Fantasy Football: Will Fuller can help win championships

Will Fuller of the Houston Texans can and will help a fantasy football team win a championship in 2019.

When Houston Texans wide receiver Will Fuller is on the field, he is an asset to not only the offense of the Texans, but also to those who play in the world of fantasy football. The top issue for Fuller is if he can stay healthy for the 2019 season, as last year he tore his ACL during Week 8.

Fuller was at the top of his game the night he was injured, which came on a Thursday Night Football matchup against the Miami Dolphins as Fuller caught a 73-yard touchdown reception from Deshaun Watson.

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Before he was injured, Fuller caught 32 passes for 503 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 15.7 yards per reception. Fuller had seven receptions of 20-plus yards, one reception of 40-plus yards and 23 of his receptions went for a first down. Also impressive for Fuller is he didn’t have a fumble, something he’s yet to have in his three seasons in the NFL.

In stats from Pro Football Focus, Fuller has 165 yards after catch and received a 81.2 overall grade in his short time on the field a season ago. PFF also gave Fuller a grade of 81.1 for his pass routes. During his weekly game grades from a season ago, Fuller’s best grade was Week 2 against the Tennessee Titans where he has a grade of 88.2, a game where he collected eight receptions for 113 yards and one touchdown.

Three times last season Fuller had games of 100-plus yards, including 101 yards and a touchdown on five receptions against the New York Giants in Week 3, later followed in Week 8 where he had the 124 yards receiving and a touchdown on five receptions against the Dolphins where he was injured.

Before he was injured, Fuller was targeted 42 times, and for his career Fuller has been targeted 187 times, where he has caught 107 of those passes for 1,561 yards and 13 touchdowns. Now here is the not fun part for Fuller: he is often injured and has never played all 16 games in a season through the first three years of his career.

As a rookie in 2016, Fuller played in 14 games where he made 13 starts and was targeted 92 times. That was his best season in terms of overall totals, catching 47 passes for 635 yards and two touchdowns.

In the PFF Fantasy Playbook, it states Fuller on his 42 targets from a season ago had an average depth of target for 15 yards and had 9-percent of the target share for the Texans in ’18. Compare that to teammate DeAndre Hopkins, who led the NFL with 34-percent of the target share.

Fuller was impressive with his fantasy points per route run in ’18 as PFF had him at 11th overall with 0.33, where the leader in the league was Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints at 0.37. Hopkins was third in the league at 0.36.

In the PFF Fantasy Playbook, it states the following on Fuller, giving him some praise by calling him “the modern day Cris Carter.” The fantasy profile also said the following:

"“To his credit, Fuller has been a strong asset when he’s been on the field. He was active from Weeks 2-8 last season and ranked 15th among wide receivers in PPR scoring over that seven-game span.”"

When it comes to Fuller, the reason to be high on him is you can draft him in rounds 8-9 most likely, and the game of him staying healthy will pay off huge if he stays on the field for the majority of the season. Being able to draft a player like Fuller, and to rely on him as your top wide receiver, would be a great asset to have on any fantasy football roster.

Fuller is more than capable of having a season of 1,000 yards receiving, and that is while sharing the receptions with Hopkins and Coutee, but ultimately what everything comes down to with Fuller is his health.

If Fuller is healthy, he can help any fantasy football team win a championship, but that is the issue at hand — he’s not been healthy for a complete season. Fuller is a very talented wide receiver, and 2019 could be his breakout party in the fantasy world if he’s available when playoff time rolls around.

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