Week 9 in the NFL regular season looks like a particularly rough week for fantasy owners thin at wide receiver. A banged up Megatron AND Golden Tate are on bye. Not to mention Julio Jones, Roddy White, Alshon Jeffery, Brandon Marshall, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, and Sammy Watkins are ALL also on the bye. A.J. Green is still questionable. If you need help this week, and you probably do, Martavis Bryant is your guy.

Pittsburgh Steelers General Manager Kevin Colbert drafts wide receivers in the third round and lower like nobody’s business (see Mike Wallace, Manny Sanders, Antonio Brown, and Markus Wheaton). Martavis looks like he could be a steal in the fourth round. He was largely overshadowed at Clemson by Sammy Watkins and one of my favorite receivers, DeAndre Hopkins. Most scouts saw Bryant as athletically gifted but raw and immature. There were concerns as to whether he could digest a playbook or run a full route tree.

Ben Roethlisberger’s been asking for a tall wide receiver since Plaxico Burress left for New York, won a Super Bowl, and promptly shot himself in the leg. Limas Sweed wasn’t that guy (unless “that guy” to you is a stone-handed malcontent who made for a sub-par CFL journeyman.) Mike Wallace was a burner but far from a tall receiver. Bryant has been exactly what Ben was asking for. It’s not enough to just be tall, you have to be able to beat smaller corners, grab contested balls and be a true red zone threat. Bryant is still very early in his career but he has provided the red zone threat the Steelers desperately needed. Antonio Brown is an all world receiver who creates new highlight reels every week but he’s not a major red zone threat.

During the preseason there was talk amongst fans that Bryant could be a day one starter opposite Antonio Brown. There was no way that was going to happen. Mike Tomlin doesn’t hand jobs to rookies. However, Bryant was flashing big time in camp and it was clear he was going to get a helmet eventually with Lance Moore and Justin Brown underwhelming as the third receiver. Bryant has a ton of potential and so far has shown an ability to make plays.

Let’s take a look at the positives and negatives for Martavis Bryant while considering his fantasy value in Week 8 versus the Ravens.

Positives

– Size and Athleticism: Bryant has excellent length. He’s 6’4″ with 32 5/8″ arms. He’s got a lean, wiry frame that he stretches out to make some big catches. If you watch him on tape he looks like a raw A.J. Green. He’s also a really smooth, agile athlete with good body control.

– Awareness: He seems to have a really excellent sense of where he is in relation to the sideline or the back of the end zone and will drag his feet to get the completion. Seems pretty simple but it’s something that’s often lacking in rookie receivers.

– Speed: 40-yard dash times aren’t everything but they are indicative of speed and the only physical test given at the NFL combine that shows any level of positive correlation with future NFL on-field performance. Martavis Bryant has some break-neck speed for a guy his size. He ran a 4.42, which was faster than A.J. Green, Sammy Watkins and Odell Beckham. He can get down the field in a hurry.

– Targets: He didn’t get a helmet for the first six weeks of the season but in the past two weeks he’s gotten 12 targets. He’s gotten more looks than Markus Wheaton the last two weeks. Bryant played 33 of 84 snaps on offense against the Colts. I think seven is probably a high mark for him for a while because the Steelers aren’t going to throw the ball 50 times against the Ravens and they certainly won’t put up 51 points again. However, Roethlisberger seems to favor Bryant and will likely continue to do so in the red zone.

– The Matchup: The Ravens are giving up the 9th most fantasy points to wide receivers this season. They’re right in the middle of the league with 17 sacks but they’ve forced 10 fumbles so far this season. That being said, Roethlisberger has been excellent when getting blitzed this year. He’s completing 69.5% of his passes while getting blitzed. The Ravens are paper thin at corner right now with Jimmy Smith scheduled to miss this week’s game. Lardarius Webb is going to have to cover Antonio Brown, which might allow Bryant to victimize Chykie Brown and Dominique Franks.

– Quarterback Play: When Big Ben couldn’t put up any kind of points on the Jacksonville Jaguars or Baltimore Ravens, everybody and their mother was calling Roethlisberger a bum who was going to get traded to Arizona. Ben silenced the critics with a historic passing game against the Colts who had a pretty good defense coming into week 8. Roethlisberger is still a top five quarterback in the NFL and Bryant benefits greatly from having the 11-year veteran under center. The most promising thing for Bryant when looking at Ben’s week 8 performance is that the Steelers went vertical in the passing game more than they have all season; vertical is where Bryant is dangerous.

Negatives

– Route Running: His route running has been better than I expected but he’s been running mostly go routes, which is actually fine. Mike Wallace made a lot of splash plays running go routes. When looking at the tape, for as smooth of an athlete as he is, Bryant still looks stiff coming in and out of his breaks. It’s worth noting that both of his touchdowns against the Colts were on quick fades less than 7 yards each. I’d like to see him start to run some slants and posts but wide receivers coach Richard Mann and offensive coordinator Todd Haley likely won’t ask him to do too much.

– Markus Wheaton and Company: To be clear, Bryant is not the #2 WR on the Steelers … yet. He’s still splitting time with Markus Wheaton who is pretty talented in his own right. He’s going to get a lot of looks whenever the Steelers are in the red zone. But he’s going to get targets stolen from Wheaton, Heath Miller, Lance Moore to an extent, and (God help us all) Darrius Heyward-Bey. You also have to be concerned that Le’Veon Bell will be used as a receiver in the red zone like he was against the Texans.

– Rookie status: He’s a rookie, plain and simple. He’s going to go through some growing pains and probably line up wrong a few times or make some boneheaded drops. Roethlisberger hit him in the hands for what would’ve been an easy TD and he dropped it. It’s going to happen again but the Steelers coaching staff seems to be bringing him along slowly and thanks to Antonio Brown he doesn’t have to shoulder any kind of load for this offense.

DECLASSIFIED: Martavis Bryant’s Week 9 Fantasy Outlook

It’s really difficult to assess how rookies are going to perform week-to-week because you can’t be sure if they can sustain good performance on a consistent basis. Considering the amount of receivers on the bye I think Bryant is a solid pickup in leagues of all scoring formats. He’s still available in 64% of all leagues. If you can swing a trade for him in dynasty, now is the time to do it before his stock shoots through the roof. He can do work for you as a lower-end WR2 or FLEX.

I think by the end of the year he has a chance to be an every week WR2 lock. It’s unrealistic to expect he’ll put up last week’s numbers because Ben is not going to throw as perfectly or as much. All factors considered, I would expect Bryant to grab four balls, gain around 60 yards receiving and probably another red zone touchdown in Week 9 versus the Ravens.