David Johnson Placed on IR, Tepel Embracing the Challenge

Cardinals' RB David Johnson is having wrist surgery this week and is expected to miss 2-3 months, source tells ESPN.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 12, 2017

Cardinals are placing RB David Johnson on IR, per source, but with the chance to return this season.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 12, 2017

Anddddddddddd, it happened. Tepel spent an auction draft high $70 on David Johnson, who of course, suffered a dislocated wrist in Week 1.

Johnson has had lingering injuries throughout his career — college and NFL — and this is something I was wary of.

Here’s my post-draft analysis, which we are starting to learn is a lot more accurate than we thought.

Johnson and Le’Veon Bell are clearly the best two players in FF, so Tepel decided to spend for the one guy that was available. It gives him a massive advantage at RB, but the risk is huge as well — as Tepel is now relying heavily on one player. If DJ gets hurt, he’d be in big trouble.

Tepel, who got off to a 1-0 start with a 117 point Week 1 performance, is now scrambling to replace his star player.

In the most Tepel-ist of ways, he’s actually embracing the challenge.

“I’m actually kinda excited in a weird way,” he told me minutes after the news broke via Facebook messenger. “Taking it as a challenge to see what I can do with waiver and trade to still have a good team.”

Fortunately for Tepel, Seattle rookie RB Chris Carson received a team high in snap share on Sunday and Patriots RB Rex Burkhead still has PPR upside on that offense. But with low floor, high ceiling stashes like Robert Turbain, Josh Gordon, and Tyler Lockett taking up three bench slots, look for Tepel to start making plenty of transactions starting…now.