Who Should I Start? Ihmir Smith-Marsette or Darius Cooper

Saturday, August 24, 9:36 PM

Carolina Panthers wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette (ankle) left the team's preseason finale against the Buffalo Bills early on Saturday after landing awkwardly completing a catch in the second quarter. The 24-year-old hauled in 2-of-3 targets for 11 yards while contributing 27 yards on two punt returns and a field-flipping 46 yards on his lone kick return. Smith-Marsette was productive before he picked up the injury and is expected to be the team's returner this upcoming season. Barring the severity of his ankle issue, that could still be the case. It's a bit early to tell how impactful the NFL's new kickoff rules will be come the start of the regular season. However, fantasy managers may want to keep the Iowa product on their radar as a sneaky option, depending on how your league values return yards. His Yahoo! ADP is far down enough that he'd be best suited as a prospective waiver-wire add.

Saturday, December 13, 12:41 PM

Philadelphia Eagles rookie wide receiver Darius Cooper logged his second-most snaps in a single game last week, as he was on the field for 21 offensive plays-29.6% of total opportunities. The increased action allowed for Cooper to haul in his third career catch-a 19-yard gain in the fourth quarter. After failing to record any statistics through the first 10 weeks of the season, the undrafted wideout has now found himself in the box score twice in the past three weeks. While it's encouraging for him to step up a bit recently, he's still too far down the depth chart in an offense that's already not very WR-dependent. Cooper shouldn't be in fantasy lineups for his upcoming game against the Raiders, but hopefully some more chances are in store for him on the horizon.