Thursday NFL Analysis – Week 6

Well what do we have here? It appears that the NFL schedule makers have made a mistake on this one from the looks of it. We have two relatively competent teams playing a meaningful game on a Thursday night. We do not have to watch a game like the Colts and the Titans in primetime!! Oh wait….I see that piece of filth is scheduled as the Monday night game this week.

It’s always tough to gauge how these games are going to come out, but most of the time, as I stated at the beginning of the season, it’s ugly. Every once in a while one sneaks by us like the Rams/49ers tilt that ended up being fantasy gold for anyone who stacked that contest, but more often than not, we end up with the type of clunker that we had last week when it took a full quarter of garbage time points out of Jameis Winston to salvage most of my picks for the week. Even the Pats looked sluggish on offense for most of the night and the loss of Rob Gronkowski really slowed down their offense. That is why I want to temper my expectations tonight even if this game has the potential to do some fun things for us. There are a lot of potential GPP options for this game, but not much that stands out in cash. If you were to stick with the guideline of just ignoring the Thursday game completely for cash game purposes, you will have more success than not over time. However, there are at least a couple of options worth noting for potential usage as it does make these games a little more fun to watch when you have a rooting interest.

The matchup, if we want to dig into the script for the game a little bit, pits two tough defenses against two solidly performing offensive attacks. How has each team succeeded this season on offense so far? Well, neither has a real solid traditional running attack. Jonathan Stewart’s roll is heavily diminished and unless he accidentally falls into the end zone somehow, he is totally useless for fantasy purposes. Yes, he’ll have a two TD game at some point that you can troll me about, but not ever cracking my lineups, especially with Christian McCaffrey on the field. McCaffrey, who I see as a pretty average player with a little speed has become the pass catching option for the Panthers and lines up all over the field. They do mix him into the run game for a few attempts a game, but he’s never going to be a traditional between the tackles back and against Philly’s front seven, the Panthers are not going to grinding out a lot of yardage up the middle tonight.

Carolina has success when Cam is making throws and moving around in the pocket to create opportunities. When he’s static in the pocket and not even attempting to stretch the field with his legs, he’s a very pedestrian QB with marginal talent at the skill positions. When he’s moving and evading the rush, he gives himself a chance to create plays and the opportunity for his big receivers to go up for the ball against smaller corners. We’ve seen the old Cam on the road the last two weeks in winning games the Panthers were expected to lose. If the Panthers are going to win tonight, it’s going to be based on what we see out of Cam. With the Panthers expected to score 24-25 points, that’s telling me that we have a pretty good floor for Cam of around 275 yards passing, 25-40 yards and 2 TDs (total from running or throwing) which should get us comfortably into the 20-24 point range that we like for cash game purposes. Obviously, we know what he is capable of, but the short week does tend to hold a lot of QBs in check.

The receiving options for Newton are a little bit of a mixed bag going into tonight’s game. The one spot where we get real value is at the tight end position with Ed Dickson who is jut $3k on DK. I know he is not going to replicate his 5 for 175 performance of a week ago, but he’s filling in for one of Cam’s favorite targets in Greg Olson so I do expect him to continue to get at least 4-6 targets per game. If he can even turn that into marginal production, he’ll hit value. I probably would not go all in on him for GPPs this week at that price, but it’s very reasonable to use him in your cash lines.

The other targets for Cam at wideout are all priced up a little higher than I would like to see. I’ve always been a Devin Funchess guy if you can believe that, going back to his rookie season two years ago. He’s a big kid out of Michigan who took a while to get into the rotation, but who is quickly becoming a strong #2 and borderline #1 option for the Panthers. Since Olson went down, he’s averaged 8-10 targets per game and scored 3 TD’s over the last two weeks. He’s not drawing shadow coverage and will likely spend much of his night with Jalen Mills covering him, the weakest of the Philly corners. At $6,100, I can’t sanction a cash play, but I think 8-10 targets is very much in play so I think of the wideouts tonight on the Panther side of the ball, he’s the one that makes the most sense for GPPs.

For the Eagles, they are also a pas first type of offense that uses Legarrette Blount as a battering ram when the flow of the game is in their favor and they need to start controlling the clock as they did in the second half of their past two games. However, even with injuries depleting them at the RB position, they are never going to have a ‘go to’ guy to handle all of the work which is why Blount’s appeal is limited, especially in a game like this where the oddsmakers see the Eagles playing from behind, thus pushing for more of a pass catching catching narrative out of the backfield which will likely fall to the likes of Corey Clement or Kenjon Barner. The Panthers have proven tough on defense against the rush. They do give up a lot of yardage to RBs through the air, but the Clement/Barber choice isn’t terribly appetizing, particularly when there are so many better options in play at a similar price point and roll this weekend.

The Eagles have had most of their success this year through the strength of their young QB throwing the ball to a nice mix of WR threats. Alshon Jeffrey has battled tough corners all season which has limited his output thus far, but in taking away the top corner from each team he’s gone up against, it has opened things up for Nelson Agholor and Torrey Smith to contribute each week giving the Eagles a very balanced attack through the air that is not totally reliant on one guy to propel their offensive attack. Jeffrey will draw shadow coverage tonight from James Bradberry who’s been solid so far this season, but he’s not among the elites in the NFL. I won’t be looking at him for cash this week and given how the Eagles spread the ball around, his ceiling is not high enough tonight for me to chase in GPPs. Nelson Agholor will be covered by Captain Munnerlyn, the weakest of the three CBs for the Panthers. His targets have been rising each week and he found the end zone last week. At $4,200, he could have the upside for GPPs this week.

The best option for the Eagles week in and week out through the air this season has been tight end Zach Ertz. He’s had no fewer than 8 targets in a game this season and no fewer than 13.1 DK points in five games this season. He’s priced at $6,300 this week so there isn’t much value left with that number, but the flow of this game shows us that the Eagles will be throwing the ball. I know that the Panthers are a tough defense to go up against for tight ends, but outside of Rob Gronkowski (4/80), they have not exactly faced a who’s who of tight ends. Last week was supposed to be a tough matchup for Ertz and he went for 6/61 and a TD so I think you have to consider him this week for GPPs and marginally so for cash games. The TE position is pretty tough this week in terms of value and if you are like me and took a big, steaming zero from Evan Engram last week, you might consider paying up for what has been a pretty solid floor from Ertz over the last year or so.