It’s a battle of last place teams as the Falcons head to Minnesota to face the Vikings, who are likely to play without their star running back Dalvin Cook. Can Matt Ryan and the Falcons finally get a win, or will it be a sixth straight loss for Atlanta? For the 2020 NFL season, Matt Savoca will be providing his weekly NFL Fantasy Football Matchups Breakdown column, going through every single game and offensive and defensive matchup, every week of the season. For your viewing convenience, we have broken up the matchups breakdown into several single columns, each one covering a single game. You can find links to every game right here. We have 11 games on tap for Week 6 NFL DFS and NFL Fantasy Football, so let’s dive in. The entire matchups article will be available in podcast form, every Friday afternoon on the Awesemo Podcast Network. Let’s get into Falcons – Vikings NFL DFS picks for your daily fantasy football lineups.
CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE DAILY FANTASY FOOTBALL + NFL DFS MATCHUPS HUB
For a full list of all our NFL DFS and fantasy football content this season, check out the NFL content schedule.
And don’t forget to join Matt Savoca and Dave Loughran, every Thursday morning at 11 ET on the Awesemo YouTube channel.
The Week 6 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups Column for NFL DFS
Atlanta Falcons (25.5) at Minnesota Vikings (30) – 1:00 p.m. ET
Atlanta Passing Game
The Falcons, forced to change their entire offensive identity whenever Julio Jones is injured (as he was their past six quarters of play), were at their worst in week 5. Even with the emergence of Calvin Ridley, the NFL’s leader in air yards, as a viable secondary weapon and a great day from Todd Gurley (see Atlanta Rushing Game below), it remains impossible to fully quantify the immense value that Jones brings to the offense as a whole. The results of the missed time are back-to-back performances outside the top 20 quarterbacks for Matt Ryanand, along with their tremendous defensive failures (See Minnesota Passing Game below), cost head coach Dan Quinn his job.
It’s now up to interim coach Raheem Morris to attempt a turnaround against the Vikings, who have themselves wildly underperformed from preseason expectations and rank in the bottom six of all teams in both defensive expected points allowed per drive, and expected points subtracted per play (EPA allowed). Still without a cornerback inside of PFF’s top 60 players, the Vikings are exploitable in exactly the way that Atlanta prefers to move the ball — through the air. Especially if Jones is able to return to the lineup, there’s also a great chance that Ryan, and even Ridley, could return value at their slightly discounted salaries this weekend.
If Jones is forced to miss once again, it doesn’t necessarily preclude Ryan and/or Ridley from meeting their lofty salary-based expectations, but it absolutely lowers the probability of them reaching it. It doesn’t appear that Russell Gage or Olimade Zaccheus are able to generate consistent production even with increased looks with Jones sitting. Zacchaeus disappointed fantasy gamers last weekend, who saw him as an intriguing minimum-salary option at the receiver position, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t attract the same amount of targets he did in week 4, when he was the most productive member of the Falcons receiving game. Hayden Hurst continues to disappoint relative to his preseason expectations. Even with Jones in and out of the lineup over the last three weeks, Hurst is still seeing just 13% of the Falcons targets, third highest during that time, but since we are unlikely to see Ryan and the Falcons shift away from their pass-happy approach (they average 43 pass attempts per game, third highest in the NFL), 13% of that inflated attempt total could still be viable, particularly as the 10th-highest tight end on the slate. Hurst should be considered a solid mid-salary option at the tight end position this weekend.
Atlanta Rushing Game
Without a doubt, week 5 was Gurley’s best game in two seasons, finishing with 19 opportunities for 150 total yards and a touchdown en route to the second-highest fantasy total among all running backs on the week. After starting the season sluggishly, Gurley has ramped up his elusiveness, now ranking well above the historical trend line for avoided tackles, based on his season-long workload, as explored in this weeks data deep dive. Even though the Vikings will try to slow the game down when they are on offense, which could theoretically limit the Falcons’ play totals, Atlanta’s uptempo style and increased chances for red zone opportunities due to the lackluster play of the Minnesota secondary adds up to Gurley having a solid opportunity to return value as the 12th-highest-salary running back on the main slate. Even after a tremendous week 5 performance, Gurley’s ownership is projected to be under 7% and outside of the top 15 running backs.
Minnesota Passing Game
Kirk Cousins will be facing a mirror image of his own teams secondary in week 6. The Falcons rank in the bottom 10 of both team coverage rating and overall defensive rating according to PFF, and again like the Vikings, they rank in the bottom six of expected points subtracted per play (EPA allowed). Ravaged by injuries and now facing the adversity of a mid-season coaching change, the Falcons secondary ranks among the best defensive units for a struggling offense. And they are struggling. Cousins has only thrown more than 30 times in one game this season (against the Seahawks in week 5), and hasn’t hit 275 yards passing yet this season. He hasn’t placed within the top 12 quarterbacks in fantasy points this season either. Though it is possible that we will see a slightly more aggressive version of the Vikings offense if star running back Dalvin Cook is forced to miss week 6 due to a groin injury, there’s nowhere to go but up in terms of true neutral early-down pass rate. The Vikings rank last in the NFL in this metric.
Cousins has struggled with accuracy, particularly when pressured (his 35% pressured completion percentage ranks 19th among quarterbacks). In a clean pocket, he performs much better, ranking seventh in clean pocket completion percentage. The Falcons pass rush isn’t a particularly concerning matchup; they rank 14th in PFF’s pass rush team grade. So long as Cousins can stay upright, he shouldn’t have any problem delivering the ball consistently to Adam Thielen, who now ranks first in the entire NFL in true weighted opportunity share and has commanded an astonishingly high 75% of the Vikings red zone targets over the last three weeks. His 20 receptions lead the team during that span, but first-round rookie Justin Jefferson has outpaced Thielen in the yardage department and is averaging over 100 yards receiving over the last three games. In that same span, the pair has combined for 116 fantasy points, making the trio of Thielen, Jefferson and Cousins an intriguing way to access a significant amount of the Vikings projected fantasy points. Even though he has the third-highest salary of any wide receiver on the main slate, Thielen is still projected higher than his salary would imply. You certainly won’t be alone betting on him this weekend — he’s currently projected as the highest-utilized receiver on the slate. It may be wise then to shift towards Jefferson, who has been productive and efficient but receiving increased usage, and is still only the 18th-highest-salary receiver this weekend. He’s an exciting contrarian play projected to be in just 6% of lineups in week 6. Tight end Irv Smith is seeing some increased attention this weekend from fantasy gamers due to his lower salary, but he’s an extremely thin play considering he only has seen 7% of Vikings targets over the last three games. Though he projects as a better value than pillow tight end Kyle Rudolph relative to their respective salaries, Smith likely needs to score on his minimal usage to hit pay dirt.
Minnesota Rushing Game
With rumors thatCook (groin) may be held out of week 6 for precautionary reasons (the MRI showed no structural damage, but Vikings have a week 7 bye), that would put Alexander Mattison in line to be unquestioned bell cow back for the Vikings. Mattison won’t provide any salary relief this week, though, coming in as the fifth-highest-salary running back. That means he’ll need 22-plus points in order to be a valuable play for fantasy gamers, but that is certainly in his range of outcomes, especially after we saw Carolina’s Mike Davis put up the exact same fantasy game we would need from Mattison just last week against this same defense. Though his workload has been limited, Mattison’s elusiveness metrics look solid enough, he (along with Cook) is outperforming the historical trend line for avoided tackles relative to his total touches. Against the Falcons’ 11th-worst rush defense (according to PFF) and assuming the Vikings hold out Cook, Mattison absolutely has slate-winning potential, even at his increased salary.
Prediction: Falcons 31, Vikings 30
CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE DAILY FANTASY FOOTBALL + NFL DFS MATCHUPS HUB
Follow us on all of our social channels! Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more great Awesemo content.
Looking for more NFL DFS picks and daily fantasy football matchup content? We’ve got loads of articles, data, cheatsheets and more on the Awesemo NFL home page, just click HERE.
