Fantasy Football: 3 Bold Predictions for Week 17

Steelers Wide Receivers Will Feast

Everyone who plays fantasy football knows who Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster are. They're two of the best wide receivers in the game, and they just so happen to play for the same football team. It's remarkable that two receivers with such skill play for the same team, but how common is it for two receivers on the same team to finish in the top seven in their position in fantasy football (PPR formats)?

What makes their success even crazier is the fact that, despite playing in 27 games together over the past 2 seasons, there have only been three games in which both receivers had 100 or more receiving yards, not to mention that they all came in 2018.

There seem to be two big reasons for all of these three games occurring in 2018. First, Le'Veon Bell opted not to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers this season, opening up a significant share of the team's total targets. James Conner has replaced him admirably, but few running backs have the ability to successfully replicate Bell's 106 targets from 2017.

Second, Ben Roethlisberger is throwing a ton of passes this year. He has thrown 630 passes through 15 games in 2018, which is already a career-high for him with one game left to play. He's leading the league in attempts per game, complete passes and total passing yards. When you consider the combination of Roethlisberger's insane passing volume and Bell's absence, it's actually surprising that Brown and Smith-Schuster don't have more games where each finished with over 100 receiving yards.

That should correct course this week against an ailing Cincinnati Bengals defense that has given up the fifth-most receiving yards in the league. This defense is hurt and playing very poorly, allowing a well-above-average catch rate on targets between 5 and 20 yards down the field -- you know, most of the targets -- as well as letting receivers convert those targets into tangible yards at a similar level.

Since the Steelers still have something to play for -- they need to win this week to still be in the running for one of the last two playoff spots available in the AFC -- you can bet that AB and JuJu will be out there trying their hardest to win. In Week 17, both receivers will finish with over 100 receiving yards for the fourth time in their two seasons together.