In Washington's Week 2 loss to Dallas, Terry McLaurin finished as the WR51 with 7.0 points. Stefon Diggs, in the same game, with the same quarterbacks, finished as the WR11 with 21.7. That is a 40-spot gap inside one offense, and it is the second straight week the Washington passing game has run through someone other than McLaurin.
The name still carries ranking weight. McLaurin has been a fixture in the consensus top 30 for years and remains widely started on reputation. But reputation is not target share, and the target share has moved. Diggs is the one being schemed open, and the tape from Week 2 is not ambiguous about it.
What makes this worse rather than better is the quarterback. Jayden Daniels dislocated his elbow against the Cowboys and is expected to be placed on injured reserve. Marcus Mariota finished as the QB26 in relief. Washington now hosts Seattle as a 6.5-point underdog, which is a script that produces volume but not efficiency, and the volume is going to Diggs first.
The counter-argument deserves a hearing. McLaurin is a better athlete than his last two weeks suggest, and a backup quarterback under pressure often looks for the receiver he trusts most, which historically has been McLaurin. Down two scores in the fourth quarter he could get eight targets and salvage the day. Garbage time is real and it counts in fantasy.
We are still sitting him. A Sit on our sheet is not a claim that a player is bad — it is a claim that he finishes outside the top 30 receivers, and that there is a better option on a normal bench. Both of those look true this week. We also have Seattle's defense as one of three Must Start units, which is the same bet stated from the other side.