Rico Dowdle: listed questionable for Sunday with knee injury
Oct 23
1 min read
THE FACT. The Steelers listed running back Rico Dowdle as questionable for Sunday's game against the Saints in Paris because of a knee injury, per NBC Sports' Josh Alper. Dowdle practiced on a limited basis Thursday, according to NFL.com, and Pittsburgh had already ruled out receiver Ben Skowronek and cornerback Brandin Echols before the trip.
THE VERDICT. Redraft: treat Dowdle as a game-time call and get a replacement warm. A questionable knee tag for a game played overseas means thin information before lineups lock, and that is how managers get burned. DFS: fade him in cash games. If he is active, assume the knee caps the ceiling rather than the floor.
Three limited practices in a row isn't a mystery to me, it's maintenance. Nobody flies a back to France to make him a decoy, so I'd pencil him into the flex instead of scrambling for cover. The matchup is the whole argument: New Orleans has allowed a league-high 12 touchdowns to running backs and roughly 701 rushing yards to the position. And Dowdle ran 5.7 a carry to Warren's 3.6 last week while out-touching him two to one in the red zone. In DFS, a Paris kickoff plus knee chatter means low ownership, and that's leverage, not a fade.