Christian Watson, Jayden Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks Impacting Week 18 Rankings

With a win over their NFC North rival Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers could punch their first ticket to the playoffs in the Jordan Love era. The Packers have been battling injuries the entire season, especially in the WR room, and it continues to be up in the air whether or not everyone will be available to fight this battle.

What are the latest injury updates regarding Christian Watson, Jayden Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks? What’s the impact on the fantasy football landscape?

Latest News and Injury Updates Impacting Fantasy

Christian Watson, WR, Green Bay Packers

Watson has had another season where he showed flashes of brilliance for the Packers, but he just has been unable to stay healthy. Watson has missed five full games due to injury this year, mainly due to his hamstring. The explosive WR has been unable to recover well enough to stay on the field consistently.

This week, Watson was able to practice on Wednesday and Thursday but was held out of practice on Friday, possibly signaling a flare-up. However, coach Matt LaFleur downplayed Watson’s absence, telling reporters that the Packers “felt like (Watson) had two good days of practice and wanted to give him today off.”

Watson spoke about missing practice on Friday. “Obviously, it’s still kind of a tough thing to come back from, and you’ve kinda got to try to tempo things up and build it up.

“Obviously, I went kind of hard the first two days. So just to kind of give me the best chance to go on Sunday was to rest a little bit today and make sure that I do everything to take care of my body and put myself in the best position to hopefully play on Sunday.”

Watson’s status should be a game-time decision. He is the WR68 in PFN’s Consensus Rankings this week.

Jayden Reed, WR, Green Bay Packers

Heading into the 2024 season, Reed might be the Packers WR that fantasy managers want to target. He is the WR26 on the season and has had a solid improvement as the season has progressed — he had three top-20 finishes in the last three games he played.

However, during the Week 17 game against Minnesota, Reed went down with a chest issue after scoring two TDs.

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He did not return to the game. This week, he was limited in practice on Wednesday and Thursday but is officially listed as questionable heading into the important matchup.

With several Packers WRs battling injuries, I forsee Reed being on the field, as the chest/rib injury might boil down to a pain management issue. Fantasy managers need to monitor the inactives list released 90 minutes before kickoff. Reed comes in at WR17 in PFN’s Consensus Rankings.

Dontayvion Wicks, WR, Green Bay Packers

Three is the magic number, and Wicks is the final WR dealing with injury. Wicks missed Week 16 due to a chest issue, but he managed to log a full practice on Thursday, which bodes well for his availability in Week 18.

With the abundance of Packers WRs dealing with injuries, the question is not who cannot play but who can play. Fantasy managers need to know their pivot options, and there are definitely a couple if, for some reason, one or all of these three Green Bay WRs are sidelined.

Romeo Doubs has been a solid start in relief of the walking wounded, even though he was held to 28 receiving yards in the game against the Vikings. He is healthy and would be expected to step up if needed. In his last 11 games, Doubs has averaged 5.2 targets and 10.2 fantasy points. He finished with 18.6 fantasy points when the Packers played the Bears in Week 1.

TE Tucker Kraft is another player who would see an uptick in targets. Kraft has never finished lower than TE23 in the last seven games and has had six targets in four out of the last five games.

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