| Robinson | 10 | at L.V. | W 41-14 | 4 | 3 | 23 | 0 | 5.3 | 34% |
| Pringle | 15 | at LAC | W 34-28 | 4 | 3 | 22 | 0 | 5.2 | 64% |
| Pringle | 11 | Dall. | W 19-9 | 2 | 1 | 37 | 0 | 4.7 | 59% |
| Hardman | 10 | at L.V. | W 41-14 | 3 | 2 | 27 | 0 | 4.7 | 32% |
| Hardman | 11 | Dall. | W 19-9 | 3 | 2 | 25 | 0 | 4.5 | 18% |
| Robinson | 13 | Den. | W 22-9 | 2 | 2 | 21 | 0 | 4.1 | 54% |
| Pringle | 14 | L.V. | W 48-9 | 1 | 1 | 28 | 0 | 3.8 | 61% |
| Hardman | 15 | at LAC | W 34-28 | 4 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 3.1 | 43% |
| Pringle | 13 | Den. | W 22-9 | 4 | 1 | 14 | 0 | 2.4 | 72% |
| Hardman | 13 | Den. | W 22-9 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 0 | 2.2 | 16% |
| Gordon | 11 | Dall. | W 19-9 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 1.7 | 43% |
| Robinson | 15 | at LAC | W 34-28 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 68% |
| Robinson | 14 | L.V. | W 48-9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 45% |
| Gordon | 13 | Den. | W 22-9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 23% |
| Robinson | 11 | Dall. | W 19-9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 41% |
| Gordon | 10 | at L.V. | W 41-14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 43% |
—Ian Allan