The Week 5 NFL Dashboard
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Cardinals at 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals in a Thursday night divisional matchup. This game has the third-lowest total on the week at 42 currently. The struggling Cardinals are 3.5-point road favorites implied for 22.75 points. The 49ers are currently implied for 19.25 points — the fourth-lowest mark of any Week 5 team.
Arizona Cardinals
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Drew Stanton
Stanton came in for injured QB Carson Palmer last Sunday and had four completions and two interceptions on just 11 pass attempts. That’s not an ideal ratio. Granted, Week 5’s matchup is a bit easier, as the 49ers defense ranks 21st overall and 16th against the pass per Football Outsiders’ DVOA (Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average). In the 10 games since 2011 in which Stanton has thrown at least 10 passes, he’s been very poor:
He’s minimum-priced this week but also has the second-lowest projected floor on both sites. Stanton probably shouldn’t be on your radar this week and he likely kills the value of the Cardinals’ pass catchers as well.
RB – David Johnson
Johnson is the most expensive RB on FD this week at $9,000 — $400 more than Le’Veon Bell, for reference — yet he still leads all RBs in Pro Trends (tied with Bell for 11) and has the highest-projected ceiling at 25.6 points. He’s currently the highest-rated FD RB in the Bales Model. A lot of this has to do with the matchup: San Francisco ranks 19th against the run this year and has allowed a +2.8 Opponent Plus/Minus to RBs over the last year — the worst mark of any Week 5 team. Johnson has dominated the Cardinals’ rushing market share — he’s had 67.37 percent of their rushes in 2016 — and will likely get a ton of volume this week with Stanton at QB. It’s a high price to pay and the Cardinals offense is a risky one to bet on right now, but DJ definitely has a lot of GPP upside.
RB – Andre Ellington
Chris Johnson (groin) has been placed on the IR, and Ellington — the team’s former lead back — is now Da. Johnson’s backup. In his first couple of years with the team Ellington proved himself to be a competent receiver with 28.37 yards per game on 4.48 targets. He’s unlikely to see the field other than to give Da. Johnson a quick break.
WR – Larry Fitzgerald
After two stellar weeks to begin the 2016 season, Fitz has seen his target share drop in each of the last two weeks:
Further, John Brown has now supplanted Fitz as the top receiver in terms of the Cardinals’ market share of Air Yards (MS Air). San Francisco has been about average against the pass this year, but unfortunately Fitz’s $7,200 DK and FD price tags don’t account for his recent drop in opportunities or the fact that Stanton will be his QB in Week 5. As you’d expect, Fitz has really struggled in the last several years with Stanton as his QB:
WR – John Brown
This was likely the last week to get JoBro at a discount — he’s a ridiculous $4,400 on DraftKings — but, alas, Stanton is here to ruin the day. Brown exploded in Week 4, catching 10 of his ridiculous 16 targets for 144 yards. Using MS Air and his Week 3 target share increase — his target MS bumped up to 22 percent in Week 3 — we were able to identify Brown’s potential breakout in Week 4. And because DraftKings releases their salaries before the current week’s games are completed, we were about to get JoBro’s low price tag for two straight weeks. Not all hope is lost though. Perhaps this Cardinals offense will struggle in Week 5 and then will collectively all be valuable in their next game.
WR – Michael Floyd
Floyd has two touchdowns on the season but really hasn’t shown the type of big-play upside he’s exhibited at times in his career. He’s caught only nine of his 24 targets on the year and that was with Palmer throwing to him. He saw only 15 percent of the targets in Week 4 — his lowest mark of the year — and likely won’t get a bump this week if the Cards elect to ride DJ and the running game. Floyd has a $6,600 price tag on FD and owns a poor -1.7 Projected Plus/Minus.
TE – Darren Fells
The Cardinals just don’t use TEs in their offense; Fells played on only 39 of their 77 offensive snaps and received only 4.44 percent of their targets in Week 4. With Stanton playing, Fells isn’t even a fringe GPP dart.
San Francisco 49ers
Writer: Bryan Mears
QB – Blaine Gabbert
Gabbert faces an Arizona defense that ranks fifth overall and sixth against pass this year, per FO’s DVOA. And that perhaps even undersells the poor matchup: The Cardinals have held QBs to 1.8 points under salary-based expectations in the last year — the second-lowest mark among Week 5 teams. As a result, he has the fourth-lowest DK projection at 14.8 points and third-lowest projected ceiling at 24.8 points. He did rush 12 times last week — good for 41.38 percent of the 49ers’ rushing plays — but he got only 27 yards and now has three total TDs and four interceptions on the year. The 49ers like to play fast, but it’s likely that the Cardinals will try to do the exact opposite and slow it down with Johnson.
RB – Carlos Hyde
Hyde has been very good this year, especially considering he’s the bell cow back for an offense that ranks 29th overall in 2016. They’re slightly better running the ball (ranked 20th) and that’s almost entirely due to Hyde’s impressive play. In his last two games, he has averaged 4.9 yards per carry — against the Cowboys and Seahawks, no less — and gotten in the end zone three times. He has a poor -0.7 Opponent Plus/Minus, but because of his still-low DK salary of $4,800 he boasts a Projected Plus/Minus of +3.6. He shouldn’t be in cash consideration given the matchup, but he’s intriguing as usual in GPPs. He dominates the 49ers’ touches inside the 10.
RB – Shaun Draughn
Draughn received 34.62 percent of the 49ers’ rushes in Week 2, but that number has dipped in Weeks 3 and 4; he received only 6.9 percent last week. He got only 4.35 percent of the targets as well; he’s not involved in this offense enough to warrant exposure.
WR – Jeremy Kerley
Kerley has now led the 49ers in targets in three of their four weeks, culminating with an impressive 39.13 percent target share in Week 4. In that game against the Cowboys, he secured six of his nine targets for 88 yards and a touchdown. Unfortunately, Kerley has two major things working against him this week. First, he has an ankle injury that likely won’t force him to miss time but could hamper production. Second, per our NFL Matchups tool he’s slated to go up against Tyrann Mathieu in the slot, who is one of the best defensive players in the league. He’s a fringe GPP dart at the very best.
WR – Torrey Smith
Smith definitely gets the easiest matchup of the day: He’s slated to lineup opposite Marcus Cooper — PFF’s 42nd-ranked CB in 2016 — as opposed to Mathieu or PFF’s seventh-ranked CB in Patrick Peterson, as Kerley and Quinton Patton are slated to do. Still, there’s very little reason to be excited about Smith; after seeing 10 targets in Week 2, he got four in Week 3 and only two in Week 4. He caught one of those two for a total of three receiving yards. Bleh. He is cheap at $3,700 on DK, but he also has a low 9.3-point projection. Again, fringe GPP dart at best.
WR – Quinton Patton
Can I just say “ditto” for Patton? He’s seen only 14.78 percent of the 49ers’ targets in 2016 and got 13.04 percent in Week 4. He has two catches combined in his last two games. There’s just not enough volume here to even dream about testing the matchup against Peterson.
TE – Vance McDonald and Garrett Celek
McDonald and Celek have almost identical projections for Week 5, but it is important to note that McDonald missed Week 4 and is still limited with a hip injury. He’s seen a minuscule percentage of the 49ers’ targets anyway — he’s at 6.09 percent on the year — although Celek has seen 16 percent and 21.74 percent in the last two weeks, respectively. The latter caught all five of his targets for 79 yards in Week 4. The Cardinals are a little softer against TEs — they’ve allowed a +2.4 Opponent Plus/Minus on DK in the last year — but we’re still talking about highly-volatile, low-volume tight ends who aren’t red-zone threats. They aren’t unplayable in GPPs, but there are likely much better options.
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:
