I’ve come to the conclusion that the Week 9 slate is either going to be a whole lot of fun or a complete dumpster fire. There will be no in between.
Really, I’m being a bit dramatic but this is an interesting slate for a number of reasons. First and foremost this week’s games are a bit lopsided with six teams on a bye plus there are a number of potential value spots with the avalanche of injuries that occurred in Week 8.
Additionally, there are some potentially monster-scoring spots for strong passing offenses to dismantle weak opposing secondaries (PIT-OAK, NE-WASH, NYG-TBB, SD-CHI all come to mind here). Not to mention all four of those games have over/unders of 47.5 or more as of late Thursday afternoon.
Hopefully we only eat the right chalk and a few of these high over/under games turn into shootouts.
Here are Week 9’s trends:
- Chris Ivory, When the Jets are Favored At Home. That Is All.
Chris Ivory might be the most interesting running back on this week’s slate. He’s coming off a dismal performance (17 yards on 15 carries) on the road against an Oakland defense that actually “funnels” (hat-tip to Adam Levitan) action to the pass game because of their stout run defense (Oakland is 5th in Rush Defense DVOA and ranks 29th in YPC allowed to opposing running backs).
So, this is a spot where we can get Ivory at potentially low ownership coming off a bad week where the Jets are favored and at home. In games where the Jets have been home favorites in 2014-15, Ivory averages 14.6 rush attempts, 85.2 rushing yards, and 1.2 rushing TDs per-game. Granted, the Jaguars have actually not been too shabby against the run this year (4th in Rush Defense DVOA), but they are still allowing the 11th most fantasy points per rush attempt to opposing backs and the sixth most fantasy points per touch. With Ryan Fitzpatrick dealing with torn ligaments in his non-throwing thumb, this week sets up perfectly for the Jets to pound Ivory at home.
- Denver D/ST Coming At a Discount
Denver’s defense has smashed their salary-implied expectation each week so far, have the highest projected point ceiling of any defense in Fantasy Labs’ model this week (16.8 DraftKings points), and get to face Andrew Luck who has thrown two or more interceptions in five of his six active games this year. Does that sound like something you would be interested in? For whatever reason, people love to debate what is wrong with Andrew Luck this year (be it injury or another factor) but the fact is the Colts are in free-fall, on a short-week, and just made their offensive coordinator (Pep Hamilton) the scapegoat for all of their team wide problems.
- Wide Receivers With a Projected Plus/Minus of Six or More
When I was scrolling through Fantasy Labs’ model this week, I noticed Stevie Johnson had a projected plus/minus of 8.4 points above expectation and thought that was insane. And it is. In Fantasy Labs’ database, only four wide receivers have ever had a projected plus/minus of eight or more. (Just as a note: projected plus/minus is projected points minus players’ salary-implied points).
With Keenan Allen (kidney) out for the year, Steve Johnson will immediately step in to Allen’s role in two wide receiver sets and continue to run routes out of the slot in three wide receiver sets. Allen’s injury vacates a 25.4% share of the Chargers’ targets (11.1 targets per-game). Johnson now gets to face a Bears’ secondary that has allowed the second most fantasy points per reception to opposing wide receivers and ranks 31st in Pass Defense DVOA.
