Week 5 Has Passed – This is What Owners of C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson Need to Do
Alex Dunlap, RosterWatch.com

The short answer is ship one of them. Send em to Belize, whatever – save yourself the headache.

The long answer is to to first think about your league and your starting roster sizes. On the Sirius XM show last week, we discussed this topic as I – in one of our most competitive leagues, was grappling with it.

In this league, I had two flex spots available, so the idea of starting both of them was not out of the realm of possibility. But starting two players on an offense that is not prolific limits upside overall and is clearly not optimal in head to head formats. Jackson has been dependable, and his role seems cemented. Oddly, Jackson is receiving virtually all of the targets in the passing game. Yet, Spiller touched the ball 23 times against Baltimore in Week 4 before aggravating the ankle Spiller played only 13 snaps on Thursday Night.

That kind of volume being written into the game plan from Week 4 is good, and it is currently sell-able. That, along with the fact that in Week 5, Spiller rushed the ball 8 times on those 13 snaps and went for 66 yards and a TD. Spiller still holds the worthless allure of a “first-round pick” in many players’ eyes. With volume, those monster plays should continue – one look at the snap counts, touches and targets tools show all the evidence you need to make a convincing case of this when pitching to a trade partner.

As for Jackson, his production alone should speak for itself as a current Top 10 fantasy back. In PPR leagues Jackson has been an absolute stud in Nathaniel Hackett’s offense in getting high percentage, “security blanket” targets from rookie QB E.J. Manuel and pee-pee arm Jeff Tuel.

Also note the fact that both players had above-average games versus a defense that our proprietary matchup tool said was horrible this week, and they even did so much of the time with Jeff Tuel at QB. That’s the sell.

This coming week, owners of Doug Martin will panic if he tanks again. Maybe an Alfred Morris owner is panicky, who knows. If you took Fred Jackson as a late-round handcuff to Spiller, though, it’s time to stop thinking of Jackson as a “late round guy,” because the season is now, and our biggest doctrine at RosterWatch is that fantasy football is a week-to-week proposition. There is always the concern of injury, but if you are an owner of both these players, you are likely no better off than 3-1 or 2-2 due to the sit/start headache this duo has caused and need to make moves.