Coming off a bye week, Lions wide receiver Josh Reynolds is a sneaky good fantasy football waiver wire add this week.
Week 6 was the first week of byes on the 2022 NFL schedule, as a bane of fantasy football managers’ existence for several weeks every year started. The Detroit Lions were one of four teams who were idle, which was a good thing in a broad sense.
Despite the team being shut out by the New England Patriots, Lions wide receiver Josh Reynolds went into the bye week on a high note in Week 5 with six receptions (on 10 targets) for 92 yards. Amon-Ra St. Brown being on a limited snap count and DJ Chark missing a second straight game pushed Reynolds into the No. 1 receiver again. But to dismiss him as a mere product of no one else being healthy is wrong.
From Week 2-Week 5, Reynolds was WR15 across all three prominent scoring formats (standard, 0.5-point PPR, full PPR). He only had three catches for 38 yards in Week 2, with a touchdown as a boost to his statline. In the three games since, he has 28 total targets (10 twice) with at least six catches (19 total) and more than 80 yards in all three. He had another touchdown in Week 4.
Josh Reynolds is a sneaky good fantasy waiver wire add for Week 7
As noted by Andy Behrens of Yahoo!, Reynolds is among the league leaders in red zone targets (eight) and targets inside the 10-yard line (six). He has history and rapport with Lions quarterback Jared Goff, which will only help as other wide receivers get healthy.
Having a bye week in the rearview mirror adds to the appeal of Reynolds as a waiver wire add. From here to the end of the season, no matchups aren’t crushingly bad for Detroit wide receivers and a bad Lions’ defense will assure plenty of passing from Goff most weeks.
Reynolds did see a boost in ownership percentage during his run of pre-bye week production. But he is still only rostered in 33 percent of Yahoo! leagues and 25.4 percent of ESPN leagues.
With St. Brown and Chark having the bye week to get healthy and the debut of rookie Jameson Williams coming at some point, there will certainly be hesitancy to go out and add Reynolds in fantasy leagues this week. But he is a viable WR3/WR4 in leagues with 12 or more teams until shown otherwise, especially as bye weeks need to be navigated.