The Week 6 NFL Dashboard
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Falcons at Seahawks
This game currently has a 45.5-point implied Vegas total. The Seahawks are currently 6.5-point home favorites implied to score 26 points. The Falcons are implied to score 19.5 points as road underdogs.
Atlanta Falcons
Writer: Tyler Buecher
QB – Matt Ryan
This game features one of the best matchups of Week 6 in Ryan against the Seattle defense. Ryan currently leads the league in fantasy points at the quarterback position, but Seattle has shut down opposing quarterbacks, allowing a league-low 10.8 points per game on FanDuel. Seattle may have the upper hand, considering how Ryan has fared on the road against top pass defenses over the course of his career:
Seattle has allowed one passing touchdown so far this season and barely over 200 passing yards per game. Ryan remains a long shot to hit value this week and should be used mainly as a contrarian option in GPPs.
RB – Devonta Freeman
Outside of a 28.5-point performance by Carlos Hyde, the Seahawks have shut down opposing running backs, allowing 84 total yards and zero touchdowns. Freeman has been on a tear this year, averaging 17.5 DraftKings points per game and 18.4 touches. Freeman’s upside remains limited given the matchup, but he could be a low-owned value play, considering the volume he gets and his activity in the receiving game. Our Player Models have Freeman currently projected for 14.8 points with a ceiling of 19.8 points on DK.
RB – Tevin Coleman
Any concern with Coleman last week in Denver turned out to be for naught, as he went off for 29.3 DK points on just ten touches. In games against top cornerbacks and pass defenses, Atlanta’s running backs have excelled. Coleman has exceeded expectations this season (per our Plus/Minus metric):
Coleman’s not a lock for a ton of usage with just 42.7 percent of the snaps, but he’s proven that he can succeed on limited touches. He warrants GPP consideration.
WR – Julio Jones
Per our Matchups tool, Julio should spend most of his time lined up on the left side of the formation against Deshawn Shead. Shead and Richard Sherman are both ranked by Pro Football Focus as top-24 cornerbacks. John Proctor noted earlier this week that Sherman might shadow Julio. No matter which CB Julio sees, Seattle ranks top-five against No. 1 WRs in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). Julio could have a diminished ceiling given the matchup, which has led to his having a FantasyLabs projected ownership of just zero to one percent on FanDuel.
WR – Mohamed Sanu
Sanu hasn’t caught more than three passes in a game or caught a touchdown since Week 1. He runs the majority of his routes from the slot and should line up for most of the game against Jeremy Lane, Seattle’s third corner to rank in PFF’s top 24. The Seahawks have the fourth-lowest Opponent Plus/Minus allowed to wide receivers. Sanu remains a long shot for a breakout game in this difficult matchup.
WR – Aldrick Robinson
The third wide receiver role has been a revolving door of inefficient fantasy production. Robinson’s ten targets through five games are the most at the wideout position outside of Julio and Sanu’s totals. That alone should tell you how little the position is targeted.
TE – Jacob Tamme
After seeing eight targets in each of the first two games, Tamme has dropped down to seven total targets in the last three games combined. He has four total receiving yards in his last two games. Seattle has given up the third-fewest fantasy points to tight ends and just 11 receptions to the position this year. However, Tamme has eight DK Pro Trends to go along with a 98 percent Bargain Rating. Tamme’s a long shot for a big game, but he does have the most targets inside the 10-yard line among all Falcons players in their last four games.
TE – Austin Hooper
Hooper’s role hasn’t grown into one that necessitates DFS consideration quite yet, but he’s a big play waiting to happen. His 17.0-yard average depth of target leads all tight ends, and he’s caught all six of his targets so far this season for 154 yards and a score. Hooper should remain on your radar but likely out of lineups until he sees an uptick in volume.
Seattle Seahawks
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Russell Wilson
Wilson finally exceed salary-based expectations on DraftKings in Week 4, posting 26.9 fantasy points thanks to 309 yards and three touchdowns passing. That was against a Jets team that is literally the definition of a funnel defense — they rank 32nd versus the pass and third against the run, per DVOA — but this week’s matchup against the Falcons isn’t much more difficult. The Falcons currently rank 27th in total defense and 24th against both the run and the pass. Wilson was obviously less than 100 percent prior to Week 4’s game, but he’s now coming off a bye and is only $6,900 on DK. He has the second-highest projected floor (10.3 points) and has a FantasyLabs projected ownership of five to eight percent on both sites. He’s an elite GPP play in Week 6.
RB – Christine Michael
Michael has now exceeded salary-based expectations in every game this season:
Unfortunately, both sites have taken notice and boosted his salary quite a bit; he’s $6,800 on DK and $7,400 on FD. This is a nice matchup and a less funnel-y one, as the Falcons are equally bad against both the run and the pass. Michael has seen 55.75 percent of the Seahawks’ rushes this year, and he got 69.23 percent of them in their most recent game. He doesn’t have high ratings in our Models, although he does come with reduced ownership: He’s projected at five to eight percent on both sites. There are way too many elite RB plays to roster Michael in cash, but he’s an interesting GPP option for the contrarians out there.
RB – C.J. Spiller
In his Seattle debut, Spiller got two carries and three targets. He’s merely insurance given the injuries to both Thomas Rawls and now C.J. Prosise. One has to admire that the Seahawks have cornered the market on “C.J.” RBs, but that doesn’t really help us for the purposes of DFS.
WR – Doug Baldwin
Is it concerning that Baldwin saw only four targets in the Seahawks’ Week 4 game against the poor Jets secondary? Yeah, probably. Still, he owns the highest market share of targets (22.63 percent) and Air Yards (24.96 percent) on the team. Perhaps it should be concerning that Jimmy Graham‘s rise in this offense has yet again coincided with a dip in Baldwin’s volume. Last season Baldwin and Wilson went on that ridiculous tear, but it didn’t happen until Graham was injured and out of the picture. Don’t get me wrong: Baldwin is still a great GPP option this week. He has a projected DK ceiling of 23.6 points and owns a top-10 rating in the Bales Model. Still, Baldwin’s production with an emerging Graham should be monitored.
WR – Tyler Lockett
Name the coach who said roughly this: Player X will have a bigger role in the upcoming game. If you guessed Pete Carroll this week, you’re correct. If you guessed Jim Bob Cooter regarding Golden Tate (actually, Cooter said that Tate would have “a huge week”), you’re also correct. Cooter said that before last week’s game, and Tate ended up with three receptions on five targets for 7.5 DK points. The point is this: Coaches sometimes lie.
What does the data actually say about Lockett? Basically, that you have to take a big leap of faith in Carroll in order to roster Lockett; he’s owned only 10.95 percent of the Seahawks’ targets and 9.83 percent of their Air Yards this season. In Week 4 against a poor Jets secondary, he caught one of his three targets for 13 yards. He’s cheap ($3,600 on DK) and has low two to four percent projected ownership, but there’s little reason (Carroll’s words notwithstanding) to believe this is the week that Lockett breaks out.
WR – Jermaine Kearse
Ah, yes: Another almost min-priced Seahawks WR who sees very little volume. Kearse has gotten five targets in the past two games and has turned them into 34 total yards. He’s owned 13.14 percent of their targets and only 7.13 percent of their Air Yards. Yawn.
TE – Jimmy Graham
If the last two games are any indication, Graham is playing at an elite level again and he’s his team’s top option:
In the last two weeks, he’s caught 12 of his 17 targets for 213 yards and a touchdown. This week his salary has bumped up a bit — he’s $4,900 on DK and $6,900 on FD — but he has a nice matchup against a Falcons defense that has allowed TEs to score 2.9 points over salary-based expectations on DK in the last year. He has the sixth-highest projected ceiling among TEs (16.2 points) and comes with a high nine to 12 percent FantasyLabs projected ownership. He’ll be popular in Wilson stacks.
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:
