Fantasy Football Week 9 Start or Sit: Andrew Hawkins

By Cody Williams @TheSizzle20 on October 31, 2014

Andrew Hawkins pretty clearly established himself as the number one receiver in the Cleveland Browns offense early on in the season. As people, Fantasy Football owners in particular, were starting to widely catch on, though, Hawkins had a lull that started with his early bye in week four.

After the bye, Hawkins put up only three receptions for 26 yards. He followed that up by not getting even a target in week six as the Browns elected to run the ball an obscene amount. That obviously made people who were starting to believe in Hawkins begin to sour on that idea.

Hawkins has picked it up substantially over the past two weeks, though. He’s caught 12 of his 18 combined targets over the past two weeks for 200 total yards and finally got into the endzone for the first time this season in the Browns’ week eight win. All of this up-and-down has to be leaving fantasy owners thinking what they should do with him this week, though.

The primary factor in answering that lies not in his usage or the Browns offense, but rather in the fact that Cleveland is up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week nine.

While the Bucs haven’t been good on the defensive side of the ball in any capacity, they’ve been absolutely torched in the passing game this year. The Bucs have allowed 29.4 points per game in fantasy to opposing wide receivers, letting wideouts find the endzone 12 times so far this season.

There is a chance that Cleveland once again decides to go heavy on the run in this game, but they’ll be able to have success when they do throw the ball. Considering their receiving core, Hawkins is going to be getting the bulk of the work. With how Tampa Bay has performed in trying to stop receivers, it’s going to be hard to not start Hawkins this week.

Cody Williamsis a Senior Writer with Rant Sports. Follow Cody on Twitter @TheSizzle20, add him on Google and like his Facebook page.