5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 16
Seattle Seahawks' Passing Offense
Last week, there were three quarterbacks who carried at least 11.8% ownership in FanDuel's Sunday Million. One was Ben Roethlisberger, who is not on the main slate this week. Another was Cam Newton, who dusted Aaron Rodgers' comeback tour before it truly got under way.
The third was Russell Wilson. His Seattle Seahawks got punched square in the jaw by a divisional rival, and Wilson checked in with just 11.58 points on FanDuel. All those rosters that put faith in him? They be toast.
Both Wilson and Newton are back on the main slate for Week 16. And, based on what happened last week, you can guess which one is going to be near the top of the ownership charts again. And, frankly, Newton should be as his Carolina Panthers will face a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that has seemingly abandoned hope on 2017.
Wilson? He's not going to climb so high on that ownership totem pole. Those who were burned will still have the sour taste in their mouths, and those who didn't will see the blood fissuring from his game logs.
But when you dig a bit deeper, it may seem a bit silly that we're gravitating toward Newton when Wilson's scenario is just as tempting.
Wilson's going on the road to face the Dallas Cowboys in one of the slate's biggest games with playoff implications. Both the Seahawks and the Cowboys are clinging to life and can still make the postseason if they win this game. Toss in the return of Ezekiel Elliott, and this puppy's got some juice.
Why, exactly, shouldn't we be looking at Wilson in DFS?
No quarterback has averaged more FanDuel points per game than Wilson this season. He has finished with fewer than 24 points in just three of his past 12 games. Newton has hit that mark four times all season.
You could easily counter that by saying that it doesn't matter in a weekly game. We just want to know their scenarios for Sunday and Sunday alone. But even then, Wilson deserves some love.
The Cowboys' defense has not been a forte in 2017. They're ranked 22nd against the pass overall and 25th if we look from Week 10 on. The Buccaneers team that Newton will face is 26th over that same span.
A good matchup isn't enough to simply erase what happened to Wilson last week, though. That drubbing at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams happened in Seattle, a spot where Wilson traditionally is a better fantasy asset. The Cowboys are also favored by five points, meaning Vegas has seen enough to ding the Seahawks by a significant amount.
While those could easily push us off in cash games, we need to still be on Wilson in tournaments. He simply hasn't been put in a position to succeed recently.
The Seahawks' past three games have been against the Rams, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Philadelphia Eagles. Those teams rank third, first, and eighth against the pass, respectively, according to numberFire's metrics. Over his past seven games, Wilson has faced a team outside the top 12 in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play just twice; he has averaged 28.27 fantasy points per game in those two contests. Outside of Week 15, Wilson has been feasting despite having difficult matchups.
Last week, Wilson was facing a divisional opponent for the second time of the year. The matchup was tough, and winds were blowing at 15 miles per hour. When you go from that to a cozy matchup beneath a retractable roof, it's safe to say that your situation has changed just a wee bit.
All of this lines up to say that Wilson is a player we should covet even though he is the most expensive quarterback on the board at $9,000. It'll certainly cost you, but for a player with his upside -- likely at low ownership -- it's truly hard to say no.
What may be even harder, though, is deciding with which pass catcher you'll want to pair him. You could easily roll out Wilson by himself due to his abilities as a rusher, and with the way they spread the ball around, that may be the most worthwhile strategy.
Still, it's worth at least taking a look at what each pass catcher brings to see whether or not we can get excited about any of them. Here's the target distribution profile of each of the team's top four pass catchers over the past five games. A "deep" target is any target at least 16 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
| Past 5 Games | Overall Targets | Deep Targets | Red-Zone Targets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Richardson | 21.2% | 30.0% | 11.8% |
| Doug Baldwin | 16.7% | 30.0% | 5.9% |
| Jimmy Graham | 16.7% | 15.0% | 47.1% |
| Tyler Lockett | 10.3% | 7.5% | 17.6% |
Unless you're chasing a touchdown, nobody on this list really jumps off the page. And Jimmy Graham hasn't topped 40 receiving yards in more than a month nor 60 receiving yards since October 1st. At $6,800, that's quite a gamble.
Based on this, Richardson does appear to be the player we want to target most often in our stacks with Wilson. He does have yardage upside, topping 70 in two of his past four games, and his raw targets have been greater than those of Doug Baldwin. Richardson's just $5,800, meaning some of the risk tied to him is baked into his cost. While it's not a bad idea to get sprinkles of each part of this passing offense, Richardson may be the one most worthy of usage both as a standalone asset and a stacking partner with his quarterback.
