Fantasy Football 2024: Must-Start Fantasy Picks This Sunday - Week 10
Published: Nov 08, 2024
As always on Friday at 1 PM, Andrew Cooper and a guest go live to break down the Week 10 NFL slate and answer your questions! This week's guest is fantasy football and betting analyst Andrew Erickson of Fantasy Pros.
Join the two Andrews as they highlight the good chalk, the bad chalk, and the sneaky great matchups from this week's games. At the end, they will put their favorite plays into an @FFPC Weekly Challenge lineup to see if they can win big!
If you have any questions for your own fantasy team, like start/sits or trades, feel free to throw them in the chat for Coop and Jake to weigh in! It all starts on Friday at 1 PM ET on the Fantasy Alarm YouTube!
Player News
The Athletic’s Kevin Fishbain says Ben Johnson “seemed confident” that Luther Burden (soft tissue) would be ready at the start of training camp.
Burden has been sidelined for most of the offseason while dealing with an undisclosed injury. The rookie second-rounder also remains unsigned. While it’s been a slow start to Burden’s pro career, a return by training camp should give him plenty of time to get up to speed before the start of the season. Even when Burden acclimates himself to the offense, he’ll likely slot in as the team’s No. 3 receiver with Rome Odunze and D.J. Moore expected to serve as the primary options in two receiver sets. Burden makes for an intriguing late-round pick in deeper leagues, but is unlikely to enter the season with much fantasy upside.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler said Terry McLaurin is “not happy with where things are with an extension.”
Fowler adds that the Commanders have “a couple of weeks here to make progress” before training camp begins on July 22. McLaurin has skipped all offseason workouts thus far, so it stands to reason he could continue the absentee strategy later this month. Training camp is a critical time for NFL teams, allowing players to safely ramp up ahead of preseason play, not to mention the regular season. McLaurin profiles as a fantasy football WR2 this year.
The Athletic’s Mark Puleo reports, Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh “has been added as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed by 11 anonymous students against former University of Michigan offensive coordinator Matt Weiss.”
Weiss “has been accused of hacking the email, social media and cloud storage accounts of thousands of female athletes and downloading intimate photos and videos.” Per Puleo, “the amended complaint... alleges that Harbaugh” and “university officials knew that Weiss had been accessing the plaintiffs’ private information when they allowed him to coach in the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31, 2022.” Harbaugh previously told reporters that “he didn’t learn of allegations involving Weiss until after the Fiesta Bowl,” saying he was “completely shocked” and “disturbed” upon hearing the allegations. Weiss has worked for both Jim and John Harbaugh, dating back to 2007; Stanford (2007-2008) and Michigan (2021-2022) with Jim, and the Ravens (2009-2020) with John. Jim coached at Michigan from 2015-2023. Per Puleo, “allegations of computer hacking against Weiss date to 2015, when he was with Baltimore.” Neither Michigan nor the Chargers responded to Puleo’s request for a comment.
Trevor Lawrence and head coach Liam Coen complimented Dyami Brown for finding “voids” in zone coverage and his improved intermediate-depth route running this spring.
Per ESPN’s Michael DiRocco, Lawrence “was impressed with Brown during the spring and said the two seemed to click pretty quickly.” The veteran quarterback specifically praised Brown for picking up “the system really quickly,” saying, Brown has “gotten the ball a lot because it seems like he’s always in the right spot.” Coen, meanwhile, believes Brown has “validated” the team’s $9.5 million investment by improving his play on “those intermediate in-breakers, curls, maybe outcuts,” an area where “you didn’t really see him work” that much with the Commanders. Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter will reliably command larger target shares than Brown, but if Brown can develop into more than a field stretcher and part-time screen weapon, he should yield flex value this season.
Sauce Gardner’s goals for 2025 include intercepting more passes and assuming a leadership role in the huddle and in the Jets’ locker room.
Gardner has just three career interceptions and, as ESPN’s Rich Cimini notes, Gardner is not expected to have the benefit of a zone-heavy scheme this season. Serving as the Lions’ defensive coordinator last year, Jets head coach Aaron Glenn used zone and man coverage at a near even split, which qualifies as being extremely man-heavy given the NFL’s current zone coverage rates. Gardner’s focus on increasing his interception total is a positive for fantasy managers who are smartly targeting turnovers and sacks when selecting defense/special teams units, though. Glenn is also notably mentoring Gardner in both on- and off-field leadership qualities, telling Gardner to let his “influence do all the talking” rather than taking on a phony “rah-rah guy” persona.
CBS News Texas reports Cowboys WR KaVontae Turpin was arrested on two misdemeanor charges.
According to Collin County court records, the Cowboys’ wide receiver and special teams ace was arrested early Sunday on misdemeanor charges for marijuana and unlawfully carrying a weapon. We don’t know much more about his arrest at this time other than his bond was listed at $500. The 28-year-old receiver could face disciplinary action from the league once the legal process plays out, but for now, things remain wait-and-see. Turpin caught 31 passes for 420 yards and two touchdowns last season and also led the league with 904 kick return yards and an average of 33.5 yards per return.