5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 8
Cincinnati Bengals' Passing Offense
Of all of the potential shootouts on Sunday's main slate, this one between the Cincinnati Bengals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers might be the most attractive. If we're waddling up to that buffet line, we might want to load up here first.
Two of the five games with totals in the 50s are rematches of divisional games, which can occasionally lead to disappointing outputs. Two others have at least one team ranked outside the top 20 in situation-neutral pace, according to Football Outsiders.
The Bengals and Bucs shall deal with no such drawbacks. They rank 12th and 3rd, respectively, in situation-neutral pace, and they haven't faced each other since 2014. That's not to say you should avoid the others -- we'll touch on plenty of them before this piece is over -- but this one could be hard to top.
When you're diagnosing this game, there are a number of appealing matchups to attack. Jameis Winston and the Bucs' passing offense get an upgrade with Vontaze Burfict potentially sitting out, and Joe Mixon is mighty appealing if Gerald McCoy misses his second straight game. But from a pure matchup perspective, you've got to love the setup for Andy Dalton and the rest of their aerial attack.
The Buccaneers enter this game ranked 32nd in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play, numberFire's schedule-adjusted metric that shows the ability of a defense to stop the pass. Those abilities this year have been lacking, to say the least.
In 6 games this year, the Bucs have allowed 330 or more yards 5 times, and they have allowed 4 quarterbacks to hit the 3-touchdown mark against them. In total, they have just 1 interception compared to 18 touchdowns allowed. The production has been even worse when they've played on the road.
You may be a bit hesitant to use Dalton after he flopped in what seemed to be a plus matchup last week with the Kansas City Chiefs. But that game was in Kansas City, a tough environment for an offense, and they fell behind early. It's harder to pass when the defense knows you're going to do it, which is a big part of the reason why the Chiefs' defense is now ranked 13th in numberFire's pass-defense rankings. This is a bit of a different scenario.
The Bengals are back at home as four-point favorites, meaning they project to be in neutral game script throughout. In the Bengals' three home games this year, Dalton has seven touchdowns and one interception, including a four-touchdown day against the ever-stout Baltimore Ravens. His upside here is tremendous, and he's one of the top tournament plays on the board at $7,800 on FanDuel.
If you're using Dalton in tournaments, you'll need to pair him with somebody. The correct answer there is always going to be A.J. Green. But with Green's salary at $8,800, is there a way we can save some money here?
The Bengals' passing offense underwent a big change a few weeks ago when both Tyler Eifert and John Ross got hurt against the Atlanta Falcons. In the three games since then, here are the target market shares for the four biggest pieces of their offense. A "deep" target is a target on any throw that travels at least 16 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
| Past 3 Games | FanDuel Salary | Overall Targets | Deep Targets | Red-Zone Targets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A.J. Green | $8,800 | 36.7% | 42.1% | 33.3% |
| Joe Mixon | $7,800 | 16.3% | 10.5% | 16.7% |
| Tyler Boyd | $6,800 | 20.4% | 15.8% | 16.7% |
| C.J. Uzomah | $5,400 | 11.2% | 5.3% | 8.3% |
Before we move onto the traditional pass-catchers, take note of Mixon's passing-game usage. Both Tarik Cohen and Alvin Kamara have topped 100 receiving yards against this defense this year, and while Mixon's usage isn't quite as good as theirs, he's still getting solid work. That's another reason we need to get a piece of him in tournaments.
The above chart should make it clear that Green is worth his salary. The Bengals know he's the best asset in their offense, and they're scheming ways to get him involved. If this game does shoot out, Green will likely play a big role in it.
The big conundrum here is with Tyler Boyd. Can we trust him even with his role being muted recently?
It depends on how much weight you want to put on last week's game with the Chiefs. In that one, Boyd had just 4 targets compared to 14 for Green. If you focus heavily on that game, there's no way you're using Boyd.
But leading into that one, Boyd had seven or more targets in five straight, including a 15-target game back in Week 5. It was just two games ago where he scored twice on nine targets against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Should we completely ignore that just because Boyd had a down game last week?
For cash games, it's likely okay to stay away from Boyd because we now know that four-target game is in his range of outcomes. But for tournaments, a 100-yard, 2-touchdown day is also possible. The Buccaneers have been throttled by slot receivers this year, allowing at least 85 yards and a touchdown to each of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jarvis Landry, and Nelson Agholor. That's why if you're stacking this game in tournaments, it makes tons of sense to get some Boyd in preparation for a bounce-back.
