The Week 3 NFL Dashboard
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Jets at Chiefs
The Chiefs come into Week 3 as three-point favorites over the visiting Jets. The Chiefs currently have an implied Vegas total of 23 points, while the Jets are implied for just 20 points. There’s currently a 100 percent chance of rain in Kansas City, with thunderstorms likely and winds at 10-15 miles per hour.
New York Jets
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Ryan Fitzpatrick
Fitzpatrick posted career highs in passing yards (3,905) and touchdown passes (31) last season, funneling targets to Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker through a highly concentrated targets share of 47.1 percent (per Player Profiler). Fitzpatrick was able to support three options at wide receiver in Week 2 in an offense suddenly loaded with the emergence of Quincy Enunwa and addition of Matt Forte.
This week, Fitzpatrick is tied for the fourth-highest Projected Plus/Minus despite the Jets’ low team total. This isn’t an easy matchup for Fitzpatrick, as the Chiefs defense allowed the fifth-fewest fantasy points to QBs in 2015 and has allowed sixth-fewest this season, but he has the weapons to be in consideration for guaranteed prize pools.
RB – Matt Forte
In 2015, a league-high 59.6 percent of fantasy points from the Jets backfield came from the passing game. Forte has averaged five targets per game through two weeks (15.15 percent target share) to Powell’s three per game (9.09 percent target share), so Forte isn’t getting all of the RB targets that he could be — but overall Forte is averaging 29.5 touches per game to Powell’s four. Forte also has averaged a league-high six red-zone carries in both games, with an 80 percent market share from inside the five-yard line.
It is hard to imagine that the Jets will load the 30-year old Forte up with this kind of volume all season, but his stranglehold on the red-zone rushing share and his steady work as a receiver makes him a very attractive GPP play, even though he’s going against a defense that last year allowed the lowest Opponent Plus/Minus to RBs. He’s heavily involved in the offense and has multi-TD upside — he played 61 of the Jets’ 75 offensive snaps in Week 2 and scored three red-zone touchdowns — and he has a FantasyLabs ownership projection of five to eight percent.
RB – Bilal Powell
Powell was one of the most underrated players in DFS last year: He finished ninth among running backs with 63 total targets (5.7 per game). Still, this is a new year and the Jets have made it clear that this is Forte’s backfield, as Powell has been out-touched 59 to eight and out-snapped 78.77 to 23.29 percent. Even in a game in which the Jets are projected to trail, Powell remains a risky play with just a three-point projected floor on DK.
WR – Brandon Marshall
Target share has always been a huge part of Marshall’s appeal. Last year he had a 28.7 percent target share, the seventh-highest average among all receivers (per Player Profiler). Although Marshall still leads the team through two weeks in target market share (25.76 percent), he has yet to score a touchdown and the emergence of Enunwa is very concerning.
Things won’t get easier for Marshall against the Chiefs in Week 3, as they allow the league’s fifth-lowest 44.26 percent pass success rate. And he’s not helped by his knee and foot injuries, which have caused him to miss practice. According to our Matchups tool, this week Marshall will see a large portion of his snaps against Marcus Peters, Pro Football Focus’ 28th-ranked cornerback through two weeks. Per our Trends tool, road underdogs with similar salaries and point projections on FanDuel historically perform above expectation.
WR – Eric Decker
Decker averaged a touchdown every 11 targets in 2015, but Week 2 marked his first 100-yard game since 2014. Decker has balled out through two weeks, posting a +5.54 Plus/Minus and averaging 19.65 DraftKings points per game. He’s dominated in the red zone as usual, turning two of his three red-zone targets into touchdowns. Decker has scored 11.7 points or more on DraftKings in 20 of his last 21 games.
In 2016, he has 21.2 and 27.3 percent market shares of all targets and red-zone targets. He will remain a solid cash-game option in Week 3 as he will match up against Steven Nelson (PFF’s 53rd-ranked corner) when he is lined up in the slot.
WR – Quincy Enunwa
In an offense that was extremely concentrated in 2015, Enunwa caught more passes than Decker and Marshall combined in Week 1 and has a 19.70 percent target share through the first two weeks of the season. A favorite of the metrics crowd, Enunwa is 6’2″ and 225 lbs. and runs a 4.45-second 40-yard dash. With his market share and athleticism, he has some GPP appeal, especially since his FantasyLabs projected ownership is zero to one percent and both Marshall and Decker are not 100 percent healthy.
TE – Kellen Davis
Operating as little more than a sixth lineman, Davis is a touchdown-dependent flyer who hasn’t ‘flown’ in a long time.
Kansas City Chiefs
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Alex Smith
Per our Trends tool, Smith has provided a +2.28 DK Plus/Minus when priced comparably and when the Chiefs are home favorites. With a FantasyLabs projected ownership of two to four percent, Smith (who has a frightening 6.2-point projected floor) is a GPP flyer at best against a Jets defense that gave up the fourth-fewest total yards per game last season (318.63). Even then, his current 27.5-point projected ceiling is the seventh-lowest mark on the slate and has me looking elsewhere for GPP upside.
RB – Jamaal Charles
Charles practiced mostly with scout team this week and head coach Andy Reid thinks “another week” will help him. Charles’ Week 3 status is still very much up in the air, and if he does suit up against the Jets he’ll be in a committee with Spencer Ware and Charcandrick West while facing the defense that last year ranked third in yards allowed per carry.
RB – Spencer Ware
The Chiefs have not led for a single offensive play this year and Ware has still accumulated 199 and 105 total yards in the first two games. He has battled through poor game script by being fantastic in the passing game (13.58 percent target share), averaging 16.09 yards per target. He has gained five or more yards on an NFL-high 52.4 percent of his carries. Last year, the Chiefs ran plays at the second-slowest pace in the league (at 29.94 seconds/play) — so Ware’s not going to see a ton of snaps — but the Chiefs last year had the sixth-highest run rate (46.0 percent) and ninth-most run plays of 10-plus yards.
Even if Charles does suit up this week, Ware has value as an under-the-radar home favorite with a FantasyLabs projected ownership of just two to four percent on FanDuel, where he boasts a 98 percent Bargain Rating. Last year, the Jets gave up the second-fewest rushing yards (83.44) and fewest rushing touchdowns (0.25) per game — but per our Trends tool we see that there isn’t a huge drop off in Plus/Minus when runners with comparable projections face tough opponents as home favorites.
RB – Charcandrick West
West was given the same number of snaps as Ware in Week 1 but was out-snapped 56 to 41 percent in Week 2. The return of Charles will probably affect West much more than Ware. Although he led the team in rushing last week, West is still a low-end GPP play with a scary 3.2-point floor on DK.
WR – Jeremy Maclin
In a rare game in which Smith threw the ball 37 times, 15 targets came Maclin’s way in a tough Week 2 matchup against a Houston team ranked seventh against opposing WR1s in 2015, per Football Outsiders. A 40.54 percent market share is great, but seeing Smith miss Maclin deep and able to connect with him on only six attempts is troubling.
Per our Matchups tool, Maclin draws another ‘tough’ defender this week in Darrelle Revis, who is currently rated as PFF’s 100th cornerback on the season after his struggles through two weeks of the season. The matchup against the Jets will likely scare a lot of people off, but Maclin has some hidden upside. He certainly didn’t embarrass himself in Week 1 against Chargers stud cornerback Jason Verrett.
WR – Chris Conley
Last year, the Chiefs had the sixth-highest second-half time of possession rate (53.31 percent). They want to control the ball and establish the run. That’s not good news for Conley, the team’s current No. 2 WR. Even at just $4,600 on FanDuel, Conley’s a risky play, as it’s tough to imagine Smith supporting more than one WR in the passing game. Conley has just a 13.58 percent target share through two weeks.
TE – Travis Kelce
Kelce has elite talent and upside, but he hardly ever reaches it because of his offense. He has a 17.28 percent share of all targets (right in line with his 17.1 percent last year) and an 18.2 percent target share in the red zone. He has the fifth-highest ceiling this week and is currently ranked fifth among all TEs in our Tournament Model on FD. He’s intriguing due to his FantasyLabs ownership projection of two to four percent, but the Jets have allowed just three top-10 weekly finishes at the position since the start of last season.
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
