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NFL Grind Down: Divisional Round Games

by Ethan Haskell (Ethan) Last Updated 2014-01-11 00:42:44

Welcome to the RotoGrinders Weekly NFL Grind Down Article. There’s no better place to start your research for NFL action in the week ahead than the Grind Down. Each week, we break down every game in an effort to better prepare you when building your daily fantasy lineups.

The analysis should point you in the right direction, but it is still up to you to decipher the information and make your own selections. Use this article to help you gain a better understanding of the matchups for the coming week and build from there. We have everything you could possibly need on our Daily Research console for you to be a successful daily fantasy player!

Note: Any Fantasy Point Average Listed Uses FanDuel Scoring. For more info on FanDuel’s NFL Scoring System, check out the scoring systems section of our FanDuel Review

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New Orleans at Seattle

New Orleans Saints Seattle Seahawks
Saints Seahawks
Sat – 4:25 PM ET CenturyLink Field
Vegas Odds Sprd Total Proj.Pts Vegas Odds Sprd Total Proj.Pts
8 48 20 -8 48 28
Tm Stats PPG Scoring Pass Rush Tm Stats PPG Scoring Pass Rush
Offense 25.9 10 2 25 Offense 26.1 8 26 4
Defense 19.0 4 2 19 Defense 14.4 1 1 7
Opp. Def vs. Pos QB RB WR TE Opp. Def vs. Pos QB RB WR TE
Seattle 1 4 3 13 New Orleans 5 10 6 10
Rec. Targets Total Seas Last3 Last1 Rec. Targets Total Seas Last3 Last1
Colston 110 7.4 9.7 6.0 Tate 98 6.2 6.0 9.0
Moore 54 4.2 5.0 5.0 Baldwin 73 4.6 4.7 1.0
Stills 51 3.2 3.0 1.0 Harvin 1 1.0
Graham 144 8.9 8.3 8.0 Miller 56 4.0 3.7 5.0

New Orleans Saints

The Saints head to Seattle for a rematch of the most brutal game they’ve played so far this season. On MNF of Week 13, New Orleans traveled to SEA and was absolutely throttled by the Seahawks defense. They held the Saints to just 188 total yards for the entire game. Brees threw for just 147, which marked the only time all season he didn’t amass 200 passing yards, and the run game struggled while combining for 45 rushing yards. Coming off the Wild Card win vs. Philadelphia, there’s been a bit of excitement about the Saints breaking their road playoff game curse and praising Brees for his efforts in the victory. But Brees completed just 66.67% of passes for 230 yards and just 1 TD while getting picked off twice against the defense that rated out as the 11th worst in the NFL in terms of pass coverage on ProFootballFocus. Having success against the best pass coverage unit in the NFL, by a long stretch, will be a far bigger challenge. The Seahawks haven’t even allowed an opposing QB to throw for over 200 yards since Carson Palmer did it in Week 7. Matt Schaub was the only QB to break the 300 plateau and in the last three weeks, the Saints have picked off the opposing QB 11 times. They’ve allowed the fewest fantasy points per game to quarterbacks over the last 3 weeks, 5 weeks and for the season, with the same going against WRs as well. Only 3 QBs have posted over 20 FP against them, and none since Mike Glennon did it in Week 9. All of this amounts to something we already knew though, that the Seahawks secondary is scary good.

The one weakness they’ve shown in recent weeks has been against the Tight End position, an area where Brees and the Saints might be able to find some space. The stats against them haven’t been staggering, but a potential reason for the downwards trend is the loss of K.J. Wright in Week 14. Wright rated out as the 5th best OLB in pass coverage on PFF and in the last four games the Seahawks have allowed 21 receptions for 187 yards and 2 TDs to opposing tight ends. Wright had a huge game against New Orleans last time around, and was thrown at 8 times allowing 6 receptions but only 23 receiving yards and a mere 2 total yards after the catch. Wright mostly blanketed Darren Sproles, but was also in coverage on Graham on a number of plays. Beyond Wright, the Seahawks threw a variety of defenders at Graham throughout the day, who was targeted 9 times and hauled in just 3 of those for 42 yards and 1 TD.

The rushing attack for New Orleans will also need to contribute a lot more if the Saints are to have a shot beating the Seahawks as 8 point underdogs. New Orleans took what the Eagles gave them in the Wild Card round, using Mark Ingram in place of the injured Pierre Thomas on 18 carries for 97 yards and a touchdown. The Eagles played an extremely conservative defense, deciding to leave space in their front seven and blanket the passing game as much as possible. Seattle won’t have to do the same, with their bevy of talented corners, but they have struggled at times against the rush this season. Four running backs were able to total over 100 yards against them on the year, but they also haven’t allowed a rushing touchdown to an opposing back since Rashard Mendenhall found pay dirt in Week 7. Overall, they allowed just 3 rushing touchdowns on the season and if Thomas can’t go again, Ingram will definitely have a big challenge ahead of him if he wants to hit value come Saturday.

Seattle Seahawks

For Seattle, the talk right now is about the expected return of Percy Harvin for the playoff run. It’s a lot of excitement for someone who’s only played 20 snaps all season, but given his ability to impact a game, he has to be accounted for in the matchup on Saturday. His return might come at the perfect time for Seattle, who has been up and down with Doug Baldwin as the WR2 and in recent weeks Baldwin has completely disappeared. He has only 1 catch for 8 total yards on 7 targets and in Week 17, Golden Tate accounted for 129 of the team’s 137 receiving yards going to WRs. Harvin is expected to start on Saturday, but proceed with caution seeing as he’s only played those 20 snaps dating all the way back to Week 9 of last season. Beyond Harvin, Russell Wilson has seen his production plummet over the last month, throwing for no more than 206 yards with 4 PaTD and 3 INT in his last four contests. His last productive game was five weeks back, at home vs. these same Saints. In that game he threw for over 300 yards with 3 passing touchdowns while Doug Baldwin got loose for 4 catches, 77 yards and a TD with Zach Miller contributing 5 catches for 86 yards and a score as well. In that game, Wilson absolutely torched the Saints when blitzing, going 6-6 for 116 passing yards with a TD. Wilson has been tremendous handling the blitz all season long, posting a 96.6 QBR on plays where opposing defenses turn up the heat. One injury to watch for in the Saints secondary was the loss of Keenan Lewis last weekend vs. Philly. Before leaving, he was stellar in coverage and his loss would add to a laundry list of missing players in Rob Ryan’s defense.

The best matchup for Seattle this weekend may be for Zach Miller, who as I mentioned above had a huge game against New Orleans in that previous matchup. Overall, the Saints have allowed the 5th most FPPG to opposing tight ends over the last 5 weeks and 3rd most over the last three weeks of the NFL season. Last week, yet another tight end was able to find pay dirt as Zach Ertz scored for Philadelphia. That makes it 5 receiving touchdowns allowed to tight ends over New Orleans’ last 6 contests and given the plethora of injuries they’ve sustained in their linebacking corps and secondary, opposing tight ends should be able to find continued success against the Saints.

On the ground, the Seahawks will have to get more out of Marshawn Lynch in this contest than he gave in that Week 13 game. He managed just 45 yards on 16 carries and nearly lost a fumble early on forced by Kenny Vaccaro that might have shifted the momentum of that game. Vaccaro was all over the field in that Week 13 game, and his loss certainly puts a huge dent in the Saints rush defense. But last week it didn’t seem to matter, as the Saints held LeSean McCoy to a measly 2.9 yards per carry when rushing between the tackles. According to ProFootballFocus, Marshawn Lynch was in the top 10 this season in terms of percentage of rush attempts between the tackles, attempting to run through those gaps on over 60% of carries. Rob Ryan has done a terrific job of turning this front seven around, especially in recent weeks, and Lynch may struggle to find much success in his rushing comfort zone. Overall, Marshawn has been a bit of a disappointment over the 2nd half of the season and he hasn’t topped 100 yards rushing in 6 consecutive games, although he did round the 2013 season out with 97 yards and a score. And while the Saints were able to put a collar on LeSean McCoy, they still averaged the 5th most yards allowed per carry at 4.6.

NO @ SEA – Daily Fantasy Relevant

marshawn-lynch-beast-mode

Indianapolis at New England

Indianapolis Colts New England Patriots
Colts Patriots
Sat – 8:10 PM ET Gillette Stadium
Vegas Odds Sprd Total Proj.Pts Vegas Odds Sprd Total Proj.Pts
7 53 23 -7 53 30
Tm Stats PPG Scoring Pass Rush Tm Stats PPG Scoring Pass Rush
Offense 24.4 14 17 20 Offense 27.8 2 10 9
Defense 21.0 9 13 26 Defense 21.1 10 18 30
Opp. Def vs. Pos QB RB WR TE Opp. Def vs. Pos QB RB WR TE
New England 23 21 15 25 Indianapolis 13 11 22 7
Rec. Targets Total Seas Last3 Last1 Rec. Targets Total Seas Last3 Last1
Hilton 138 8.4 11.3 15.0 Edelman 151 9.4 13.7 11.0
Whalen 40 4.4 6.7 7.0 Amendola 83 6.9 6.7 3.0
Brazill 27 2.7 1.0 1.0 Dobson 74 6.0 3.5 3.0
Fleener 88 5.3 2.7 4.0 Hoomanawanui 19 1.5 1.7 1.0

Indianapolis Colts

The Saturday night contest sends the Colts to New England to take on the AFC’s 2-seeded Patriots. Indy is coming off a wild win over Kansas City in the first game of Wild Card weekend, posting 45 points on the vaunted Chiefs defense and coming back from a four touchdown deficit to advance. Andrew Luck was superb in the second half, and despite throwing 3 INTs he still ended up with 443 passing yards and 4 TDs. The biggest story in the Colts offense, and the most talented player for New England to account for, was T.Y. Hilton. Hilton shattered records while hauling in 13 catches for 244 yards and 2 TDs. He was struggling a bit with Brandon Flowers in coverage, but when Flowers went down Hilton had free reign over Dunta Robinson and Kendrick Lewis, who blew the coverage on Hilton’s 64 yard scoring play late in the contest. As far as coverage this weekend, the Patriots will likely send Aqib Talib in the direction of Hilton for most of this game, but don’t be surprised if they don’t give Hilton the same shadow coverage with Talib that they’ve shown to Mike Wallace, Demaryius Thomas and Josh Gordon. Talib is a physical corner who does well against bigger wide outs, and has struggled at times against speedsters. That’s not to say that Talib won’t be the primary corner in coverage of Hilton, but you can also expect Logan Ryan to see him in coverage a few times and Kyle Arrington to pick up Hilton when he shifts to the slot. You’ll also see the Patriots shadow a safety towards him on any and all deep routes. Deep is where Hilton wants to do most of his damage, and according to PFF he saw 20% of his overall targets come on passes over 20 yards down the field. He also contributed 444 receiving yards during the regular season on said passes. That’s not terrific news for this New England secondary which allowed the most receptions of 20 or more yards in the 2013 regular season. Over the 16 game schedule, they allowed 79 20+ yard receptions and 8 40+ yard receptions.

Beyond Hilton, Luck has other weapons he can use, even if they’re not quite as talented as T.Y. Griff Whalen was quiet last weekend, but against the Patriots he could take on a more pronounced role, especially if Belichick decides to focus his anger on stopping Hilton. Whalen still saw 6 targets in the Wild Card round, but only brought in 2 for 26 receiving yards. TE Coby Fleener is another player who could have success against the Patriots defense, although he also might be the only player to not benefit from the Pats losing Brandon Spikes this week to IR, but more on that in a bit. The Patriots allowed the 7th most FPPG to TE’s on the season, and 6th most over their last 5 games including huge efforts to Jordan Cameron, Greg Olsen and Jacob Tamme. If Hilton is to be the center of the defense’s attention, Fleener should see plenty of one on one coverage and could be a key safety valve for Luck.

The rushing game of Donald Brown and Trent Richardson should be licking their chops at the opportunity to face a defense that is now missing Vince Wilfork, Jerod Mayo and Brandon Spikes. The Spikes injury is the most recent, and while Brandon had a number of shortcomings in pass coverage, he was the highest rated inside linebacker in terms of rush stop rating on PFF in the NFL this season. That’s a devastating loss for this defense and his replacements, Jamie Collins and Dane Fletcher, are both primarily passing down linebackers. If ever there was a time for the Colts to use Trent Richardson as the north/south back that he’s built to be, it’s in this contest. The middle of New England’s front seven is extremely vulnerable and Richardson and Brown could both bowl right up the gut with big running lanes all game. Brown saw the carries in the Wild Card round, getting 11 touches for 45 yards and a rushing touchdown to go with 47 receiving yards and another receiving TD. He’s been the better of the two backs for the last 10 weeks and I wouldn’t expect Indy to suddenly start using Richardson more heavily, even if he might be the best back for this given matchup.

New England Patriots

The Patriots host a Colts team Saturday night that just allowed Alex Smith to throw for 378 yards and 4 touchdowns against them. The Chiefs lost their best offensive weapon in the very early going, but the Colts were still unable to corral Smith for the better part of 3 quarters as he picked apart their secondary, completing about 65% of pass attempts on the day and only turning the ball over once (albeit on a critical turning point in that game). It was the 2nd consecutive game where the Colts had been torched for over 300 yards passing, including allowing 300 yards to the Jaguars and their last-ranked passing offense in Week 17 as well. The Indy secondary has been up and down all season, allowing 3 300+ yard passers between Weeks 7-12, then holding 3 of their next 4 opposing QBs under 201 passing yards, and then reverting again over the last two games to allowing 300+ in each of those. For Brady and the Patriots passing game, they will have opportunities to burn this Colts secondary but concerns since the loss of Rob Gronkowski loom large. Brady threw for 364 yards in the first game sans Gronk vs. MIA, but the last two weeks he’s netted just 294 total passing yards with 2 TDs. Since Gronkowski went down, the entire offense has relied heavily on Julian Edelman and he’s come through in a big way. His last three game logs are truly remarkable:

Edelman has been a PPR machine over these last three weeks and the Colts will likely throw a variety of corners at him dependent on where he lines up in the offensive scheme. According to ProFootballFocus, Edelman lined up in the slot on just under 50% of offensive snaps this season and saw about 25% of his overall targets from that slot position. When he comes out of the slot, the Colts will likely blanket him most often with slot corner Darius Butler. Butler rated out in the middle of the pack for pass coverage ratings on PFF this season, finishing 2013 as the 56th rated corner in coverage out of 110 qualified. In the last two weeks, he’s struggled even more though and opponents have been taking it to him. Again, thanks to the amazing stats over at ProFootballFocus, we can see how Butler’s done in coverage:

That’s an average of 6.23 yards allowed after the catch on 13 receptions over the last two weeks. Edelman is a shifty receiver, who catches most of his passes on short routes and utilizes his quickness to earn that extra yardage. If Butler can’t do a better job of preventing yards after the catch, Edelman could have a ton of success coming out of the slot.

The passing game might get the fanfare, but it’s been the Patriot rushing attack that has carried this offense over the last 2 weeks. If I told you in Week 1 that both Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley would be healthy, but LeGarrette Blount would carry the ball 40 times for 265 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns over the last two weeks you would’ve called me insane. But that’s been the case for New England who has put a ton of faith in the bowling ball that is Blount. The entire rushing attack will face a Colts front seven that has been great at pressuring the quarterback, but their run stopping might be a bit worse than the 11th best defense vs. position ranking would indicate for the season. Over the last 7 games, the Colts have allowed 502 rushing yards to opposing RB1’s on just 100 carries, for a 5.02 YPC average. No back has topped 20 carries against them, but 5 of their 7 opponents have totaled over 100 rushing yards from all of their backs combined. In terms of who the Patriots will use to attack that potential weakness, it’s anyone’s guess but my best bet would be with a balanced rotation of Blount, Ridley and Vereen on passing downs. That balance has been shifted towards Blount in recent weeks, but Stevan Ridley could definitely see more touches if he can avoid an early fumble and get the hot hand. His touches have been trending upwards and he got 14 carries in Week 17.

Back to Vereen, as he continues to be one of the most intriguing plays for full-point PPR sites and he’s found the end zone in back-to-back games despite leaving Week 16’s contest with an injury in the first quarter. His receiving numbers are down a bit, but after a week of rest he should be close to 100% and that means he’s likely to become one of the key pieces in New England’s passing offense again. The Colts defense has struggled in terms of receptions allowed to running backs in recent weeks, so he could be in a prime spot to put up a big game:

The numbers aren’t staggering, but allowing over 5 receptions per game to opposing backs is a pretty high total and given the volume of targets Vereen attracts, it shows that he can certainly have success against this defense.

The last matchup note here is going to be NFL sacks leader Robert Mathis against Nate Solder on the Patriots offensive line. Tom Brady has notoriously struggled against teams that can create an edge rush without having to blitz extra defenders, and Mathis is the type of defensive beast who can wreak havoc if Solder is unable to lock him down. Solder finished the season with the 17th highest pass blocking rating on PFF for tackles, and was the 12th highest for left tackles specifically. Mathis meanwhile rated out as the 2nd best pass rusher for outside linebackers on PFF, with only Baltimore’s Elvis Dumervil earning a higher rating. The Patriots played the Ravens just three weeks back, but that was the only game this season where Solder was unable to take the field and Logan Mankins took over left tackle responsibilities. The next closest rated pass rusher is Buffalo’s Jerry Hughes, who Solder and the Pats O-line held to just his 2nd negatively rated pass rushing performance, according to PFF stats, in Week 17.

IND @ NE – Daily Fantasy Relevant

Saturday Games – Sunday Games

About the Author

Ethan
Ethan Haskell (Ethan)