Panthers at Broncos
This game currently has a 42-point implied Vegas total. The Broncos are 2.5-point home underdogs implied to score 19.5 points. The Panthers are implied to score 22.5 points as the road favorites. There currently looks to be perfect weather to kick off the NFL season with the temperature at 71 degrees, zero percent precipitation, and wind at five miles per hour.
Carolina Panthers
Writer: Tyler Buecher
QB – Cam Newton
In the Super Bowl, Newton was forced into three turnovers en route to just 9.1 fantasy points on the day. He averaged 24.3 during the regular season. Coming off a career year in which he led all quarterbacks in fantasy points, Newton begins the season by facing one of the league’s most imposing secondaries. The Broncos are the only secondary to feature three top-30 cornerbacks, per Pro Football Focus. There are better options with 16 games to choose from for quarterbacks in cash.
RB – Jonathan Stewart
Only Adrian Peterson had more games of 20-plus rush attempts than Stewart last season. Stewart’s string of eight straight such games highlights the extent to which he is an ‘opportunity-endowed running back.’ Per our Trends tool, running backs averaging 15 carries or more over their past 16 games have had a +1.62 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
While receptions may be at a premium for Stewart, he makes up for it with an immense carry workload and red-zone presence. Last year, Stewart saw the sixth-most red-zone opportunities per game among running backs and Carolina was second in the league with 3.8 red-zone trips per game. Of course, Denver allowed to opponents a league-low 2.4 red-zone trips per game, so don’t expect too much of Stewart.
RB – Cameron Artis-Payne
Artis-Payne is ostensibly the No. 2 back on this team, but he’ll see little playing time. CAP saw just 10.3 percent of the running back snaps last year.
RB/FB – Mike Tolbert
Over the past two years combined, Tolbert has had fewer than 100 carries and just one rushing touchdown. Seeing only 0.75 opportunities per game inside the opponent’s 10-yard line, Tolbert remains risky, despite his reputation and past history as a goal-line vulture. He did lead all NFL fullbacks in snaps played last season, but Tolbert is facing a defense that last season was fourth against the run, per Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average metric. Even ‘real’ running backs do little against such a defense.
WR – Kelvin Benjamin
K-Benjy has struggled to return from his torn ACL and will likely have limited snaps against the Broncos. Even with 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie, Benjamin was one of Newton’s most inefficient pass catchers of the last five years, per the RotoViz Adjusted Yards per Attempt (AYA) App.
With only a 50.3 percent catch rate as a rookie, Benjamin should be treated cautiously. Per our Player Models, Benjamin is projected to score 10.3 FanDuel points, far too few given his $7,300 salary and 41 percent Bargain Rating. Playing against one of the league’s best secondaries, Benjamin is weak in the red zone, scoring on just three of his 18 red-zone targets in 2014. He’s likely to struggle in Week 1.
WR – Devin Funchess
Reports on Funchess coming out of camp were positively glowing, but then he did little in the preseason and often played behind Ted Ginn. Funchess struggled as a rookie but turned it on in the second half, scoring in five of the team’s final nine games with a 7-120-1 stat line in the season finale. Funchess and the rest of the wideout corps might not see a ton of volume this week. Last year opposing offenses targeted their wide receivers just 50 percent of the time against this Denver secondary. Funchess currently has a -1.4 Projected Plus/Minus on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
WR – Ted Ginn
Of anyone last year to have a higher average depth of target than Ginn’s 17.0, only Sammy Watkins saw more targets. Benjamin’s return may translate to fewer targets for Ginn this year, but he remains a viable feast-or-famine candidate for guaranteed prize pools. Ginn tied Doug Baldwin for the most multi-touchdown games (four) last season among receivers. He leads all wide receivers this week in Upside on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
WR – Corey (Philly) Brown
Priced at the $3,000 minimum on DraftKings, Brown led all Panthers wide receivers in snaps in 13 of the 14 games he played last season. That won’t be the case this year. He’s now nothing but a risky punt play.
TE – Greg Olsen
Olsen was a top-12 performer nine weeks last year as he led all tight ends in target market share (24.75%). While the Denver secondary will give Carolina’s wide receivers a run for their money, Olsen could be an exploitable play, as Denver allowed the 11th-most receiving yards to tight ends last year. Olsen currently has the third-highest projected ceiling among all tight ends to go along with a 96 percent Bargain Rating on DraftKings.
Denver Broncos
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Trevor Siemian
A 2015 seventh-round pick who has yet to throw a pass in a regular season NFL game, Siemian is now the Broncos starting quarterback. Of 49 players with 40-plus pass attempts in the preseason, Siemian finished 30th in Passer Rating (70.4) and 17th in completion percentage (62.8%). Last year, the average Passer Rating (five-plus games played, average 20-plus pass attempts) was 88.53, and the Panthers defense surrendered an average 79.19 passer rating while on the road (71.22 at home). Siemian has the ’31st-best’ rating according to the Bales Player Model. He also has the second-lowest floor and Projected Plus/Minus of any quarterback this week on DraftKings.
RB – C.J. Anderson
With only Devontae Booker and Kapri Bibbs left on the roster, Anderson will be the clear three-down and goal-line back against the Panthers. Kubiak teams saw a 20-touch back in 47 percent of games in 2013-2014. Last year (when the team had a 20-touch back in just three games) will likely prove to be an outlier.
For three straight years, Carolina has placed in the bottom 10 in the NFL in rush attempts allowed, and no team saw a smaller percentage of rush attempts in the red zone in 2015 (32.9 percent). Last year, Carolina gave up the fourth- and third-fewest rushing yards (88.4) and rush attempts (22.75) per game. Denver did have the seventh-most rush attempts in the red zone in 2015 but was only 31st in converting those into touchdowns (34 percent).
Anderson has a touch matchup but is likely to be the engine of the offense and could be a solid GPP play on FanDuel, where he boasts a 97 percent Bargain Rating at $6700.
RB – Devontae Booker
The Broncos will rely on their run game and defense this week, and Booker is a talented three-down back who’s quite comparable to CJA. That said, Anderson will get all the volume he can handle. The fourth-round rookie is a risky play in any format.
WR – Demaryius Thomas
The Panthers pass defense allowed a -0.62 Plus/Minus to wide receivers last season. Of course, that was before the unit lost Josh Norman and 68.4 percent of the team’s 2015 cornerback snaps. Although they allowed an NFL-low 21.5 percent of targets to WR1s in 2015, this year PFF grades this young cornerback group dead last in the NFL. According to our Matchups page, Thomas is currently slated to face rookie Daryl Worley, who received from PFF the 31st coverage grade in the 2016 draft class. Thomas is most attractive on FD with a 96 percent Bargain Rating. Per our Trends tool, Thomas was much more successful last season in the four games in which the Broncos were underdogs, and the Panthers are favored by three points.
WR – Emmanuel Sanders
Sanders, like Thomas, will face a rookie cornerback, James Bradberry. That’s not ideal for the Panthers, but they should be able to mitigate these disadvantageous matchups by using a zone-heavy scheme with some of the best coverage linebackers in the NFL. Additionally, Sanders might not exploit this matchup as we’d expect, because Denver might not throw the ball more than 25 times. With Siemian behind center, the Broncos are likely to do all they can to run the ball and hide their quarterbacking deficiencies. Sanders is not a threat in the red zone, as Thomas out-targeted him last season 19 to eight from inside the 20-yard line. Per our Trends tool, receivers comparable to Sanders in salary and projected floors and ceilings have previously surrendered a -0.61 Plus/Minus on DK.
WR – Cody Latimer
Latimer is likely to get an increase in snaps if Bennie Fowler misses Week 1. As a minimum-priced option on DK and FD, Latimer is not likely to get enough volume to be anything more than a GPP flyer. Even then, you are praying for a touchdown from a guy who has scored only one in two years.
TE – Virgil Green
Kubiak features his tight end in the passing game. Even Owen Daniels with one foot in the grave saw 10 red-zone targets last season. Still, last year the offense ran through Thomas and Sanders, who received 52 percent of the market share, and tight ends comparable to Green in salary and Projected Plus/Minus have not shown much value on FD, with a -0.25 Plus/Minus and 30.4 percent Consistency. That said, Green was a consistent red-zone threat for Siemian in camp and they did hook up for a touchdown in the preseason. For a guy who’s dirt cheap, he has a decent chance of finding pay dirt.
