Fantasy football week 8: Exploitable inefficiencies
Fantasy football Week 8: Exploitable inefficiencies
While it may be easy to find out how many points or yards a defense has allowed, it’s not necessarily the best predictor of future success. In order to get more accurate fantasy predictions, sites like Football Outsiders, tease out as much variance as possible, in order to reveal the true story as we head towards Fantasy Football Week 8!
Football Outsiders uses a method known as DVOA. DVOA is a method of evaluating teams, units, or players. It takes every single play during the NFL season and compares each one to a league-average baseline based on the situation.
Remember, we’re dealing with extremely small sample sizes in the NFL and Fantasy Football right now, but here are some exploitable match-ups you may want to consider this week.
Defenses Struggling Against the Pass and Stout Against the Run
Atlanta: 29th Overall (Pass: 31st, Run: 4th)
Houston: 19th Overall (Pass: 22nd, Run: 5th)
Tampa Bay: 16th Overall (Pass: 25th, Run: 1st)
Tennessee: 14th Overall (Pass: 23rd, Run: 3rd)
New York Giants: 25th Overall (Pass: 27th, Run 14th)
The Detroit Lions will play host to the visiting New York Giants this weekend, in a game in which the Lions are seven point favorites. Despite their record, Detroit has been in nearly every game so far this season.
They’re only a few breaks away from being near the top of the division. I would assume that his would be an all in effort on Sunday, in hopes of salvaging the season.
They’ll draw an attractive match-up against the Giants, who just allowed a David Johnson-less Cardinals team, to hang 27 points on them. New York currently ranks 25th in defensive efficiency and will be one of the worst defenses that the Lions have faced in recent weeks.
Recently, the Lions have faced, Philadelphia (ranked 15th in defensive efficiency), Kansas City (13th), Green Bay (7th), and Minnesota (11th). Over that four game span, they averaged 27.5 points of offense and will now have a much more friendly match-up, at home on Sunday.
Marvin Jones stole the show last week, and while he’s certainly in play again this week, I’ll be looking more towards Kenny Golladay. Golladay led the team in targets prior to last week, and may see an ownership drop due to last week’s performance. T.J. Hockenson is another pass catcher that is also in play, as he saw 51 snaps, his most since returning from injury.
Running back, Kerryon Johnson underwent knee surgery on Tuesday and is headed to IR. In his absence the Lions will turn to Ty Johnson and J.D. McKissic.
My best guess as of now, is that Ty Johnson will handle a majority of the early down work, with McKissic handling a bulk of the third down work. This is still a murky situation, where a split is likely, but if you have a read of the game flow, that should point you in the right direction at the running back position.
Defenses Struggling Against the Run and Stout Against the Pass
Jacksonville: 17th Overall (Pass: 9th, Run: 27th)
Kansas City: 13th Overall (Pass: 4th, Run: 29th)
Buffalo: 12th Overall (Pass: 5th, Run: 23rd)
Green Bay: 7th Overall (Pass: 6th, Run: 19th)
Carolina: 3rd Overall (Pass: 3rd, Run: 30th)
Inefficient Defenses Overall for Fantasy Football Week 8
Cincinnati 31st Overall: (Pass: 29th, Run: 28th)
The Rams were able to “get well” after their tough performance against the 49ers, with a sound thrashing of the Atlanta Falcons, last week. Luckily for them, they’ll have another appetizing match-up as they face one of the worst defenses in football. Cincinnati currently ranks 31st in defensive efficiency, the easiest they’ll face to date.
In addition to the match-up, this game could lend itself to more points, given the pace of play in which both teams play at. Los Angeles ranks 1st in neutral situations, Sec/Play. Cincinnati is also near the top, ranking 3rd in neutral situations, Sec/Play. If both teams continue to push the pace on offense we should expect to see plenty of scoring.
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Cincinnati can be exploited in all areas, but they’ve really been crushed by opposing running backs, not only on the ground, but also through the air. Malcom Brown has already been ruled out, so Gurley and Henderson will assume the running back work. It will be important to monitor the health of Gurley as we get closer to Fantasy Football Week 8 this Sunday, but he could be in for a monster day (if healthy).