5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 1
Cincinnati Bengals' Rushing Offense
We've got a couple of things at play for Sunday's matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts. First, the Bengals are three-point underdogs with just the 17th-highest implied team total on the main slate. That's not great if we're looking to pluck a running back.
Second, the Bengals' ground game was putrid last year, finishing 27th in Adjusted Rushing NEP per play, our metric that tracks overall team rushing efficiency while accounting for the schedule they faced. Again, not great, Bob!
But once we take a look at the Bengals' offseason changes and remember that even Vegas can be wrong, we'll see that Joe Mixon does look pretty attractive here.
A big part of the reason that the Bengals' rushing offense struggled last year was that their offensive line was putrid. They had lost Andrew Whitworth and Kevin Zeitler in the offseason and never added pieces to make up for their departures. Amending that seemed to be a priority in April.
First, the Bengals swapped first-round picks with the Buffalo Bills to acquire left tackle Cordy Glenn. Glenn missed a bunch of time with the Bills last year, but as these numbers from The Quant Edge's injury tool show, he still made an impact when he was on the field.
| In 2017 | Yards Per Carry | Yards Per Pass | Sack Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| With Cordy Glenn | 4.39 | 7.37 | 8.0% |
| Without Cordy Glenn | 4.05 | 6.50 | 9.4% |
The pick the Bengals acquired in that trade was the 21st overall, which they promptly used on center Billy Price. This is a major infusion of talent for a team that needed it pretty badly.
But even before those additions, the Bengals' ground game had been showing improvement. The table below shows the efficiency marks of their running backs in the first half versus the second half of the season. Rushing Success Rate is the percentage of carries that increased the team's expected points for the drive, and Rushing NEP per carry is the expected points added on an average rush. The league averages for running backs in these two metrics last year were 38.08% and -0.05, respectively.
| In 2017 | RB Carries | Yards Per Carry | Success Rate | Rushing NEP per Carry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 8 Games | 161 | 3.12 | 33.54% | -0.10 |
| Final 8 Games | 168 | 4.32 | 42.26% | -0.02 |
That second-half surge allowed Mixon to finish 17th in Rushing Success Rate out of 47 running backs with at least 100 carries. He wasn't as bad as he may have seemed.
That's the first part of the equation. The second is that we don't know Vegas is right in labeling the Colts as favorites.
In looking back at last year's perfect lineups on FanDuel, underdog running backs performed well early in the season. Over the first 6 weeks, 11 of the 12 running backs in the perfect lineups were on teams that were underdogs at kickoff. From Week 7 on, only 4 of the 22 running backs in perfect lineups were underdogs.
This backs up what we talked about at the beginning. Vegas is going to be wrong, and it's easy to understand why that would happen more often early in the season than later on.
With this specific matchup, we know the Bengals have upgraded on offense. We also know that the Colts should be better with Andrew Luck healthy, but there's still reason to be skeptical of their defense. The Bengals' defense was solid last year and returns with strength in the front seven. You could build a solid case for the Bengals as being the true favorites here.
This is a plus not only for Mixon but also for Andy Dalton, A.J. Green, John Ross, and Tyler Eifert. All of these players are worthy selections for tournaments with the implied team total being so low.
But even if Luck does come out and shred the Bengals' defense, Mixon may still be a viable play. He lost 12 pounds in the offseason, attempting to position himself to be the team's bellcow back. This could lead to additional volume in the passing game, and the preseason backed up that thought process.
Joe Mixon lines up wide right, breaks two tackles and scores. #NorrisNotes pic.twitter.com/VjaBwot0fY
— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) August 9, 2018
Mixon is just $6,900 on FanDuel for Week 1, priced beneath most of the other potential heavy-load running backs for this season. His team improved in the offseason, he made himself a better weapon in the passing game, and the Bengals are facing the league's 32nd-ranked defense from a year ago. That may not be enough to justify Mixon in cash games, but for tournaments, Mixon's far better than Vegas and last year's early-season struggles would lead you to believe.
