Fantasy Football: 3 Players You Can Drop After Week 12
Jimmy Graham, TE, Green Bay Packers
Yahoo Ownership: 78%
I can't fault you for hanging onto Jimmy Graham this long. In a barren tight end landscape, Graham seemed like the perfect upside choice in the Green Bay Packers offense. He had one of the highest target shares in the league at the position through Week 9 and had multiple games with 70 or more receiving yards. He wasn't exploding for huge games very often, but he was a decently productive option with a past history of truly elite production.
However, his production has truly fallen off in recent weeks. Since Week 10, he's averaged just two targets per game and his snap share has dwindled down to under 50% in each of the last two. He's becoming less and less of an option in the Packers' offense.
This decline has also come with the recent news that Graham broke his thumb, which was initially predicted to cause him to miss at least four to six weeks. He somehow played through the injury this week, but that kind of injury is terrible news for a player we need to be catching passes for our fantasy football teams. Most of us can probably barely catch a pass with two functioning thumbs, let alone one.
If his declining opportunity share and potentially debilitating injury weren't cause enough for concern, you should take a look at his upcoming schedule. The Packers play the Cardinals, the Falcons, the Bears and the Jets in their last four games of the fantasy season. Three of those teams rank in the top nine in the league in fantasy points allowed to opposing tight ends and even the Falcons rank 14th -- none of them are allowing more than 9.7 fantasy points per game to tight ends. That's a pretty brutal final stretch for any tight end, and especially one with a broken thumb.
Graham isn't going to give you the every-week consistency or high ceiling you're looking for in a fantasy tight end in the games that matter most. You might be better off planning ahead and streaming the position during your fantasy playoffs.
