Matt Savoca’s Daily Fantasy Football Matchups Column returns for Wild Card Weekend of the NFL season. In it, he goes through every single game on the Sunday main slate to guide you to the best plays for your season-long fantasy football lineups on Yahoo, ESPN and CBS; and your NFL DFS picks on DraftKings and FanDuel. There are three games on tap for Wild Card Weekend’s Sunday slate, so let’s dive into the action.
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Wild Card Sunday NFL DFS Matchups Breakdown
Baltimore Ravens at Tennessee Titans
Chicago Bears at New Orleans Saints
Cleveland Browns at Pittsburgh Steelers
Baltimore Ravens (28.75) at Tennessee Titans (25.75)
All Graphs Reflect Last Five Weeks of Data, Click Graphs to Enlarge
Quick-Hitter Game Summary
- Baltimore finished the season 5-0 and will look to avenge their divisional-round loss to Tennessee a season ago. The Ravens ended up having the top team rushing efficiency in the NFL for the second year in a row. The Titans ranked 23rd overall in defensive rush efficiency.
- When examining PFF grades, the Ravens have the highest team net pass-block advantage of any team this weekend. Like last week, Lamar Jackson should have all day to throw.
- Mark Andrews is by far the safest play at his position on the Sunday slate, but he’s expected to be utilized by half the field on the Sunday slate. In tournaments, Andrews makes more sense as part of game stack than used by himself.
- Despite being the highest salary running back on the Sunday slate, Derrick Henry ranks third in expected fantasy points per game, making him a (somewhat) fade-able option this Sunday, especially in large-field tournaments. It’s always nerve racking to fade a player like Henry, but simply put, there are fewer salary-intensive running backs with ceilings just as high as Henry’s.
NFL DFS Upside Analysis
When it comes to passing and pace, typically fantasy gamers should seek players from games that expect plenty of passing and fast-paced play, but Baltimore and Tennessee are the two biggest exceptions to that general rule. Both the Ravens and Titans have proven throughout much of the past two seasons that they don’t need either to put up 30-plus points in any given matchup. Both Jackson and Ryan Tannehill rank above average among playoff quarterbacks in per-drive and per-play efficiency. That efficiency, combined with both teams’ up-and-down years defensively (particularly on the Tennessee side of the ball), is a strong indicator that there should plenty of points scored in this matchup.
Passing and Pace
Teams that play faster and pass more than average tend to score more fantasy points. When both teams play aggressively, it often creates a game environment perfect for fantasy scoring. Games have a higher probability of going over their Vegas total as well. Ideally we’re seeking matchups where both teams are in the upper-right quadrant of the chart below (see the chart’s caption for more details).
Quarterback Efficiency
Sustained drives in the NFL rely on efficiency at the quarterback position, so I’ve identified my three favorite performance indicators for assessing quarterback performance. The three bar charts below (see the graph’s caption for more detail) represent a quarterback’s per-drive efficiency (left bar chart), per-play efficiency — including rushes/scrambles (center) — and per-pass efficiency (right). Higher rankings from both players indicate a higher likelihood of efficient play, thus a higher probability of fantasy points.
NFL DFS Player Pool Picker
Andrews ranks first in usage and fantasy points per game, but he’s also first in positional salary on the Sunday slate, while the Titans have quietly shut down opposing tight ends, ranking best on the slate in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to the position since Week 12. Marquise Brown‘s expected projection (which factors in usage, efficiency and defensive matchup) looks to be right in line with salary-based expectations. While the Titans’ pass defense has been consistently worse than their rush defense, Tennessee ranked outside the top 20 teams in defensive rush efficiency, indicating that one of J.K. Dobbins or Gus Edwards could potentially have monster days. It’s very unlikely that both Dobbins and Edwards are viable at their salary, especially with Jackson commanding a large percentage of rushes for himself. Edwards, with a significantly lower salary on DraftKings than his teammate, seems like the slightly better value when comparing each player’s expected projection. For Tennessee, the ceiling for Henry is still massive, but looking at usage and production expectation, he doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense as the highest-salary player on the slate against the suddenly staunch Baltimore rush defense. Tannehill and Corey Davis appear to be the best value plays when comparing their expected usage and previous production to salary-based expectations.
Baltimore Ravens NFL DFS Core Offenses
| Team | Player | Positional Salary Rank | FPTs/Gm Rank | Expected FPTs/Gm Rank | Defense vs. Position | Expected Projection |
| BAL | Lamar Jackson, QB | #1 | #1 | #3 | #6 | 23.5 Fpts (QB1) |
| BAL | Mark Andrews, TE | #1 | #1 | #1 | #1 | 14 Fpts (TE1) |
| BAL | Marquise Brown, WR | #7 | #6 | #9 | #6 | 13 Fpts (WR8) |
| BAL | J.K. Dobbins, RB | #5 | #5 | #7 | #6 | 12 Fpts (RB5) |
| BAL | Gus Edwards, RB | #9 | #7 | #8 | #6 | 10 Fpts (RB6) |
Tennessee Titans NFL DFS Core Offenses
| Team | Player | Positional Salary Rank | FPTs/Gm Rank | Expected FPTs/Gm Rank | Defense vs. Position | Expected Projection |
| TEN | Ryan Tannehill, QB | #2 | #2 | #4 | #5 | 20 Fpts (QB2) |
| TEN | Derrick Henry, RB | #1 | #3 | #3 | #5 | 14.5 Fpts (RB3) |
| TEN | A.J. Brown, WR | #1 | #1 | #5 | #5 | 14.5 Fpts (WR5) |
| TEN | Corey Davis, WR | #11 | #10 | #7 | #4 | 13.5 Fpts (WR7) |
| TEN | Jonnu Smith, TE | #6 | #7 | #6 | #4 | 7 Fpts (TE6) |
Unless participating in a large-field tournament, the players above are the players that fantasy gamers should be focusing on in their daily fantasy football lineups. For each player, it’s easy to compare their DraftKings main-slate salary ranking (in column 3) to their per-game fantasy scoring (in column 4). A player’s opportunity is measured by expected fantasy points, (column 5), which is curated by PFF. Defense vs. Position (column 6) is an extremely helpful position-specific and player group-specific metric (for example, the metric delineates between primary wide receiver vs. secondary wide receivers) that helps determine if an offensive player is likely to be in a position to exceed their expected fantasy points. Higher numbers in the Defense vs. Position column indicate easier matchups for the offense, while numbers closer to one indicate a stout defense against that specific position group. Finally, expected projection (column 7) combines a player’s expected fantasy points with their weekly matchup into one helpful value metric. Apart from the Awesemo projections (which should still carry the most weight in determining player value), expected projection is one of my favorite metrics to help me narrow down my favorite plays of the week. The rankings are always specific to the slate, meaning if a player or team is ranked No. 1 at a specific metric, they may not necessarily be ranked No. 1 in the NFL, but they are for this specific slate.
NFL DFS Skill Position Values: Expected Points
While Henry unsurprisingly has the highest expected fantasy points on the slate, he isn’t a particularly strong value when comparing expected fantasy points to salary, especially compared to Andrews and Davis. Davis once again sticks out as a value, averaging 90% of A.J. Brown‘s expected fantasy points per game over the last five weeks at 80% of his salary. On the Baltimore side, the expected fantasy points metric perfectly illuminates the difficulty in deciding between Dobbins and Edwards, as both players have almost completely even in that metric over the past five games. Jonnu Smith is a distant third fiddle in the Tennessee passing attack, buoyed by extra red zone usage. He’s a low-floor, unexciting play this weekend.
By assigning a value to each play (based on score, down, distance to the goal line, distance to first down, play type, etc.), we can measure not just a player’s workload, but the expected value of that workload using recent league history as a guide. Expected fantasy points should be considered a volume metric. If a player scores more fantasy points (represented by the dots in the bar chart below) than expected, that means the player is either talented or lucky (or both) and may have unsustainable fantasy production based on their usage.
NFL DFS Auxiliary Offensive Players for Large-Field Contests
The Titans rank dead last on the slate in fantasy points allowed above opponent averages to wideouts, meaning we could easily see multiple scores through the air from the Ravens. If so, one of Dez Bryant or Miles Boykin could get in on the action, especially if Willie Snead (leg) misses due to injury. For Tennessee, Anthony Firkser qualifies as a viable punt-play option when creating Tannehill stacks, but besides him, fantasy gamers should stick to the Titans’ big-three of Brown, Davis and Henry.
Baltimore Ravens NFL DFS Tournament Picks
| Team | Player | Snap Share | Opportunity Score | Defense vs. Position | Outlook: Value, MME-only, Look Elsewhere |
| BAL | Willie Snead, WR | 61% | 66 | #3 | Look Elsewhere |
| BAL | Miles Boykin, WR | 51% | 45 | #6 | MME-only |
| BAL | Dez Bryant, WR | 39% | 41 | #6 | MME-only |
Tennessee Titans NFL DFS Tournament Picks
| Team | Player | Snap Share | Opportunity Score | Defense vs. Position | Outlook: Value, MME-only, Look Elsewhere |
| TEN | Anthony Firkser, TE | 28% | 50 | #4 | MME-only |
| TEN | Darrynton Evans, RB | 11% | 75 | #5 | Look Elsewhere |
| TEN | Cameron Batson, WR | 32% | 7 | #5 | Look Elsewhere |
| TEN | Jeremy McNichols, RB | 24% | 10 | #5 | Look Elsewhere |
| TEN | MyCole Pruitt, TE | 44% | 31 | #4 | MME-only |
In daily fantasy football, depending on the size and type of contest you’re playing, it’s often advantageous to expand your player pool to less-utilized offensive players. In this section, we examine every part-time player’s usage based on playing time, opportunity and defensive matchup. For each player, an Opportunity Score is calculated using position-specific predictive metrics, which are then scaled to number between zero (least valuable) and 100 (most valuable). Scores above 50 tend to indicate starter-level opportunity, while scores over 80 indicate star-level usage. Finally, players are categorized as an NFL DFS value, a mass multi-entry option (MME-only) or a player to avoid altogether.
Final Thoughts
With clear shootout potential thanks to both teams’ possessing higher-quality offenses compared to their opponent’s defense and tons of players to like on both teams’ core offensive units, it’s easy to see this game as a viable build-around option. The two quarterbacks, plus Davis and Andrews, stand out as clear values compared to their respective salaries, while Henry, though still possessing arguably the highest ceiling of any player this weekend, doesn’t seem as appealing a fantasy options as he has in recent weeks. At least to this article’s author, there’s a strong case for being significantly underweight on Henry compared to the rest of the playing field.
Prediction: Ravens 30, Titans 28
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