Thursday NFL Analysis – Week 3
Remember when I mentioned how terrible Thursday night games were each season? Well get your popcorn ready for another barnburner this week as the Rams hit the road and go from one city where nobody cares about their team to another that will be wildly indifferent to this snoozefest. We learned a little bit about each of these teams last weekend in that neither was quite as good (LA) or as bad (SF) as we thought after Week 1.
On the Rams side, we had a very Rams-esque performance where they had some good things going in the first week almost looked, dare I say, impressive in dismantling the Colts. Unfortunately, they looked very much the way we would have expected in 2017 during their Week 2 tilt with the Washington Redskins where a very dondescript running attack annihilated them up front for over 200 yards, even after starter Rob Kelley was lost for the game due to injury. On the offensive side, the Rams did battle back from a deficit to make it a close game and the usage for Todd Gurley so far has been unbelievable. He is not exactly tearing it up in terms of yards per carry, sitting at just 3.7 ypc, but he’s seeing a significant increase in targets out of the backfield. He’s also flashing some of the athleticism that had fantasy owners excited during his rookie season as he high hurtled a defender on a nice gain down the sidelines late Sunday afternoon. The Rams are a lot like the LA Chargers as far as their backfield is concerned. Neither team has a real dominant attack, but both showcase primarily a single back both in the run and passing game. While neither player is piling up explosive plays this season, the combination of carries and targets puts them in the company of the elite backs of the league so that while neither will end up piling up Le’Veon Bell type of statistics, the volume that moves in their direction makes them hard to ignore when you factor in the discount they are receiving over those top tier backs.
For the Rams in the passing game, I was really disappointed with the output from Cooper Kupp last week. I guess I got what I deserved for starting a Rams wideout in my cash games, but it really did look like a nice matchup. In Week 1, he was targeted six times, hauled in four catches for 73 yards and a score. He did just miss out on another TD against the Redskins when he was tackled at the 1 yard line, but the box score was not too pretty with a paltry three catches for just 33 yards also on six targets. I thought with Josh Norman handling more of the coverage on Sammy Watkins that things might open up a little more for Kupp, but it did not work out and I ended up taking what in retrospect seems like a very foolish risk considering the number of other quality, cheap receivers that were in play last week.
The takeaway from the last paragraph is that until further notice, we will not be playing any Rams WRs. They will have favorable matchups from time to time as they do again this week, but I really want to see Jared Goff play some consistent football for a few more weeks before I go back to lean on any of these guys for a 3x performance. Plus, if you have watched the 49ers over the first two weeks, they have been respectable against the pass against a bad Cam Newton and a Russell Wilson who has absolutely no offensive line to speak of. Last season, the 49ers were historically bad against the run so I am expecting a big dose of Todd Gurley tonight from the Rams, who I think is very playable in cash games this week. On the WR side of the ball, I’ll be fading the Rams entirely.
For the 49ers, on offense, they are still working on getting into the endzone for the first time this season. There were those who had high hopes for the 49ers at the start of the 2017 campaign, but they are gone now like most other 49ers fans who seem to have lost interest since the team left the bay area and built a new stadium in Santa Clare. There still seems to be some resentment over that ‘move’ and not putting a good product on the field is a sure fire way to upset an already irritated group of fans. I sense that letting Colin Kaepernick depart after last season is also something that bothers fans in the largely progressive city of San Francisco. In terms of finding a group of fans that would support an activist/player like Kaep, San Fran is probably one of only a few cities around the country where he would not alienate fans and would largely be embraced. I sense the fans of the 49ers were disappointed with the team decision to let Kaep walk.
With Kaep moving on, the 49ers attempting to band aid over a bullet wound when they signed journeyman Brian Hoyer on to quarterback the team. My take on Brian Hoyer has never changed since watching him play for various teams around the league: serviceable backup. You hear that terms thrown around every year and it sounds like an insult, but it’s actually a high compliment. If you watched the performances of Case Keenum (gross), Tom Savage (gag) and Scott Tolzien (disaster) over the last two weeks, you understand that playing QB in the NFL is no small task and being a backup QB may be the toughest job in the league when you are asked to step in on teams that expect to be competitive. Unfortunately, the three gentlemen I mentioned are not just bad starting QBs, they are unserviceable QBs in any scenario….completely unplayable. The shortage of competent NFL quarterbacks is a huge problem within the league right now as the game moves towards being more pass oriented than ever before.
With Brian Hoyer, a team has a very solid backup QB. If you are a veteran team like the Vikings where the playoffs seem like just a game or two away, being able to bring in a guy like Hoyer would have been huge. He is not going to win consistently over an entire season, but he is just good enough to help a team to win the sort of games that they would have been expecting to win going into the season. The problem is when teams think he is capable of doing anything more than that. This is what makes the move of the new coaching and management staff of the 49ers so baffling. At this stage, there is no way that the 49ers could reasonably think that they have found their franchise QB in Hoyer and while CJ Beathard was fine at Iowa, he’s not going to be a long term solution either. The 49ers took a win now mentality which at the most is going to translate into possibly five wins. My only thought for them is that maybe they are prepared to tank the season away with the 2018 QB draft class looking to be one of the better ones we’ve seen in recent years. In any event, this does not look like the type of game that will turn into a shootout so I am comfortable fading Hoyer this week.
The guy who is worth buying up in all formats this week is Carlos Hyde. He has managed to stay healthy through two weeks which in itself is an achievement for Hyde, and he’s looked good in the run and pass game so far for the 49ers. He’s amassed 24 carries for 169 yards, targeted twelve times in the passing game where he’s hauled in nine catches for and additional 51 yards.With those kinds of numbers, he’s among the best RBs in the daily fantasy game and he’s done it against respectable competition. The Rams got smashed last week by the running attack of the Redskins so at $5,200 on DK and $6,600 on FD, I think Hyde is one of the better value option this weekend overall. The receiving numbers are the key. If he continues to be involved in the passing game this often, he should have his best season as a pro and finish as a Top-10 fantasy RB in the league.
As almost always is the case, I think both defenses are in play this week.Thursday games tend to be sloppy, turnover laden games filled with field goals and penalties. I think this will be another 16-13 type grind of a game so for the prices, each team is a reasonable play for defense this week. If you plan to play Hyde, don’t go with the Rams defense since playing a starting RB against your defense is just patently stupid, but otherwise, there are worse options.