Dolphins at Seahawks
This game currently has a 44-point implied Vegas total. The Seahawks are 10-point home favorites implied to score 27 points. The Dolphins are implied to score 17 points as the road underdogs. There currently looks to be decent football weather to kick off the NFL season with the temperature at 66 degrees, partly cloudy, ten percent precipitation, and wind at nine miles per hour.
Miami Dolphins
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Ryan Tannehill
In a disappointing 2015 season, Tannehill was eighth in pass attempts (587, 36.7 per game) and eighth in deep ball attempts (76, 4.8 per game). Of 37 players with 200-plus pass attempts last season, Tannehill finished 21st in Passer Rating (88.7) and 22nd in completion percentage (61.9 percent). Last year, the average Passer Rating (five-plus games played, average 20-plus pass attempts) was 88.53, and the Seahawks defense surrendered an average 80.61 Passer Rating while at home (80.33 on the road). Tannehill was the 23rd-best DraftKings quarterback on a points-per-game basis (18.21 per week) in 2015. Tannehill is rated 28th in the Bales Player Model for DraftKings. He also has the fifth-lowest floor (4.5) and the eighth-lowest Projected Plus/Minus (+0.3) of any quarterback on FanDuel.
RB – Arian Foster
Even though Foster caught 78.6 percent of his targets for 227 yards, it should be noted that Gase does not use his backs often in the passing game. Before we get too excited about Foster we should look back to 2015, when the Bears ranked 21st in the league in running back receptions on a team with pass-catching specialist Matt Forte. So he doesn’t target RBs much, but in all three years Gase has been a play-caller he has had an offense between sixth and 11th in total rushing attempts for the year. When healthy, Foster averaged 22.03 points per game the past two years with a Plus/Minus of +4.97. And unsurprisingly 73.6 percent of his scoring came from targets in the passing game.
Last year, the Seahawks allowed the second-fewest rushing yards per game (65.1) but saw the second-highest percentage of running back targets, with teams avoiding the Legion of Boom. Per our Trends tool, running backs with comparable salaries, while underdogs on the road and playing top-tier rush defenses, have delivered a -0.35 Plus/Minus on FanDuel with 33.3 percent Consistency.
RB – Jay Ajayi
Ajayi has already been declared a surprise healthy scratch because the Dolphins want the running backs behind Foster to play special teams. Let’s ignore the fact that deactivating a No. 2 back because he doesn’t play special teams is ridiculous. No. 3 running back Isaiah Pead (hamstring) is questionable after being limited in practice all week. That means that No. 4 and 5 running backs Damien Williams and Kenyan Drake are likely to back up Foster, who should get as much run as his elderly body can endure.
WR – Jarvis Landry
Facing defenses ranked in the top half of the league in passing points allowed per attempt, Landry was a top-20 player just 37.5 percent of the time last year. A slot receiver with an aDOT of 7.4 and 5.5 the past two seasons, he has drawn 9.92 targets per game since becoming a starter in his rookie season. Landry has caught at least five passes in 20 of his last 24 games, and on DraftKings players who have caught at least five passes in his salary range have generated a +2.53 Plus/Minus with 52.1 percent Consistency. Landry has the 14th-highest floor projection in Week 1.
WR – Kenny Stills
Perhaps more than a situational deep threat, Stills played 57 percent of the Dolphins’ offensive snaps in 2015. According to our Matchups page, Stills will primarily line up opposite Richard Sherman, PFF’s sixth-ranked coverage cornerback. Priced at only $3,200 on DK, Stills is currently the eighth-rated wide receiver in the Bales Player Model, with a projected ceiling of 13.5. But, man, that matchup with Sherman . . .
WR – DeVante Parker
As a rookie, Parker saw six of his 50 targets on throws thirty or more yards downfield. He can be a big-play guy, as he averaged a seventh-best 9.9 yards per target (19 per reception) last year. The team is trying to replace 24.3 percent of the total target share, after losing Greg Jennings, Lamar Miller, and Rishard Matthews. Parker could conceivably put some pressure on Landry’s targets but this week he is the only starting receiver on the Dolphins who projects for a negative Plus/Minus. In his last six games, Parker had 22 catches, for 445 yards and 4 touchdowns, much improved from his first couple of games:
Parker (hamstring) is questionable for Week 1 and seems unlikely to play, which means that rookie Leonte Carroo could see some action in three-wide sets.
TE – Jordan Cameron
Cameron’s pathetic 50 percent catch rate and 5.51 yards-per-target average led him to a pay cut this offseason, but there was a time when he showed immense upside. He has broken 50 yards just 13 times in his 63-game career, most of which came in a heavy-volume situation on a bad team in Cleveland. The Seahawks were middle of the pack at defending tight ends last year, giving up only 75 catches for 873 yards, but they did give up eight touchdowns. Cameron’s $3,000 salary and 10.5-point ceiling on DraftKings make him a viable option for those choosing to punt the position.
Seattle Seahawks
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Russell Wilson
There’s not much to say about Wilson-the-QB: He has top-three marks in completion percentage (68 percent), adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.76), touchdown rate (2.2 percent), and interception rate (1.7 percent). Instead, let’s discuss Wilson-the-DFS-QB: He has the third-highest projected floor at 10.0, which shows his safety. Last year, his 56 percent Consistency ranked second behind Andrew Luck’s and he produced zero Duds (games in which he failed to meet half of his expected point total).
Double-digit QB favorites historically have a -1.58 DK Plus/Minus, but Wilson has actually produced a +0.59 Plus/Minus mark in his 10 personal instances. He is facing a Dolphins team that ranked 29th against the pass and 20th against the run (per Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric). We have him projected between nine and 12 percent ownership on both sites.
RB – Thomas Rawls
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll voiced that they will be careful with Rawls in Week 1. Per our NFL news page, “Carroll said the Seahawks will ‘take care’ of Rawls and added it’s like his second preseason game.” Rawls was incredible last year when he took over RB duties for Marshawn Lynch: He posted a 61.2 percent rushing success rate, which was the highest among all RBs. Rawls at $6,000 on DK and $7,400 on FD isn’t playable given his likely snap count, but he’ll be back soon.
Rawls (illness, ankle) missed some practice time this week but returned to practice on Friday. He should play in Week 1, but he might not see much playing time.
RB – Christine Michael
Although it would benefit DFS users for Rawls simply to be ruled out, we can be confident that Michael will receive a large percentage of the workload in Week 1. Michael isn’t Rawls-efficient, but he’s still one of the most efficient backs in the league when given the opportunity: His 48.1 percent rush success rate and 4.5 yards per carry marks fall way above average. He is the second-highest rated RB on FanDuel in the Bales Model currently. He boasts a +5.0 Projected Plus/Minus and is currently pegged for minimal ownership given the uncertainty of the workload split.
Oh, yeah . . . Miami gave up the most fantasy points to RBs in 2015.
Michael has been declared the Week 1 starter.
WR – Doug Baldwin
At this point, we all know what happened when the Seahawks moved from a Lynch-centric offense to one that revolved around Wilson and Baldwin; they dominated the NFL:
Baldwin posted a ridiculous 10.5 yards-per-target mark last season, the best mark in the NFL. What’s even more ridiculous is that he owned a whopping 41.2 percent of the Seahawks’ receiving touchdowns. There will almost certainly be regression and it remains to be seen how the reintegration of tight end Jimmy Graham will affect Baldwin’s market share stats, but he’s priced accordingly: He has the 28th-highest salary on FD at $6,700. He shouldn’t regress that much.
WR – Jermaine Kearse
Kearse, like just about every Seahawks offensive player, was very efficient last year: He averaged 9.6 yards per target (better than Julio, nbd) and an 11.2 ANYPA on his targets. He didn’t see a large market share of targets, yards, or touchdowns and that likely won’t change. However, he’s near-min price on both sites; he’s a very contrarian play off of the likely-high-owned Baldwin and . . .
WR – Tyler Lockett
The second-year receiver has almost identical market share data as Kearse’s but is expected to be a larger part of the offense this season. However, the preseason put that in doubt: He saw only 52 percent of first-string snaps, compared to 91 percent and 84 percent for Baldwin and Kearse. This is a positive matchup (the Dolphins allowed 2.2 points over expectations to DK WRs last year), and Lockett has projected ceilings of 18.3 on DK and 14.7 on FD. He has double-dip potential with the special teams unit. However, given the amount of mouths to feed and the preseason snap count, Lockett comes with underrated risk.
TE – Jimmy Graham
Wilson threw to tight ends on 25.7 percent of his passes last year, which was the fifth-highest mark among starting QBs this week. In Graham’s pre-injury time with the Seahawks, he owned large receiving market shares: He got 24.0 percent of their targets and 22.2 percent of their receiving yards. His efficiency was fine, too: He caught 66.7 percent of his targets. The only thing that wasn’t there was the touchdowns: He only had two in his 11 games and posted a miserable 11.1 percent red-zone TD rate. There’s uncertainty regarding his role in this offense, but the good news is that you only have to invest $3,800 on DK at near-zero percent ownership to find out.
Graham is questionable but practiced fully throughout the week and is expected to play.
