Fantasy Football Today - Advanced Stats for the Bengals Offense and Eagles-Bucs (01/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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Starting point is 00:00:59 BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Coverage schemes and which teams will take advantage of the matchups right now on Fantasy Football Today in 5. It is wildcard weekend. It is time for another round of Advanced Stats with Jacob Gibbs of Sportsline. Just check out his work at sportsline.com. It is well worth the very small subscription price.

Starting point is 00:01:22 You will make your money back. And Jacob, we're going to start with Joe Burrow facing the Raiders and the types of schemes he will see and how he matches up with that. What can you tell us? Yeah, so Burrow did struggle against the Raiders in the regular season. But I think it was mostly just a low-volume game for him there as they got up early and ran a lot. And if you look at the type of coverages that the Raiders use,

Starting point is 00:01:43 I think it makes sense on paper that this spot sets up really well for Burrow and his downfield pass catchers. So I've been on here a lot and talk about man versus zone coverage schemes and typically how zone coverage schemes prevent deep passing. That's something that we'll hit on with the two defenses after this, actually. But the Raiders are one of the few zone heavy schemes that really don't take away the deep ball. They actually have the fifth highest opponent average depth of target when games are competitive, which is the highest of any zone heavy coverage scheme. And the primary reason behind this is they use cover three schemes at like the highest rate in the NFL. It's not even close. No one else uses cover three over 50% of the time. And the Raiders use it 67% of the time. The league average is 34%. So their

Starting point is 00:02:31 zone is a lot different than most zones. And Joe Burrow has typically been much, much better first man than zone, but he ranks top five in passer rating, completion percentage and yards per attempt versus cover three specifically. So he's actually been really good against cover three, not so much against other types of zone coverages. And then when you look at his pass catchers, the guy who's really benefited the most T Higgins, he's seen his target per outrun rate and his yard per outrun rate, both rise by at least 16% when facing cover three compared to other coverage

Starting point is 00:02:59 schemes, whereas Jamar Chase is up about 8%. And then Tyler Boyds are both down by 8% to 10%. So I think we'll see more deep passing and more targets for Tee Higgins and Jamar Chase in this spot as long as the game remains competitive. So I'm really, really excited for the Cincinnati stack. Good. And then I had been saying it just didn't make sense to me to pay up for Jamar Chase and DFS when Tee Higgins was considerably cheaper on both FanDuel and DraftKings. So I do have a Burrow-Higgins stack in my FanDuel lineup. We're going to look now at one of the Sunday games, Bucks and Eagles.

Starting point is 00:03:30 We'll start with the Eagles and the coverage they will face and why you think it could be good for Dallas Goddard. Yeah, this one's a little more simple. Tampa Bay just really, really keeps everything in front of them. They have the second lowest opponent average depth of target when games are close. And then they also blitz at the highest rate in the NFL or of the playoff teams remaining that the Bucs do.

Starting point is 00:03:48 So lots of blitzes and lots of, you know, zone heavy schemes, just keeping everything in front. And I think that's just going to continue to lead to a lot of dump offs to the short yardage targets. Specifically Dallas Goddard is somebody who has really benefited from facing zone and has also really benefited from facing blitz heavy schemes. His target per round run rate is up to 28% when Philly has been blitzed

Starting point is 00:04:11 compared to 20% when not blitzed. And that leads to the Eagles. So I think this spot sets up really well for Goddard. And I think especially specifically on Sunday's slate, there are a ton of tight end options to like, and I think Goddard is something you might go a little bit overlooked, even though he's a great value and he's something we've seen be targeted at a really high rate over the second half of the year. So I'm really excited for Goddard in this spot. Okay, so then we're going to go over to the Bucs. This could be a good game for both tight ends here. Gronkowski coming off two straight games with at least 115 yards and 10 targets. So it doesn't take much for him to have a good game, but you think that this definitely sets

Starting point is 00:04:44 up well for him. What else are we looking at for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they face the Eagles here? And just so, you know, just to get it out there. I don't love Mike Evans. I do think Darius Slay is going to do a nice job on him. So what do you think for the Bucs? I totally agree. I have no interest in Evans really in this spot. I think he's way overpriced and the matchup doesn't suit him at all. The only defense that has a lower opponent average depth of target than the Bucks defense that we just talked about is the Eagles. And they, they really,

Starting point is 00:05:11 really keep everything in front of them. And the last time we saw Tampa Bay face the Eagles, Brady's average depth of target was down to 6.1 yards, which is the second lowest it was in any game during the regular season. We just saw a lot of dump offs. We saw a lot of targets for Leonard Fournette, OJ Howard, Cameron Bray. Those guys combined for over 25% of the regular season. We just saw a lot of dump-offs. We saw a lot of targets for Leonard Fournette, O.J. Howard, Cameron Bray. Those guys combined for over 25% of the target share.

Starting point is 00:05:30 And I think it makes sense with Gronk back. He didn't play in that game. It makes sense that he'll continue to be targeted at a high rate like we've seen. But another guy I think that could be a sneaky play is Tyler Johnson. He's been running a ton of routes, and he's been drawing a decent amount of targets in each of the past few games. Um, he's just been really, really inefficient with it on the year. And so his price is still down and I don't think people are going to, you know, really

Starting point is 00:05:51 have much interest in him because he's been so inefficient on these, you know, low, you know, average depth of target type looks he's getting, but I think he could just pile them up in this spot if Tampa Bay is passing. Um, and I think he's somebody who could, you know, especially on a DraftKings full PPR site, could pile up 10, 12 points and, you know, is going to have almost no ownership. So look for the short yards, guys. I think LeFournette could draw a lot of targets as well.

Starting point is 00:06:16 Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, he probably will. I think it's just so easy to go with him, especially in the full PPR format on DraftKings. Fournette makes a lot of sense. Thanks very much to Jacob Gibbs. Remember to follow him on Twitter at JAGibbs underscore 23 and on Sportsline.com for all of his great content. I'm Adam Azer.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Have a great weekend, everybody. Enjoy the games. We'll talk to you next week on Fantasy Football Today. We'll see you then. Bye.

Fantasy Football Today - Advanced Stats for the Bengals Offense and Eagles-Bucs (01/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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