3 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in the Wild Card Round
Atlanta Falcons' Rushing Offense
Based on our analytics, there's only one game projected to be a barnburner this weekend. That's the one between the Los Angeles Rams and Atlanta Falcons with the Rams holding 63.5% win odds. The other home teams all have at least 71% odds of advancing. That makes pretty much any asset in this game fun.
That potential neutral script, though, would be most beneficial for Devonta Freeman and the Falcons' rushing offense. If they can keep things close, it means they'd be able to continue rushing the ball throughout. But even if things do go south, we likely should give Freeman some consideration.
In a must-win game against the Panthers last week, the Falcons leaned heavily on Freeman. He had 11 targets in the passing game, four more than his previous high for the season. That prior seven-target outing was also recent, coming back in Week 15 when he had 22 carries on top of it.
Freeman's snap rate in Week 17 (52.8%) will sell him a bit short as he was dealing with a knee injury. He did miss practice on Tuesday, but Freeman's knee is believed to be "just fine," according to Vaughn McClure of ESPN. Freeman turned in a limited practice on Wednesday, making it seem likely he'll be good to go. If not, we're full steam ahead on Tevin Coleman, but it seems as if Freeman is ready to rock in what could be a plus matchup.
The Rams were basically the opposite of the Panthers in the regular season. Although they were stout against the pass, ranking seventh both for the season and from Week 10 on, they struggled to stop opposing ground games. They were 29th there for the full season and 26th from Week 10 on. Even though they were beating up on opponents, they still managed to allow more than 165 yards on the ground in five games, topping out at 229 against a wretched Washington rush offense in Week 2. Freeman had the fourth-best Success Rate among backs with at least 100 carries this year, so he's well equipped to exploit this deficiency.
This is huge for Freeman if his health allows him to be at full strength. Over the past three games, Freeman has 34.6% of the Falcons' carries plus targets, the fourth-highest mark on the slate. One of the guys ahead of him is LeSean McCoy, who is dealing with an injury of his own, and the other two are at least $1,000 more expensive than Freeman. This is a good way to save some cash without losing a ton of volume.
On a four-game slate, we need to find players with upside who can tilt the scales in our favor. Even while dealing with that knee injury, Freeman scored 21.3 FanDuel points last week, and he had 27.9 two weeks before that. He's got that upside we so desperately need. Now we just have to hope that he's healthy.
More often than not, we're going to want to spend up for guys like Gurley, Kamara, and Fournette because they're priced where they are for a reason. But we'd be wrong to overlook Freeman. It's a good matchup for him in a spot where the Falcons could keep things close, and he'll get targets in the event they fall behind. That's enough to justify Freeman as a tournament selection at $7,000.
