Optimal Plays:
QB: Purdy, Smith
RB: K. Williams, Hubbard, Mason
WR: Collins, D. Johnson, Reed, Whittington
TE: Kittle, Kraft
D/ST: Broncos
GPP Plays:
QB: Daniels, Love, Richardson, Watson
RB: Henry, Williams
WR: Chase, Cooper, W.Robinson, Sutton, Downs, Wicks
TE: Ertz, Andrews, All
D/ST: Browns
Chalk Fades: Fields (FD night game), Akers, Bowers
It’s Week 5 of the NFL season, and it’s our first week with teams on their bye week. That has our main slate on the smaller side with 10 games, but there are still plenty of situations to like. There are several QBs in interesting spots, which also means plenty of receivers, while running back looks like the place most affected by the small slate and leaving fewer great spots. Let’s get down to business!
Two QBs stand out as optimal for us this week, and they are both surprisingly pocket passers, the first of which is Brock Purdy. Without CMC in the lineup this year, the Niners have been throwing the ball more downfield. Purdy leads all starting QBs in yards per attempt at an elite 9.3 yards. He will be taking on a swiss cheese Arizona defense, which ranks 28th in PFF’s pass coverage grades and is 30th in creating pressure. This is an excellent spot for Purdy. Our second optimal QB is Geno Smith. The Seahawks are letting Geno pass at will, leading the league in PROE at 6.8%. This has led to Geno leading the league with 1,182 pass yards and he is completing his passes at an amazing 72%. While no one will confuse Smith as a running quarterback, he does have 73 rush yards this year while averaging 4 carries a game, which is helping to boost his floor and ceiling by a couple of points each game too. The last guy we want to call out here is Justin Fields, who is only on the FD slate playing in the SNF game. While he does grade out strongly in his point-per-dollar upside, we again want to fade him. The Colts’ defense is a sieve and allowed him 9.2 yards per attempt in their game a week ago. That led to him reaching over 300 yards passing for just the second time in his career and he also was able to rush into the endzone twice on 10 carries. Without this boost from a terrible defense and running hot on touchdown carries, he would not have found the ceiling game he did. With the ownership he projects to have, we want to bet on him not justifying it and would rather play Purdy or Smith.
While it is unusual for running quarterbacks to not be optimal, some of our favorites are starting to creep up in price. However, they still carry an enormous ceiling we want access to in GPPs. We still love Jayden Daniels, who has led the Commanders to scores on 20 of their last 22 drives. He will step up in competition, taking on a very good Browns defense. However, with double-digit carries in 75% of his games, he can break through and post a great fantasy score. We’ll have to keep an eye on his status, but Anthony Richardson is dropping in price and isn’t attracting much projected ownership. He is tied for 5th in the league with 8.5 yards per pass attempt and is averaging 6.7 yards per rush, taking on a very sorry Jacksonville defense. We know the floor is very low, but all it takes is one or two long completions for him to post a great score. The Rams defense is in shambles and Jordan Love had a great 2nd half last week after looking rusty in his return. Taking on the defense that ranks 31st in DVOA this season makes it a great spot for him to keep the ball rolling. It feels a little gross with how inconsistent the Browns have been, but Deshaun Watson is taking on the Commanders defense that has been terrible against opposing WR1s and he does get to throw to Amari Cooper. While they haven’t always been on the same page, they continually are getting the ball downfield with Cooper’s targets and the Browns have been 4th in PROE the first month of the season. This could be a great spot for Watson to get right facing such a soft secondary.
There is not a lot to love at the running back position this week given the teams on byes and playing island games, but there are two optimal guys we have a lot of interest in. Kyren Williams is almost all that is left healthy for the Rams as far as trusted weapons. He continues to be one of the rare bell cow backs in the league. He’ll be facing a Packers defense that has given up 130 or more total yards to three different backs this year (Barkley, Taylor, and Aaron Jones) and should have plenty of opportunity to add his name to the list of guys who’ve shredded this defense. The other is Chuba Hubbard who has found new life since the quarterback change in Carolina. He has seen 26 and 22 opportunities in those games, and while the Bears are a step up in competition from those games, they still give up 4.5 yards a carry to opposing backs, which ranks below average at 19th in the league. Both of these guys will be fairly popular given early ownership projections, but look to be less popular than Jordan Mason. We wanted to call out Mason just given the projected popularity for him, and while he would be in contention for cash games so we wouldn’t call it a full fade, we are less bullish on him in GPPs given where his price has landed. If his touchdown rate regresses to the mean, the floor for him could easily be 8 to 10 points, which is back-breaking with how expensive he has become.
If you are going to pay up on this slate at running back, we very much prefer Derrick Henry in that spot over Mason. Not only does he look to come in at much lower ownership, but in games that the Ravens control, he has shown an immense ceiling with at least 151 rush yards and 2 touchdowns. The Bengals haven’t shown the ability to slow running backs down, so the matchup is great for him to be involved throughout the game once again. Javonte Williams being on your roster might induce vomiting. We get it. However, he’s taking on the terrible defense of the Vegas Raiders, who give up 5.1 yards a rush, which is good for 30th in the NFL. Last week he had his highest touch count with 19 opportunities and looks like he could be settling into this offense with Nix under center. In a week there isn’t much to love, saving some salary on someone like Williams so you can get to a lot of the good wide receiver plays can make a difference, rather than spending up for the same kind of output. One guy we’re expecting to be popular with Mixon confirmed out once again is Cam Akers, but we just can’t get there with him. His price is still suppressed, but he’s still going down almost immediately after getting hit and can’t make guys miss, which is just a terrible combination for fantasy. He also lost all pass game work to Dare Ogunbowale, making him even less attractive. If he attracts the ownership we expect, we want to fade him, and even at lower ownership, there isn’t much of case to be made for him.
Wide receiver shapes up almost the opposite of running back, with a lot of great options to choose from. On the optimal side, Nico Collins is quickly becoming a top receiver in the NFL. He has an elite target share of 29.25% and a great aDOT of 11.3 yards to go with it, which has helped make him pile up a ton of points on his way to being the number 2 wide receiver overall in fantasy. Having said that, while we don’t mind him as a cash game option, there are many reasons not to use him in GPPs this week. First, Tank Dell looks like he’ll be ready to play this week, and that should lower the target share he sees compared to last week when he went off. Buffalo has also been pretty good against the pass, currently 6th in pass yards allowed at 165.25 per game. With a pretty healthy ownership projection in GPPs, he can easily be passed over with a plethora of good options at our disposal. There are a couple of guys who we have a small sample of their current situations, but we feel confident in saying they are still underpriced for their roles. The first is Diontae Johnson of the Carolina Panthers. Thielen’s absence last week not only created more opportunity but also led to Johnson being moved across the formation and not being used just on the outside. That allowed him to run a full route tree, leading to an aDOT of 12.2 yards. He also left a lot on the bone with some missed deep routes once again. He’s clearly the WR1 in this offense and Diontae once again can be fired up in all formats. The other guy fitting this mold is Jayden Reed in Green Bay. It’s a small sample, but his role is very different with Love playing, as he has 195 air yards in those two games and…-9 with Willis playing (the negative is not a typo!). He has over 30 DK points in those games with Love and Watson is going to miss this week, meaning more opportunities will be available. Add in the fact he’s going against the Rams’ defense, and this is in a great spot. Speaking of the Rams, they abandoned their one-game experiment of playing a lot of 12 personnel, and Jordan Whittington was the direct benefactor. He went from playing 38% of the snaps to 96% of the snaps with that change, and it helped him earn 8 targets. While he isn’t running deep routes, giving him a meager 6.6 aDOT on those 8 targets, he is priced cheap enough to allow that role to provide some fantasy value, while making room for more higher-priced guys for our lineup.
Some of the guys we like for GPPs are also connected to our preferred QB options. In Green Bay, Dontayvion Wicks is in a very nice spot. When he has played, he’s been targeted in 26.5% of his routes. In comparison, Watson was targeted in 13% and Wicks had 13 targets last week once Watson went down. He also had 33% of the red zone targets for the Packers a week ago. This profiles as someone who will have a massive ceiling for where he is priced, and while he’s attracting some ownership in projections, it isn’t as high as it should be. When discussing reasons to like Watson, Amari Cooper was a big one. We know he has been inconsistent, but the usage is there as he’s averaging 15.2 expected fantasy points per game. We also know that when Cooper week happens, he puts up a huge score, and that opportunity is still there even with a scary floor. Another guy whose usage hasn’t added up to much this season is Courtland Sutton. He still is earning a lot of targets, with 9 or more in 75% of his games. He’s yet to put up a monster but he’s still top five in expected fantasy points among receivers at 17.9 a game. There is no better time than the present as the Raiders present a good opportunity to realize that potential. Ja’Marr Chase is a guy who can make huge plays and is taking on a Ravens defense that is a clear pass funnel. They cannot be run on and are in the bottom 10 of the league in yards per pass attempt. He isn’t attracting a ton of ownership in projections, being the highest-priced receiver on DK and 2nd highest on FD, and this shapes up as a nice spot to pay up to be contrarian. With Malik Nabers being confirmed out, Wan’dale Robinson steps up as the WR1 in that offense. He’s not going to take over Nabers’ routes and start getting way downfield, but he’s proven to be very effective in the short to middle parts of the field and could rack up a ton of targets against a banged-up Seattle defense that could have trouble getting consistent pressure on Jones. Josh Downs appeared to have shaken the rust off last week, increasing his snap rate to 62% and saw a very robust 9 targets when he was on the field. Whether it is Richardson or Flacco taking the snaps, he has shown he’s got the ability to be effective with both, and Jacksonville has been horrendous against the pass.
Say it with us everyone: Tight end is a wasteland. It still has yet to be very good this season, and this week isn’t much different. With that said, some places are better to go than others. Tucker Kraft was 3rd on the team in target share a week ago at 16.6%, and even more importantly was in the field for 86% of snaps. His aDOT was also a solid 6.2 yards on those targets which is good for a tight end. Our favorite target for the Niners is George Kittle. With Purdy throwing the ball downfield more, he’s been a beneficiary of that with a 7.2-yard aDOT and also has a very nice 80% route participation, meaning he’s getting out there on a lot of pass plays. One guy who continues to hang around the top five in projected ownership for tight ends is Brock Bowers, and we aren’t exactly sure why. If we take out his one big game, he is only averaging 7.6 expected fantasy points on the season. He is also going in the wrong direction with target share, having a measly 11.1% over the last two games. It is a small sample size, but it does illustrate that he’s still a rookie and on an offense that is struggling, we just can’t justify playing him as the third most expensive tight end on the slate.
If we’re going to take on someone with a very low floor, we’d prefer someone like Erick All, who is dirt cheap. His snap rate is trending up, as he saw 60% of the snaps in Week 4 to only 33% for Gesicki, and he was able to turn that into a 4-28-0 receiving line. With the Bengals already 3rd in the league in PROE and now facing the Ravens’ defense, he is a spot that we like taking a shot on for near minimum salary. Another cheap option, albeit not sexy, is Zach Ertz. He is second on the Commanders in target share at 15.2% and is on the field for 67% of the snaps. The Commanders have been able to string first downs together and stay on the field, which also makes this a decent spot. We all are wringing our hands over Mark Andrews trying to figure out what is going on there. While there are some concerning numbers, the Ravens have only attempted 33 passes over their last two games where they were firmly in control, and when he is getting targeted, he has an elite tight end aDOT of 10.6 yards. We know the floor is 0 this year as he’s shown multiple times already, but he continues to drop in price, and this is a game where Baltimore might have to open up more as the Bengals are equipped to keep pace. This can be a nice buy-low spot if you are ok with what we’re calling his basement since it’s lower than a floor.
Defense doesn’t have anything really clear we want to attack as of writing, outside of one spot. The Broncos D/ST has been nothing short of amazing this year, and while they’re priced more appropriately on FD than DK, they are still overall too cheap. They are blitzing at the highest rate through the first month of the season, and have 12 sacks over their last two games. While we don’t usually count on our defense for points allowed and consider it more of a bonus, they have given up 13 or fewer points in three of their four games, including Tampa Bay who has broken 30 points three times this season (including week 5 Thursday night). They are in the clear best spot of the slate and are far and away the optimal choice. While there’s not much else we want to call out here, the next interesting would be the Browns D/ST. Daniels is still a rookie, and this defense is 2nd in pressure rate. This could be the week he ends up taking a couple of sacks he probably shouldn’t, or ends up with some ill-advised throws. This is a pretty good spot to consider playing your defense against your quarterback, as Daniels could still put up a very good fantasy score while also throwing a pick-six or at least multiple picks. In a week bare of clear defenses to play, it’s as good as any time to consider this strategy. Best of luck to everyone this week!