Week 9 Sunday Player Matchups To Exploit

In advance of Sunday’s games, I wanted to isolate specific advantageous matchups that could be interesting from a fantasy and prop perspective.

Running Backs

Josh Jacobs

• Jacobs has been excellent this season and is the leading candidate for OROY.
• He has put up 5.0 ypc against a run defense schedule that has allowed 4.33 ypc this season.
• Detroit has allowed 448 rush yards in three games (149 yards per game and 5.03 ypc) against top 10 DVOA run offenses. Oakland is ninth in DVOA run offense and Jacobs could be in line for his third 100+ yard rush game this season.

Devin Singletary

• Singletary has sporadic usage this season but showed his ability in the passing game last week against the Eagles with four catches for 30 yards on six targets.
• The Redskins have allowed the second-highest target share to RBs and rank 19th in yards per attempt allowed at 6.0.
• In the run game, Washington is 18th in DVOA run defense but 29th in Adjusted Line Yards, per Football Outsiders. The Bills are No. 1 in the NFL in Adjusted Line Yards on offense. Against two other teams ranked in the top 10 in Adjusted Line Yards, Washington allowed 374 yards on 72 carries for 5.2 ypc.
• There is a chance for Singletary to break out against this Redskins defense both on the ground and through the air.

Tight Ends

Cameron Brate

• With O.J. Howard out last week, Brate was in on 66% of offensive snaps and ran 41 routes.
• Brate was targeted six times and caught three passes for 32 yards. Not spectacular and failed to meet many people’s expectations who were high on him last week.
• Let’s look into last week a little further. Coming into the game, the Titans defense allowed a 22% target share to TEs, with a yards per attempt of 7.3, 12th best in the NFL. Based on the target share allowed coming in, Tampa should have expected to target TEs nine times. Seeing as how Brate received six targets and Tampa as a whole targeted its TEs seven times, they missed expected target share by two. 
• Brate gets to face a Seattle defense which has allowed the seventh-highest target share to TEs this year and 24th at yards per attempt allowed at 8.5.
• Seattle has allowed these poor numbers against a schedule that includes teams that barely use TEs in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Arizona, and Cleveland. Those teams have averaged a 14% target share rate to TEs. Austin Hooper put up six receptions for 65 and a TD last week, Gerald Everett had seven catches for 136 yards for the Rams and as noted last week in my matchup article, Mark Andrews dropped multiple easy passes in the rain and otherwise would have had a monster game against Seattle.

Hunter Henry

• Henry has been outstanding in just the four games he has played this year. He is averaging seven targets, 5.5 receptions, and 76 yards per game.
• With a MASH unit along the OL for the Chargers, Philip Rivers has been relying on Henry to combat the pass rush.
• The Packers defense comes in 21st in yards per game allowed to TEs at 55.7 and the seventh-highest target share allowed to TEs.
• His four opponents have averaged allowing 53.6 yards per game to TEs. So, Henry is exceeding those expectations by 42% by himself.

Wide Receiver

D.J. Chark

• The Houston defense is 30th in the NFL against No. 1 WRs in yards allowed per game.
• Chark put up seven receptions for 55 yards and a TD in Week 2 against Houston and that was with a healthy secondary. The Texans will be without Lonnie Johnson, Tashaun Gipson, and Bradley Roby. Jonathon Joseph is also questionable. 
• Another sneaky factor in Chark’s favor is the loss of J.J. Watt for Houston. With Watt goes 33% of Houston’s total pressures on the season for that defense. Gardner Minshew should have plenty of time to find Chark down the field.

Kenny Golladay

• I’m going back to the well with Golladay in another smash spot like last week against the Giants.
• He had six catches for 123 yards and 2 TDs against a Giants defense which profiles almost exactly the same as this week’s opponent, the Raiders. 
• The reason I loved Golladay last week was because he excels at the deep ball and the Giants were ranked in the bottom 5 in DVOA deep passing defense. His ADOT was ninth among WRs at 19.6.
• The Raiders come in 31st in deep ball DVOA defense and have allowed the third-highest explosive pass play percentage in the NFL. With a pass rush that ranks second-worst in the NFL, there is no reason Golladay won’t have another huge game.