RotoGrinders Matchup Of The Week: Week 11

by RotoGrinders Last Updated 2016-11-19 16:25:04

Welcome to the RotoGrinders Matchup of the Week! Each week, this piece will pull out one matchup that stands out to us on the weekend’s slate.

Below, you will find JMToWin’s writeup of this game from his NFL Edge – the most in-depth, DFS-specific piece in the industry, in which every game is broken down from top to bottom in a DFS-specific manner – and you will also find assorted thoughts from some of the other, top minds in Daily Fantasy Sports.

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JMToWin’s NFL Edge

Titans at Colts

Vegas-Implied Total: Colts 27.75, Titans 24.75

KEY MATCHUPS:

Colts Run D – 32nd DVOA / 29th Yards allowed per carry
Titans Run O – 8th DVOA / 2nd Yards per carry

Colts Pass D – 30th DVOA / 24th Yards allowed per pass attempt
Titans Pass O – 6th DVOA / 8th Yards per pass attempt

Titans Run D – 15th DVOA / 18th Yards allowed per carry
Colts Run O – 5th DVOA / 18th Yards per carry

Titans Pass D – 26th DVOA / 20th Yards allowed per pass attempt
Colts Pass O – 20th DVOA / 13th Yards per pass attempt

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Each team should run about 64 to 65 plays in this game, with neither team being too high above or below league average, in both plays run and plays allowed per game. When these teams met a few weeks ago in Tennessee, each team ran between 65 and 68 plays, and they combined for 60 points. I was surprised that the Colts won that game, but I was not surprised that the game was high-scoring – and we should expect more of the same this time around.

The first thing we need to talk about here is the fact that the Colts rank eighth in the NFL in passing play percentage. This is a pass-leaning offense, and Andrew Luck should be expected to drop back a good 40 times this weekend. This creates a lot of opportunity for both Luck and his pass catchers. While Luck has seemingly disappointed this year, he has topped 300 yards in three of his four games on the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium. His one road game with 300+ yards came against this Titans defense.

The last time these teams squared off, Donte Moncrief was still injured (as was Dwayne Allen), and the Colts’ tight ends combined for 15 targets. Tennessee is poor at defending the tight end (20th in DVOA against the position), though they are really no worse than they are against any other receivers. We can expect the Colts to run their normal offense this week.

Since Donte Moncrief returned two games ago, he has received 15 targets, while T.Y. Hilton has (disconcertingly) seen only 14 targets (before seeing only six and eight targets the last two games, Hilton had seen at least nine targets in every game on the season, with double-digit looks in all but one). Luck should throw the ball a few more times this week than he did the last two, but not enough for us to lose all concern over Hilton’s depressed workload. He’s still a solid play, but given that he is priced like a guy seeing 10+ targets every game, you are paying a bit more for him than he is truly worth at the moment. He is always a blow-up candidate at home, and his ownership may be low with the low targets recently, but he definitely falls in the “high-risk, high-reward” basket.

Moncrief is lower-priced than Hilton, with a similar target projection and more targets inside the 10-yard-line than Hilton on the year (in spite of playing hardly any games). He’s obviously in play here.

Jack Doyle and Dwayne Allen are also low-yardage options, with solid touchdown ceilings. Doyle has seen far more targets lately than Allen, and is the preferred option, but each guy gets equal opportunity near the goal line.

The final place to look on this side of the ball is Frank Gore, who has received 20 or more touches in five of the Colts’ last seven games, and who should be fresh coming off the bye. As we point out nearly every week in this space: Gore is a low-ceiling option, but he also has one of the highest point-per-dollar floors of any running back on the slate. You could do a whole lot worse than him.

The running game on the other side is much easier to get excited about. The Colts rank dead last in DVOA against the run, and while DeMarco Murray has been held to recent touch totals of 19, 21, and 22 (with his snaps dipping pretty drastically in two of the last three weeks as well), those are still enough touches for him to do serious damage in this spot. I get the sense we are going to hear after the season that Murray’s toe issue was a bigger deal than the Titans are letting on, but he still looks good on the field on Sundays, and even on a lighter workload, he’s one of the top raw-points plays on the day.

While Murray’s snaps have dipped, Derrick Henry has seen his snaps rise. In the two games he played in the last three weeks (which just so happened to be the two games in which Murray’s snaps dipped), Henry has seen 32 and 19 snaps – with 32 representing his season high. With Tennessee projected to run the ball about 30 to 32 times (with maybe 17 to 18 going to Murray and four or five going to Marcus Mariota), this should free up eight to 10 carries for Henry. He’s too expensive on DraftKings to be worth your time, but he is an interesting, deep-tourney value on FanDuel.

The passing game here is obviously well worth getting excited about. The Titans should be able to stick to their preferred plan of holding Mariota to only 33 or so pass attempts, but he is playing well enough that this is still enough action to provide value. Also, while Mariota ranks outside the top 15 in red zone pass attempts, he ranks eighth in red zone completions. He’s a beast in the red zone, and the Colts rank 23rd in passing touchdowns allowed.

The low-volume nature of the Titans’ passing attack (combined with the fact that Murray sees a good four or five targets per game, and is the team’s leading red zone target) makes it tough to get too excited about the other guys on the Titans – especially when the target distribution is unpredictable from one week to the next. It is worth noting that Delanie Walker and Rishard Matthews are the only guys who are on the field a reliable chunk of plays, making them the only guys I feel comfortable targeting. Matthews’ touchdown regression is set to hit hard (he has six touchdowns, in spite of only seven red zone targets and three targets inside the 10-yard-line all year, and in spite of not being a true big-play threat), so I’ll likely stay away from him this week, in a game in which the Titans should be able to run plenty. But Delanie has seen eight or more targets in four of the Titans’ last six games, and the Colts rank 31st in DVOA against the position. To be clear, all the Titans’ pass catchers are viable in tourneys – and the matchup is great. But Delanie is the only guy I can see being excited about in cash.

Favorite cash game plays: Andrew Luck, Frank Gore, Donte Moncrief, Jack Doyle, Marcus Mariota, DeMarco Murray, Delanie Walker

Favorite tourney plays: All of the above, plus: T.Y. Hilton, Rishard Matthews, Derrick Henry (FanDuel only)

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