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James Conner Injury Update Creates Messy Fantasy Outlook Playing Alongside Jaylen Samuels and Benny Snell

Jason Schandl
James Conner before suffering his shoulder injury in Week 8 against the Dolphins.
James Conner before suffering his shoulder injury in Week 8 against the Dolphins. / Joe Sargent/Getty Images
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The Pittsburgh Steelers backfield has dealt with all kinds of injuries this season, but it looks like they're finally healing up ahead of a Week 15 matchup with the Buffalo Bills.

This may be good for the Steelers as the try to hold onto playoff hopes, but it's not good for fantasy football owners, as James Conner, Jaylen Samuels and Benny Snell figure to form a three-man committee.

Conner and Samuels cannibalized each others' fantasy football value when playing together, even before Benny Snell broke out. Through Week 5, before the injuries kicked in, Conner was averaging 15.4 touches and Samuels was averaging 6.2 touches per game. Snell only handled six carries in those contests, though.

Recent weeks have seen Snell pass Samuels on the depth chart, out-touching Samuels 55 to 23 with Conner on the shelf over the last three games.

With Snell and Conner fighting for work in the run game and Samuels and Conner fighting for the receiving works, there seem to just be too many mouths to feed. That's especially true this week against the Bills, who have the sixth-best defense in the league in Football Outsiders' DVOA metrics.

In this messy situation our Week 15 PPR fantasy football rankings barely have Conner as an RB2 option, sitting 24th at the position. Samuels and Snell come in unranked.

If you have any other options, the best way to play the Steelers' backfield on Sunday is to avoid it entirely.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.

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