Advertisement

Week 14 fantasy preview: Odell Beckham Jr. set to deliver

Let’s preview this week’s NFL action by first focusing on the games that are expected to produce the most real and fantasy points before I go around the league to highlight the key players we should be watching and why. An important note every week: check the player’s status. There is so much injury uncertainty and Friday’s practice, which occurs after this is posted, is key.

[Week 14 rankings: Overall| FLEX | QB | RB | WR | TE | DEF | K]

Saints at Bucs (O/U: 51.5): Road Drew Brees ($40) after Home Drew Brees let us down, bizarrely, in Week 13. I wouldn’t overreact to this. Brees should still be a top-five QB. But the Bucs pass defense has stepped up due to their excellent defensive line and ability to cover with seven. In their last four games, which have included matchups against top QBs Russell Wilson and Philip Rivers, the Bucs lead the NFL in passer rating allowed (67.3). They are yielding just 188 passing yards per game and one passing TD per game. Yikes. The Saints, by the way, are average in the period (though with eight passing TDs allowed), if you think this is a walk in the park like we usually think of the Saints D.

In daily, I like Jameis Winston ($31) here over Brees, even though Dirk Koetter is so conservative that he will mothball the offense with a late lead. Note that the Saints rush defense is suddenly dominant (No. 1 with 2.95 yards allowed per carry and one TD allowed the past four games). So if you have an option about as good as Doug Martin ($23), use him instead. Avoid Martin in daily, too (where every decision basically comes down to a tiebreaker like matchups are). For the Saints, Coby Fleener ($14) seems like a bargain given that Josh Hill is out for the year. Fleener was very involved last week (7-for-86).

[Join the $100K Baller for Week 14 | Tips for your Daily lineup]

Chargers at Panthers (O/U: 49): Have the Panthers given up? It would be interesting to study teams that made the playoffs the prior year but who were eliminated the last quarter of the season. Do they just pack it in, like the Panthers seemed to do last week? I talked to Cade Massey of MasseyPeabody.com about this on Wednesday after recording Wharton Moneyball and he said he will study it. I will keep you posted. I would avoid all Panthers except Greg Olsen ($21, who has disappointed) and Jonathan Stewart ($21), who gets too many touches to bench in season-long leagues. I like the Chargers in this game. Philip Rivers ($34) is arguably the top QB on the board. Rivers, remember, eats on the road. I think Rivers goes out of his way to get Antonio Gates ($20) the TD record (he needs three) and it starts here. But Gates is too pricey in daily.

Cowboys at Giants (O/U: 47.5): This total seems low. Dallas has allowed a 110.3 passer rating the last four weeks and yeah a lot of that is Kirk Cousins ($33). But the point with them is that they cannot generate a conventional pass rush. So they are capable of just getting gashed in the passing game. Everything they do to apply pressure is a stunt or a blitz, leaving them susceptible to huge plays. And that could be good for Odell Beckham Jr. ($36) and the Giants, who cannot, ironically in this matchup, protect the passer (it’s pressures allowed, not sacks). This is tough sledding on paper for Ezekiel Elliott ($40) but matchups, as I always say, are just a tiebreaker. So maybe this is just a lower-level Elliott game but still good. I think that the offensive coordinators like Ben McAdoo are bad picks as head coaches because they still want to be the OC. But now they have two 80-hour-per-week jobs. How can that work?

NOTEBOOK
-The lesson with DeAndre Hopkins ($18) and Allen Robinson ($16) is that if you think the QB could plausibly be terrible, you just can’t draft his WR in the top rounds. I actually felt that about Blake Bortles ($21) and drafted Robinson at cost anyway. Dumb. Scott Pianowski and I talked about this on our Breakfast Table fantasy podcast this week.

-Andy Dalton ($32) over Tom Brady this week. I went over the math extensively last week. Expect about 15-to-20 percent decline for Brady based on his extensive historical data of playing without Rob Gronkowski (during the Gronk era). That puts Brady at about QB16 the rest of this season.

-Road Ben Roethlisberger ($34) is still a worry. The theory, forwarded by a professional athlete backstage on Twitter, is it is difficult sleeping on the road. In 1 p.m. starts since 2014, Roethlsiberger in 11 games averages 264 yards, 1 TD, 1 pick.

-Antonio Brown ($39) is seven catches short of breaking Marvin Harrison’s four-year total of 469 catches. He’s averaging 7.7 catches for 101.4 yards and 0.7 TDs since 2013.

-Ryan Tannehill ($25) keeps ripping off his mask to reveal a hideous monster and we keep forgetting this next August and think he’s a top 12 QB. Well, some of you do; I don’t.

-David Johnson ($40) is the most-valuable player in fantasy as he’s owned on MORE THAN HALF of the top 500 public teams on Yahoo. That’s just insane. ZeroRB didn’t knock me off Johnson as a top pick because I felt he was basically half a WR anyway and he’s got a decent chance this year of cracking 1,000 receiving yards.

-DeSean Jackson ($17) is going to score, I’m convinced. Pianowski agrees with me, noting on the podcast that Jackson probably has been practicing his end zone celebration all week.

-I like Devonta Freeman ($27) this week because the Rams run defense has collapsed (5.51 yards per carry allowed the last month). I don’t see Tevin Coleman ($18) as much of a threat anymore.

-Julio Jones ($37) is beat up again and has five TDs. We have to stop thinking he’s going to score a lot because he doesn’t even when Matt Ryan ($37) is having his best TD percentage season. I don’t like this spot for Ryan either. Again, rough QB week on paper.