This article is part of our On Target series.
Emmanuel Sanders / Demaryius Thomas
This is an absolutely elite spot in fantasy for both Sanders and Thomas this week. They are obviously starts in any sort of dynasty or seasonal format, but they are great DFS plays as well. New England ranks 27th in pass defense DVOA and 2nd in rush defense DVOA, creating an artificial funnel for the Broncos' passing game, and the Patriots are bottom 10 in the league in DVOA against WR1 and WR2. Thomas and Sanders have 247 combined targets while the rest of the Broncos have 203 combined targets. No one else is above 33 targets, so this is about as narrow as a passing game gets. I think this is likely a trend that will continue into next year as well, so I am going to be heavily targeting Thomas specifically in seasonal drafts, as I think he has ran pretty bad, expected value-wise, on touchdowns this year.
Diggs and the Vikings offense have mostly been left for dead by fantasy owners at this point in the season, but they are in the revival spot of all revival spots against a reeling Colts team that just lost to Brock Osweiler. Diggs is another sort of WR3 player that I think is a clear start this week. The Colts don't have a great pass rush to disturb Sam Bradford, and Vontae Davis is no longer an elite cover corner. Diggs has a really nice built in floor of eight targets
Emmanuel Sanders / Demaryius Thomas
This is an absolutely elite spot in fantasy for both Sanders and Thomas this week. They are obviously starts in any sort of dynasty or seasonal format, but they are great DFS plays as well. New England ranks 27th in pass defense DVOA and 2nd in rush defense DVOA, creating an artificial funnel for the Broncos' passing game, and the Patriots are bottom 10 in the league in DVOA against WR1 and WR2. Thomas and Sanders have 247 combined targets while the rest of the Broncos have 203 combined targets. No one else is above 33 targets, so this is about as narrow as a passing game gets. I think this is likely a trend that will continue into next year as well, so I am going to be heavily targeting Thomas specifically in seasonal drafts, as I think he has ran pretty bad, expected value-wise, on touchdowns this year.
Diggs and the Vikings offense have mostly been left for dead by fantasy owners at this point in the season, but they are in the revival spot of all revival spots against a reeling Colts team that just lost to Brock Osweiler. Diggs is another sort of WR3 player that I think is a clear start this week. The Colts don't have a great pass rush to disturb Sam Bradford, and Vontae Davis is no longer an elite cover corner. Diggs has a really nice built in floor of eight targets or so, and if the Colts are able to actually score in this game, the potential for another insane 15-target day is there.
As long as Bryce Petty is the quarterback for the Jets, Robby Anderson is at worst a WR3 in fantasy and probably even better than that. He has a 34 percent target share when Petty is under center, which would be top five in all of football this season. Obviously we can expect a little bit of regression from that number, but the Jets are again underdogs to the Dolphins this week and I can see Anderson being the random wide receiver who ends up being a fantasy football legend for only having five good career games, all coming in the fantasy playoffs when owners needed them the most.
Matthews was obviously terrible last week against the Broncos because he was forced to play against Chris Harris and Aqib Talib. This week he gets a much easier matchup against the Chiefs, who are bottom 10 in DVOA against WR1 and, make no mistake, that is what Rishard Matthews is. I would start him over a lot of questionable WR2 options (a healthy Donte Moncrief, for example) because the Titans should be forced to throw in this game, and when Matthews is not covered by Marcus Peters, he is going to have a large edge against the Chiefs second and third corners. He's also a prime play in daily fantasy and someone I will be excited to draft next year. I anticipate the Titans will draft a wide receiver on Day Two of the NFL draft, so the hype around Matthews is not going to be huge during draft season; remember how good he has been in stretches this season when that time comes.
The reason ARob is even entering the conversation this week is that his price tag on both DraftKings and FanDuel has reached a place where we have to give it attention. The issue is, as Adam Levitan stated, "ranks 104th in catch rate, 109th in yards after catch per reception & 4th in drops", none of which are stats we would've associated with the good version of Robinson that we saw last season. I will personally be rostering him this week in DFS, though I am benching him for Rishard Matthews in a dynasty league semi-final.
