5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 4

Cincinnati Bengals' Rushing Offense

Giovani Bernard isn't going to be sneaky this week, either, assuming Joe Mixon sits. But the volume that running backs receive against the Atlanta Falcons' defense is just deranged.

It's hard to know what exactly the Falcons did to piss off the football deities, but they have received some unfathomable retribution. This is a team that has allowed the most receptions in the league to opposing running backs each of the past three years as their defensive gameplan is to allow those receptions before having their stout defensive players clean up the mess.

Then, they lost Keanu Neal and Deion Jones -- two of the key cogs in that plan -- to injury in Week 1. That would have been bad enough as it was.

But then the vengeance came.

The Falcons' first two games without Neal and Jones were against the Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints. They happen to employ two of the running backs best able to punish you as pass-catchers in Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara. And it went as expected.

Bernard may not be on the same level as McCaffrey and Kamara, but you know he's going to be a focal point in the Cincinnati Bengals' offense.

With Mixon out last week, Bernard played 87.7% of the team's snaps, netting 12 carries and 9 targets. That's the load of a workhorse back, and you don't find many of those at $6,300 on FanDuel.

The nine targets are what get you excited for Bernard in this matchup. He also had seven the week before that even though Mixon was able to play more than half the snaps prior to and through the injury. The receiving workload for Bernard should be massive.

But we're here to talk about Bernard's matchup from a rushing perspective, and there's plenty to like about that, as well.

Through three weeks, the Falcons rank 31st against the rush, according to numberFire's schedule-adjusted metrics. It's a small sample, but they struggled there last year, as well, and the losses on defense back up the data anecdotally. They also added safety Ricardo Allen to injured reserve this week, increasingly the likelihood that these shortcomings persist the whole year.

The Bengals will be without rookie center Billy Price for the second consecutive game due to a foot injury. But that didn't bother Bernard last week as he added 1.42 expected points as a rusher and had a 50.0% Success Rate on his 12 carries. Although it would be preferable if Price were healthy, it seems like this offense can function without him.

Bernard should be a lock in cash-game rosters due to his role and his price. And even though he'll be popular in tournaments, there are very few reasons to avoid him. Bernard is cheap exposure to a potential shootout, and both his ceiling and floor are solid. That's a solid recipe for being overweight on Bernard this weekend.