5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 9
Los Angeles Rams' Passing Offense
The other ever-delightful game on the board is this one between the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints. We're going to want to exposure to both sides here, as well. Let's start with the Rams and then dive into the Saints later.
When you look at the Saints' defense, you see a story of two seasons already through seven games. In the first three weeks, they allowed an average of 345.7 passing yards and 3.3 touchdowns per game. Since then, they've allowed 292.0 passing yards and just 1.3 touchdowns per game, a radical shift in this defense's abilities.
Part of this is due to a shift in philosophy for the Saints as they've schemed to try to mask the deficiencies in their defense. The coaching staff deserves plenty of credit for that.
But they've also played some bad competition, and that may be influencing things, as well.
In this four-game sample, the Saints haven't faced a single quarterback ranked better than 18th in Passing NEP per drop back. The only times they've faced quarterbacks ranked higher than that were against Fitzpatrick in Week 1 and Matt Ryan in Week 3. Those two combined for 791 yards, 9 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions.
Jared Goff enters this game ranked fourth in this metric, nestled right between Fitzpatrick (first) and Ryan (fifth). Yes, the Saints' defense is playing better, but we can't say for sure that they're now capable of stopping a quarterback as good as Goff.
Injuries also benefit the Rams this week. They'll be getting a boost themselves with receiver Cooper Kupp likely to return to the fold, and the Saints are trending in the opposite direction.
#Saints rookie pass-rusher Marcus Davenport is expected to miss about a month with a toe injury, I’m told. After that, they’ll judge how it has responded. He’s in a boot now. Bad timing, as the first-rounder was really coming on.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 31, 2018
When Marcus Davenport has been on the field this year, opposing offenses have averaged 7.11 yards per pass attempt, according to The Quant Edge's injury tool. Without Davenport, that number has jumped to 10.46 yards per attempt. This is partly because Davenport was on the field more in obvious pass situations, allowing the defense to be prepared for the pass, but this is still a big blow for their defense.
Given that this game will also be indoors, we should be inclined to believe that the Rams will be able to move the ball against the Saints' defense. That bodes well for Goff.
The other thing working in Goff's favor is that this projects to be a close game with the Rams favored by a point. In 5 games decided by fewer than 15 points this year, Goff has averaged 23.4 FanDuel points per game. In the other 3, he's at 17.7 FanDuel points per game. The Rams likely aren't going to be icing this one away early, making Goff a tremendous option for tournaments at $8,400.
Now with Kupp likely back in the fold, we have to reevaluate how we want to attack the pass-catchers on the team. As such, let's go back to the first four games of the year before Kupp and Brandin Cooks left early due to concussions against the Seattle Seahawks. Here's what the target distribution looked like in that time.
| First 4 Games | FanDuel Price | Targets | Deep Targets | Red-Zone Targets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Todd Gurley | $11,200 | 14.9% | 0.0% | 20.0% |
| Robert Woods | $7,600 | 25.4% | 45.8% | 16.7% |
| Brandin Cooks | $7,500 | 24.6% | 25.0% | 23.3% |
| Cooper Kupp | $6,800 | 23.9% | 16.7% | 33.3% |
In the four games with Kupp banged up or out, Todd Gurley's target market share was 19.0%, so Kupp's return does count as being a downgrade for Gurley. But using Gurley and pairing him with Goff likely gets you access to every touchdown the Rams score, and that's easily enough to keep him as being a solid play despite the frightening price tag.
Kupp was getting comparable targets to Cooks and Robert Woods, and he was -- as usual -- mopping up in the red zone. He also has the best matchup of the three receivers in the slot. As long as everything checks out from a health perspective, Kupp likely deserves to be our top choice at receiver on this team.
If you're scared off by Kupp as he returns from an injury, then it does seem like Woods holds a slight edge over Cooks.
Woods had both more raw targets and more deep targets than Cooks to open the season. Cooks still managed to get at least 87 yards in every game (and 159 in Week 2), so you certainly can't just write him off. But Woods has shown plenty of yardage upside this year, as well, topping the 100-yard mark in 3 separate games, so you're not losing a ton on the ceiling side by going with Woods.
Truly, though, this sets up as being a game where -- if you're doing multiple tournament lineups -- you just get exposure to everybody who's projected to play snaps because all these guys have the upside we so desperately need.
