The Week 3 NFL Dashboard
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Broncos at Bengals
This game has a 41-point implied Vegas total. The Bengals are three-point home favorites, implied to score 22 points. The Broncos are implied to score 19 points as the road underdogs. The weather in Cincinnati is expected to be ideal on Sunday: 86 degrees and sunny with no wind.
Denver Broncos
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Trevor Siemian
In a win that was largely on the shoulders of two defensive touchdowns, Siemian did not take advantage of the Colts in Week 2 and now has thrown just a single touchdown through two weeks. He is robotic in his decision-making and is not willing push the ball down field. Siemian is far and away the worst-rated player in our Tournament Model with a projected floor just 0.1 points higher than Jacoby Brissett’s (3.2) on FanDuel.
RB – C.J. Anderson
Anderson is doing it all for Denver right now, with a 66.67 percent rushing share, 17.86 percent target share, 84.6 percent of team rushes inside the 20-yard line, and 100 percent of the goal-line carries through two weeks. Last week in a game that was miserably hot in Denver, Anderson still ended the game with 20 carries and now has three total touchdowns on the season. With similar market share and volume, Matt Forte and DeAngelo Williams have shredded the Bengals this year (FanDuel scoring, per our Trends tool):
RB – Devontae Booker
After fumbling on his first NFL touch, Booker has some positive momentum as the primary backup to CJA, getting nine carries last week. Still, Booker rates dead last in the Bales Player Model for Week 3. Anderson will get all the volume he can handle against the Bengals, making the fourth-round rookie a risky play in any contest.
WR – Demaryius Thomas
Thomas battled a hip injury to play well in Week 2 against a Colts team decimated by injuries. Thomas is tied with Emmanuel Sanders with a 23.21 percent target share through two weeks. Per our Matchups tool, Thomas is currently slated to see the majority of his snaps against Adam Jones, Pro Football Focus’ 57th-ranked corner.
Because of CJA’s dominance and Siemian’s seventh-rounder-ness, Thomas’ upside is limited. He has one 100-yard game in his last 13 outings and is currently the 69th-rated DK WR in our Tournament Model. On the plus side, his FantasyLabs projected ownership is only two to four percent, so at least he can serve to differentiate a lineup.
WR – Emmanuel Sanders
Even though Thomas and Sanders have collectively been targeted on 46.42 percent of the team’s pass attempts, Sanders’ projected ceiling this week is outside the top 40. There just isn’t enough upside in the passing game. Not including injured QBs, Siemian threw the second-fewest passes of all starting QB through the first two weeks of the season. There simply isn’t enough volume to compensate for Siemian’s deficiencies for Sanders to be the WR he has been previously. Sanders is also not a threat in the red zone: Thomas out-targeted him last season 19 to eight from inside the 20-yard line. Sanders is the 38th-rated WR in our Tournament Model — which doesn’t seem like the type of receiver you’d actually want to use in a tournament.
WR – Jordan Norwood
A minimum-priced option yet again on DK and FD, Norwood is not likely to get enough volume in Week 3 to be anything more than a GPP flyer, but at least he doubled Cody Latimer in Week 2 in both targets and snaps. The third wide receiver in an offense that doesn’t throw, Norwood is a GPP flyer in the event of a nuclear holocaust.
TE – Virgil Green
Head coach Gary Kubiak features his tight end in the passing game and Green currently has 14.29 percent target share in the Broncos offense. He deserved better than three targets for 46 yards in Week 2 as he was consistently getting open: Siemian just didn’t have the confidence to deliver the football in tight windows. Virgil was a consistent red-zone threat for Siemian in camp, so he could be a decent GPP flyer, but he’s unlikely to get the volume needed to be even a reliable punt play in cash games.
As for Week 3, he’s questionable to play and hasn’t practiced this week. If he can’t play, then presumably he will be replaced by some combination of two guys whose names I can’t spell without looking up — and they’ll be going against a defense that allowed the sixth-fewest fantasy points last year to TEs.
Bengals
Writer: John Proctor
QB – Andy Dalton
Dalton leads the NFL in passing yardage after two weeks. Who would have thought? Unfortunately, while Dalton has thrown for 732 yards, he has only thrown two touchdowns. Even more unfortunate is that things won’t be getting much better in Week 3. Denver is second in the NFL with eight sacks and Cincinnati ranks first in the NFL with eight sacks allowed. Denver also ranks second against the pass, per Football Outsiders’ Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). While Dalton is not in a great spot against the Denver defense, he at least has seen his salary drop $1,100 on DraftKings, where he has an 88 percent Bargain Rating.
RB – Giovani Bernard
Week 2 was most certainly a ‘Gio game,’ in which Bernard caught nine of 11 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown. A.J. Green simply could not get anything going and Gio was a major beneficiary. However, this week Gio will face off against a defense that has allowed only 26.5 yards per game through the air to running backs. At the same time, Denver is currently giving up an average of 120 yards per game on the ground. With Denver seemingly weaker against the run than the pass, all signs point to a ‘Hill game’ this week.
RB – Jeremy Hill
Denver is allowing the ninth-most rushing yards per game in 2016, and Hill has received 52 percent of the Bengals carries this season — but he’s only averaging 2.7 yards per carry and does not look great running the ball. Given Hill’s projected ceiling of only 12.8 FD points, you’re basically hoping for a touchdown and/or a random long run if you play him in Week 3.
WR – A.J. Green
Green was a major disappointment for DFS players in Week 2, catching only two of eight passes for 38 yards. He draws another tough matchup this week, where he looks to run a high percentage of his routes against Aqib Talib, according to the FantasyLabs Matchup Tool. However, we did see Kelvin Benjamin enjoy success against this defense in Week 1, catching six passes for 91 yards and a touchdown. Green has the capacity to bounce back against the defense that last year was No. 1 in the league against the pass (per FO), but in this tough matchup he is rated outside of the top 24 receiver options in the Levitan Player Model.
WR – Tyler Boyd
After looking like he wouldn’t have a major role behind Brandon LaFell after Week 1, Boyd jumped onto the scene, catching six of eight targets for 78 yards. This week, Boyd may see another down week, as he draws Chris Harris Jr. in the slot. Harris has graded out as Pro Football Focus’ 11th-ranked (and Denver’s best) cornerback. With the worst matchup of the Bengals wide receivers, Boyd is probably someone to avoid this week, but his volume needs to be monitored.
WR – Brandon LaFell
LaFell draws the best matchup of the Bengals wide receivers, projected to spend most of his snaps facing Bradley Roby, who has received a very poor 41.7 grade from PFF after two weeks. At just $3400 on DraftKings, where he has a 97 percent Bargain Rating, LaFell is an intriguing tournament play who could be peppered with targets. Hopefully he doesn’t LaFail.
TE – C.J. Uzomah
Uzomah had a brutal Week 2 outing in which he caught only three of eight passes for nine yards. He was outplayed by Tyler Kroft and there are rumblings from beat reporters that Kroft could start over him this week. With all of the TE options in Week 3, Uzomah is hard to consider — but he has been targeted an obscene 13 times this season, and he actually leads the team in opportunities inside the 10-yard line.
TE – Tyler Kroft
Bengals Beat writer Paul Dehner Jr. expects Kroft to start in Week 3, and he makes an interesting tournament play. The Denver defense only ranks 22nd against TEs in DVOA, and it also allows 20.4 percent more passing production over league average in the short middle of the field. Just $3,000 on DK, where has a 92 percent Bargain Rating, Kroft wouldn’t need to do all that much against Denver’s defensive weakness to make value.
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:
