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Thursday Night Fantasy Flier: Andre Roberts, bye-week stopgap

Andre Roberts, chain-mover (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
Andre Roberts, chain-mover (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

The last time Kirk Cousins faced the Giants, things did not go well.

It was the 2013 regular season finale, a game that Washington would lose 20-6. Cousins went just 19-for-49, averaging 3.45 yards per attempt and tossing a pair of interceptions.

The following day, Mike Shanahan was fired.

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But here we are nine months later and Cousins is a franchise savior. He's coming off a 427-yard passing performance at Philly, and he's widely considered the best possible fit to direct Jay Gruden's offense. Cousins is clicking with Pierre Garcon, DeSean Jackson and Niles Paul. With Kirk at the controls, Washington is suddenly full of hope. At least for now.

Of course if the team loses at home to Eli Manning and the Giants on Thursday night, Cousins will be the quarterback who piles up stats yet can't close the deal. We've all seen this script before.

For fantasy purposes, of course, no one really cares about the winning and losing that's about to take place. We're all just hoping these teams can give us a shootout. New York put up 30 points in a Week 3 win, and Washington scored 34 in a loss. If we get numbers like that on Thursday, everyone benefits.

These teams offer limited options for a feature like Thursday Fliers, because all the key skill players are rostered in a significant percentage of Yahoo leagues. Cousins was a wildly popular add this week — he's now 72 percent owned — and Eli Manning found a few new believers (43 percent). The featured backs and receivers on both sides are heavily owned, and tight ends Larry Donnell (48 percent) and Niles Paul (61 percent) have probably been scooped up in any deep, competitive format.

However, I've got one lead for you this week, and I'm using him myself in a 16-team league. (Even when these picks bust — they often will, being fliers — at least you know I'm suffering, too.) Let's look to the Washington receiving corps for bye-week relief...

WR Andre Roberts (3 percent owned) – To this point, Roberts has had a quiet-yet-productive season, hauling in nine balls on 14 targets for 117 yards. All of his catches have resulted in first downs, for what it's worth. Roberts was targeted six times in Week 3, playing 49 snaps, catching four balls and working primarily from the slot. He's also delivered 193 return yards through three weeks, which is meaningful to some of you.

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Giants slot corner Walter Thurmond is out for the season due to injury (torn pectoral muscle), we should note, so Roberts won't have to mess with him. Meanwhile, Jackson and Garcon draw tricky individual matchups with Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Prince Amukamara. I won't promise you an end-zone spike from Roberts on Thursday, but it's easy to see a path to 5-6 catches and 55-70 yardsl. In PPR formats, that wouldn't be such a bad line from a single-serving bye-week pickup.