The Week 9 NFL Dashboard
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Jaguars at Chiefs
The Nick Foles-led Chiefs are currently 7.5-point home favorites for their Week 9 matchup against the Jaguars, who will see if new offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett can exceed the team’s current implied total of 18.25 points — the second-lowest mark of Week 9. The Chiefs are currently implied to score 25.75 points.
Jaguars
Writer: Ian Hartitz
QB – Blake Bortles
Starting Bortles in DFS is borderline terrifying. Still, the man knows how to rack up fantasy points in garbage time. Bortles had arguably the worst 300-yard, three-touchdown, zero-interception performance in history last week, as virtually all of his production came after the Jaguars were losing 27-0 at halftime. The performance led to former offensive coordinator Greg Olson’s dismissal. Now the offense is led by Bortles’ quarterback coach, Hackett. It’s unclear if he’ll be able to make Bortles a decent first-half quarterback, but he has a good shot this week in a matchup in which that Bortles has historically “thrived”:
As our Trends tool shows, Bortles has posted a +5.24 Plus/Minus with 70.6 percent Consistency and has averaged 20.01 DraftKings points in his 17 career games as a road underdog. It may not be pretty, and for the love of the fantasy gawds don’t trust Bortles in cash games, but he’s consistently gotten the job done as a road underdog throughout his career. He’s priced at $5,800 DK and facing a Chiefs defense that has held QB to one point below salary-based expectations over the past 12 months.
RB – Chris Ivory
If you remove Ivory’s one 42-yard burst from his rushing total this season, he’s rushed for just 87 yards on 39 attempts. While he holds value as the Jaguars’ goal-line back, Bortles is sixth among all QBs with six red-zone pass attempts per game, as the team has consistently gone to the air near the goal line. Ivory has historically struggled both on the road and as an underdog, making him a low-upside play against a Chiefs defense that has allowed just 6.34 yards per play over the past 12 months — the second-lowest mark in the league.
RB – T.J. Yeldon
Yeldon seemed to regain his role as the team’s third-down back last week but still had just seven total touches. He’s now averaged just seven touches per game over the past three weeks and hasn’t shown the type of tackle-breaking ability that could make this small workload bearable. After ranking eighth among all running backs with a 35.8 percent juke rate last season (per Player Profiler), Yeldon has a 19.5 percent juke rate through eight weeks — 51st among RBs. He’s priced at $3,600 DK with an 82 percent Bargain Rating. The Chiefs defense has allowed just three rushing touchdowns this season — tied for the second-fewest in the league.
WR – Allen Robinson
Robinson’s struggles have nothing to do with opportunity. His average of 10 targets per game is actually higher than his average last season, but this season he just hasn’t been able to pick up yards with any efficiency. Robinson’s average of 5.23 yards per target is the second-worst mark among all wide receivers with at least 50 targets this season. The only receiver who has been worse is — brace yourself — Tavon Austin. Robinson is priced at $6,700 FD with a 99 percent Bargain Rating and could see a lot of cornerback Marcus Peters, Pro Football Focus’ 20th-highest graded CB this season.
WR – Allen Hurns
Hurns continued to thrive as a road underdog last week, putting up a 7-98-1 line against the Titans. He’s now posted a +7.72 Plus/Minus with 66.7 percent Consistency in his 18 games as a road underdog over the past three seasons, averaging 16.74 DK points. While it’s unlikely that Robinson goes the entire season without surpassing 75 receiving yards, Hurns looks like the better receiver to pair with Bortles this week due to his good matchup against slot cornerback Steven Nelson, PFF’s 18th-lowest graded cornerback out of 118 eligible corners. Hurns is priced at $5,900 FD with an 80 percent Bargain Rating and has a zero to one percent FantasyLabs projected ownership.
WR – Marqise Lee
After being targeted six-plus times for five straight weeks, Lee saw just three targets last week. He’s improved this season and shown that he’s capable of being a productive No. 3 receiver, but his production will likely remain volatile, and he provides very little touchdown upside, considering that he’s been targeted just once inside the 10-yard line this season. Lee is priced at $4,800 FD and has a 4.5-point projected floor.
TE – Julius Thomas
Thomas wasn’t targeted once inside the red zone during the first six weeks of the season but has since converted his four red-zone targets into two touchdowns. While it’s great to see that he’s regained his red-zone presence, Thomas still hasn’t surpassed 30 receiving yards or three receptions since Week 2. Exposure to Thomas should be focused on DK, where his $3,200 salary comes with seven Pro Trends. Still, he’s a very risky play this week against Eric Berry, PFF’s 12th-best cover safety through eight weeks.
Thomas (ankle) finished the week off of the injury report. He’s playing this weekend.
Kansas City Chiefs
Writer: Joe Holka
QB – Nick Foles
Alex Smith (concussion) has been ruled out for Week 9. Foles will start in his place.
Foles played extremely well in a relief role Sunday, pushing the ball down the field at a far higher rate than Smith does. However, Foles threw seven touchdowns over 11 games for the Rams last year and is playing in one of the league’s most conservative offenses. He’s priced up at $6800 on FD and boasts the second-lowest projected Plus/Minus in the slate (-0.51). If that doesn’t excite you, he is also the second-lowest rated FD QB in the Levitan Model and has the lowest floor (3) and ceiling (24.6) point projections in the slate.
RB – Spencer Ware
Ware (concussion) has been ruled out for Week 9. Charcnado will go in his place.
RB – Charcandrick West
West has a dream matchup: The Chiefs are large home favorites going against a Jaguars team that ranks 27th in Football Outsiders’ rush Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA).
West should be able to handle a very large workload against Jacksonville at just $4,400 DK, becoming one of the top value plays of the week. Even if he is #badatfootball in comparison to Ware, West has historically balled out when given a featured role on the offense, as he’s averaged 22.68 PPR points in his four career games with 15-plus carries. He has a good matchup against a Jaguars defense that has allowed the sixth-most rushing yards per game this season. It should be noted that the Chiefs lost left guard Parker Ehinger to a torn ACL last week, which is a loss. Ehinger was PFF’s 26th run blocking guard.
RB – Bishop Sankey
Don’t get stankey.
WR – Jeremy Maclin
Maclin (groin) is officially questionable for the Chiefs’ Week 9 matchup but is expected to play. Still, it’s problematic that he popped up on the injury report in the middle of the week.
He’s had a slow first half to the season, as he’s topped 75 receiving yards just once in seven games. Overall, Maclin is averaging just 6.8 yards per target. He’s priced at $6700 FD with an 86 percent Bargain Rating and could see a lot of Jalen Ramsey (PFF’s 67th-ranked cornerback), who just held Amari Cooper to 29 receiving yards. Maclin injury status and matchup severely limit his appeal in all formats.
WR – Tyreek Hill
Quietly, the “high variance wide receiver” has three touchdowns in his past four games. He may not see enough volume to be relied on for cash games, but his upside and big-play ability are real. He represents 16.2 percent of the Chiefs’ Air Yards in the past four games on just four targets per game. One big play could put him well on his way to hitting value, and in theory he has one of the slate’s best matchups in the slot against Davon House, PFF’s 108th-rated cornerback and Week 9’s third-most advantageous matchup for WRs.
TE – Travis Kelce
The Jaguars rank No. 1 in pass DVOA against TEs, but Kelce still owns the fifth-highest point ceiling on the Week 9 slate. Kelce easily leads the team in targets inside the 10-yard line in the past 4 weeks (per Bryan Mears’ Market Share Report). Also, Foles did have an average depth of throw at 9.9 yards last week, opening things up a bit in the offense. In the 61 percent of the snaps last week that Foles did play, Kelce had a stat line of 4-72-1 on six targets. Finally, home favored TEs with comparable projections and matchups still perform well above salary-based expectation:
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
