Sunday Aftermath: Jayden Daniels injured, Rashee Rice's return, Vikes QB woes, and more

There are two components to any “surprise season”: The initial surprise, and how hard they are to follow up. If few saw the Commanders’ 12-5 2024 coming, many wondered how they could top or even match it this season after a quiet offseason and deafening increase in expectations.

Whatever you thought, everyone was in agreement on the one thing that could not happen: Jayden Daniels getting hurt. He has: Twice. His knee issue cost him two games. His new hamstring ailment could sideline him for even longer.

This latest unfortunate development has the Commanders’ dream season follow-up beginning to develop the characteristics of a classic “lost” year. Although it hasn’t been quite that dire in fantasy, it’s not a whole lot better, either. Through seven weeks and five appearances, Daniels is the QB11 by average fantasy points. He’s the QB18 by total points. He’s being out-produced by Spencer Rattler on the whole and Matthew Stafford in the aggregate.

Not what you signed up for. Now you’re headed back to the waiver wire for a potential Week 8 shootout with the Chiefs. With six teams on bye, the streamer options are few. It might be best to simply prioritize Daniels’ direct backup, Marcus Mariota, who finished as the QB6 and QB19 during Daniels’ two earlier absences.

Five Week 7 Storylines

Jacoby Brissett brings the Cardinals’ quarterback situation to a head. The Cardinals’ two highest passing totals of the season: Jacoby Brissett the past two weeks. Brissett has gone toe-to-toe with two of the best teams in football, the Colts (!) and Packers. When last we saw Kyler Murray? He was losing to the Titans. This is not to say Brissett has blown Murray out of the water, or that he is some kind of season-saver. Going toe-to-toe with Indy and Green Bay, after all, resulted only in victories of the moral kind. But therein lies the problem. He may not be blowing Kyler out of the water, but neither is Kyler out-playing Brissett. And pretty much anyone who has watched the past two weeks will reach the opposite conclusion: Brissett has simply been better. It doesn’t mean a whole lot for 2025. Both players seem plenty capable of feeding Trey McBride and ignoring Marvin Harrison Jr. But the Cardinals franchise’s elephant in the room can no longer be ignored: Murray is not the guy.

Carson Wentz positions a rock opposite the Vikings’ hard place. Whereas the Cardinals are in a quarterback situation they undoubtedly hoped to avoid, the Vikes are in the opposite position. They wanted a quarterback controversy. They have been casting about for any reason not to play J.J. McCarthy since he looked like he had never before seen a game of NFL football in Week 2. But Wentz has proven not to be the man capable of lighting the talk radio spark. He can’t drive the ball, most of his biggest plays come on the negative side of the ledger, and he is flirting with a season-ending injury on essentially every snap. This situation is not tenable, but neither, it would seem, is starting McCarthy. For fantasy managers, the preference should be clear: Wentz. Like Joe Flacco, he gets the ball where it’s supposed to go. For the Vikings? Each potential choice appears worse than the last.

Rashee Rice immediately takes over Chiefs’ skill corps. Rice ran only 19 routes. He was targeted on 10 of them, doubling up No. 2 Brashard Smith. That is the fancy way of saying, Rice’s snaps were limited in his debut, but when he was on the field, he was the focus. Obviously all of his percentages will soon skyrocket, especially since the Chiefs won’t be playing arguably the least competitive team of the entire century (more on the Week 7 Raiders later). It’s obviously amazing if you have Rice. Xavier Worthy and Travis Kelce? Less so, though you could also argue Rice is simply another force raising the Chiefs’ offensive tide far above its 2023-24 levels. Patrick Mahomes was the QB1 before Rice’s return. Now? He’s the weekly odds-on favorite, and there should still be plenty of opportunities for Worthy and Kelce to spike weeks, even if Rice dings their floor.

Panthers try to have their running back cake and eat it, too; nearly choke. Certain things almost never work in the NFL. The “hot hand” approach is one of them. Invariably, someone will stay hotter. Rico Dowdle was molten in Weeks 5 and 6. So it’s not surprising his Week 7 core temperature remained much higher than a returning Chuba Hubbard’s. Coach Dave Canales banged his head against this wall for much of the first half before finally admitting the obvious and further featuring Dowdle. Hubbard will undoubtedly get another opportunity to steal Dowdle’s thunder in Week 8, but this is a desperate team that now has an injured quarterback (Bryce Young, high-ankle sprain). Rico Reality is going to take hold, probably as early as Sunday against the Bills’ awful run defense. Dowdle is an RB2, Hubbard a low-ceiling FLEX.

TreVeyon Henderson makes it clear: He is droppable in fantasy leagues. The only thing stronger than Henderson’s fantasy draft capital is his real life draft capital. Rare is the second-round running back who is not immediately fed touches. Rarer still are egos like Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels’. If you don’t do things their way, you don’t get the ball. Henderson apparently isn’t, and he isn’t. Why should we expect things to change for Week 8 after Henderson played nine snaps and notched two touches against the Titans? He also lost yet another role when Terrell Jennings became Vrabel’s “five-minute drill” back. At this point, the only thing more inconceivable than cutting your Henderson losses would be not doing so.

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Five More Week 7 Storylines

The Mike McDaniel era somehow ends even harder. Except it didn’t. McDaniel has not been fired. He has quit, but the team isn’t accepting the resignation. This probably isn’t McDaniel’s fault. He did not build this roster. He is not the one who approaches offensive line play like it is optional. The problem, as always in these situations, is that he’s not the solution. This mess has grown too large for him, perhaps for anyone. That’s not our concern. Someone else still needs a crack at it. As for McDaniel, he deserves a situation where he can just call the cool plays. Where it is not his pay grade deciding what to do with a salary cap millstone like Tua Tagovailoa. McDaniel can design an offense when he is not forced to focus on the crumbling of a dysfunctional franchise. You could argue this is not a fair end to his Dolphins tenure, but don’t be mistaken: It is at an end.

Justin Fields benched for first and possibly last time. If the McDaniel era is over save for the Dolphins actually admitting it, the Jets are openly mulling ending the Fields “era” after six starts. Like McDaniel, Fields bears plenty of culpability but is also in part a victim of circumstance. For one, you try making plays when the “No. 2 weapon” is rookie TE Mason Taylor or, uhh, Josh Reynolds? Secondly, the whole point of Fields is his wild hair nature. There will be bad, but it is accompanied by big-play goodness. Except in New York, where it’s clear the mandate is “never turn the ball over or you’re benched.” These are not conditions in which Fields could ever thrive. Any “Fields plan” would probably be doomed to fail. This one never had a chance.

Oronde Gadsden II has best performance by any tight end all season. There have been six 100-yard performances by tight ends this season. Gadsden’s 164-yard outburst was 40 more than 2025 runner-up Tucker Kraft, who had 124 in Week 2. In fact, his output was the most by a rookie tight end in 40 years. It also, of course, was not out of nowhere. Coach Jim Harbaugh had been steaming Gadsden before his 7/68 Week 6. He then followed that up with this. That is the long way of saying this is for real, especially with the Chargers no longer having a real running game. Still well below the 50 percent rostered threshold on most fantasy football services, Gadsden has become a rare mid-season must add whose production is not contingent on someone else’s health. (Aka, “the starter” isn’t coming back to take his targets.)

Bears slowly shift to two-back backfield. D’Andre Swift has posted his two lowest snap percentages coming out of the Bears’ bye week — and had by far his two best games. Meanwhile, rookie backup Kyle Monangai has posted two of his highest percentages and had two of his better games in the process, including easily his best on Sunday against the Saints. Part of this was undoubtedly matchup-based. The Bears faced the Commanders and Saints’ struggling run defenses the past two weeks. They get another for Week 8 in the Ravens. There will come a time where coach Ben Johnson has to lean on the pass again. But there is every reason to believe this is his preferred approach. It’s how he found his most success in Detroit, and it simply makes too much sense to take pressure off Caleb Williams’ scattershot arm. It’s not the best development if you are relying on Chicago’s pass catchers, but Swift and Monangai’s upticks should be considered real until proven otherwise.

Kendre Miller suffers knee injury as Saints’ backfield loses all momentum. Miller had been trying to force a running back controversy in New Orleans, or perhaps even an Alvin Kamara trade. What he has instead is a likely multi-week injury that takes the Saints and fantasy managers back to square one. Although Miller was not yet producing fantasy value of his own, he has hampering Kamara’s. AK’s RB2 floor is now slightly higher, though his ceiling remains nonexistent. If Miller has to miss extended time, seventh-round rookie Devin Neal might also finally get a shot. He is worth a 14-team flier if you are a deep-league desperado such as myself.

Questions

1. Can we start a Joe Flacco lend-lease program where he comes and starts three games for your franchise so you know which 2-3 weapons are worth relentlessly targeting?

2. How will the solution to this problem somehow be “more London games”?

3. Were the Raiders hypnotized by the “Weapons” witch?

QB: Jaxson Dart (@PHI), Michael Penix Jr. (vs. MIA), Joe Flacco (vs. NYJ), Aaron Rodgers (vs. GB), Carson Wentz (@LAC), Marcus Mariota (@KC)

RB: Kyle Monangai, Bam Knight, Tyrone Tracy, Michael Carter, Bhayshul Tuten, Brashard Smith, Tyjae Spears, Blake Corum, Samaje Perine

WR: Darnell Mooney, Alec Pierce, Josh Downs, Tre Tucker, Marvin Mims Jr., Troy Franklin, Chimere Dike, Jaylin Lane

TE: Oronde Gadsden II, Mason Taylor, Colston Loveland, Theo Johnson, AJ Barner, Isaiah Likely (Lamar Jackson returning)

DEF: Colts (vs. TEN), Falcons (vs. MIA), Texans (vs. SF), Bills (@CAR), Bucs (@NO), Bengals (vs. NYJ), 49ers (@HOU)

Stats of the Week

The Colts’ hilarious, comprehensive dominance, via Anthony Dabbundo: “Through seven weeks, the Colts are the most efficient offense by points per drive this century.”

By now you have probably already seen some of the astounding stats coming out of Raiders/Chiefs, but the Associated Press’ Josh Dubow has the best one yet: “The Raiders ran 30 offensive plays for the second fewest of any game in Super Bowl era. The Browns had 28 vs. the Steelers in their first game as an expansion team in 1999.”

The tao of Jonathan Gannon, via Around The NFL: “The Cardinals have lost three straight games after leading by seven or more points entering fourth quarter.”

Trevor Lawrence has made 67 career starts. Amongst the 73 quarterbacks with that many starts since 2000, Lawrence’s 3.4 touchdown percentage is tied for 67th, along with Brad Johnson, Kerry Collins and Vinny Testaverde.

Awards Section

Week 7 Fantasy All-Pro Team: QB Bo Nix, RB Christian McCaffrey, RB Jonathan Taylor, WR Ja’Marr Chase, WR DeVonta Smith, WR Keenan Allen, TE Trey McBride

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