Sunday Morning Huddle: Week Five
Let’s face it, there’s an enormous amount of information out there on Sunday mornings. We’re not going to waste your time by repeating the news and notes about who’s in or out this week, since that’s really not what you visit us for. We’re also not going to do another article on starts or sits this week – we already have the personalized lineup advice for you on the premium content. Again, there are 100 places you can go for that, so no reason to repeat ourselves or others.
The Sunday Morning Huddle goes through each game and states what we’re looking to see from a dynasty perspective. One player will be picked from each team who has dynasty value tied to the game – players at a pivot point where their value could increase or decrease based on opportunity and performance.
Early Games
Arizona at Philadelphia
Which Larry Fitzgerald do we see this week? He’s great sometimes and disappears at others. This is likely a product of the offense around him, but it still makes it hard for you to plug and play him, and at his age and value in dynasty you want a plug and play option. Consistency, please, Mr. Fitzgerald – this is the place for it against a bad secondary.
Antonio Brown vs Larry Fits vs Dez WOPR pic.twitter.com/QFSbuXrmS2
— Josh Hermsmeyer (@friscojosh) October 6, 2017
Alshon Jeffery is having a nice fantasy season, but he’s doing it on a 50% catch rate. That lack of reliability will hurt him in the long run if he can’t step it up. Clearly he’s going to get his targets this year, but rookie Mack Hollins looms down the road. Let’s see if he can step it up and be a little more reliable.
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Buffalo at Cincinnati
Tight end Charles Clay has only had one rough week this year, and that was against an elite defensive matchup in Carolina, who shuts down opposing tight ends. Otherwise, he has been lights out for fantasy production – more reliable than any wide receiver for the team. This week, he’s going up against another tough matchup for tight ends in Cincinnati. I want to see if he can produce in hard matchups to improve his value heading into his cake schedule come playoff time.
Don’t look now, but shockingly Tyler Eifert may not play again this week. In the meantime, Tyler Kroft is starting to show up in the box score. How much time can Eifert miss through his career until he no longer has a starting role waiting for him when his health returns? Kroft could be ascending as a long term asset, I’m interested to see how this plays out.
Carolina at Detroit
If you’ll recall, last week I both touted Devin Funchess and noted that daily fantasy pricing can be a good indicator of shorter term trends in dynasty value that we need to pay attention to for the scope of this weekly article. Well, this week Funchess is priced at $5600 on DraftKings compared to $5900 for Kelvin Benjamin. While Benjamin doesn’t carry the dynasty value he used to, he is still valued more highly than Funchess and I’m not sure it’s deserved. This is a trend I could see continuing.
Theo Riddick hasn’t scored eight or more PPR fantasy points since week one. We’re going into week five. The emergence of a healthy and productive Ameer Abdullah is having a massive negative impact on Riddick’s fantasy output. As a role player that depends on involvement in the passing game, Riddick really needs to be constantly involved in that role or his value will evaporate. Can he get his production this week?
New York Jets at Cleveland
The Browns have been throwing fantasy production at opposing tight ends, and Austin Seferian-Jenkins has caught nine of 10 targets since his return in week three, building rapport with quarterback Josh McCown along the way. This could be the week that ASJ really explodes, and with top tight ends like Greg Olsen and Tyler Eifert unavailable and Rob Gronkowski hurting again, recency bias will creep in and artificially inflate the value of lower tier tight ends producing right now. Keep an eye out for this situation.
In the realm of things that make me scratch my head and go “huh?”, the Jets were projected to have a stout run defense this season but instead are getting carved up like barbecued brisket. Isaiah Crowell hasn’t really gotten it going this year but this matchup looks juicy. A nice week could help him rebound off of some of the value he’s lost so far this season.
San Francisco at Indianapolis
One thing to look for to spot potential swings in value is where there is a gap between expected production and actual production as a predictive tool for projecting a regression towards the mean. Case in point, Aldrick Robinson played 86.9% of the 49ers snaps last week and got 12 targets despite only scoring 8.2 fantasy points. Against a leaky Colts defense, those numbers could easily bump up to 15+ fantasy points and suddenly he’s a starter on most teams.
For the Colts, Donte Moncrief has somehow maintained a steady dynasty value. He was 58th in DLF’s September ADP, despite inconsistency throughout his career. After a particularly rocky start to 2017 without Andrew Luck, I question how long he can keep his value up unless he starts producing. The 49ers aren’t good against opposing wide receivers, so maybe this is the week he does something. I’ll throw some pasta at the wall to see if it sticks.
Jacksonville at Pittsburgh
Lost in the kerfuffle over Kareem Hunt being amazing, Leonard Fournette has been an outstanding NFL running back. He is averaging over four targets per game with three receptions per game, while scoring a touchdown in each game and producing fantasy points against some of the tougher defenses in the league. What more do you want? Fournette is legit, and this game script couldn’t be any worse. I’m putting my money is on his passing chops getting a workout and turning some heads.
In the four weeks since his return from suspension, Martavis Bryant has had one ceiling game like you want to see.from someone with his dynasty value. While we all knew he was going to be a volatile fantasy producer, we are seeing a heck of a lot of his floor so far this year. With another tough matchup against Jacksonville and a hyper positive game script, I think he goes for another floor game and his value starts to suffer.
Los Angeles Chargers at New York Giants
The Giants haven’t made things easy for opposing top wide receivers this year when they shadow them with Janoris Jenkins. Keenan Allen is on pace for 160 targets and over 1300 yards this season. How the Giants view and defend Allen may say more about Allen’s current status in the NFL than his stat line from this game. If they go out of their way to shut him down, it means they fear the repercussions of not doing so – something they obviously didn’t feel as strongly about with Mike Evans. If NFL teams think he is elite, we should too.
In his first game action in the NFL, Wayne Gallman put up some reliable production out of the backfield for a Giants team that desperately needs reliability at the position. This week, coach McAdoo said the team was willing to ride the hot hand and no one has really established themselves as such. If Gallman shows he can be depended on upon a multi-game stretch, he might be getting more shots going forward. That’s a big boon to his dynasty value.
Tennessee at Miami
Despite playing against a murderer’s row of opposing defenses, Rishard Matthews has emerged with a pretty healthy fantasy output and a stellar target share. Looking forward, the majority of the rest of this season should be easier on paper for him. Question marks remain about his role when Corey Davis returns, but the look of this situation is he will remain involved in the offense. I don’t think he is getting enough respect, and this week could start to turn that around.
Jay Ajayi has a high dynasty value but has only had one good game this year. He has also only had several good games dating back to halfway through last year. Those floor and ceiling concepts apply here, he needs to show a ceiling game and soon or his value will drop precipitously. He has had way too many floor games to justify his current valuation.
Late Games
Baltimore at Oakland
The Ravens are a dumpster fire of fantasy production outside of Alex Collins right now. That is a sentence that I never thought I would write, say, or think. I rarely find myself at a loss for words, typically submitting 2500+ word articles. I’ve already wasted too many on the Ravens.
The only thing comparable to the Ravens offense this year has been Amari Cooper’s performance relative to expectations. His owner’s didn’t expect this, and his usage is not predictive of this type of fantasy output. He has been outright bad, and this is getting ugly quick. Quite a few people on fantasy Twitter are starting to bail on him out of fear that this stretch is not short lived. He needs to produce even an average output in order to regain some value.
Seattle at Los Angeles Rams
Eddie Lacy looked like hot garbage in week one against the Packers. Then he ripped the Colts for 4.7 yard per carry last week. Somehow, the Rams are worse against the run than the Colts are. If he puts up a few decent games in a row, his value will rebound, but I wouldn’t advise getting too excited about it in this crowded situation.
Rookie Cooper Kupp has two weeks out of four possible weeks where he has scored 17 or more fantasy points. The other two games were nondescript for him. On pace for 56 receptions and eight touchdowns as a rookie, this has to be exactly what his supporters dreamed of, and it is also exactly what his doubters needed in order to have their minds swayed. In a matchup with tough outside corner play, Kupp may benefit in the middle once again.
Green Bay at Dallas
I generally don’t like to knock a guy for a random injury like Ty Montgomery has to his ribs, but I have openly questioned his ability to take hits and withstand the punishment a running back takes after his recent conversion from receiver. Now he finds himself injured, and I want to see how much grit he has. Can he play through this injury? If not, we could be looking at lower snap counts going forward as the team attempts to keep him healthy. Doubly so if his backups perform adequately. To be clear, this situation could result in TyMont losing value regardless of his ability and output and has everything to do with his projected usage.
Jason Witten came out of the gates white hot in 2017, and then has been nonexistent in terms of fantasy output since then. That’s two great weeks and two awful weeks. The Packers are a tough matchup for tight ends, so the slow trend for him may continue. As I say often in this article, an older NFL player that isn’t producing fantasy points does no favors for his dynasty value. He needs to right the ship to maintain value, or slide precipitously.
Sunday Night
Kansas City at Houston
A big question the past few years has been how many elite fantasy options Alex Smith can support in an offense. The answer is apparently all of the elite fantasy options, as he is not helping to prop up a top tier running back and tight end, and a startable-everywhere wide receiver, all the while being a top quarterback option for fantasy in his own right. If he keeps this up, it’s time we give him his due, especially against a tough defense.
I love paying attention to who young quarterbacks are building rapport with earlier in their careers, especially if their target is also young. Deshaun Watson is providing DeAndre Hopkins with an absurd amount of targets, but Will Fuller exploded in his first game back from injury with six targets for four catches and two touchdowns. I guarantee you that Watson won’t soon forget that Fuller does good things when he gets targets, this is a relationship you want to watch and get ahead of the curve on.
Monday Night
Minnesota at Chicago
This one is obvious, but all eyes will be on Latavius Murray as he has the big shoes of Dalvin Cook to fill in this Vikings offense. Chicago is middle of the road against opposing running backs, so it should be a representative game of what Murray is capable of in this offense. Since he will likely cede work back to Dalvin in 2018, if he proves effective in the short term he could be a good short term asset from a dynasty perspective for competing teams.
What will this offense look like under Mitchell Trubisky? I sure don’t know, but I do know that he is more likely to push the ball down the field than Mike Glennon was. So I’ll write about Deonte Thompson, who caught five of nine targets last week for 44 yards against the Packers. That isn’t terrible, maybe he’ll do more with Trubisky under center.
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- Sunday Morning Huddle: Week 15 - December 17, 2017
- Sunday Morning Huddle: Week 14 - December 10, 2017
- Sunday Morning Huddle: Week 13 - December 3, 2017
