5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 4
Denver Broncos' Passing Offense
Through the first two games of the season, Trevor Siemian was the talk of the town. He was the only quarterback to score at least 23 points on FanDuel in each game, and that was despite facing mid-level defenses.
After last week, all of that praise has turned to crickets.
Siemian struggled on the road against the Buffalo Bills, finishing with just 259 yards on 40 attempts while tossing a pair of picks. That's not the super-human performance we saw earlier.
Now, Siemian heads home for a matchup with the Oakland Raiders, who just allowed Kirk Cousins to shake off his early-season cobwebs and shred them for 365 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Raiders are ranked 30th against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics. Eschewing the recency bias behind Siemian's Week 3 outing, shouldn't we be in on him again in Week 4?
The quick rebuttal to that could be that we are overreacting to a two-game sample at the start of the season. After all, Siemian averaged just 14.41 FanDuel points per game last year, so maybe the first two games were the flukes.
That's far from being a sure thing. Realistically, we should have expected Siemian to progress this year based on offseason changes for the Denver Broncos.
The offensive line struggled last year, getting the quarterbacks sacked on 6.56% of their drop backs, the 25th-ranked mark in the league. So, they brought in tackle Menelik Watson and guard Ronald Leary via free agency and selected tackle Garrett Bolles with the 20th overall pick in the draft. All of those guys are now starters, meaning the foundation of the offense is radically different than what it was last year.
This means you've got a quarterback behind a rebuilt and solid offensive line who has two upper-tier receivers at his disposal. We should expect success, especially when they're at home in plus matchups. Siemian's in a great spot for this week.
Siemian's just $7,500 on FanDuel, meaning he'll give you extra flexibility to pay up elsewhere. You can question his upside, but over the past two seasons, he has more games with at least 23 points on FanDuel than all of Derek Carr, Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Newton, Philip Rivers, and Jameis Winston. If you're willing to use them in tournaments, you should be willing to use Siemian, too, especially in a matchup this juicy.
The question then boils down to with which receiver you pair him. Thankfully, there is no wrong answer here.
Emmanuel Sanders is the safer asset after a 15-target game last week. And these aren't just short looks, either. He's getting high-leverage targets, too.
| 2017 Market Share | Overall Targets | Deep Targets | Red-Zone Targets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emmanuel Sanders | 29.59% | 35.29% | 28.57% |
That's an impressive portfolio, and getting it for $6,900 is a steal.
Coincidentally, that's the same price as Demaryius Thomas. Thomas doesn't have as many overall or red-zone targets as Sanders, but his deep targets are equal. He has at least 8 targets and 67 yards in each game thus far, so there are plenty of reasons to dig him, as well.
Because Sanders had the 15 targets last week and the more recent blow-up game, it's likely best to have more exposure to Thomas in tournaments in hopes of lower ownership. Regardless, both are great plays, and it'll be wise to get a piece of them in your lineups.
