The Week 14 NFL Dashboard
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Seahawks at Packers
The Seahawks travel to Green Bay this weekend as three-point favorites. It will be a typical cold day in Wisconsin: The high is currently 32 degrees and the forecast projects for snow. Despite that, this game has a 46.5-point Vegas total. The Seahawks are implied for 24.75 points to the Packers’ 21.75.
Seattle Seahawks
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Russell Wilson
After hitting at least 24 FanDuel points for three straight weeks, Wilson dropped to 17.0 and 12.0 points in Weeks 12-13 despite having positive matchups against the Panthers and Bucs. He has another plus matchup this week against the Packers, whose funnel defense pushes production toward the passing game: They rank seventh against the rush but 22nd against the pass in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). There are better cash-game options in the slate, but Wilson’s talent always warrants GPP exposure. He’s projected for only two to four and five to eight percent ownership on DK and FD.
RB – Thomas Rawls
Rawls scored 24.3 FD points last week thanks to a 15-106-2 line against the Panthers, and he’s projected for high 13-16 percent FD ownership as a result. It was a nice game against a stout Panthers run defense, and he’ll have to prove it wasn’t a fluke against another solid run defense: Green Bay ranks seventh in rush DVOA. Like most RBs in the slate, Rawls is a better value on FD, where his $6,500 salary comes with a +3.77 Projected Plus/Minus and a 97 percent Bargain Rating. Rawls is risky, though, as he has owned only 51.7, 54.6, and 47.7 percent of the team’s carries over the last three weeks as the lead back. Wilson always gets his share of the carries, so Rawls will need to be efficient to be worth rostering in tournaments, given that he’s carrying the ball about 15 times per game. With his low volume, Rawls has a floor projection of only 5.4 FD points.
WR – Doug Baldwin
Baldwin typically goes as Wilson goes: He was a solid DFS asset for three weeks and hasn’t been in the past two. He has an elite matchup this week, as he’ll line up in the slot opposite CB Micah Hyde, who is Pro Football Focus’ 89th-ranked corner with a poor 49.6 coverage grade. In facing Hyde, Baldwin has PFF’s third-most advantageous WR/CB matchup of the week. Baldwin is a better play on FD, where his $7,000 salary comes with a +1.80 Projected Plus/Minus, six Pro Trends, and a 96 percent Bargain Rating. Per the Market Share Report, he leads the team with 20.4 percent of the team’s targets over the past four games. He’s in play in all formats.
WR – Tyler Lockett
Lockett had easily the best game of his season, scoring 22.3 FD points on a 5-63-0 receiving line as well as a 75-yard TD run. It was a nice game — but he’s unlikely to break off a long run against this solid Green Bay front line. That said, Lockett is projected for only zero to one percent ownership on FD (he’s at two to four percent on DK), and he has a +2.45 Projected Plus/Minus. He’s a GPP-only play, but he’s worthy of one percent exposure.
WR – Jermaine Kearse
Kearse is rated highly in several of our Player Models. (He’s the No. 2 option in the Sports Geek’s personal Week 14 model.) Kearse’s high rating has mostly to do with price, as he’s only $3,000 DK after exceeding salary-based expectations by 5.82 points last week. Kearse owns 19.71 percent of the team’s targets over the past month, but he’s still a risky play: He has a floor projection of 1.3 DK points.
TE – Jimmy Graham
Graham is now third on the team with 18.25 percent of the targets over the past month. After dominating to start the year, he’s been quite volatile lately. That makes him more of a GPP option, but he’s definitely an elite play: He has four touchdowns over his past five games and owns a slate-high 35.7 percent of his team’s receiving touchdowns over the past year. He’s the No. 3 TE in the Bales Model for FD, where his $6,600 salary comes with a +3.02 Projected Plus/Minus, nine Pro Trends, and a 92 percent Bargain Rating.
Packers
Writer: Ian Hartitz
QB – Aaron Rodgers
Rodgers has thrown multiple TD passes in seven straight games. His status as the most pass-happy QB in the red zone gives him a high floor every game. This week he takes on a Seahawks defense that has surprisingly been better away from CenturyLink Field lately.
Per our Trends tool, home QBs facing the Seahawks have averaged lower Plus/Minus values and scored fewer DK points this season — and this trend remains true even if we include the previous two seasons:
Note that home QBs have had higher ownership against the Seahawks, but in general QB ownership has been low against the Seahawks regardless of where the game is played. Rodgers could see an increase in ownership this week with the absence of safety Earl Thomas, who will miss the remainder of the season with a broken leg. Rodgers is priced at $6,400 DK with six Pro Trends. He has a five to eight percent FantasyLabs projected ownership.
RB – James Starks, Christine Michael and Ty Montgomery
The Packers backfield is a mess. Last week Michael got nine carries, Montgomery got six carries plus three targets and Starks got four carries. Montgomery was the best of the bunch, as he gained 56 total yards, but since Week 9 he hasn’t had double-digit touches. Both Starks and Michael have struggled to get anything going behind the league’s third-worst run-blocking unit, per playerprofiler.com. None of the Packers RBs are recommended fantasy options against a Seahawks defense that has allowed fourth-fewest fantasy points to RBs this season.
WR – Jordy Nelson
Nelson has been targeted 10-plus times in four of his last five games and continues to be the league’s No. 1 receiver in the red zone. Through 13 weeks, he’s the league-leader in red-zone targets, receptions, yards and TDs. Per our Matchups tool, Nelson could see a lot of CB Richard Sherman this Sunday, but Sherman has had mixed results this season against No. 1 WRs:
Per Pro Football Reference, six of the best WRs the Seahawks have faced this season have averaged a 5.83-79.83-0.67 line this season. Sherman has spent only eight percent of his snaps this season in the slot (per Pro Football Focus), but either way teams have not been afraid to feed their marquee receivers against the Seahawks. Nelson is priced at $7,100 FD with a 95 percent Bargain Rating and eight Pro Trends.
WR – Randall Cobb
Cobb scored a TD last week, but his troubling usage continued. With three targets in Week 13, he’s now averaging just five targets per game since Week 9. Still, he’s historically been relied upon more when the Packers have played against the Seahawks:
Per Rotoviz, Cobb has averaged a 7-87-0.5 line during his last two games against the Seahawks. The sample’s small, and one game was with Nelson sidelined, but Cobb has been targeted at least nine times in both games. It’s possible that he could see an increase of targets in this game.
Cobb’s priced at $6,000 FD with an 80 percent Bargain Rating. In the slot, Cobb is likely to see a lot of Jeremy Lane, PFF’s No.67 CB this season.
WR – Davante Adams
Adams hasn’t had double-digit targets since Week 8, but he also hasn’t been targeted fewer than six times in a game since Week 6. He’s been efficient enough in the red zone and on deep balls to overcome his suboptimal workload:
Adams has averaged 15.98 DK points and posted a +2.3 Plus/Minus with 60 percent Consistency over his past five games. Overall, his average of 1.99 fantasy points per target ranks 13th among all WRs, per playerprofiler.com. It’s tough to trust Adams in cash due to his limited workload, but he’s in play as a contrarian GPP option thanks to his zero to one percent FantasyLabs projected FD ownership. He’s priced at $6,400 FD and has an 83 percent Bargain Rating.
TE – Jared Cook
Cook’s upside will continue to be limited as long as he splits reps with Richard Rodgers. Since returning from his ankle injury in Week 11, Cooks has averaged 0.28 fantasy points per snap, eighth among all TEs. Still, he’s been almost nonexistent the past two weeks, gaining just 26 yards on six targets. The Seahawks have allowed the seventh-fewest fantasy points per game to TEs this season, making Cook nothing more than a GPP dart throw at $2,700 DK with zero to one percent projected ownership.
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:
