Should I Pickup Dante Pettis For Fantasy Football Week 7? Waiver Wire Outlook

Dante Pettis caught the Bears' only touchdown pass of Thursday Night Football and nearly caught another that would have won Chicago the game. After his Week 6 performance, Pettis has now caught half of the Bears' touchdown passes. (The Bears have completed four touchdown passes all season.) Is the WR worth adding to your fantasy team?

What Did Dante Pettis Do In Week 6?

The 27-year-old caught four passes for 84 yards, including a 40-yard touchdown. He had his biggest role in the Bears’ offense to date, running 30 routes, more than he ran in Weeks 1 and 2 combined. He was targeted either six (PFF) or seven (PFR) times, depending on which advanced analytics service you trust. (Guess it’s tough to tell where some of Justin Fields’ passes were meant to go.) Either way, he had over a 20% target share.

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He was targeted for sure on the Bears' final drive and would have scored another touchdown if he had held on. Warren Sharp, Dan Le Betard, Justin Fields, Matt Eberflus, and Pettis himself all thought it was pass interference when Washington safety Darrick Forrest appeared to wrap his arm inside Pettis before the pass came.

“The dude is on my arm. Guess I’ve gotta get a little stronger, fight through that. But Justin gave me an opportunity. That’s all you can really ask for,” Pettis said.

How Is Dante Pettis Doing This Season?

It was Pettis’ second week catching a pass. He also caught a single pass in Week 1 for a 51-yard touchdown. So Pettis is averaging 27.0 yards per catch, and 20% of his catches have been touchdowns. Are those the kind of sustainable numbers you want from a fantasy player you would plug into your lineup?

Between the two games in which he found the end zone, he went four games with no catches and had no targets in two of those. He was credited by PFF with two dropped passes in Week 5.

Should I Pickup Dante Pettis For My Fantasy Football Team?

There were not any injuries among the Bears receivers that caused anyone to miss Week 6, so there was no logical reason for any fantasy manager to have predicted Pettis’ spike week. Equanimeous St. Brown ran 26 routes but just didn’t get targeted at all after having been targeted a couple of times every week until this week. Maybe he’ll be taking targets from Pettis again next week, maybe he won’t. If you are starting Pettis, you’ll just have to suffer through a number of zilch weeks before you get lucky.

Yet even his best week of the season would not be good enough for Pettis to qualify as a WR1. That 18.4 PPR points would have been good for a WR13 finish last week and lower in each of the previous weeks. In Week 2, Pettis’ stat line would have only been the stuff of a low-end WR2 (WR20 overall).

Pettis had an unpredictable spike week, and he may have others this season, but you won’t be able to guess when he will, and even when he does, he will not give you a week-winning upside. I guess what I’m saying is, you shouldn’t add Dante Pettis.

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