Fantasy Football Matchups Breakdown: Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans | Week 2

Lamar Jackson has once again taken his game to another level for 2020. After trouncing Cleveland in Week 1, they head to Houston for an epic matchup against Deshaun Watson and the Texans’ fearsome defensive front. 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 13 games on tap for Week 2 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 Ravens – Texans.

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Baltimore Ravens (29.4) at Houston Texans (22) – Sunday, 4:25 PM ET

Houston Texans Breakdown

Two of the premier young quarterbacks in the NFL square off in the marquee matchup of the afternoon games. With the second-highest Vegas over/under on the entire slate and Jackson coming off an impressive Week 1 performance, this game should see plenty of attention from DFS players on Sunday. Will Fuller had 22 fantasy points without much fanfare on a healthy 10 targets. He’s being utilized like a true No. 1 receiver, in line with his former teammate DeAndre Hopkins. When you factor in his game-breaking speed and high average depth of target, until he’s priced like an elite option (he’s the 16th-highest priced reeciver on DraftKings), Fuller will be a DFS value relative to his probability of producing a slate-breaking score, even against the sturdy secondary of Baltimore. Brandin Cooks was a distant second in the pecking order, earning five targets.

In the backfield, David Johnson saw an encouraging four targets en route to a solid 15-touch workload even while dealing with in a negative game script in Week 1. He also showed shades of his old elusiveness, breaking five tackles, including one that helped him get into the end zone. With backfield-mate Duke Johnson nursing an ankle sprain and the Ravens likely aiming to lock down Fuller, the Texans maybe be forced into checkdown situations, which means Johnson for chunk plays to keep Houston in the game.


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Baltimore Ravens Breakdown

Baltimore shook off its bitter playoff defeat in style, scorching the Browns so badly that their starters barely played three quarters. They were second in the NFL in net expected points per drive, while Houston was fifth-worst a week ago. While some of that can be explained by each teams’ Week 1 opponent, it’s still an indicator that the tandem of Baltimore’s elite secondary and freakishly athletic offense will be incredibly difficult to handle for any team. The Week 1 headliner for the Ravens was rookie back J.K. Dobbins, who found the end zone twice Sunday on only seven carries. Though may of the carries were of the high-value variety, this is likely still Ingram’s backfield in closer games, as this Sunday’s matchup against Houston projects to be.

Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews received the exact same share of Baltimore’s targets. Factoring in air yards, however, Brown actually received more of the overall weighted opportunity rating than Andrews, Andrews found the end zone twice. The big tight end played more snaps than he did all last season and is clearly a favorite of Jackson near the goal line.

Jackson didn’t even need to be utilized as a rusher that much in Week 1, only rushing five times and choosing instead to slice and dice the Browns as a passer. Their run-first approach was also in line with the 2019 Ravens, as Baltimore was 27th in pass rate on early downs in neutral situations, though there weren’t many of those against Cleveland. In tandem with their fifth-slowest pace of play, the pass volume on this offense will remain limited. But with a large amount of it spread amongst only two options, Brown and Andrews both should be weekly considerations in DFS lineups.

Prediction: Ravens 34, Texans 33

Alternative Scenario: Both teams aim to control the pace of the game, and run-first approaches limit the number of plays run by both sides. Baltimore has their way on the ground. Ravens 24, Texans 17.

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Author
A middling athlete who was offered his first sports analytics position at age 14, I've been working on NFL and fantasy football data science since 2017. With a particular passion for data visualization and dashboard building, I love to make data accessible by using graphs and charts to communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with words alone. You can contact me by e-mailing [email protected].

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