It’s Joe Flacco ($5,500) for the Colts. Flacco isn’t a bad play himself, but I’m focused on Michael Pittman ($6,000) and Josh Downs ($5,100) as I wrote below.
With Devin Singletary out, Tyrone Tracy ($4,300) is a tough fade. He’ll get a bunch of snaps and was a wide receiver in college. I think he’s more of a floor play than a ceiling one, but 15 touches feels pretty gettable here - the price should be at least $5,500 IMO.
The Packers passing game is missing Christian Watson, Luke Musgrave, and Romeo Doubs. That solidifies Jayden Reed ($6,500) and Dontayvion Wicks ($5,000) as wide receiver plays, and it moved Tucker Kraft ($3,500) ahead of Parkinson for me at tight end.
Malik Nabers is indeed out. I didn’t end up with any Giants, but I could see taking the floor on Wan’Dale Robinson or the ceiling play on Darius Slayton. The one thing that news changed for me was locking more into Kenneth Walker ($6,800). I don’t see the Giants being much competition here, so Walker should be on his way to an easy 20+ carry game.
Those are the big updates - good luck today!
Progress Update
Check out the week four lineup reviewfor the full breakdown, but I had the worst week of the season so far at a -49% ROI. Made all of the wrong last-minute adjustments. For the season, I’m at a +19% ROI and a 73% head to head win rate.
Quick Links
I forgot to actually do this last week, but I won’t this week. View this post in a browser, and you’ll see all of the links to the individual games here.
We have a total over 50, and then three more above 47 points. And again, we have two games well below 40, with three games somewhere in the middle there. The games to really target:
Ravens vs. Bengals
49ers vs. Cardinals
Packers vs. Rams
Bills vs. Texans
There are still a lot of key players out to injury, so we need to cover those spots in detail as well.
I think we are far enough into the season to start taking the defensive numbers somewhat seriously. Here’s the plot I have that shows both yards per pass attempt allowed vs. yards per rush attempt allowed.
The defenses to attack would be the green dots, but you need to consider where the dots are lining up on each axis.
Colts vs. Jaguars
Game Environment
Over/Under: 46 Spread: Colts -2.5
So much of this game comes down to the availability of Anthony Richardson. If Richardson is in, the Colts offense is tough to go to. If he’s out, then there is a ton to like in the passing game.
The Jaguars have a middling -4% PROE this year, but have really struggled offensively with 4.8 yards per play despite playing at a fast pace and often being in catch-up mode. The passing game has been rough at 5.9 yards per pass attempt. They have been efficient on the ground (4.7 yards/rush), but a lot of that probably has to do with defenses playing soft against them with their big leads.
In weeks 1-3, the Colts went for a -12% PROE, last week with Flacco playing most of the snaps, they went -6%. Flacco threw it 26 times, which would have been Richardson’s third-highest mark of the season.
Quarterbacks
It’s an easy pass no matter what happens. Anthony Richardson ($6,000) is cheap again. He would be an interesting tournament play if he’s in, but with the injury concerns and the overall inconsistency, we can’t touch him in our one lineup. I would expect him to run less in the short term after the injury, and that’s bad for pretty much everybody.
Looking at the slate as a whole, there is not a clear QB play for me. That makes me a little bit interested in buying low on Trevor Lawrence ($5,700). He’s been right around this price the last four weeks, but he started the year at $6,200 - so this is still, in some ways, a discount. He posted a 66% completion rate the last two years, but this year it’s dropped to 53%. The most logical explanation for that has to just be schedule and randomness - he’s not a worse quarterback all of a sudden, and he has very similar weaponry as well. So far he has faced MIA, CLE, BUF, and HOU - four pretty good pass defenses.
I think he’ll play his way back toward that $6,200 tag, so I’m willing to take him here with the nice game total.
Running Backs
I wrote what you see below (crossed out) before realizing that Jonathan Taylor ($7,700) is very much questionable for this week. Trey Sermon ($5,700) would step into a bunch of work if JT misses. DraftKings is on top of it, however, raising his price to $5,700.
I think he’s a thin play at that price if JT misses. He’s averaged just 2.7 yards per carry and has seen just 19 routes and one target.
Jonathan Taylor ($7,700) is still very expensive, but he’s more appealing now than before. If Flacco plays, he’s getting nearly 100% of the rush attempts. If Richardson plays, it’s still pretty likely he’s getting near 100% of the rush attempts; you would have to imagine they call the game in a way that protects Richardson. Flacco also targeted him three times in about three quarters, so we could certainly see a new high in catches this week for him.
I’ll add him to the list, but it’s still probably too high of a price for me.
Travis Etienne ($6,700) has been crippled by the Jaguars offensive woes, but he still has 47 rushes and 15 targets in four games. That’s an average of 14 touches per game, and it’s fair to expect the Jaguars to play a bit better as we move forward. It’s also a pretty good matchup against a beatable run defense in a game that’s expected to be pretty high scoring and tight. He’ll go pretty high up on the list.
Pass Catchers
If Flacco plays, we have nice values in both Michael Pittman Jr. ($6,000) and Josh Down ($5,100). Here’s how it looked with Flacco in those 3+ quarters last week:
If it’s Flacco, I think I’m very likely to end up on Downs for $5,100. I’ll put both guys on the list for now while we wait for that QB news.
For Jacksonville, Christian Kirk ($5,700) has seen 22 targets over the last two weeks. He’s the most reliable pass catcher on this team, and he’s a guy that has always given a high floor. I like him as well, but he probably doesn’t quite have the ceiling we really want in a perfect world.
Recap/Targets
On the Jaguars side, I like Etienne $6,700 and Kirk $5,700 as solid floor options. If Richardson plays, I’m off the Colts - but if it’s Flacco at QB, I’m almost surely playing Josh Downs $5,100 or Michael Pittman $6,000.
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