Odell Beckham Jr. Injury Update Clouds Week 1 Fantasy Outlook

Updated (Sunday, 9/12, 3:00 p.m. EST): Odell Beckham Jr. has been ruled out of this one as he works his way back from a knee injury. Jarvis Landry has some WR2 appeal in his absence, while Donovan Peoples-Jones could be an interesting WR3 or FLEX.

Browns’ WR Odell Beckham Jr. inactive.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 12, 2021

The Cleveland Browns have been managing Odell Beckham Jr.'s knee injury all offseason. His status for Week 1 is still up in the air, but it does look like he's trending toward playing. Still, even if he does play, a matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs could make him someone to avoid on Sunday.

Odell Beckham Jr. Fantasy Outlook

#Browns WR Odell Beckham Jr., returning from a torn ACL, is slated to play today assuming there are no issues in the morning, source said. The plan is for him to go. Meanwhile, DE Jadeveon Clowney (illness) and C J.C. Tretter (knee) should be good.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 12, 2021

For one, we still don't know if he's going to play. Even if he does, we don't know if he'll be looking at a full complement of snaps. That makes him hard to trust against a Chiefs' defense that is really effective against wide receivers.

Last year, Kansas City surrendered the second-fewest PPR points to opposing wide receivers (31.12). Only the Jalen Ramsey-led Los Angeles Rams fared better against WRs.

This defense also shut down Cleveland's passing attack last season, holding Baker Mayfield to 204 yards with 1 touchdown and one interception. Though to be fair, Beckham was not active for that game.

At this point, it might be best to take a wait-and-see approach with Beckham in Week 1 if you have a deep enough bench. Beckham checks in at WR23 in our Week 1 rankings.

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Max Staley is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Max Staley also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mstaley1212. 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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