Brock Bowers Out 1-2 Weeks: What It Means For Michael Mayer and Raiders In Fantasy Football

There is no other pastime in the world where you can simultaneously experience euphoric excitement and shocking confusion in the same day other than fantasy football. Wednesday is the perfect example—we get our first meaningful football game in seven months as the season kicks off, but we have also learned that TE1 in fantasy football ADP, Brock Bowers, is set to miss 1-2 games with a meniscus procedure.

Let's dive into the fantasy football impact of his absence, what it means for the Raiders' TE2 Michael Mayer and more.

Fantasy Football Fallout Of Brock Bowers Missing 1-2 Weeks

Most fantasy football managers have been quick to forgive Bowers for his lackluster sophomore campaign (65-680-7) after a stellar rookie year (112-1,194-5), given his struggle with a PCL injury throughout the season, on top of how abysmal the Raiders' offense was. And now, that forgiveness is quickly being erased.

Brock Bowers

In terms of fantasy football projections, Bowers was projected as the overall TE1 (189.6 half-PPR points, 12.2 ppg). This was on the back of a standard 15.5-game projection. This will surely move Trey McBride (TE2) up to our projected TE1 and Colston Loveland (TE3) up to our projected TE2.

Both Dwain McFarland and Matthew Freedman have moved Bowers down to TE3 in their season-long fantasy football rankings, bumping the aforementioned pair ahead of him.

Given that Bowers was originally projected for 8.2 targets per game, the projections (and fantasy football rankings) fallout will surely trickle down to other positions as well.

Michael Mayer (TE)

While Mayer has never been an every-week starter, he's widely regarded as one of the better TE2s in the NFL. We've also had serviceable weeks from Mayer as a streamer and punt-TE option in NFL DFS contests. In Week 6 last season, we saw Mayer post an 82 Utilization Score on an 80% route rate en route to a TE6 finish on the week (16.0 fpts). We also saw him post a TE4 finish on 17.9 fantasy points with an 88 Utilization Score in Week 17 last year.

He upgrades 13 spots to Matthew Freedman's TE21 in his Week 1 half-PPR rankings, barely even in the TE2 conversation despite an appealing matchup with the Dolphins. Dwain is more bullish on Mayer, ranking him as TE15 on the week. 

TL;DR—If you are a Bowers owner, Mayer is worth grabbing, but prioritize players like Juwan Johnson, Dalton Schultz and Dalton Kincaid as viable streamers.

Ashton Jeanty (RB)

While on the surface it may feel like this is a positive for Ashton Jeanty with potentially more volume both on the ground and in the receiving game, Freedman has actually dropped him 6 spots in the RB rankings, going from RB8 on the week to RB14. He's standing pat as the RB18 on the week in Dwain's update, making him a mid-range RB2 play with a shaky floor.

Raiders WRs (Tre Tucker, Jalen Nailor)

If anyone carries a juicy ceiling (while still carrying a scary-low floor), it's Tre Tucker. He had a trio of top-24 positional finishes last season, headlined by a WR1 overall showing in Week 3 on the back of a 40.9-point outburst. He drew 36% of the targets on a 27% TPRR, so we've seen what he can do with added volume. He upgrades to a mid-range WR4 in Matthew Freedman's Week 1 rankings, going from WR51 to WR46 in half-PPR.

This doesn't seem like a massive plus for WR2 Jalen Nailor, however, who has now dropped from WR53 to WR63 in Freedman's rankings, given the added systemic risk that accompanies this entire offense when you suddenly remove their most valuable player on the field.