The Week 3 NFL Dashboard
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Browns at Dolphins
The Browns travel to Miami to face off against the Dolphins for a game that Vegas projects to be one of the lowest scoring of the week. The Browns are seven-point underdogs in a game with a 41.5-point total.
Browns
Writer: John Proctor
QB – Cody Kessler
Josh McCown was able to finish Sunday’s game against the Ravens but has a separated shoulder and will not play this weekend. Kessler, a third-round rookie from Southern California, is starting this game. While Kessler is an extremely risky play — especially now that rookie phenom Corey Coleman will miss the game with a broken hand — but he at least is the minimum $5,000 salary on DK and gets to face off against a defense that just allowed Jimmy Garoppolo to throw for 234 yards and three touchdowns. Kessler’s FantasyLabs projected ownership (available in our Player Models) is zero to one percent.
RB – Isaiah Crowell
Bursting through the Ravens defense, Crowell rushed for an 85-yard touchdown in Week 1 and is now averaging 6.5 yards per carry on the season. Now Crowell gets to (try to) tee off against a defense that has allowed a +2.9 Opponent Plus/Minus to FanDuel RBs over the last 16 games. Unfortunately his price has risen since the season started and he now has only a 12 percent Bargain Rating on FD.
Additionally, Crowell might not get much opportunity to touch the ball. With the Browns big underdogs, Crowell could experience highly negative game flow. Per our Trends tool, FD RBs who are road dogs tend to have a negative Plus/Minus . . .
. . . and the Browns are giving seven points.
RB – Duke Johnson
Duke has now scored fewer than 10 DraftKings points in back-to-back games to start the season. Thought to be the PPR compliment to Crowell, Duke is not living up to the offseason hype. As long as Crowell continues to play at a high level and Duke continues to see fewer than 10 touches weekly he is going to be difficult to roster.
However, with the Browns now starting a rookie QB, they will project to trail more often, which in theory should benefit Duke. In Week 3, he’ll at least be facing the the defense that last year allowed the most fantasy points and touchdowns receiving to opposing RBs. Duke does have seven Pro Trends on DK.
WR – Terrelle Pryor
With Coleman injured (and Josh Gordon suspended), Pryor will function as the team’s top WR in Week 3. Per our Matchups tool, he now gets the opportunity to run routes against Xavien Howard and Byron Maxwell. Pro Football Focus ranks both of these cornerbacks outside of the top-50 for 2016. Pryor has 17 targets on the season and should continue to be targeted heavily while Coleman is out. With a 99 percent DK Bargain Rating, Pryor might be high-volume, low-ownership contrarian tournament play.
WR – Andrew Hawkins
Playing behind Coleman and Pryor, Hawkins saw only six targets over the first two weeks of NFL action. Now, he’s slated to start and is only $3,000 and $4,600 on FD and DK. Two years removed from a 112-target season in which he led the team in receiving, Hawk has the quiet opportunity to be a receptions accumulator in a game in which the Browns will need to throw and their rookie QB will be tempted to throw closer to the line of scrimmage. It’s possible that Hawk (and not Pryor) could lead the team in targets in Week 3.
TE – Gary Barnidge
A week after reuniting with the quarterback who made him fantasy relevant in 2015, Barnidge is going to be catching passes from someone else. Barnidge was very inconsistent in 2015 without McCown, as shown by his RotoViz game splits. 
It’s possible that Kessler might try to rely on his tight end, but we have no way of knowing. But with Coleman out, Barnidge has a chance to acquire some of his target market share. He has an 81 percent Bargain Rating on FD as well as seven Pro Trends.
Miami Dolphins
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Ryan Tannehill
The leading rusher for the Dolphins in Week 2 was none other than Tannehill, with 35 yards on six attempts. With the Patriots letting up in the second half after leading 24-3 at the break, Tannehill finished Week 2 with a 71.1 percent completion rate, 389 yards passing, two touchdowns, and two interceptions.
He is a home favorite against a Browns defense that allowed the fourth-highest Opponent Plus/Minus to quarterbacks in 2015, and Tannehill is currently the seventh-rated FD quarterback in the Levitan Model. Yet even with his good rating, Tannehill has a FantasyLabs ownership projection of only five to eight percent. His matchup alone puts him in play this week, as he’s facing a team that just gave up 302 total yards and multiple touchdowns to Joe Flacco and the Ravens.
RB – Jay Ajayi
Ajayi underwhelmed after Foster was knocked out of the game against the Patriots last week, but he still seems the likeliest to lead the Dolphins backfield in Week 3. That said, Kenyan Drake is also likely to see a number touches as well. It is tough to trust a Miami RB, as the team has scored the sixth-fewest points in the NFL.
It’s sad to think that no one in the backfield will take advantage of this advantageous matchup: The Browns defense allows 8.24 yards per play, the second-highest average in the league, and last year was 26th against the run (per Football Outsiders).
RB – Kenyan Drake
Drake scored a touchdown through a gaping hole in Week 2 and looks to be the favorite for passing work in Miami. With Foster out for Week 3, Drake has some points-per-reception appeal with his 93 percent DK Bargain Rating, but he’s nothing more than a tournament play, due to the uncertainty in the backfield.
WR – Jarvis Landry
A slot receiver with an average depth of target of 7.4 and 5.5 the past two seasons, Landry has drawn 9.92 targets per game since becoming a starter in his rookie season. The first two weeks of 2016 have been more of the same from Landry, who leads the Dolphins with a 31.88 percent target share and impressive +5.98 Plus/Minus with a per-game average of 19.3 DK points. DeVante Parker received 13 targets in his Week 2 return, but historically his presence on the field hasn’t hurt Landry’s production.
Landry is averaging 8.6 yards after the catch — the highest average among all wide receivers. This week he will face a Browns defense that last season allowed the second-most fantasy points to WRs. He currently has the second-highest WR rating in our Tournament Model.
WR – Kenny Stills
A perpetual disappointment, Stills has a 13.04 percent target share that’s likely to decrease in the coming weeks. After a horrendous 80-yard touchdown drop in Week 1 he did score in Week 2 before deferring to Parker. With Landry underneath soaking up the short-intermediate targets, Stills will still have opportunities in three-wide sets, but his nine targets and three receptions on the season suggest that he’s a tournament-only play who isn’t likely to be consistent.
WR – DeVante Parker
In his return, Parker saw 59 Week 2 snaps and dropped a 8-106-0 stat line against the Patriots. The Dolphins will likely throw the ball more without Foster, and Parker should be a primary beneficiary of the Dolphins’ terrible rushing attack and subpar defense. A playmaker who dwarfs Stills, Parker was extremely impressive in his last five games dating back to last year.
Parker is clearly over his hamstring issue and gets a dream matchup, currently rating as the 11th-best WR in the Bales Player Model.
TE – Jordan Cameron
Cameron caught his fourth touchdown as a Dolphin in Week 2. TE production will be difficult to predict week to week in this offense, but it is notable that Cameron has seen a 14.49 percent target share this season. Still, Week 2 marked Cameron’s best game ever with the Dolphins . . . and all he did was catch five passes for 49 yards and a touchdown in garbage time.
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:
