The Week 4 NFL Dashboard
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Seahawks at Jets
The Seahawks and Jets face off in a game that currently owns the lowest Vegas total in the slate at 40 points. The Seahawks are 2.5-point favorites and are implied to score 21.25 points. The Jets are implied to score 18.75 points — the fourth-lowest mark in Week 4.
Seattle Seahawks
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Russell Wilson
Wilson continues the trend of being healthy enough to play but obviously limited once he hits the field. This is not what we’ve come to expect from Russ after his dazzling 2015 season:
The good news for Week 4 is that because of his struggles and matchup against the Jets defense, his salary on DraftKings has dropped down to $6,600. Speaking of that Jets defense: Through three games, they boast the league’s second-best run defense (per Football Outsiders’ DVOA) but third-worst pass defense. Wilson is certainly risky given the low total and his injuries, but he also comes with a FantasyLabs projected ownership of two to four percent. There’s upside here in guaranteed prize pools.
RB – Christine Michael
As mentioned above, the Jets currently boast the second-best run defense in the league through the first three games. Given that they finished last year as the league’s best run defense, that’s probably an accurate mark despite the small three-game sample. Michael is coming off an excellent game in which he had 106 rushing yards on 20 attempts and got into the end zone twice. However, his salary is now up $1,000 on DK and $600 on FanDuel. This matchup is a tough one, but he should get a ton of volume (he accounted for 64.52 of Seattle’s rush share in Week 3), and he has a low FantasyLabs projected ownership of two to four percent.
RB – Alex Collins
Collins slightly out-touched the rest of the backup running back options in Week 3, but it was slight: He owned only 12.90 percent of the rushes. C.J. Prosise has upside as a pass-catching back but will suit up in Week 4 with a cast on his arm, and it’s possible that he will lose snaps to his third-down double-initial doppelgänger, C.J. Spiller. As long as Thomas Rawls is out with an injury, it’s solely Michael’s backfield for the foreseeable future.
WR – Doug Baldwin
Baldwin finally had a big game in Week 3, racking up 164 receiving yards and a touchdown on eight receptions. After seeing a dip in Week 2 target share — he saw only 17.14 percent of the Seahawks’ targets in that game versus the Rams — he was back up to 33.33 percent of the targets in Week 3. Baldwin’s 10.5 yards-per-target mark is the second-best among all WRs in the slate. In the past year, he’s gotten to the red zone a lot (1.44 touches per game) and has converted those touches into touchdowns at a high rate (34.8 percent). He proved that he’s yet again an important part of the Seahawks offense and is certainly in play this week: He’s currently one of the highest-rated DK receivers in the Bales Player Model.
WR – Tyler Lockett
Baldwin’s teammate, Lockett, is currently the highest-rated DK receiver in the Bales Model. Over the past year, the Jets have given up 2.4 points over salary-based expectations to WRs (per our Plus/Minus metric). Lockett played in Week 3 despite being questionable after injuring his knee in Week 2. However, he might as well not have suited up: He played on only 23 of Seattle’s 70 offensive snaps and got exactly zero targets. If healthy and involved in the offense, he’s a great GPP option, as he is only $3,900 on DK and boasts a 98 percent Bargain Rating there. However, his health and role are certainly not givens right now. He was limited in Thursday’s practice.
WR – Jermaine Kearse
Despite Lockett seeing essentially no action in Week 3, Kearse did not get a bump. In fact, he saw less action, too: After seeing an average of 17.5 percent of the Seahawks’ targets in Weeks 1 and 2, he saw only 6.7 percent in Week 3. He is dirt cheap at $3,200 on DK and has a FantasyLabs projected ownership of zero to one percent, but two targets just won’t cut it.
TE – Jimmy Graham
Graham barely played in Week 1, was on a snap count in Week 2, and finally was unleashed in Week 3. Here’s how he’s involved when unleashed:
He received 30 percent of the Seahawks’ targets in Week 3 and converted those nine into six receptions for 100 yards and a touchdown. And all at a low $3,000 DK price tag. His price jumped up to $4,000 this week but he still has a positive matchup — the Jets allowed 1.6 points over expectations to TEs in the last year — and he has a very low two to four percent FantasyLabs projected ownership. He’s an elite GPP option yet again . . .
. . . if he plays. Graham was limited in Wednesday’s practice and then didn’t practice at all on Thursday. The Seahawks perhaps gave Graham the day off to rest his body, but his status for Week 4 should be monitored. He’s listed as questionable.
New York Jets
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Ryan Fitzpatrick
Six interceptions in Week 3: I’m not even mad, I’m actually impressed. More often than not a game of such supreme mediocrity can be brushed off as an outlier, but since 2011 Fitzpatrick has thrown multiple touchdowns following a week of multiple interceptions just 31.57 percent of the time. His errancy isn’t a coincidence. To make things worse, he draws a Seahawks defense in Week 4, the top-ranked unit in 2016, per Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). Is this a leverage situation with the public fixated on the six interceptions last week? Maybe. Does it shape up to be a profitable leverage situation? Probably not. There’s a big difference between being contrarian and eating the whole wheel of cheese.
RB – Matt Forte
It’s not exactly surprising that Forte’s average of 29.5 touches regressed: That’s an unustainable workload for a 30-year-old running back. However, I am not convinced that his 17-touch Week 3 was completely by design either. It was most likely due to the fact that the offense couldn’t sustain drives.
The silver lining in rostering Forte against the Seahawks, who allowed the fewest points to DK RBs in 2015, is that you can get a home running back with large volume at low ownership in GPPs, as he currently has a FantasyLabs projected ownership of two to four percent. Forte is still averaging 25.33 touches per game, 12.73 percent target share, 76.14 percent rushing share, and maybe most importantly 82.4 percent of the team’s rushing share from inside the 20-yard line, tied for second in the league.
RB – Bilal Powell
It remains to be seen if Powell’s seven targets in Week 3 will be an outlier or a hint of things to come in 2016. Given that Forte’s seeing 72.9 percent of the of the offensive snaps and Powell’s seeing 29.7 percent, Week 3 will probably be an outlier. In a tough matchup against Seattle, Powell remains a risky play with just a 2.9-point projected floor on DK, where his value relies solely on work in the passing game, given his meager 10.23 percent rushing share through three weeks.
WR – Brandon Marshall
Marshall wasn’t efficient last game, catching just three of his 10 targets for 27 yards. He now has just a 44.4 percent catch rate on the season. The Seahawks come to town this week boasting the stingiest defense against WR1s in 2015 (per Football Outsiders), and Marshall is projected (via our Matchups page) to square up most of the game against cornerback Richard Sherman. Marshall does lead the team with 24.55 percent of targets and 34.97 percent of air yards, but he has yet to score a touchdown this season.
Given his matchup, Marshall is a contrarian option this week and a large-field GPP flyer at best, although it should be noted that he is tied for the second-most red-zone targets in the NFL with seven. Positive regression should be coming, but probably not this week.
WR – Eric Decker
Decker has a partially torn rotator cuff. He’s out for Week 4 and maybe (probably?) longer.
WR – Quincy Enunwa
Marshall and Decker represented a 42.9 percent target share last year. This year, they have 42.73 percent of the market.
What’s interesting is that Enunwa currently has the second-highest share on the team at 21.82 percent. A favorite of the metrics crowd, Enunwa is 6’2″ and 225 lbs. and runs a 4.45-second 40-yard dash. With his market share and athleticism, he is a decent GPP dart in most weeks, but it is tough to recommend anyone in this passing game against Seattle.
Of course, with Decker out Enunwa’s targets and share of the offense could increase dramatically.
WR – Robby Anderson
With Decker, Jalin Marshall, and Devin Smith all injured, undrafted rookie Robby Anderson is slated to serve as the team’s No. 3 WR this week. On the one hand, he’s an undrafted rookie who played WR at Temple for only two years and now is facing the Seahawks secondary. On the other hand, he’s tall (6’3″), fast (4.36-second 40-yard dash), and on a team that likes to throw the ball and will likely need to throw this weekend.
In his first playing WR in college, he had nine TDs in nine games. In his second season at the position, he led the team in all major receiving categories. As a minimum-priced option on DK and FD, he has some sneaky punt-play potential.
TE – Kellen Davis
Davis essentially has the upside of an offensive lineman. Maybe less. He has one target on the season, and should quickly be overtaken on the depth chart by new acquisition, Austin Seferian-Jenkins — although probably not this week.
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:
