FanDuel Studs to Target in Week 5

Le'Veon Bell

Le’Veon Bell is in that territory of players where you should never fear starting them. But given his position in this tier, he's also usually very expensive. This week, it's worth paying up for him. Why?

Well first of all his matchup is straight tangerine juicy. The Chargers currently rank 25th among all NFL teams in terms of our Adjusted Defensive Rushing Net Expected Points (NEP) metrics, so Bell should see plenty of holes to run through.

Moreover, Bell, ever the dual threat, has received 27% of his teams total target share via the pass in each of the past two games. While this might go down some with the return of Martavis Bryant, let's remember that with Michael Vick at the helm, the Steelers are going to prefer to keep the game plan conservative to limit mistakes. Checkdowns to the running back position and conservative game planning go together like spaghetti and meatballs. And per Football Outsiders, the Chargers currently rank 29th in terms of team defense versus running backs in the passing game.

While the Steelers are currently three-point underdogs, Bell's one of the few game-script agnostic workhorse backs whose involvement in the passing game keeps them on the field constantly. With such heavy usage and circumstances at the quarterback position necessitating that heavy usage, and an extremely favorable matchup, I won't be leaving Bell out of my cash game lineups.