CPT/MVP Plays: Jackson (optimal), Gibbs (GPP), Flowers, Williams (GPP)
FLEX/UTIL: St. Brown, Henry, Goff, Montgomery, LaPorta, Bates, Loop, Bateman, TeSlaa (value), Kolar (GPP Dart)
Week 3 of the NFL rounds out with the game of the week. We have two reigning division winners both vying to stay above .500. The game has a healthy total of 53.5 with the Ravens coming in as 4.5-point favorites. Weather in Baltimore looks perfect with a little wind later in the night.
Baltimore is off to another solid start to the season behind Lamar Jackson, who through two weeks leads all QBs with more than 1 fantasy point per dropback, thanks to 6 TDs on 48 attempts. This is despite playing against two defenses who were in the top half of PFF’s 2024 defensive ratings. Lamar’s running has been a little down in the first two games with only 2 scrambles and 6 designed runs through 2 games compared to an average of 7 designed runs and 3 scrambles a game last year. We don’t expect this to be sticky, it is more so just pointing out that he has an even higher ceiling to hit this year should he run more. We do expect Jackson to run more tonight than he has in the previous two games. He generally has run more in bigger games throughout his career and Detroit has allowed the 7th-highest scramble rate this year despite facing pocket passers Jordan Love and Caleb Williams (who is showing more running tendencies this year). The other reason we are high on Jackson tonight is Detroit has been much tougher against the run than the pass. The Lions have the 8th worst EPA against the pass while sporting the best EPA against the run. Overall, Lamar is our top option on tonight’s slate for captain and flex.
Detroit’s passing attack exploded last week against the Bears after a scary Week 1. Against Chicago, Jared Goff was the QB1 overall with 37 fantasy points thanks to 334 passing yards and five touchdowns. Despite this, the Detroit offense has been generally run-heavy this year with the 4th-lowest PROE at -6.1%. Detroit could lean into this run-first strategy as Baltimore’s pass defense is top-10 in EPA while their rush defense ranks near the bottom of the league. Baltimore’s secondary is definitely beatable though, as shown by Josh Allen’s 394 yards and two scores in Week 1, but we expect Detroit to lean on the run early.
Week 1 was a monster game for Derrick Henry but he quickly came down to earth in Week 2 with just 2.3 fantasy points in a rout of Cleveland. These two weeks showed the real boom-bust nature of Henry. He is a stud against vulnerable run defenses but, because of his lack of participation in the pass game, he can’t really contribute if he isn’t having success on the ground. Queue Detroit, who has the best EPA against the rush through the first two weeks. We have seen Henry have two or three huge runs in a game and completely break the slate, which is still a very real possibility in this game, but the matchup definitely isn’t ideal. Justice Hill has been spelling Henry and playing a bigger role in the pass game. We don’t like his usage enough unless Henry were to go down for some reason.
As alluded to in the Goff write-up, Detroit has been pretty run-heavy this year. With this heavy workload, the tandem of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery have been splitting their time pretty closely to pre-Montgomery injury last year. They have split rush attempts nearly 50/50 but Monty has owned the goalline work with all three goalline carries. Meanwhile, after catching 10 balls in Week 1, Gibbs saw an uptick in his routes in Week 2, while Montgomery was limited to just six routes, his lowest count since Week 6 of 2024. This is probably a theme we will see going forward as Gibbs has proven to be extremely explosive in the pass game. Both options are viable against a Baltimore defense that has struggled against the run through two weeks, allowing the third-most fantasy points to opposing RBs through two weeks.
The Ravens’ pass catching corps finally has an alpha in the room and it appears to be Zay Flowers. Flowers has an incredible 51% of air yards and 43% of targets through two weeks and is currently the WR4 overall. Flowers looks to be taking a big leap in his third year and will have a good chance to continue his hot start to the season against the Lions who allowed fellow young WR1 Rome Odunze to go for 7-128-2 last week. Outside of Flowers, there is not much left in the passing game. De’Andre Hopkins has had a couple highlight plays through two weeks but is running a route on just 26% of dropbacks and has just four targets. Because of this we are fading Hopkins at his price on this slate. Rashod Bateman is the real WR2 for Baltimore and could be worth some consideration as he is at least on the field for 65% of the snaps. His 17% target share and 16% of air yards are a bit lackluster but he has shown slate breaking upside in year’s past. Tylan Wallace and Tez Walker are also playing some for Baltimore but their price tags don’t justify their usage either. Mark Andrews has disappointed fantasy owners through the first couple weeks. After being drafted as a top-five TE, he has just two catches for seven yards through the first two games. He is on the field a ton for the Ravens’ offense, running a route on 78% of dropbacks but simply just hasn’t performed. He has almost had multiple touchdowns and eventually these endzone looks will produce value. His price seems way too low for the ceiling we know he has. He started slowly last season as well, only to finish as the TE3 over the last 10 weeks of the season. He is a GPP option for Ravens’ passing stacks for us tonight. The TE2 filling in the Isaiah Likely role through two weeks has been Charlie Kolar. Kolar has run the 4th-most routes on the team this year but has yet to be targeted. Last season he was targeted on 20% of his routes so he is a good, cheap, under-the-radar candidate for some targets if the Ravens get into a pass heavy gamescript.
The Lions’ WR routes have been pretty concentrated with Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams leading the way. The duo have run a route on nearly every Goff dropback and have combined for 40% of team targets and 68% of team air yards. St. Brown has a healthy edge in target share (26% to 14%) but Williams has him beat in air yards (36% to 32%). Jameson Williams’ calling card is the deep ball which Baltimore allowed a lot of in Week 1 with Josh Allen completing five passes over 20 yards down the field. Because of this, Williams is a solid option in GPPs tonight as only one pass could make him optimal. Williams is also at a weird price point compared to the other studs which could drive his ownership down. St. Brown proved his value in the red zone last week with three touchdowns. He now leads the team with over 50% of the team’s redzone targets. He is a solid option every week due to his high catch percentage and target share. The WR3 position for Detroit has been contentious. Kalif Raymond started the year in the role but has been pushed hard by rookie Isaac TeSlaa. After an impressive catch in Week 1, TeSlaa saw his route participation jump from 7% in Week 1 to 37% in Week 2. In those routes, TeSlaa continued to impress and is now 9th in the league in yards per route run. Raymond still has an edge over TeSlaa in total snaps, mostly due to the trust they have in Raymond in the run game, but the duo ran roughly the same number of routes last week. We anticipate a larger role for TeSlaa this week in the WR3 role, especially if Detroit gets into a pass-heavy gamescript. Sam LaPorta’s usage has been solid this year, running a route on 88% of dropbacks and a 20% target share; however, a lot of these targets have been closer to the line-of-scrimmage than in year’s past. His aDOT through two games is at just 4.8 compared to his aDOT of 7.0 last year. It is a small sample, so we aren’t too concerned quite yet. LaPorta comes in at a nice price point for his volume and is definitely on our radar tonight.
Tyler Loop and Jake Bates are both good options. Loop has been perfect through two weeks and connected on a 52-yarder in Week 1. Bates also has a big leg but missed a 55-yarder last week. Both are very solid options but it is notable that the game is in Baltimore rather than Detroit so both kickers will have to deal with the elements
Both defenses are tough sells. Neither QB is really turnover-prone and the two have only combined for nine sacks through four games. They are priced pretty cheap and should be low-owned, but with the projected total as high as it is, it is a better strategy to take a stab at one of the skill players in GPPs.