5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 13
Green Bay Packers' Rushing Offense
If you do decide you want to spend down on a back in your cash-game lineups, it looks like the preferred option should be Aaron Jones. His matchup is just as nice, and he has also had a pretty sweet role recently.
Jones and the Green Bay Packers are at home for a matchup with the Arizona Cardinals. The Cardinals have had a lot of problems this year, and their rush defense has absolutely been one of them.
Arizona has allowed opposing backs to record a 44.6% Rushing Success Rate, according to numberFire's Brandon Gdula, the 27th-ranked mark in the league. This means that backs are moving the ball consistently against them, which gives Jones a reliable rushing floor. The chunk plays they've allowed give him a ceiling.
On the season, the Cardinals have allowed 28 rushes of 15 or more yards, the most in the entire league. This partly explains how they've managed to allow more than 100 rushing yards to such prolific rushers as Latavius Murray and Mike Davis.
Jones hasn't always gotten those chunk plays with just seven rushes of 15 or more yards for the season, but that should not take away from how ridiculous he has been. Jones leads the league in both Rushing NEP per carry and Rushing Success Rate among backs with at least 80 carries. His 54.5% Success Rate is a full three percentage points ahead of Lindsay in second at 51.1%.
As a result, head coach Mike McCarthy has had no choice but to up Jones' role within the offense. Since the team's bye in Week 7, Jones has played at least 58.1% of the snaps in each game. That has gone up to at least 73.7% in each of the past three games, including two games that the Packers lost. He has become the team's workhorse.
That hasn't yet translated into massive volume, though. Jones has yet to exceed 17 carries in a game this year, and we need those attempts if we're going to trust him in cash games. Given the previous narrative around McCarthy's hesitancy to use Jones, this could be seen as a cause for concern.
It likely shouldn't, though. Most of Jones' volume woes seem to be a result of game script not being in his favor.
Since Jones' snap rate spiked, the Packers have lost four of their five games. If you don't have a lead late, you can't run the football, and that's going to take Jones as a rusher out of the equation.
In the one game they did win, Jones absolutely popped off. The volume was still a bit muted, but he turned 15 carries and 5 targets into 172 yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns. They just haven't given him many chances like that to close things out late.
That seems likely to change this week. The Packers are 14-point favorites, the heaviest tilt in favor of any home team on the main slate. The Cardinals are coming off a loss at home to the tanking Oakland Raiders, and they just lost 45-10 on the road against the Los Angeles Chargers. Their only two wins this year have come against the San Francisco 49ers. If the Packers can't win this one, McCarthy's job security will be deader than Jamaal Williams' fantasy stock.
On the off chance that the Packers do fall behind, though, Jones can still rack up fantasy points due to an increased workload in the passing game. In the three games since his snap rate got above 70%, Jones has 19.3% of the Packers' overall targets and 22.2% of their red-zone looks. This is another reason we can turn his way in cash games.
In other words, Jones has the total package. He's a massive home favorite in a plus matchup with a role as both a rusher and receiver. He's cheaper than the other cash-game considerations at running back, too, so in this one instance, it's likely wise to just accept the savings and watch this bad man run.
