CPT/MVP Plays: McCarthy (optimal), Jefferson, Penix
FLEX/UTIL: B. Robinson, London, Mooney, Mason, Hockenson, McCloud, Reichard, Thielen, Romo, Vikings, Falcons, Allgeier
Sunday Night Football will take us up north this evening, as the Atlanta Falcons will take on the Minnesota Vikings. We have two contrasting styles in this game, as Atlanta was airing it out in Week 1, while Minnesota, with what is essentially a rookie QB, was more buttoned up. Let’s get to it!
For the CPT/MVP spot, our optimal is the Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy. McCarthy looked more comfortable as the game went along in his first start and showed some chemistry with Jefferson, a great guy to depend on. While he didn’t run a ton, Minnesota didn’t run a lot of offensive plays, and he looked great on his touchdown run. We wouldn’t be surprised if he gets more aggressive on the ground, and that ability makes him our optimal choice. The other QB, Michael Penix Jr., is a better thrower, and he is a great GPP captain. They threw the ball over 40 times in a close game, and we saw he can pull it down and run if needed, although it isn’t his strength. He has a lot of targets that are great in the short to intermediate areas, and that is where Minnesota can be best attacked. While he is expensive, Justin Jefferson could lead this slate in scoring. He only had seven targets in Week 1, but that was a 35% target share, and young QBs tend to lock on and force the ball to their alpha options like Jefferson. If you can afford him, he’s a good choice to lead your tournament lineups.
Looking at the other Falcons, Bijan Robinson showed his versatility as he had a tough time running but went over a hundred yards receiving against the Bucs. Mooney is back, so he probably won’t have quite the same passing role, but he is a dynamic player who got 83% of the snaps last week. He’s also pricey, and we feel like Jefferson is actually a bit safer than Bijan with his matchup against Minnesota, so he’s a better flex option for us. Drake London is clearly Penix’s favorite target, as he had 35.7% of the targets last week, which led to 15 of them in total. He didn’t do a lot with them, and Mooney’s return probably impacts him some, too, but anytime you can be depended on for 9+ targets like we feel he is, you are in consideration. Darnell Mooney is coming back after his injury kept him out of most of camp and Week 1. He was the deep threat a year ago, and Atlanta runs a tight receiver rotation, so we like leaning into the uncertainty here and taking advantage of some relatively low ownership in projections. All it takes is one or two big plays, and he can be a tournament-winning play. Kyle Pitts was solid in Week 1, but we aren’t quite ready to scream “he’s back!” yet. His aDOT was a gross 4.6 yards, and he depended on 38 yards after catch to get to 59 in total. This is a better overall defense, and while he might get some good usage if they need to get the ball out, we’d rather look to guys like London and Ray-Ray McCloud in the shorter areas, who also sport a better aDOT. We think Pitts could be the forgotten one here in the return of Mooney, as McCloud and London were out-targeting him last year when everyone was healthy, and they operate in similar areas of the field when Mooney is in. Tyler Allgeier was pretty bad against the Bucs in overall yardage, but he got 10 touches, with two of them in the red zone and one in goal-to-go. He is the kind of RB2 who can find his way into the end zone and ends up being viable in showdown, and he makes a great punt for that reason.
For the rest of the Vikings, T.J. Hockenson was on the field for 80% of the snaps and was third on the team in routes run. He unfortunately just didn’t get a lot of chances with how few plays they ran. He’s not looking high enough owned in projections for his talent, and they are still without Addison, so we think the usage should catch up with how often he’s out there. The biggest surprise from Minnesota was going right to a 50-50 split between Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones. On FD, just play Mason, as Jones is laughably $2.6k more, which is way too big a discrepancy for someone you’re splitting time with. Mason is still cheaper on DK, but only by $1k, and it looks like they’ll be owned pretty equally. We like Mason more due to that discount, as Jones’ game would’ve been incredibly disappointing without his touchdown against Chicago, and Mason got 3 redzone carries to none for Jones. Adam Thielen has been with the team for a full week now, and he only played 57% of the snaps in Week 1. They said he wouldn’t play as much, having just joined the team, and we think they want him to be out there more since they gave up actual draft capital for him, so we would prefer him over Nailor. We wanted to love Thielen, but they priced him up, probably in anticipation of his role changing. We would prefer McCould over him, but he can still be considered.
For the specialists, we like all four enough to include all of them in our player pool, but how you deploy them is key here. The Vikings D/ST and Falcons D/ST are best in onslaught builds. We think both these teams could fall flat, with the Vikings still having an unknown at QB and Atlanta stepping up in competition with the defense they’ll play. We wouldn’t use these defenses for that reason to just fill a spot, but a 4-2 split for one team, or even better, a 5-1 if you believe one of these teams does fall on its face.
As for the kickers, both Will Reichard and John Parker Romo (don’t play Younghoe Koo here; he is out!) work best as a supportive flex for your captain. If you captain McCarthy, we’d really lean into only playing Reichard, and vice versa for Penix. Generally, we do this anyway, but with the total that’s a bit lower here with the systemic failure possibilities, we want to be extra certain that’s how we are using them.
Good luck tonight, everyone!