Preseason Stealing Signals, Week 3

Plus other recent rankings adjustments

I didn’t anticipate writing a Week 3 version of Preseason Stealing Signals, because I didn’t anticipate many teams playing starters. But with the gap next weekend, I guess I should have thought through that a little more.

I’m gonna move through this fairly quickly, and I’m going to ignore teams that rested starters, relying on the awesome Dwain McFarland and his writeup at Fantasy Life, which breaks the teams into the two buckets (“played starters” and “didn’t play starters”). Per his piece, nine of the teams played starters, while the remaining rested.

I read through his notes on the teams that rested, and in some cases they impacted what I’d been thinking about recent rankings adjustments. I had some other recent adjustments I’d already wanted to write up, so we’re going to start with those, then talk through the offenses that played starters in Pre-Week 3.

For those situations, I’ve gone and watched the teams that played their starters to continue getting a feel for how those guys looked, similar to how I wrote them up in Week 1 and Week 2. So that type of recap will exist below.

Let’s start with the recent rankings adjustments.

Additional notes and rankings adjustments

Either from teams that rested, or just generally, here are some additional rankings adjustments or even just increasing conviction in positions for me recently.

• Jaleel McLaughlin sat in Week 3, and Audric Estime played. I keep moving McLaughlin up. I mentioned how in Preseason Week 2 he looked noticeably more explosive than Javonte Williams, which wasn’t to say that Williams looked bad. But I just want a lot of exposure to this backfield, which I’ve detailed extensively, and I’ve been very impressed with Bo Nix this preseason. McLaughlin looking firmly ahead of Estime for snaps and touches in the early going could be massive and he’s gone from someone I was sprinkling in to someone I think is perhaps the best value RB on the board.

• It’s possibly unfair, but I’ve moved Zach Charbonnet down the ranks significantly and am now thinking of him as a pick I need to see be a value, relative to my prior position of treating him like an important part of Zero RB rooms. The thesis for him hinged on two things: 1) No competition for the No. 2 job, and 2) A new coaching staff perhaps seeing him as a surprisingly big part of the first-team offense. August broke poorly on both counts, as the team has done nothing but praise Kenneth Walker, who appears headed for a monster RB1 role, and No. 3 RB Kenny McIntosh has had one of the better preseasons of any RB in the league (he had a 56-yard TD on his only carry in Pre-Week 3, after I’d written him up as looking great in earlier weeks). That may seem like overemphasizing preseason stuff, and it’s important to note Charbonnet did rest while McIntosh played (but then got the quick hook, as well). But the role was central to the Charbonnet play from the beginning, because he didn’t actually show much in Year 1 (peripherals like MTF/touch were weak, receiving efficiency was below average), after being a prospect whose main calling card was size and the versatility to play on all three downs, but with no real special traits. I still really like the Seattle offense, and it’s a spot I want to have plenty of exposure to this year, which has included a pretty strong position on Charbonnet, so some of this is me just trying to balance that. But at this point — while I recognize you probably do want exposure to a cheap No. 2 in an offense you’re targeting — I just don’t think he’s the best way to play it, as the necessary elements of the upside case have taken dings this August.