Just like Matt Ryan, Drew Brees is yet to unlock his ceiling this year. He has maxed out at 22.60 FanDuel points on the season, hitting the 20-point barrier just four times total, none of which have been since mid-November. But if he's going to flash that, it could come against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Buccaneers have slogged through injuries the whole year, and it has shown up big time in their metrics. They're ranked 27th against the pass for the full season, and they remain poor even when we narrow the scope to more recent weeks. That's not a luxury Brees has been afforded often.
In his 15 games this year, Brees has faced a defense outside the top 25 against the pass just twice. One was against these Bucs in their first meeting in Week 9, and the other was in Week 7 against the Green Bay Packers. There, Brees threw for 331 yards and finished with 21.14 FanDuel points. He likely could have done more had the Saints not pummeled Brett Hundley in his first career start.
If we get a bit less cherry-picky and just look at defenses in the top 16 against the pass versus those in the bottom 16, we see that Brees has been fairly matchup-dependent from a fantasy perspective this year. In eight games agaisnt the lesser opponents, Brees has finished with fewer than 18 points just twice; he has done so in two of seven games against better teams. This logically makes sense, and it means we should have more confidence in Brees than his full-season track record would suggest.
The Saints are seven-point favorites here, meaning they could easily get ahead and coast with the lead, leaning on those big backs. But there are a couple reasons that shouldn't completely push us off of Brees.
First, in order to build a big lead, you first must score points. Those points very easily could come via Brees' arm. So if they are in a position to just mail it in, it's possible that Brees has already done enough to pay off at a salary of $8,200.
Second, he doesn't need a ton of volume to beast out in fantasy. He just needs the touchdowns to break his way.
Despite the mediocre fantasy outputs, Brees ranks fourth in the league in Passing NEP per drop back. This means he's superbly efficient, allowing him to rack up yardage -- and, thus, fantasy points -- in a hurry.
This efficiency can also lead to additional trips to the red zone, which is where we make our money at quarterback. Brees has thrown for three touchdowns just once the entire year, and he has never exceeded that. But the team has scored at least four touchdowns in 6 of 15 games. If those come via the air instead of the rush, Brees has an easy path to a huge game.
It's hard to plug in a guy based on the possibility of something we haven't seen happen, but we do need to do that if we want to vary our lineups from those of the crowd. Once Brees has a high-upside game, he'll suddenly be viewed much differently by DFS players. We want to get in on him before that happens, and there's no better time for him to do it than in this spot.
That said, using Brees doesn't mean we have to avoid Alvin Kamara. You can absolutely stack the two together in tournaments.
Kamara has six targets in each of his past five full games, hitting nine targets in two of those. He has also had huge usage since coming back from his concussion, garnering 19 and 21 opportunities, respectively, in the past two games. He hadn't had more than 17 in any game prior to that. He was lethal on limited usage later in the year, and that usage is trending up, so he's a fine play if you're looking to pay up at running back.
The tougher decisions come with how you want to view Michael Thomas. Thomas was dealing with a hamstring injury entering Week 16, so we know he's not at full health. The way you view Thomas depends on what part of his Week 16 you decide to weigh more heavily.
On the one side, Thomas played just 62.5% of the snaps, his first game below 75% in 2017. His five targets were also a new low for the season. That's not what you want out of a guy when you're paying $8,200.
On the other, Thomas was productive in those targets, turning them into 4 receptions for 66 yards. He did that against a Falcons team that employs Desmond Trufant and ranks 15th in fantasy points allowed to receivers. The Buccaneers are a much easier matchup, sitting 29th. Thomas played 23 of 30 passing snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, and now has some extra time to get healthy. When you possess his upside, that can be enough to make him a top-tier play.
The best way to attack this situation in tournaments is to make assumptions. For some lineups, we should assume that Thomas is healthy and pair him with Brees. We saw enough out of him last week to do this with some degree of conviction.
In the others, we should be smashing in Ted Ginn Jr.. With Thomas banged up, Ginn played 73.4% of the snaps, his second-highest rate of the season. Although he has been getting more bunny targets, Ginn still has 24.1% of the team's deep targets on the season, and that percentage could go up if Thomas were at less than full health. Ginn's in play at $5,800, especially when we assume that Thomas has similar restrictions to last week.