Saints beat writer Mike Triplett on how the team will replace injured WR Brandin Cooks:
The Saints will rely even more heavily on Jimmy Graham and receivers Marques Colston and Kenny Stills going forward. Colston has been more inconsistent this year than ever before with too many dropped passes. But the Saints haven't lost faith in him. He's continued to lead them in snaps each week, and he led them with eight targets and 56 receiving yards against the Bengals.
From a fantasy standpoint, I might stubbornly give a slight nod to Colston over Stills for that reason -- though it's close, and both should see slight increases in production.
It will be interesting to see if this also opens the door for deep-threat receiver Joe Morgan, who has only caught one pass all season while being mostly inactive (and suspended for two weeks for an unspecified team issue). Morgan flashed his dazzling big-play potential with 10 catches for 379 yards and three touchdowns in 2012. But then he missed all of 2013 with a major knee injury.
Both Colston and Stills should see more targets, but we view Stills as the better fantasy acquisition since he has been posting strong WR3 numbers since Week 7. He has averaged 4.2-58-.40 in the last five weeks, and that was with Cooks still in the lineup. For more on Stills, be sure to read the Sleeper Alert that Senior Editor John Paulsen wrote in the preseason.
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