Raybon’s Rollout: NFL Week 11
Welcome back to Raybon’s Rollout, where I highlight the stacks and players I’ll be rolling out in DFS. For data on the hit rates of the different stacks I list below, check out the intro in the first edition of this column here.
Last week was a fantastic week of real football. It was probably good week for you in DFS, too… provided you didn’t get burned by smokin’ Jay Cutler. In most GPPs I saw, Cutler, Alshon Jeffery, and Zach Miller were owned anywhere from 10-25 times as much as the defense facing Cutler — a defense that scored enough points to be last week’s RB7. As a collective industry, let’s never make that mistake again.
Unconventional Stacks
QB Marcus Mariota + RB DeMarco Murray + TE Delanie Walker
The Colts are the perfect matchup for the Titans’ big three — Indianapolis is ranked 29th, 29th, and 28th against QBs, RBs, and TEs, respectively, in strength-of-schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed. Over his last six games, Mariota averages 288 total yards and 3.16 TDs, with multiple TDs in every game over that span. Murray continues to show that Chip Kelly left his supposed genius somewhere in 2013. Now in a scheme that fits him, Murray belongs in the same boat as Le’Veon Bell, David Johnson, and Ezekiel Elliott as far as weekly floor and ceiling. Murray has 137+ yards and/or a TD in every game this season, has hit pay dirt in 80% of his games, and has even mixed in 5+ catches in half of his games. Walker, leverager of oncoming footsteps, has 75+ yards and/or a TD in five of his last six games. He should be Mariota’s main target with Rishard Matthews and Tajae Sharpe seeing more of the Colts’ best player in coverage, cornerback Vontae Davis.
QB Ben Roethlisberger + RB Le’Veon Bell + WR Antonio Brown
Remember how bad the Steelers defense looked last week when they blew two leads in the last eight minutes of the game and wasted a 408-yard performance by Ben Roethlisberger and two-TD effort by Le’Veon Bell? That’s how bad the Browns defense looks every week. The Steelers routinely lay eggs on the road, but desperately in need of a win, this is a spot where the Steelers will crush the soul of Cleveland, Cubs style. There is a precedent for the Steelers traveling to Cleveland amidst a slew of poor road performances: last January 3, Big Ben threw for 349 yards and three TDs against the Browns, while Antonio caught 13 passes for 187 yards and a score. That Cleveland will have 46 active Browns and yet won’t even have the best Brown in the game is so Cleveland. In the aforementioned January game, Pittsburgh’s running game got held to 30 yards after DeAngelo Williams went down early, but even if the Steelers fail to get going on the ground, Le’Veon Bell averages an absurd 9.3 targets per game.
QB Kirk Cousins + TE Jordan Reed + WR Davante Adams
Want to hear a Packers joke? Their defense. Cousins and the Redskins have a 25.8-point implied total at home against a Dom Capers unit that has allowed a 72.1% completion rate, an 8-to-2 TD/INT ratio, and 281 or more yards passing in each of its last three contests. Cousins has scored 18+ FanDuel and DraftKings points in all but two games this season. Jordan Reed is the fantasy TE2 on the year and leads all TEs in targets per game (9.0), and volume is incredibly important at the position — only seven TEs average even 7.0 targets per game (compared to 47 WRs). Delanie Walker shredded the Packers for a 9-124-1 line last week, and even Anthony Fasano got in the act with a nine-yards TD catch.
Redskins-Packers is one of the three games on the slate with an over/under of 50 or more, and if the game is to reach its lofty total, the Packers will be forced to move the ball through the air. Adams lines up most often on the side opposite of where Josh Norman primarily lines up (and has also been lining up in the slot at times), so Adams is unlikely to see much of Norman and should be considered the favorite for targets from Aaron Rodgers. Over the last five weeks, Adams leads the Packers in targets inside the 10-yard line (5) and is tied for the team lead in red zone targets (9). Over that span, he’s averaging 10 targets, 7.4 receptions, 87.4 yards, and 0.6 TDSs — those are WR1 numbers.
RB LeGarrette Blount + D/ST New England Patriots
Once upon a time, LeGarrette Blount was let go by the Patriots and planted on the Steelers by Bill Belichick so Blount could get Le’Veon Bell to smoke weed and get suspended. Upon completing this task, Blount then got himself kicked off the Steelers just in time to rejoin the Patriots for the playoff push. Two years later, Blount is again creeping up behind Bell, but this time it’s in the fantasy ranks. Blount is the RB7 on the year and will take on a defense that ranks dead last in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to RBs and has allowed a rushing TD in each of its last seven games. Blount has scored in every game but one this season, and has three multi-TD games already this season. Blount is at his best when the Patriots are a double-digit favorite — in three such games since the start of ‘15, he averages 21.7 carries, 81.3 yards, and 1.67 TDs per game, compared to 15.7, 63.2, 0.72 in all other games. Of course, the 13-point spread also favors the Patriots defense, as fantasy D/ST scoring has a direct correlation to point spread.
K Robbie Gould + D/ST New York Giants
It’s not often we get a #RevengeGame narrative with a kicker, but Gould will return to face his longtime team as a member of the Giants, who are a TD favorite at home. The Bears rank 27th in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to kickers (8.8 per game). The Giants defense has been one of the league’s better units this year, ranking eighth in DVOA. In only four games, Jay Cutler has somehow found a way to take 13 sacks, fumble five times, and throw four interceptions. The Giants have allowed only 3.6 yards per carry on the season and will likely force Cutler into unfavorable down-and-distance situations.
Coaching Tendency to Exploit
Stefon Diggs’ New High-Volume Slot Role & Patrick Peterson’s Shadow
Since offensive coordinator Pat Shurmer took over for Norv Turner two games ago, Stefon Diggs has set new career highs in targets in back-to-back weeks (14, 15 respectively), catching 13 passes in each game. Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians openly admitted the team plans to have Peterson follow Diggs, even in the slot, which Peterson has done before at times. Coming off back-to-back 13-catch games, playing Diggs is tempting, even with his salary bump. I think he’s a smart fade, however. Disregarding the fact that natural regression to the mean is likely, I don’t see much TD upside for Diggs on a team with no running game and a horrible offensive line in a game with one of the two lowest totals of the week against a team that has the requisite personnel to slow him down and announced they’ll be keying on him. Diggs will likely garner more ownership than he should given the aforementioned circumstances. Rather than deploy Diggs against a Cardinals defense ranked third in pass defense DVOA, I’m going to bet on a dud this week that will lead to a price drop, then roll him out next week against a Lions defense currently ranked dead last in pass defense DVOA.
Injury Situation to Exploit
Rob Gronkowski’s Punctured Lung (or something like that)
Gronk hasn’t been cleared to fly on planes and will almost certainly miss this Sunday’s game in San Francisco, paving the way for Martellus Bennett to return to being a full-time player in the Patriots offense. Even though he’d been taking a backseat to Gronk for parts of the season, Bennett is quietly the TE7 in terms of points per game. Like all TEs, he has a low floor, but also massive upside in a game where the Patriots are implied to score over 30 points. Bennett is seeing over 20% of targets in the red zone.