HOU @ BAL | GB @ SF | TB @ DET | KC @ BUF
Saturday Football
4:30 PM ET Game
Houston @ Baltimore
Team Totals: Ravens 26.5, Texans 17.5
C.J. Stroud enters Week 20 having completed 192 of 283 passes (67.8%) for 2,582 yards (9.1 YPA) and a 17:4 TD-to-INT ratio plus 20/100/2 rushing over his last 10 games. Perhaps more notably since the Texans are two-score dogs here, Stroud leads all quarterbacks in combined passing and rushing EPA when playing from behind (Next Gen Stats). Yet Stroud catches his hardest matchup of the season at Baltimore, which won 2023’s Defensive Triple Crown by allowing the NFL’s fewest points per game (16.5) while leading the league in both takeaways (31) and sacks (60). The Ravens have given up 20 points or fewer in six of their last seven games, while Stroud’s 2023 yards per pass attempt dipped from 8.9 at home to 7.3 in away games, and he is now facing the league’s stingiest defense on the road. … Devin Singletary enters Week 20 with touch counts of 19, 25, and 16 over Houston’s last three games on corresponding playing-time clips of 62%, 88%, and 72%. Singletary is operating as a near-every-down back, while Baltimore coughed up a crisp 4.47 yards per carry to enemy backs this season. Scheme misfit Dameon Pierce has played a total of six offensive snaps over Houston’s last two games. Due to projected negative game script, I remain skeptical of Singletary as a playoff DFS start. The Texans look likely to trail.
Nico Collins’ six receiving lines in games where Stroud has played but Tank Dell (broken leg, I.R.) has not are 6/96/1, 9/195/1, 7/80/0, 9/191/1, 7/104/1, and 4/80/0. Collins’ Week 20 matchup is enhanced by the absence of Ravens top CB Marlon Humphrey (calf), who will be replaced by fifth-team journeyman Ronald Darby. … With Noah Brown (shoulder) hitting I.R., John Metchie, Xavier Hutchinson, and Robert Woods figure to slot in as Houston’s Nos. 2-4 wideouts at Baltimore. Metchie is a legit DFS sleeper after securing all three of his targets for 44 yards on a 76% snap rate in last week’s win. … Woods draws the toughest Divisional Round matchup of the complementary trio with the highest slot-route rate (49%) facing star Ravens slot CB Kyle Hamilton. Hutchinson is a mildly intriguing dart-throw punt. … Brevin Jordan turned his lone Week 19 target into a 76-yard TD on a wheel route against Cleveland but was targeted once and played 50% of Houston’s offensive snaps. Dalton Schultz (1/37/1) was a 78% player versus the Browns. On a one-for-one basis, I’ll stay riding Schultz over Jordan based on Schultz’s significantly bigger role.
By clinching the AFC’s No. 1 seed in Week 17, Lamar Jackson earned himself and many of his teammates 19 days of rest entering Saturday’s bout with Houston’s pass-funnel defense. The Texans coughed up the NFL’s third-most yards per pass attempt (7.7) and fourth-highest completion rate (67.6%) this regular season, also surrendering a league-high seven rushing touchdowns to quarterbacks. I’m going to give Jackson a meaningful box-score projection bump if he gets back Mark Andrews (ankle/leg, I.R.), even on a limited basis. If so, Jackson will become my top Divisional Round quarterback play. … Should game flow go as expected — again, the Ravens are big favorites to play from ahead — Gus Edwards should largely control Baltimore’s backfield. Scorer of 13 touchdowns this season, Edwards hit paydirt seven times with the Ravens in the lead, four times with the score tied, and just twice in trail mode. Justice Hill plays more in comeback scenarios. The matchup is daunting, of course; HC DeMeco Ryans’ defense stymied enemy RBs for 3.3 yards per carry this regular season and Browns RBs to a combined 17/43/1 (2.5 YPC) rushing line last week. … Although HC John Harbaugh stated this week that Dalvin Cook will see action against the Texans, Cook looked out of gas for the entirety of his 2023 Jets stint, and Cook’s greatest strength at this stage of his career appears to be pass protection. I will be surprised if he plays double-digit snaps.
Even after Texans CB Derek Stingley shut down Amari Cooper in Week 19 shadow coverage — allowing -6 yards on one reception on three targets as Amari finished with 59 scoreless yards — shadow situations aren’t nearly as clean against the Ravens, who play four wideouts and will have two big-time pass-catching tight ends should Andrews play. … I’m standing by Zay Flowers as Baltimore’s top playoff DFS start among Ravens WRs. Flowers logs nearly 30% of his snaps inside — Stingley is a perimeter corner only — and Flowers, like Lamar, is rested after sitting for the past 19 days. Flowers dealt with calf and foot injuries late in the year. … Odell Beckham is my second-favorite Baltimore WR play based on murmurs his postseason role could grow. Harbaugh deemed OBJ at peak health early this week, and it would make sense for the Ravens to increase Beckham’s usage in a plum spot with everything on the line. … Rashod Bateman risks facing a ton of Stingley with the highest outside-receiver snap rate (90%) on the team. (In fairness, OBJ was at 87%.) Essentially a decoy throughout 2023 anyway, Bateman hit paydirt once all season and cleared 40 yards once. … I will love Isaiah Likely and like slot man Nelson Agholor as a Week 20 sleeper if Andrews sits. The fact that Andrews practiced fully on Wednesday and Thursday indicates to me that he’s likelier than not to play in a limited role. This is a great spot for slot men and tight ends since Jackson logged a perfect 11:0 TD-to-INT ratio on intermediate passes (10-19 Air Yards) this season and has 48 touchdowns on intermediate throws since 2018, fifth most in the NFL. The Texans allowed a league-high 107 receptions to tight ends this regular season and 11/158/0 to Browns TEs in Week 19.
Score Prediction: Ravens 27, Texans 21
8:15 PM ET Game
Green Bay @ San Francisco
Team Totals: 49ers 30, Packers 20.5
Fresh off generating the NFL’s most EPA per dropback and highest Success Rate of any quarterback in a playoff game since 2010 (@ClevTA on Twitter) as part of Week 19’s upset of Dallas, Jordan Love enters the Divisional Round as one of the — if not THE — hottest passer in football. Since Week 9, Love’s TD-to-INT ratio is 21:1 with two additional rushing scores. Little about Saturday night’s matchup stands out positively for Love — the 49ers’ rested defense allowed the NFL’s fifth-fewest yards per pass attempt (6.4) and picked off a league-high 22 throws in 2023 — yet Love’s of-late performance and increasingly healthy weaponry gives him postseason DFS tournament appeal. The Packers didn’t allow a single Wild Card sack to Dallas and held DPOY candidate Micah Parsons to a single pressure on 19 pass-rush snaps, providing hope they can likewise keep Love clean here. … Lynchpin of Green Bay’s under-center and play-fake-heavy attack, Aaron Jones is averaging 23 touches for 134 yards and 0.75 TDs over the Packers’ last four games. On non-shotgun runs since returning from injury in Week 15, he’s averaging 5.9 yards per carry while picking up a league-high 24 first downs (Next Gen Stats). Even if A.J. Dillon (thumb/neck) is healthy enough to return here, I struggle to believe the Packers would reduce Jones’ role. Dillon was a liability all regular season, while Jones is quite arguably the premier running back left in the postseason.
Romeo Doubs led Green Bay in Wild Card Round routes run (16) and receiving (6/151/1) at Dallas and is the safest bet among Packers wideouts for a near-full-time Week 20 role. San Francisco’s secondary was middling in wide receiver coverage in 2023. … I think Dontayvion Wicks will primarily bookend Doubs outside at San Francisco, while Jayden Reed occupies the slot and Christian Watson rotates in to run sporadic vertical routes. Wicks ran 13 pass patterns last week. Reed ran 11 and Watson 8. … The Packers’ tight end room is another difficult situation to parse. Tucker Kraft has played more than Luke Musgrave lately, but Musgrave is closing the gap, and neither encounters a particularly enticing Week 20 draw.
Brock Purdy finished 2023 with the NFL’s most yards per pass attempt in 23 years (9.6) and from Weeks 9-18 led the league in passing Success Rate (52.9%). Packers top CB Jaire Alexander (shoulder/ankle) appears at genuine risk of missing the Divisional Round after sitting out Wednesday and Thursday’s practices, while Purdy’s weapons are as healthy as they’ve been all season, having not seen game action in nearly three weeks. I’m approaching Purdy as a high-floor, high-ceiling playoff DFS option. … Sidelined for Week 18 by a “mild” calf injury, Christian McCaffrey insists he could have played had the game been meaningful. He should be all systems go here. The Packers played better run defense than given credit for this season — holding enemy backs to 4.17 yards per carry and Cowboys RBs to 3.9 YPC last week — but CMC has time and again proved himself matchup-proof. McCaffrey finished the regular season as the league’s leader in rushing yards (1,459), touches (339), total yards (2,203), and all-purpose TDs (21).
Especially with all of their big guns healthy — as they will be Saturday night — it’s a pick-your-poison situation for defenses trying to slow down CMC, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, and Brandon Aiyuk. … I’ll boost Aiyuk’s outlook if Alexander can’t play; Aiyuk is likeliest to draw Alexander’s perimeter coverage. A whopping 81% of Aiyuk’s regular-season catches went for first downs or touchdowns, most in the league at his position. … Samuel finished 2023 on a madman flurry, averaging 7.5 touches for 94.5 yards and 1.5 touchdowns over San Francisco’s final six meaningful games. (Deebo played in Week 18, but only 33% of the offensive snaps.) Albeit by a small margin, Samuel is my favorite Niners skill-position play behind CMC here. … Quietly, Kittle set career highs in yards per catch (15.7) and yards per target (11.3) in 2023.
Score Prediction: 49ers 34, Packers 24
Sunday Football
3:00 PM ET Game
Tampa Bay @ Detroit
Team Totals: Lions 28, Bucs 21.5
I took this game’s over at 49.5 in a battle of teams that sport pass-funnel defenses and can be explosive in the pass game. Since Week 9’s bye, the Lions are yielding 299 passing yards per game and 8.8 yards per attempt while ranking 30th in pass-defense Success Rate (@ConnorAllenNFL). Baker Mayfield has produced 60 completions of 20+ yards, No. 5 in the league. Mayfield’s big-play numbers would be even better if not for two Mike Evans Wild Card Round long-ball drops. In five games indoors or beneath a retractable roof this season, Mayfield netted 12 all-purpose TDs versus three turnovers. Unbeknownst to at least one Tampa reporter, this game will be played in a dome. … Rachaad White’s every-down role didn’t change in last week’s upset of Philly, banking 19 touches on a 70% playing-time clip. White’s usage is as secure as any non-Christian McCaffrey back on Week 20’s slate, although Detroit yielded the NFL’s fewest regular-season fantasy points to running backs before holding Rams RBs to 70 scoreless rushing yards last week. White is a volume-based DFS tournament postseason play in this potential shootout.
Mike Evans finished the Wild Card Round with a disappointing 3/48/0 receiving line but drew seven targets and dominated Bucs Air Yards with a 43% share compared to runner-up Chris Godwin’s 21% clip. I’m going right back to Evans in playoff DFS contests against a Lions defense that gave up the NFL’s third-most fantasy WR points this regular season, then got torched for 367 passing yards and two scores by Matthew Stafford last week. … Chris Godwin’s target volume has come down lately — he’s averaging 5.7 over Tampa’s last three games — but he’s compensated with improved efficiency and encounters a plus draw here. No longer a primary slot receiver, Godwin has played 68% of his snaps outside, notable since Detroit’s top cover guy is slot CB Brian Branch. … David Moore and Trey Palmer surprisingly shared Bucs Week 19 third receiver duties nearly evenly against the Eagles after Palmer occupied the role almost all season. As both hit big-play paydirt in Tampa’s 32-9 win, there’s no good reason to expect the rotational approach to change. Moore narrowly out-snapped Palmer last week, drawing three targets to Palmer’s two. … The Lions surrendered the NFL’s fifth-most fantasy points to tight ends in 2023. Cade Otton lacks explosive-play ability but can be counted on to log nearly every Bucs offensive snap in a pristine spot.
Key to Detroit’s Wild Card win over the Rams was pass protection; Jared Goff was pressured on just six of 30 dropbacks and went 21-of-21 passing for 266 yards and a TD on clean-pocket throws. Despite blitzing at the league’s third-highest 2023 rate (40%), the Bucs finished bottom 12 in pressure rate (19.7%) and got skewered for the NFL’s eighth-most fantasy quarterback points. As capable as any signal-caller of capitalizing on favorable spots, Jared Goff is an eruption candidate here. … Jahmyr Gibbs is obviously more explosive, but I like David Montgomery’s chances of playing a bigger Week 20 role based on his superior blitz-pickup skills versus the blitz-heavy Bucs. The Lions also check in as nearly touchdown favorites at home, foreshadowing positive game script in which Montgomery tends to thrive. Gibbs maintains one of the highest ceilings on the Divisional Round slate in the event Tampa jumps ahead.
Including playoffs, Amon-Ra St. Brown has netted 95+ yards and/or a touchdown in 16 of 17 games this season. The 2023 Bucs gave up the league’s eighth-most WR catches (225) and fourth-most WR yards (3,036). … Josh Reynolds (48 snaps) and Jameson Williams (39) continued to split Lions Nos. 2-3 wideout duties in last week’s win over Rams. With Kalif Raymond (knee) still on the shelf, I’m expecting a similar Divisional Round timeshare. Drawing bracket coverage as a result of his speed, Williams did more to help teammates than produce statistical results in the Wild Card Round. Reynolds’ 80 yards were his most since Week 1. … Sam LaPorta played 80% of Detroit’s Week 19 offensive snaps and hit paydirt from close in but drew just three targets and wore a bulky brace on his hyperextended knee. Presumably healthier this week, LaPorta will face a Bucs defense that let up the NFL’s second-most fantasy TE points in 2023.
Score Prediction: Lions 27, Bucs 24
6:30 PM ET Game
Kansas City @ Buffalo
Team Totals: Bills 24, Chiefs 21.5
Already notably without two-time Pro Bowl CB Tre’Davious White (Achilles, I.R.), 2022 first-team All-Pro LB Matt Milano (broken leg, I.R.), and hulking DT Jordan Phillips (wrist, I.R.), the Bills lost 2023 second-team All-Pro CB Taron Johnson (concussion), No. 2 outside CB Christian Benford (knee), and every-down LB Terrel Bernard (ankle) in Week 19. Neither top CB Rasul Douglas (knee) nor starting LB Tyrel Dodson (shoulder) played last week. Patrick Mahomes is essentially set up to face a group of second- and third-string Bills defenders. … Over his last eight appearances, Isiah Pacheco has parlayed 129 carries into 605 yards (4.7 YPC) and five touchdowns and caught 24 of 27 targets. With Jerick McKinnon (core surgery) on I.R. and Clyde Edwards-Helaire long proven ineffective, Pacheco offers big-time usage upside versus Buffalo’s injury-depleted defense. Especially behind the powerful right side of their O-Line featuring Pro Bowl C Creed Humphrey, 320-pound mauler RG Trey Smith, and 330-pound RT Jawaan Taylor, the Chiefs are capable of imposing their power-running-game will on most defensive fronts with everyone clicking.
Especially if Taron Johnson misses — this is his second concussion of 2023 and the fifth known concussion of his career — Rashee Rice’s Divisional Round matchup will improve. Rice runs nearly half of his routes in the slot and led Kansas City wideouts in Wild Card Round route rate (91%), continuing to cement himself as the Chiefs’ WR1. … Justin Watson ran as K.C.’s No. 2 wide receiver in last week’s win over Miami, while Mecole Hardman and Marquez Valdes-Scantling split Nos. 3-4 duties evenly. Watson has appeared in 17 games this season and never topped 62 yards. Hardman and MVS are below-par real-life players but will be out there at Buffalo with Kadarius Toney (hip/ankle), Skyy Moore (knee), and Justyn Ross (hamstring) all expected to miss. … Scoreless in seven straight appearances, Travis Kelce is nevertheless positioned to capitalize on Buffalo’s linebacker losses. Only George Kittle is a better tight end play on Week 20’s slate.
Bounced at Arrowhead Stadium in the playoffs following both the 2020 and 2021 regular seasons, the Bills now host Kansas City as the AFC’s advancing No. 2 seed. All told, Josh Allen has faced Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo’s unit on six occasions, averaging 269.1 passing yards with a 15:3 TD-to-INT ratio, 53.5 rushing yards, and two additional rushing scores. Buffalo’s defensive attrition increases this game’s track-meet potential and, in turn, Allen’s box-score ceiling. … James Cook’s passing-game and scoring-position roles continue to frustrate, but he’s handled 15 or more touches in eight straight contests. Sunday night’s matchup is unfriendly on paper, but Cook offers a semblance of usage security and big-play potential.
Bills OC Joe Brady actively tried to free Stefon Diggs from Jalen Ramsey in Week 18 by sending Diggs in motion on a season-high 44% of Diggs’ routes. Brady emphasized Diggs on Wild Card slot routes as a means of keeping him away from Joey Porter Jr. This week, Diggs is likely to draw coverage from Chiefs top CB L’Jarius Sneed, a physical press-man corner who all but shut down Tyreek Hill in Week 19. Hill admitted afterward that Sneed “jammed my ass to Cancun”. … With Gabe Davis (PCL) looking likely to miss again, it’s notable that Khalil Shakir operated as Buffalo’s No. 2 receiver in Week 19 with Trent Sherfield third behind Shakir and Diggs. Slot man Shakir is a recommended DFS starter having secured 16 of his last 16 targets. … Since Dawson Knox returned from injury, the Bills have employed a TEBC with Dalton Kincaid at the forefront but Knox highlighted in scoring position. Kincaid remains DFS playable on target counts of 6, 8, and 7 over Buffalo’s last three games. Knox’s target counts during that span are 2, 3, and 0.
Score Prediction: Bills 24, Chiefs 23
