CPT/MVP Plays: Goff, Stafford, St. Brown, Kupp, Nacua, LaPorta (GPP), Robinson (GPP DK Punt)
Flex/UTIL Plays: K. Williams, Montgomery, Gibbs, J. Williams, Karty, Bates, Raymond, Parkinson (DK Optimal)
We’ve had an excellent Week 1 of NFL, and a great Sunday Night Football game to cap it off! It’s a rematch of a playoff game from a year ago between the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions. This game has the highest total of the day at 53, with the Lions sitting as 4.5 underdogs, so it should be a great battle. Let’s get to it!
From a macro view of this slate, not much has changed for these teams since they faced off in the Wild Card round a year ago. While they both have had to re-tool defensively, particularly the defensive line for the Rams and defensive backfield for the Lions, both these teams are talented and well-coached enough offensively to expect them to dictate how the game goes. Vegas would agree with this given the high total, so our decisions on who to play should not be influenced much by their defensive matchups. Both of these teams also showed fairly concentrated offenses, many of which are higher priced. When looking to differentiate our lineups, this means we would want to emphasize doing that by choosing a captain/MVP that has lower ownership in that spot more than looking at lower-priced players in our flex spots. The high total also means we generally will look at kickers having an increased opportunity for points, and defenses will be slightly less desirable. Pace shouldn’t be a concern, as both of these teams ran over 50 plays in that January playoff game.
On Detroit’s side of the ball, Jared Goff is coming off an incredibly consistent year and was a great real-life QB. He is more suited for cash games, as he only had two games last year with less than 28 pass attempts, but also only had more than 2 TDs in three games. He’s also not going to give you anything in the run game. With that consistency, he’s an optimal choice and an optimal Captain/MVP. While he isn’t completely ruled out as your Captain/MVP for GPPs, one way to differentiate this slate is to use a non-QB there. The number one target is expected to be Amon-Ra St. Brown. There isn’t much to negatively say about the Sun God, except he is the highest-priced player on the slate, but that’s just a slight negative given the floor/ceiling combo he presents. He is worth getting in there for all formats, as he should see plenty of targets in all areas of the field throughout the game. We’ve had a lot of preseason talk around Jameson Williams, who’s yet to put it all together since being drafted. He should be a top-three option for Goff coming into this game, and the talent is there if he can put it all together. He has upside with his price being below LaPorta on both sites, and we can feel comfortable using him.. Kalif Raymond is listed as their 3rd wide receiver, but he is probably behind both LaPorta and Gibbs in the pecking order for targets. He is tough to swallow on FD with some of the guys he’s priced ahead of given that, but on DK he makes a fine punt at $2800. I also mentioned in the offseason Best Ball breakdown that he has some elite advanced metrics, so I am pretty high on him this season. We’ve mentioned him passively, but Sam LaPorta is a strong play, coming off an amazing rookie season. He will be a top-three target for Goff and could be closer to a top-two option. He is priced in a great spot on both sites and has plenty of ceiling, and he is our favorite price-considered player from the Lions pass attack.
Detroit was a running team last year, ending the season at 4th in DVOA and 5th in yards per rush. They brought one of the better two-headed attacks we saw to the table with David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs. Montgomery was usually around the 15-17 carry mark in games he and Gibbs played together, and comes with the higher floor of the two backs. He doesn’t see a lot of pass-game work (31 targets last season) but does make up for that with more of the goal-line work. Gibbs will get more of the passing game work and is a bigger threat for the big play with his speed. He also sees a majority of the backfield targets (85 of them last season) and has shown the ability to have 100 combined rushing/receiving yards with that speed. Gibbs makes a stronger play on DK with the PPR format and makes his higher price easier to work with there, while Montgomery is preferred as the much cheaper option on FD where TDs carry a bit more significance. We wouldn’t play Gibbs in cash games with his price, with Monty being better there due to that pretty significant price difference
When looking at the Rams, they have a very similar QB situation with Matthew Stafford that we see with Goff. He’s also a zero in the run game but can be counted on to see a healthy amount of pass attempts, with some great targets to catch the ball. This makes him also more suited for cash game lineups, where he’s the 2nd optimal Captain/MVP but does have the ceiling to hit that 300-yard/3 TD mark that would make him usable in GPPs. His top two targets should be Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. The price tags they carry will make it difficult to play Kupp and Nacua together, but they both are great targets. They had multiple games last year when both had 9 or more targets, with one of those games being the Wild Card game against Detroit. Detroit had a great run defense last year (3rd in DVOA), and with most of the front 7 being unchanged, we could expect that this year too. This could push a few more pass attempts the Rams way, and make the ceiling for Nacua and Kupp higher. Kupp gets a slight nod for us as he had a completely healthy offseason and is finally starting the year that way for the first time in two years, but realistically there is not much of a difference in these 2. The 3rd wide receiver behind them will be DeMarcus Robinson. He had a five-game stretch near the end of last year with at least 44 yards, and a TD in four of those games (92 yards in the lone game without one). We think he is going to be overlooked because people won’t realize that these were ALL games with both Kupp and Nacua on the field, so he wasn’t soaking up work as the WR2 in those games. He is priced similarly to guys like Tutu Atwell, Brock Wright, and Colby Parkinson on FD, where he is an absolute smash. We wouldn’t consider him as strongly for the MVP spot, since the salary doesn’t change like on DK, but he would be different there if your other guys feel chalky. While he’s still priced above the kickers and defenses on DK, it isn’t by much and he’s still a very strong play there, and can be considered as a differentiator for your Captian spot with the salary savings it gets you. Stafford doesn’t throw much to the tight end spot, and they start the season without Tyler Higbee, but Colby Parkinson will be starting. He’s cheap and should have an almost every-down role so he is showing up in optimal lineups. We can’t discount him falling into the end zone and need to have him on our radar.
We saw something with the Rams rushing game last year we rarely see anymore, as Kyren Williams was the clear bell cow. McVay has shown that he loves to have one guy get the bulk of the work in his career as head coach, and Kyren had some games with 90%+ of the snaps. While we don’t expect that to continue this year with a talented rookie in the fold, he probably will still end up with 70-80% of the snaps this year including some pass game work. With that pass game work, he’s more attractive on DK than on FD since he’s also cheaper than Gibbs, but we’d give a slight nod to Gibbs on FD as he’s the cheaper back there, but he’s playable on both sites. The aforementioned rookie is Blake Corum, who will be the second running back in the pecking order. We aren’t sure what to expect with his role, and that’s a problem given his price tag. He’s more expensive on both sites than all kickers and defenses and is $1k more than DeMarcus Robinson on FD. We would rather play Robinson over him as his role is more secure. While that price will probably hold down Corum’s ownership, he’d need a long run or TD to pay off that salary, so we would suggest looking elsewhere.
While the specialist positions aren’t highly attractive, they always make decent places to look for salary savings. Our favorite of the group would be Joshua Karty, as the Rams attempted 43 FGs last year, compared to only 21 for Detroit, as Detroit tends to be more aggressive on the opponent’s side of the field. Being on the favored team, Jake Bates is also someone we can consider, and both should have 3 or 4 PAT opportunities. If you were to consider a defense, we do prefer Detroit D/ST over the Los Angeles D/ST, but the defenses are spots we’d like to avoid for this slate. Good luck to everyone!