In a four-team bye week with injuries to navigate, are Jared Goff and Josh Reynolds on the radar as Week 13 fantasy football sleepers?
Back in Week 5 against the Minnesota Vikings, someone tabbed Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff and the Detroit passing game in general as potential fantasy football sleepers. Well, that didn’t work out as a bold call for me.
In Week 12 on Thanksgiving Day, Goff had what will likely stand as his best game as Lions’ quarterback. It included a 39-yard touchdown to wide receiver Josh Reynolds, as the two try to carry over a prior connection from time together with the Rams.
In two games with the Lions since being picked up off waivers from the Titans, Reynolds has played 86 of 97 snaps while getting eight targets. In Week 12, his five targets were a 20 percent target share from Goff.
Lions fantasy football Week 13: Goff and Reynolds a sleeper stack?
The Lions take on the Vikings again this week. It’s a particularly nice matchup for Reynolds, as Minnesota enters Week 13 allowing the second-most fantasy points to wide receivers (Yahoo! 0.5-point PPR). He makes Week 13’s list of “wild card starts” from 4for4.com’s Jennifer Eakins.
"The Vikings are yielding the second-most fantasy points to wideouts and are among the bottom five in pressure rate through 11 contests, which should allow Goff some time to find his new favorite weapon. With four teams on byes and so many injuries, Reynolds could be a productive flex on Sunday."
Liz Loza of Yahoo! stated a case for Goff in her Week 13 deep sleepers article.
"The narrative (and losing record) attached to Jared Goff, however, may have him more mired in the fantasy muck than called for, given his matchup this weekend.Goff ripped off two scores in his return from an oblique injury on Thanksgiving. He’ll have had 10 days of rest before taking on a Vikings defense that’s been ravaged by injuries. Minnesota has allowed the second-most fantasy points to opposing QBs and has given up 9 passing scores over the last four weeks. The opposing offenses (BAL, LAC, GB, SF) have been decidedly more potent than the Lions, but with Patrick Peterson on the COVID list, Goff (who has managed a top-11 true completion percentage of nearly 73%) could put up a second straight multi-td game."
Goff appears to be fully healthy now, and the Vikings defense is a mix of injury-thinned and just not very good.
With the Packers, Panthers, Titans and Browns on bye this week, Reynolds indeed may land on the radar as a plug-and-play low-end WR3 or flex for some managers in leagues with 12 or more teams. As for Goff, he’s a sneaky-looking upside option in two-quarterback leagues. If someone wanted to get really wild, stacking Goff and Reynolds in a deep league or DFS lineup isn’t out of the question.
The potential for the Lions’ quarterback-wide receiver deep fantasy sleepers in Week 13, alone or as a very below the radar stack, edges higher if you want to bet on there being some garbage time Sunday. The downside is not to be ignored, but as dart-throws go there are worse ways to go for fantasy managers in a real pinch for a QB2 in two-quarterback leagues (Goff) or a WR3/WR4/flex in deep leagues (Reynolds).