How to handle Cam Newton injury in Week 3 fantasy football

Editor’s update 9:20 a.m.: Newton is showing progress and the Panthers are hoping he can practice this coming Wednesday for the team’s Week matchup at the Houston Texans, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Kyle Allen will start in Week 3 against the Arizona Cardinals, but Rapoport reported that Newton is day-to-day, not week-to-week.

The Carolina Panthers will not have quarterback Cam Newton when they face the Arizona Cardinals this week. He’s on the shelf with a foot injury, the same one that plagued him during the preseason.

Newton’s season so far has been nothing to see. He failed to complete even 50 percent of his passing attempts last week against the Buccaneers, and he still hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass or run one in on his own. If you watched that game last week, you didn’t exactly need to be a doctor to know that something was off.

Once the most valuable quarterback in fantasy, he could have really used a game against the Cardinals to justify owners who stuck with him through those first two stinkers.

The question now is when will Newton be back. Officially, the Panthers are calling it a day-to-day situation, meaning that he could feasibly return for next week’s road trip to Houston. But this is an old injury that’s bubbled up again, which is a good sign that it’s going to need more time, if not other corrective measures.

Fantasy impact: Kyle Allen gets the start with Newton out of the lineup. A lot of people turn up their nose at a backup quarterback, understandably, but given how poorly Newton was playing, Allen really can’t be that much worse. He’s got a good group of skill position players to work with, none of whom should be any worse for wear as fantasy plays themselves. Allen might even be a sneaky option in DFS, especially with a DraftKings salary of just $4,000 this week.