The Week 5 NFL Dashboard
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Bills at Rams
The Rams host the Bills as slight two-point favorites this Sunday. The Bills implied total of just 19 points is the third-lowest of Week 5. The Rams are implied to score 20.75 points in a game that has the lowest total of the week at just 40 points.
Buffalo Bills
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Tyrod Taylor
The Bills have passed the least of any team in the league in the red zone, just six percent of Taylor’s 116 passes. Tyrod rushed for 40.4 yards per game last season and is down to 35 yards per game in 2016. With this expected to be a low-scoring game, Taylor may find it to be tough sledding this week against a Rams defense that has been good against quarterbacks this year per our Trends Tool:
Taylor has been relatively efficient (13th in QBR), but it has taken volume thus far to be successful against this Rams defense. Taylor isn’t likely to get a lot of volume with the limitations of this offense: Winston was the only productive QB against the Rams, and he threw the ball 58 times in Week 3. Taylor is currently the second-lowest rated QB on FanDuel in our Cash Model with a -0.2 Projected Plus/Minus at $7600.
RB – LeSean McCoy
McCoy (hand) is questionable with an injury he sustained in practice on Friday, but he expects to play in Week 5.
Shady continues to dominate this backfield (62.62 percent rushing share, 66.7 percent market share inside the 10-yard line), and even in an offense that has struggled McCoy has proven to be largely matchup-proof. With Sammy Watkins out, McCoy seems to be the only game in town. Last year the Rams ranked seventh in rush defense, per Football Outsiders. This year, through four games they’ve slipped to 15th. McCoy has high salaries but is still projected to outperform them: On FD, he is the sixth-most expensive back at $7,800 but still owns a +2.8 Projected Plus/Minus and has a FantasyLabs ownership projection of two to four percent. He’s a DFS factor every single week and criminally under-owned in GPPs given his volume.
RB – Mike Gillislee
Seeing just 16.11 percent of the offensive snaps through four weeks and averaging three touches per game on the season, Gillislee is an afterthought in the Bills offense. That he managed to turn one of those touches into a TD is nice for him but meaningless for us. His 1.6-point floor on FD is the fifth-lowest on the slate.
WR – Robert Woods
Woods saw 32 and 26.23 percent of team targets with Watkins out the past two weeks, but he’s not really capable of being a No. 1 WR. Right now, he leads the team with 22.12 percent of the targets on the season, and he’s second with 22.89 percent of the Air Yards, well behind Goodwin at 31.52 percent. He’s actually performed reasonably well with Watkins out in his career:
Regardless of Woods’ solid target floor, this week is a tough matchup, as the Rams have held WRs to only 1.3 points over salary-based expectations in the past year. As Pro Football Focus’ third-most disadvantaged WR this slate (given his CB matchup), Woods is a risky play at $3900. He might be a reasonable punt play if he sees eight plus targets for a third week in a row.
WR – Marquise Goodwin
The speedster is fourth on the team in target share at just 13.27 percent, but he is still overwhelmingly first in share of Air Yards at 31.52 percent. If there’s someone who can burn the Rams deep in Watkins’ absence, it’s Goodwin.
WR – Walter Powell
Greg Salas (groin) has been placed on Injured Reserve, so Powell is now entrenched as the No. 3 WR, at least until Watkins returns. Powell has a tough matchup this week against Lamarcus Joyner in the slot. Filling in for Salas the last two games, Powell has been targeted exactly five times in each game.
TE – Charles Clay
The team leader in offensive snaps through four weeks, Clay has a target share of just 15.93 percent, even with Watkins hobbled to start the year and now out. Bills offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn said last week that he wants to get Clay more involved and he came through with seven targets for five receptions and 47 yards. It’s a start. Even though he has largely underwhelmed in 2016, Clay’s $2,700 salary, 98 percent Bargain Rating, and fifth-overall DK ranking in the Tournament Model make him a punt consideration with Watkins on the IR and a complete lack of playmakers on offense.
Clay (knee) is listed as questionable but expected to play.
Los Angeles Rams
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Case Keenum
The Rams are 3-1 and their highest-scoring player is kicker Greg Zuerlein.
Keenum has now hit salary-based expectations in two straight starts, completing 32 of his 56 passes and throwing four TDs and only one interception. Keenum isn’t going to be a guy whom you’ll ever want to roster in DFS, but he has to be a part of our analysis because he affects the skill-position players who are intriguing. For at least the last two weeks, Keenum hasn’t killed the value of those guys. But, again, you probably don’t actually want to roster him in contests; he has the lowest-projected ceiling on DK at 23 points.
RB – Todd Gurley
Gurley has been bad this year:
But I — and I probably am the only person in the DFS community to have this opinion — think that things will get brighter for Gurley. The biggest reason for optimism is his market share of rushes through the first four weeks:
He literally has zero serious competition for opportunity, which we know is the most important thing for RBs. Of course, efficiency is also somewhat important, and he’s been bad in that regard: He averaged a miserable 1.7 yards per carry in Week 4. However, it is important to note that his last three weeks have come against defenses that are top-10 either overall or against the run this year. All I’m saying is this: Gurley has the pedigree and talent to right the ship that is his poor efficiency. The thing he can’t control — his opportunity — is already there. His price is way down: He’s $6,500 on DK and $7,600 on FD. It’s only a matter of time before he reminds us what he can do, and that week could certainly be coming soon. He’s actually the second-highest rated RB in the FD Bales Model.
RB – Benny Cunningham
He’s the backup RB for the Rams, and he’s questionable to play in Week 5. Jeff Fisher has no idea who he is.
WR – Tavon Austin
I said this last week and I’ll say it again: Make fun of Tavon if you want, but, like Gurley, he’s getting a ridiculous amount of opportunity. He owns 29.91 percent of the Rams’ targets and 31.15 percent of their Air Yards. Efficiency is a fine thing to talk about, but it can only be discussed with a foundation of opportunity; Tavon has that, which many WRs can’t boast. He was really poor last week, catching only two of his six targets for a total of 14 receiving yards and no touchdowns. However, in Week 3 he caught five of eight targets for 82 yards and a TD. And honestly that’s what you’re going to get out of Tavon in DFS; he’s going to get a ton of opportunity and waste it the majority of his weeks. But at least a couple weeks during the 17-week season, he’s going to explode out of nowhere — and perhaps at a low $3,700 DK price tag like the one he has this week — and win people money. For what it’s worth, he’s the second-highest rated WR in the DK Bales Model this week.
WR – Kenny Britt
Not far down in rating — he’s the eighth-highest rated WR in the DK Bales Model currently — sits Britt, who owns the second-highest percentage of targets (22.22 percent) and Air Yards (27.92 percent). Unlike Tavon, he’s actually been very efficient this year, catching 18 of his 26 targets for 281 yards. He has exceeded salary-based expectations in three of his four games, including last week, and his salary has dipped $200 on DK to $3,700. Because of that low salary, Britt boasts a DK Bargain Rating of 91 percent and a Projected Plus/Minus of +2.3. He has a FantasyLabs ownership projection of zero to one percent.
Britt is officially questionable for Week 5, but he practiced fully on Friday and is expected to play.
WR – Brian Quick
Quick is the recency bias guy to target: He had 20.9 DK points in Week 4. Upon closer inspection, however, it’s easy to see that Week 4 was a bit fluky; he had two touchdowns on only two receptions. In Week 3, he also scored a touchdown but also got only two receptions. On the year, he owns only 11.97 percent of the Rams’ targets but 20.31 percent of their Air Yards. He’s cheap at $3,200 on DK, but his limited volume suggests that he’s in a let-down spot this week.
TE – Lance Kendricks
Kendricks leads all skill-position players for the Rams in snaps this year at 231. Further, he’s gotten 16.24 percent of the Rams’ targets — he actually led the team in target share in Week 4 at 24.14 percent — and 12.92 percent of their Air Yards. This isn’t a great matchup — the Bills have an even 0.0 Opponent Plus/Minus in the last year against tight ends — but Kendricks is cheap and just got a nice number of targets in Week 4. At only $2,700 and zero to one percent projected ownership, he shouldn’t be rostered heavily, but you maybe should have at least one lineup with him.
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:
