Week 2 Bold Fantasy Calls: Ravens' WRs, Bijan's Role, Waiver Gems

With Zay Flowers out and Atlanta's QB situation murky, role signals from Week 1 point to breakout workloads for Bateman, Andrews, and Bijan Robinson — plus waiver-wire cases for Vele and Gesicki.

Published: September 20, 2026 · Figures as of September 20, 2026

Asked: GIVE US YOUR BOLD FANTASY PREDICTIONS FOR WEEK 2

Week 2 bold calls: role signals over hype, one QB crisis, and a rating that hasn't caught up

Assuming PPR scoring throughout (the format the draft board and ADP data below are built on; the same targets score less in standard, more relative to touches in half-PPR). Two things worth saying up front: Buffalo and Detroit already played their Week 2 game Thursday (Buffalo won), so this covers the 15 games left on the Week 2 slate, all Sunday or Monday. And there are no stored weekly fantasy projections for the 2026 season yet, so these calls come from three things that are populated: Week 1 role signals (snaps, targets), the stored power ratings priced against this week's matchups, and the current injury report — not a projection-vs-actual read.

Rashod Bateman and Mark Andrews inherit a full route tree Zay Flowers can't run. Flowers has been downgraded to out for Sunday's game against New Orleans (hamstring). His Week 1 line (6 targets, 150 yards, 26 PPR points) hides that he did it on just 29% of Baltimore's offensive snaps — he was playing hurt. Bateman ran 78% of the snaps in that same game and Andrews 72%, and between them they saw only 7 targets and scored a combined 8.9 points. That's a role sitting well ahead of the production, and Flowers' absence is the mechanism that closes the gap. Baltimore is favored by 4.56 points at home over New Orleans by the power rating, so game flow shouldn't be the problem — the target share hasn't shown up yet, and this is the week to expect it to.

Bijan Robinson's workload has room to grow, and Atlanta's quarterback situation is the reason. He was already a bell cow in Week 1 — 77% of snaps, 21 carries, and a team-high 10 targets for 31.3 PPR points. Now Michael Penix Jr. (knee) is out for Sunday against Carolina, and Tua Tagovailoa, whom Atlanta added and who spent Week 1 as the emergency arm, is doubtful too (oblique). Atlanta hasn't listed a third quarterback on the injury report, so there's real uncertainty over who throws the ball Sunday — and that typically means more called runs, not fewer, for the one proven weapon in the backfield. It's also the sharpest split on the board this week: the power rating still likes Atlanta by 2.83 at home (a number computed from last season and carried forward at reduced confidence), but the market has swung the other way — DraftKings prices Carolina as the favorite, a gap of about 18.5 percentage points in win probability. That gap is exactly what a quarterback situation like this produces, and it's the market, not the rating, that has caught up to it.

Devaughn Vele's role is realer than his roster rate. He played 91% of New Orleans' offensive snaps in Week 1 and drew 9 targets (7 catches, 69 yards) — yet he's rostered in only about half of leagues. That's a starter's workload sitting on the wire. New Orleans travels to Baltimore as more than a four-point underdog by the rating, which is a tougher matchup than his Week 1 spot, but the volume itself is the case, not the schedule.

Mike Gesicki is a streamable name at tight end, with a real caveat. His 18.8 points came on 7 targets but only 33% of Cincinnati's snaps — a niche, likely red-zone-and-obvious-passing role rather than a full-time job, and that kind of role is more volatile week to week than Bateman's or Vele's. He's still only about 16% rostered. Joe Burrow is listed questionable (back) for Sunday's game at Houston but was cleared by his own coach to play; if he's on the field, Gesicki's specific role held up once already this season.

One more should be flagged, but with a full caveat: Jalen Coker put up 33.8 points for Carolina in Week 1 on an 84% snap share and 9 targets — a real breakout by role, not a fluke target or two. He's questionable for Sunday at Atlanta (ankle, limited in practice), so the same volume case applies only if he's active; check his final designation before counting on it.

The gap between the rating and the market is itself worth showing, because it's the clearest read on where the rating (last season's strength, carried forward at just 0.5 confidence) hasn't caught up with news the market has already priced:

Kansas City and San Francisco are the mirror image of the Atlanta case: the rating (carried from last season) is far more conservative than the market, which has already seen both defenses look dominant in Week 1 — San Francisco allowed 7 points, Kansas City allowed 10. That's evidence the market is leaning on real, current form the rating hasn't absorbed yet, and it argues for treating both games as plausible blowouts for stacking the favorite's skill players (Kittle, Christian McCaffrey types on San Francisco; Kansas City's pass catchers) rather than as the coin flips the rating alone would suggest.

Confidence: medium. Every role claim here rests on one game of data, and the power ratings behind the matchup context are last season's reads carried forward at reduced confidence (0.5), not yet updated for 2026 personnel — that's exactly why the market has moved further than the rating in the Atlanta and defensive-anomaly cases above. Watch the Friday-to-Sunday injury designations for Coker and for Cincinnati's offensive line before locking in the CAR or CIN calls.