Week 3 NFL Picks, Predictions & Best Bets | NFL Picks Against the Spread | NFL Props | Survivor
Chris Meaney
Training camps provide our first look into NFL players and teams as we prepare for the upcoming fantasy football season. Information will now begin to flood our social media timelines, leaving us to determine the subsequent fantasy impact. It’s a matter of knowing which information matters, and which should be ignored.
So each day in this space, we’ll take a trip through the top news and takeaways around the league’s training camps to offer up what fantasy managers need to know as we head through draft season and into the 2024 NFL regular season.
Today, let’s review the major news as we start from Monday into Tuesday.
Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs Tweaks Hamstring
Oh boy. This is the first injury to a top-tier fantasy player in 2024. The extent of Gibbs’ injury is not known, but this is his second injury so far this offseason — the other being being up during OTAs. He had only been cleared to return two weeks ago.
Gibbs has been going at the end of the first round all summer in Underdog best balls drafts, but these injuries may push him to the middle of the second round — or later if it turns out this injury is worse than it appears.
We also don’t know if the OTA injury he picked up is the same injury sustained Monday. That would certainly not be a good look for fantasy managers hoping to avoid an injury-plagued season.
NY Giants WR Jalin Hyatt Cooking at Camp
Jalin Hyatt has been drawing praise out of training camp. After a disappointing rookie season, Hyatt moved further down the depth chart after the Giants selected Malik Nabers. But Hyatt could be pushing Darius Slayton for a starting role in New York after a strong training camp.
Reports are that Hyatt’s route running looks significantly improved and that he’s been clicking with starting QB Daniel Jones.
Vikings QB JJ McCarthy Held out of Practice
The rookie was held out of practice due to right knee soreness. McCarthy looked solid in his preseason debut, going 11-of-17 for 188 yards and two TDs, but now he’s on the bench and losing reps to veteran Sam Darnold. Darnold was already leading the first-team offense and the likely starter to begin 2024, but head coach Kevin O’Connell said that McCarthy was going to start taking more first-team reps. Perhaps that plan is on hold now. The Vikings QB situation was already a messy one, and if this injury lingers, it only gets more complicated.
Addendum: Just after this article came out, further news came out, and it’s worse:
We don’t know how much time McCarthy will miss, but it’s clear that Sam Darnold will open the season as the starter in Minnesota, and if it’s severe, 2024 could turn into a de facto redshirt year for the first-round rookie.
