Matt Savoca’s Week 9 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups Breakdown Column

Daily Fantasy Football Matchups: Chicago Bears (20) @ Tennessee Titans (26.5)

Chicago Passing Game

You’ve got to give credit to the Nick Foles and the Bears, as they absolutely gave the New Orleans’ Saints, who (despite both having an equal record heading into last weekend) most consider the superior team, a run for their money a week ago. Quarterback Nick Foles had his highest passing yardage total of the season, amassing 272 passing yards on 41 attempts (he’s thrown between 39 and 42 times in every start this season), also adding two touchdowns and a single interception. It wasn’t spectacular by any means, but combined with the Bears’ defense’s ability to keep Brees and the Saints out of the end zone for most of the afternoon, it was enough to nearly steal away against New Orleans.

That’s really where the good news ends for fantasy gamers, when it comes to this passing offense. The offense under Nick Foles has been highly mediocre, as Foles has yet to crest 7.0 yards per attempt in a single game this season, and hasn’t thrown more than two touchdowns (as he did last week) in a single start. Making matters worse, he adds absolutely nothing with his legs, as he’s had a total of two rushing yards in his five starts. The Titans are only league average in yards allowed per attempt and points allowed per play, so there’s not much of an indicator that Foles will surpass his middling fantasy point expectation this weeknd. Needless to say, the Awesemo projection for Foles comes in significantly worse than his 16th highest salary on the main slate would indicate.


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Even Allen Robinson, who continues to rank within the top-20 wideouts in true weighted opportunity share, has a projection on Awesemo.com well below his eighth highest wide receiver salary, in fact, the only player whom the Awesemo projections are bullish on, relative to salary, is Darnell Money. And that shouldn’t be all that surprising. With a salary under $4,000, and leading the team in air yards since week five, Mooney is a sneaky-great play if fantasy gamers believe the Bears’ offense keeps pace with the Titans. The Titans are allowing the second most schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to secondary wideouts.  With less than 3% of the field projected to be utilizing either Mooney (or tight end Jimmy Graham, who isn’t the worst play either), the auxiliary Bears weapons asolutely make sense in tournaments, and are possibly an even better value than Robinson or even Anthony Miller, this weekend.

Chicago Rushing Game

Since week 4 (the first game without Tarik Cohen, after he was lost for the season to a knee injury), David Montgomery ranks ninth in the NFL in opportunity share, seeing over 35% of the Bears’ targets and carries during that span. In that context, however, Montgomery’s 78 total yards per game is a significant underperformance relative to opportunity, but it’s till enough to consider Montgomery in daily fantasy football lineups this weekend, especially considering the Titans have been somewhat vulnerable to the running back position over recent weeks, ranking eight-worst in the NFL in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed, and fourth-worst in Football Outsiders’ open field yards, indicating that if Montgomery’s able to get into the second level (obviously not a given, but certainly possible), he may be able to rack-up chunk plays on the ground. Especially considering salary, where Montgomery is barely inside the top-15 highest salary running backs, the upside is absolutely there for “D-Mont,” and the Awesemo projections agree, ranking Montgomery inside the top-10 backs on the main slate.

Tennessee Passing Game

Week 8 was the second straight mediocre performance from Ryan Tannehill, as the entire Titans offense drastically underperformed in a surprising loss to the Bengals. The Titans are now on a two game losing streak, and Tannehill has thrown for 8.0 yards per attempt in only one of his last four games. Despite choosing to be more aggressive in years past on early downs (the Titans rank above average in air yards per second of play on early downs), they’re still an offense primarily based around “getting Derrick Henry his touches” and finding ways to utilize receivers as counters to that. That’s not necessarily a terrible “formula,” but it does get the team in trouble when playing from behind, as witnessed last weekend. Despite the “real football” struggles, Tannehill still finished with two touchdown passes, indeed 20 yards with his legs in order to stay within the top-12 of all quarterbacks in fantasy scoring. This week, he faces a Chicago defense that continues to be underrated in terms of their ability to stop the pass. The bears rank 4th in yards allowed per attempt this season, and sixth in points allowed per play, indicating it may not be easy sledding for Tannehill and his aerial attack. Chicago is also sixth in PFF’s team coverage grade, they’re no-joke on defense.

That’s not the best of news for receivers Corey Davis and A.J. Brown, who have combined for an extremely high 54% of the team’s targets, and 71% of the team’s air yards since week 5, a strong indicator that this offense, when not featuring Derrick Henry, is among to get one of their two outside playmakers involved in space. The Bears rank among the top-5 toughest teams for wide receivers in schedule adjusted fantasy points allowed, but it’s worth noting that Davis has had back to back weeks with ten targets, and Brown has yet to see less than 7 (or more than 9) targets in any game this season. Davis significantly outpaced Brown in the air yards department a week ago, 110 to 24, and in fact, Davis has had more air yards than Brown in every game they’ve played together but one this season, and in that contest Davis was within three air yards of his higher salary teammate. Brown, then, is a fairly easy fade, with a salary inside the top-12 wide receivers this weekend, but there are also likely more enticing options than Davis at $5,900 as well. The awesemo projections certainly agree, believing that Davis’ 19th highest salary is much too steep. In tournaments, it wouldn’t be crazy to look at Adam Humphries, who’s salary barely puts him within the top-60 wideouts this weekend. Though he’s only had an 11% target share, and a 17% air yards share, over his last three games. If you’re “touchdown hunting,” you could also play one of the tight ends, Jonnu Smith or Anthony Firkser, as they’ve each commanded three red zone targets, most on the Titans outside of Davis and Brown. Smith’s projection Awesemo.com is well ahead of his 13th highest tight end salary.

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Tennessee Rushing Game

It wasn’t a smash week for Derrick Henry as some predicted it would last week, but it was still yet another weekend where Henry receiving well over 35% of the Titans’ overall opportunities, gained over 100 yards, and found his way into the end zone, on a day where the Titans spent much of the afternoon playing from behind. Simply put, Derrick Henry has one of the highest floors off any skill player on the main slate, that’s obvious. Fantasy gamers’ real job, then, becomes sussing-out the probability of a 35-plus fantasy point, “have to have it” type of score from Henry. Even though the Titans are home favorites, with an implied total north of 25, the Bears are less susceptible on the ground than most teams, in fact, over the last five weeks, they rank number one in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to running backs, allowing 8 points per game less than teams’ average fantasy points. A blow-up from Henry’s always possible but the probability isn’t all that great this weekend, the Awesemo projection is essentially right in-line with Henry’s salary based expectation.

Prediction: Titans 28, Bears 20.

Looking for more NFL DFS picks and daily fantasy football matchups content? We have loads of articles, data, and more on the Awesemo NFL home page. Just click HERE.

Author
A middling athlete who was offered his first sports analytics position at age 14, I've been working on NFL and fantasy football data science since 2017. With a particular passion for data visualization and dashboard building, I love to make data accessible by using graphs and charts to communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with words alone. You can contact me by e-mailing [email protected].

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