Well, here we are.
It’s the final “Three Trends” of the NFL regular season. This is also the first article that I have written in the New Year – so on that note, Happy New Year! Most importantly, thank you for reading this column along the way. Hopefully you avoided the Nick Foles call in Week 3 (ha!) and learned something along the way.
Without being sappy or bittersweet, I’ll keep the introduction short for Week 17. Before we get the week’s important trends – I didn’t want to take up a whole section with this bit of news – it seems almost certain that Todd Gurley (foot) will not play on the road against the ‘Niners in the season finale. He’s currently listed as doubtful. So, in a week where we are starved for value at running back, Tre Mason ($3,000 on DraftKings, $4,600 on FanDuel) is squarely in play.
In Tre Mason’s lone start without Gurley active this season way back in Week 2, he played 53.8% of the snaps, saw seven of the eight possible running back carries (Benny Cunningham had one), and had five targets (two receptions). Just over the last five weeks, San Francisco has allowed the sixth-most rushing yards (575) and the most rushing touchdowns to opposing backs (8).
All right, let’s get to Week 17’s Three Most Important Trends:
1. Paying Up To Be Semi-Contrarian: Cam Newton Edition
Yeah, I could have dug a little deeper here. But it’s the last week of the season. You can’t blame me for seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
To be clear: you’re not being sneaky by rostering Cam Newton this weekend. The reason I’m mentioning Cam here is because he is seemingly always under-owned relative to his ceiling and floor. He’s always in that 8-10% ownership range and in a week where everyone is going to pay up at wide receiver (for good reason), we have to find a tournament pivot. Cam is the highest-priced quarterback on the Week 17 slate ($7,500 on DK, $9,100 on FD). Coming off his first “disappointing” game in his last 10, Cam’s ownership percentage will be palatable. Further influencing a semi-subdued ownership will be due to the fact Carolina will be without Jonathan Stewart (foot) and Ted Ginn (knee).
In a game the Panthers need to win to lock up the No. 1 seed in the NFC, Cam will – once again – be Carolina’s offense in the regular season finale. He also has some pretty intriguing home versus road splits this season (below). He’s performed +8.18 points above expectation on average this year:
2. Martavis Bryant, Recency Bias, and Pricing Inefficiencies
The DraftKings pricing algorithm has been broken for Martavis Bryant since he returned from suspension. That much is clear. He’s sitting at $5,300 on DraftKings this week and in terms of targets, fantasy points, and upside he really should be a low-$7,000 wideout. It’s also clear that his ownership percentage will be depressed after last week’s complete dud (1-6 receiving).
Bryant doesn’t come without risk, however. As I mentioned in this tweet here – for whatever reason – Ben Roethlisberger has some insane home versus road splits over the past two seasons. To be honest, I don’t know how much of that data is just noise or an indication of one of those weird NFL splits we see at times. Regardless, Bryant is severely underpriced and is a lock to go under-owned. He’s seen at least eight targets in five of his last six games and has 18-plus DraftKings points in four of those five contests (with eight-plus targets). Bryant ripped the Browns for 6-178-1 (on 10 targets) back in Week 10.
3. Why Fade David Johnson Now?
As I mentioned at the top, this is a week completely devoid of running back value across the board. The top-priced running backs are tough to get to with Julio Jones, Odell Beckham, Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, and Brandon Marshall in monster matchups. David Johnson is just $6,000 on DraftKings despite being the top-scoring fantasy back over the past month. He’s also still slightly underpriced on FanDuel ($7,700 as the sixth highest-priced back).
The matchup with Seattle is tough – they have allowed the fewest yards per carry to opposing backs over their last five games – but David Johnson has been completely on fire during that same span. Even if he fails to get anything going on the ground in a major way, he will remain involved in the pass game. Johnson has 24 or more touches in three of his last four games, has 20 targets in his last four, and has 16 (rushes plus targets) red zone opportunities total during this four-game streak. We always love home favorites (ARI is currently -6.5) and there hasn’t been a hotter fantasy running back over the last month.
