Fantasy Football Today - Awesome Stats and Player Props! (1/22 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

Get the best advanced stats for the AFC and NFC Championship games as SportsLine's Jacob Gibbs tells you what to expect from Davante Adams vs. Carlton Davis, Tyreek Hill and the Bills passing game. Subscribe to the FFT in 5 podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to FFT. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @CTowersCBS, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Want winning picks each morning in under 10 minutes? Subscribe to 'The Early Edge: A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast' on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, you're dang right. The AFC and the NFC championship games are here. We're about to drop some advanced stats to help you ascend in DFS and cash some player props. This is FFT in five. Hey everybody. Today's Friday, January 22nd, and you're listening to fantasy football today in five. You can follow and stream us on Spotify. I'm Dave Richard. I'm joined by Jacob Gibbs of Sportsline who told you to take the over on Travis Kelsey's 7.5 receptions and 89.5 yards last week. Now let's see what big-time stats he's got cooking for us this week. And stat number one is about Devontae Adams' matchup with Carlton Davis. Adams' receiving line is set at 87.5 yards on William Hill,

and Alan Lazard's line is 47.5. So Jacob, how do we feel about those? I think they're both fair. I wouldn't necessarily be pounding the under for Devontae Adams or anything, but I do think Lazard's line is one that you should pay attention to. So the Bucs, they did not use their top cornerback, Carlton Davis, in shadow coverage from week 13 on, but that changed last week. Davis did shadow Michael Thomas on 72% of his routes, and he held Thomas catchless on just three targets during that time. And when we saw these teams face off in week six, Davis shadowed Devonta Adams in that game as well, and I would expect him to do so in this game. He covered Adams on 25 of 38 routes and Adams was targeted five times on those 25 routes. So a 0.2 target per route run rate, uh, when covered by Davis, which is significantly lower than his season average. And then if you just look in that game, when Adams wasn't covered by Davis, this is a really small sample size, of course, but when he wasn't covered by Davis, Rogers fed him five targets on 13 routes. So nearly a double the rate, um, at which he targeted

him when he was covered by Davis. This doesn't mean Adams can't still have a productive game. I mean, we're talking about Devante Adams here, but it does mean that Aaron Rodgers might be more likely to look someone else's way when Adams is covered by Davis. And that brings us to Lazard. Lazard's 2020 was slowed a little bit by the mid-season injury, but last week was the healthiest we've seen him in quite some time. He played 86% of the snaps. He ran around on 88% of Rogers dropbacks. And now he has a setup here where Adams is potentially going to have to do with shadow coverage in the matchup from the slot for Lazard is by far the easiest individual cornerback assignment that any of the Packers are going to

have to face. So he's going to line up against Sean Murphy Bunting, who covers a slot for Tampa and PFF has his coverage grade rated at 55.3, which is the lowest among qualified cornerbacks on active playoff teams. Only Buffalo's Taron Johnson allowed a higher catch rate, but we're going to talk about him in our next stat. All right, so let's get to that next stat. That's interesting stuff on the Packers receivers. Stat number two is about Tyreek Hill. I know that Tyreek Hill's good. His receiving line, though, is set at and a half on William Hill. Are we smashing

that over? Oh yeah, absolutely. That is way, way too low for Tyree Kiel. I don't know if that has something to do with Patrick Mahomes being questionable, but I think we're probably going to see that rise quite a bit over the next 24 hours. People might not realize this because when you think about Tyree Kiel, you probably picture him burning a cornerback down the sideline, but the Chiefs actually use him in the slot far more than they do on the perimeter. 58% of his snaps came from the slot in 2020, and he's caught more touchdowns from the slot over the past three seasons than any player in the NFL. And this is important, of course, because the Bills have well-documented struggles against the slot. Tredavis White just doesn't travel to the slot at all. Only 2% of his

snaps in coverage in 2020 were from the slot. So Hill is mostly going to see the aforementioned Taron Johnson in coverage, who's been targeted at a higher rate per snap than any cornerback who's expected to start on Sunday. So absolutely love the spot for Tyreek Hill here. And Johnson's coming off of a hell of a game himself with that long interception return for a touchdown against Lamar Jackson. All right. Stat number three is about his teammate, Josh Allen, and his other teammate, Stephon Diggs. Those two have connected quite a bit this year. Are we loving their yardage lines? You can snag Allen at 306.5, and Diggs is at 96.5.

Over or under on those, Jacob? Those are really high. I don't think I would take the over on Allen. I think you definitely can on Diggs, but more I'm interested in these guys in DFS. So Josh Allen, I will say he had one of his worst games of the season against Kansas city in week six. So take this for what you will, but the chiefs use man coverage of the seventh highest rate in 2020 and no team used press coverage more often than Kansas city guests who led the NFL

in completion percentage against man coverage this season, Josh Allen, nobody, nobody would have expected that because he had a 50% completion rate in 2018 and 2019 against man coverage. That was all the way up to a league-high 68% in 2020. Pretty crazy improvement from Josh Allen. The player I expect to benefit the most from Kansas City's defensive philosophy here is Stefan Diggs. He led the NFL in yards versus man coverage and in yards versus press coverage in 2020. He was targeted on 33% of his routes run versus man coverage, which is up from just 22% versus zone. And then if you want to dig another layer deeper,

Diggs also led the NFL in receiving yardage on plays, whereas quarterback was blitzed. Allen targeted Diggs on 24.7% of his routes when not blitzed, which rose to 29.4% when blitzed. So with Buffalo facing a chiefs defense, the blitz is the eighth highest rate in the NFL plays a ton of men and press coverage. I think we're going to see Alan lean heavily on his top wide out here.

And I think he'll do well. And just one other nugget, a cherry on top, if you will, all nine of Stefan digs touchdowns this year have come against man coverage. That's a fact. I double checked it myself with the film. I couldn't believe when I saw it,

but it's true. Jacob, thank you so much, and thank you for listening to Fantasy Football Today in 5, your audio outlet for fantasy news and advice in five minutes or fewer. And now if you enjoyed sharing these few minutes with us, please follow on Spotify or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Talk to you soon. Enjoy the games.