In and Out: Week 2 Edition

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In and Out. No, not the burgers (fantastic though they are). This article is the fantasy football version. We'll look at eight players: Four that merit definite spots in your lineups (the In) and four that don't hit quite right (the Out).

In an ideal world, you would roll through the Footballguys positional Rankings and Projections, skimming all your picks right off the top. By all means, those living in a perfect world should do that.

If you're the rest of us and play in the shadowy, nuanced world of one-and-done contests and daily fantasy -- in particular, DFS tournaments where contrarian plays are almost required, Lamar Jackson, Bijan Robinson, CeeDee Lamb, and Sam LaPorta might or might not be options. That being the case, this article won't be a chalkfest. We're tossing out the aforementioned top-ranked players and digging deeper to find some borderline players who might outperform expectations. 

Conversely, I'll be fading some players you might not be comfortable fading. That's the whole idea.

In And Out Accountability

Since the weekly goal here is highlighting players who will outperform or underperform their projections and rankings, I'll take some chances. That likely means sorting through some wreckage each week. That said, the damage wasn't too horrible last week, considering the usual Week 1 volatility.

• I was in on Jared Goff, who I claimed would exact revenge on his former team by exceeding his Footballguys 18.7-point projection in this one. He did not. His 11.4 points against the Rams is a miss.
• I was out on Dak Prescott in Cleveland. Congratulations to him on the new contract, but he finished as expected, as a low-end QB2 -- QB18 to be exact, which also matched his Footballguys Projection. Hits all around.
• I was in on Raiders RB Zamir White, claiming he would finish as a locked-in RB2, producing more than our projected 10.9 fantasy points. He did not. He barely got half that, finishing with 6.6 points while taking a backseat to Alexander Mattison. I'll be sifting through the ashes of this miss for some time to come.
• I was out on Patriots RB Rhamondre Stevenson at Cincinnati, suggesting "those needing to swing bigger might want to look elsewhere" was almost as off as my hopes for White. Stevenson finished as RB7 after running for 120 yards with a touchdown on 25 carries. Huge miss. 
• I was in on Titans WR Calvin Ridley at Chicago. I felt like his 11.92 projected points were the floor. I predicated all this on Will Levis taking a step forward. He didn't, and Ridley showed us his basement, finishing as WR52 with 8.0 points. A miss.
• I was out on 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk, citing the matchup with a tough Jets pass defense and a summer-long hold-in as concerns. He was projected for 13.36 points. He finished with 4.8 points. A hit.
• In on Falcons TE Kyle Pitts against the Steelers. I predicted double-digit scoring (he was projected for 9.77 points). Pitts was TE4 with 11.6 points. A hit.
• Out on Browns TE David Njoku, claiming he'd fall short of his projected 10.86 points. He did, but not for the reasons I stated (tough matchup, poor quarterback play). A sprained ankle knocked him out early, and he finished with 8.4 points. Still a hit. 

I'll take a .500 opening weekend even if my favorite outlier, Broncos RB Jaleel McLaughlin, came up short to break the tie. We projected the second-year man to finish with 8.04 points; he fell short of that with 7.8 points against the Seahawks. I blame Bo Nix. And myself . . .

Now, on to Week 2. One more time: If any of this makes you feel queasy, please default to the Footballguys Rankings/Projections.

Quarterback

In: Justin Fields, Pittsburgh at Denver

This is provisional. The first official caveat of this week's column is "if" he plays, Fields is the pick here. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said that QB Russell Wilson would be listed as questionable and added that if Wilson's chances of playing were questionable, his chances of starting would be less so. Monitor before finalizing your lineup, but assuming Fields gets the nod, his rushing ability immediately makes him of interest. He's the kind of "Konami Code" player fantasy managers crave. 

To that point, Fields carried the ball 14 times in the Steelers' Week 1 win over Atlanta, finishing with 56 rushing yards. More importantly, Fields handled 44 percent of the team's red-zone carries. According to NBC Sports' Matthew Berry, that matters because in 17 career games with 10-plus rushes, Fields averages 21.5 fantasy points per game. While Fields didn't get a touchdown in Atlanta, it's worth noting Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith had a 34-yard rushing touchdown against the Broncos last weekend. 

By the way, Fields isn't without passing upside. Any quarterback playing with George Pickens benefits from the third-year receiver's big-play ability (although there are issues this week; see below). Fields only threw 23 passes in Atlanta. Seven went to Pickens, who caught six for 85 yards, including a 40-yarder. 

Bottom Line: Fields, who finished as QB7 and QB10, respectively, on a points-per-game basis in his last two years as Chicago's starter. Theo Gremminger over at Player Profiler, noted that Fields had ten top-five weekly finishes in that two-season run as the Bears starter. He's QB10 on the Week 2 Footballguys Projections. Our projection team has him at 18.1 points in this one. I believe Fields will meet or exceed that projection. 

Out: C.J. Stroud, Houston vs. Chicago

Two players into the list and already another caveat. As mentioned above, if any of my selections in this column make you uncomfortable, you're not alone. Some of them make me uneasy. It's the whole point of this exercise. And to be crystal clear here: I'm starting Stroud in leagues where I've drafted him. That said if you're playing in a DFS showdown or a one-and-done contest? I'll remind you much of Stroud's success has come on deep passes. In fact, Stroud completed 30 of his 51 deep attempts (58.8 percent) for 1,057 yards and eight touchdowns last year. No other rookie quarterback has completed over 50 percent of such passes or thrown for over 1,000 such yards in the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016). Stroud completed 1 of his 4 deep attempts for 55 yards in Week 1. 

But this week, Stroud faces what ESPN's Tristan Cockroft contends is a fully healthy, "underrated" Bears secondary that limited the Tennessee Titans to 104 yards and one touchdown passing in Week 1. Cockroft acknowledges Stroud is not Will Levis. I'll second that, but Chicago's 71.0 percent pass rush win rate last week was the league's best, and Stroud hasn't been at his best when under pressure (five of his 25 career touchdowns and a 44th percentile QBR).

Bottom Line: Look, this one doesn't feel great, and if I hadn't been out on Dak Prescott last week, I might have doubled down on the Dallas QB vs. the Saints this week. But of all the starting-level QBs in our Footballguys Week 2 Projections, Stroud, who we have as QB7 with a projected 19.7 points, has the most challenging path to meeting that ceiling. And that matters for those investing in daily contests. I don't think it's going way out on a limb to believe Stroud falls slightly short of our projection.