Who Should I Start? Ihmir Smith-Marsette or Samori Toure

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.

Tuesday, August 27, 5:24 PM

The Green Bay Packers released wide receiver Samori Toure on roster cutdown day on Tuesday, according to a league source. Toure just could survive final cuts among a pretty talented group of young pass-catchers in Green Bay. The 26-year-old was drafted in the seventh round in 2022 out of Nebraska and only managed to haul in 13 of his 28 targets for 160 yards and one touchdown with minimal offensive snaps in 22 total games (two starts) over the last two years. He had eight receptions for 78 scoreless yards in 11 regular-season games in 2023. The six wideouts that the Packers ended up keeping on their 53-man roster are Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Malik Heath and Bo Melton. If Toure doesn't get re-signed to the Packers' practice squad, he'll be looking for work elsewhere as a free agent.