Gameflows

Sanaynay’s Divisional Weekend Saturday Breakdown

I’m excited for this slate of games this weekend. We are going to have one of the best weekends of football that we’ve seen in a long time. All four games are between good teams who either have a very good offense or are very well coached teams. All four totals float between 46 and 53. Gear up for some good back and forth and great QB play this weekend.

Jacksonville Jaguars @ Kansas City Chiefs KC -8.5, O/U 53 

The Jaguars came back in stellar fashion to win their round one game over the LA Chargers last weekend. They were down 27-0 early in the game and outscored the Chargers by 21 in the 2nd half to take home the win. Their prize? A well rested Kansas City Chiefs team and facing a coach who does not lose after a bye week, in KC. Good luck.

Trevor Lawrence is set up for success in this matchup. The Kansas City Chiefs have leaked fantasy points to opposing QBs all season and have been unable to slow anyone down. On the season, they have allowed opposing QBs to score an average of 20.1 points per game against them which is the 3rd most in the NFL this season. Trevor Lawrence should have success both passing the ball and running it. The last time these two teams played back in Week 10, Lawrence threw the ball 40 times, completing 29 of them for 259 yards and two scores while adding 26 rushing yards on four carries which was good for 20.96 fantasy points. I think we can expect more of the same from Lawrence but inflated a little bit as I fully expect the Jaguars to be chasing the Chiefs the majority of this game. Christian Kirk is the main pass catcher I would target for the Jaguars in this one. Not only do the Chiefs give up a ton of fantasy points to the slot WR, but Kirk has emerged as Lawrence’s go-to WR. Against the Chargers, Kirk caught six of his eight targets for 99 yards and a score. Back when these two teams played last, Kirk scored 31.5 fantasy points as he pulled in nine of his 12 targets for 105 yards and two scores. This was by far his best performance of the season. On the outside, I have no issue throwing Zay Jones in one of your lineups. Zay Jones had eight catches for 68 scoreless yards the last time these two teams played and has earned double digit targets five times this season. However, be cautious on Draftkings because Zay Jones is going to likely be 40%+ owned due to his price tag. I also like Evan Engram this week. Last week he led the Jaguars in targets with 11, pulling in seven of them for 93 yards and a score. The Chiefs present a neutral to above average matchup against TEs and Engrams talent gives him the potential to have a good game but for DFS, I’d rather play guys like Travis Kelce, Dallas Goedert or Hayden Hurst. One last note, I’ll be taking another stab at a Jamal Agnew TD at +850 odds as well and should be considered as a dart throw on small slates for DFS. 

Travis Etienne has no glaring advantages this week matchup wise on the ground. He is likely going to see around 15 carries on the ground and hover around 70 yards rushing, so I don’t see an edge there in terms of props or DFS. However, the Chiefs are exploitable in the air for opposing RBs. The Chiefs defense gave up a league high 112 receptions to RBs during the regular season. Etienne has not topped three targets in a game since Week 7 but I think this is a week that presents itself to give Etienne some room to work with in the air. The last time these teams met Etienne caught three balls for 28 yards and I expect Doug Pederson to exploit that weakness even more against the Chiefs. I am also confident that if the Jaguars have to play from behind in this one Etienne will see more than one reception like he did in last week’s comeback as the Chargers were top 5 in the NFL at defending opposing RBs in the air. Due to this, Doug Pederson called plays pushing against the Charger’s weaknesses. I also think Etienne has an increased chance of scoring a TD in this one as the game comes with a 52.5 implied total and he has variance on his side after not scoring at all in the Jaguars 31 point performance in the Wild Card round.  

The Kansas City Chiefs, led by Patrick Mahomes, should have absolutely no issue moving up and down the field this Saturday afternoon. Patrick Mahomes, as I predicted back in Week 1, was the runaway MVP this year. He finished the season with 5,250 passing yards (led the league) and 41 TDs on 435/648 passing with a 8.1 YPA which was second only to Tua Tagovailoa. When Mahomes faced this Jaguars defense back in Week 10, he completed 26 of 35 passes for 331 yards and four scores while adding 39 yards rushing on seven attempts. I want to mention Mahomes rushing abilities and how it can present an edge in this one, not only for betting purposes but for DFS. Even with Mahomes having 39 yards rushing in Week 10 against this same defense, Mahomes has run for an average of 4.5 times for an average of 37.5 yards over his last four post season games dating back to his Super Bowl loss in 2020 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He ran for at least 19 yards in each of those games and hit 69 in his matchup against the Bills last year. The Jaguars gave up the 3rd most rushing yards to opposing QBs this year, giving up 469 over the course of the season which is a 27.6 yards per game average. I would be shocked if Mahomes doesn’t top 30 yards rushing in this game and I think there is an edge to him running in a TD. Mahomes’ rushing line currently sits at 23.5 as I write this article. Back to the receiving end of his matchup, no pass catcher has a matchup better than Travis Kelce this weekend. Since Week 10 the Jaguars have given up an average of 20.9 PPR points per game to opposing TEs, which was 4.5 more points per game then the next closest (DEN) over that time frame. Back in the Jaguars must win Week 18 matchup against the Titans, Chigoziem Okonkwo and Austin Hooper combined for 7/80/1 on eight targets and even as recently as last week, Chargers TE, Gerald Everett, smoked them for 109 yards and a score on six receptions. In Week 10, Kelce caught six of his seven targets for 81 yards and a score as the Chiefs cruised to victory in that one. Over Kelce’s last six playoff games, he has at least 95 yards receiving and at least five catches and has six TDs over that span. He has totalled 67 targets, 54 receptions, 659 receiving yards and those six TDs. Kelce is a fantastic bet on every prop this weekend and I’d be shocked if he didn’t top 100 yards and have a score. After Kelce, Juju Smith-Schuster is worth a look in DFS but I would prefer to go to Kadarius Toney who is a big play waiting to happen. The Jags are a slightly above average matchup for the slot WR where Juju plays but I’m concerned for his low production targets. Juju hasn’t topped four targets the last three weeks and has scored more than 6.8 just twice since Week 9. He had two catches for 33 scoreless yards in Week 10 against the Jags. Toney has scored 6.8, 5.1 and 10.4 the last three weeks with six targets the last two weeks and three carries last week with a score. The volume is increasing for Toney while he is being put in positions to score vs. Juju who is just being looked to in order to move the chains every once in a while.

The Chiefs backfield has a juicy matchup in this game and it is not for the reason you may think. And who I point to is Jerick McKinnon as the beneficiary here. The Jaguars have developed into a great rush defense over the last half of the NFL season and that was apparent last weekend when Austin Ekeler had a 27 point lead and still was only able to gain 35 rushing yards on 13 carries against this Jaguars defense. However, the Jaguars can’t stop RBs from catching the ball. Why the Chargers didn’t utilize this more, I don’t know. Ekeler only saw four targets in total but there is a direct correlation between RB targets and TE targets, and as I just mentioned, the Chargers blew the doors off of the Jaguars with their TE’s in this matchup. This is where Jerick McKinnon enters. The only team to give up more receptions to opposing backs during the 2022 NFL season were the Kansas City Chiefs. The Jaguars gave up 107 receptions to opposing backs and you have a guy in McKinnon who has completely emerged as the Chiefs RB1 in this offense and is being utilized to his max as a receiving back now that the games are more meaningful for the Chiefs. Over the last five weeks, McKinnon has seen target counts of 9, 8, 3, 6, and 3. He has 25 receptions over that span and 265 receiving yards and 7 (!!) receiving TDs in his last five games with 8 total TDs overall. Along with Kelce getting into the endzone, I don’t see how McKinnon doesn’t fall in this weekend. I love his anytime TD prop at -110 odds right now and his receiving line of 34.5 to hit the over. Conversely, I like Pacheco’s rushing yards to go under 52.5. You can dabble at Pacheco’s receiving yards over 7.5 as well if you want double exposure with the chance of both hitting. I’m not worried in the slightest about Clyde Edwards-Helaire in this matchup and I doubt he even touches the ball. If you can find under props somewhere offering them, hit them. 

Takeaway

Andy Reid after a bye week is a mutant super human and I think the Chiefs handle the Jaguars in this one. They’ll come out early and put up points quickly. On the flip side, the Jaguars won’t go away quietly and will make it seem like a game with the Chiefs ultimately winning by 6-10 points. I love the over here for the first half and I think the game over hits as well. I would feel confident throwing KC ML in parlays but I am shying away from a Jacksonville backdoor cover on that spread. I would prefer to play JAX in Super Teaser odds around +19/20.

Prediction

KC: 38

JAX: 30

New York Giants @ Philadelphia Eagles PHI -7.5 , O/U 48 

The last time these two teams played against each other seriously, it was Week 14 and the Eagles absolutely waxed the Giants 48-22. The Eagles scored at least a TD every single quarter of that game and were up 48-14 before the Giants got a late garbage TD. The Eagles ran for 253 yards on 31 carries and scored four TDs on the ground. I think this time around the game will be a little bit closer as New York Giants Head Coach, Brian Daboll, outmatches his counterpart, Eagles Head Coach Nick Siriani, when it comes to coaching overall. The Giants will keep it close but ultimately the Eagles talent will be too much for the Giants to overcome. One major factor to keep an eye on is Eagles Right Tackle Lane Johnson. As of right now he is practicing and expected to play but will not be 100%. He is the best Right Tackle in the game and is why the Eagles are able to do what they do. If he misses, I think it gives the Giants defense a much better chance of slowing down this Eagles offensive attack.

Daniel Jones is coming off of a great performance against a very, very bad defense in the first round of the playoffs. I think that his hot run continues in this game. What makes Daniel Jones so effective is his ability to run the ball. He ran for over 700 yards on the season and last week he ran the ball for 78 yards on 17 carries. He then twists that around on the defense and picks them apart in the air, specifically on short yardage throws and sustains long, draining drives. Against the Vikings he completed 24 of 35 passes for 301 yards and two scores. The Eagles gave up the fewest passing yards on the season, allowing opposing QBs to only throw for 4.9 yards per attempt and finishing as the top Pass DVOA in the NFL. However, I don’t think that their style matches up well against Daniel Jones. They are one of the worst teams in the NFL at containing the QB and keeping him from hurting them on the ground while being susceptible to short yardage passes between 1-9 yards. They gave up the 4th most rushing yards to opposing QBs during the regular season while facing only two rushing QBs in the entire season. Kyler Murray ran for 42 yards on four attempts against them and Justin Fields ran for 98 yards on 15 carries against them and even if you remove the entire Just Fields game, they still gave up the 10th most rushing yards to opposing QBs. Daniel Jones is one of the best rushing QBs in the NFL and should have no issue topping 50 yards rushing in this one. I think the receivers that we need to look at the hardest for the Giants are Richie James and Isiah Hodgins. Both Richie James and Hodgins are splitting snaps in the slot. Against the Vikings, Hodgins ran 41.4% (12) of his routes from the slot and James ran 92.3% (24) of his routes from the slot. The slot is where the Eagles pass defense is beatable and where I expect the Giants to attack the Eagles. I don’t like Slayton at all in this game and I’m not interested in either Bellinger or Cager at TE for the Giants on this slate.  

The Eagles present a rather neutral matchup for Saquon Barkley. Barkley is the centerpiece of this offense and it will go as far as he goes. Against the Vikings he only ran the ball nine times for 53 yards but had a nice 28-yard TD burst in the 1st quarter to get the scoring started for the Giants. He also capped off the scoring for the game, scoring with a little less than 8 minutes left to put the Giants up for good in this game. He caught five of his six targets for 56 yards in this game. When these two teams met back in Week 14, Barkley was held largely in check, running for 28 yards on only nine carries and only caught two balls for 20 yards. Those 11 touches were by far the least amount of touches Barkley had all season long and it was due to the Eagles just dominating the game. You will be banking purely on Barkley’s talent and big play ability if you play him in DFS this week, which is usually a good bet to make. Nothing about Barkley’s props currently stand out as a presentable betting edge at the moment. 

I have a lot of reservations for this Eagles offense. They have, in my opinion, the widest range of outcomes of any offense this weekend. Nick Siriani is coaching his first playoff game as a play caller. Jalen Hurts is still working his way back from his AC Joint injury while looking bad in Week 18 in his return. This entire team has taken a week off and it is a coin flip if they come out flat out not. Lastly, the anchor for the Eagles offensive line at Right Tackle, Lane Johnson, is not 100% and is questionable for this game. If all of these things slide against the Eagles where they come out flat and Lane Johnson isn’t effective, the offense could completely crumble. If they come out smoking and on fire, they could dominate the Giants like they did in Week 14, dropping another 40+ points. In that Week 14 game, Hurts threw the ball 31 times, completing 21 of them for 217 yards with two scores while running the ball seven times for 77 yards on the ground with another score. I want to also bring up the Eagles Week 18 game against the Giants where the Giants rested a lot of players. Hurts was coming back after missing Weeks 16 and 17, only to complete 20 of 35 attempts for a mere 229 yards and be held scoreless with a turnover and only 13 yards rushing on nine attempts. We can look at this and say the Eagles were playing conservatively because of Hurts’ shoulder but another factor is that the aforementioned Lane Johnson missed this game. There is a real possibility this is the offense we will see this Saturday in a rather ugly game against the Giants. I think we should temper the expectations for Jalen Hurts passing the ball as there is a bigger chance he comes out and lays an egg in this game throwing it as opposed to lighting this bad Giants defense on fire. I do want to mention that I will be playing Hurts rushing line over 50.5 yards but I won’t be heavy on it. I’ll be heavier on Miles Sanders.

With all of that said, let’s play a little devil’s advocate and look at this offense if the Eagles come out clicking. If this offense is 100% healthy and on the same page, fully rested with no rust, they are going to blow the Giants out of the water. They have the top offensive line play in order to completely stall the Giants relentless blitz. If they do that, their elite playmakers on the outside are going to be running wild, wide open. Also, Dallas Goedert is primed to have one of his best games of the season after missing Weeks 11 through 15. Including last week, the Giants gave up the 6th most PPR points per game to opposing TEs since Week 10. They gave up the 7th most (15.6) to perimeter WRs and ranked 15th against the slot WR in this time frame. Where the Eagles funnel their pass game is to the edges with Goedert mixed in the middle. Both AJ Brown and Devonta Smith play on the outside over 75% of their snaps. As I mentioned above, this offense is highly volatile and I land on the side that they will come out flat and the Giants will keep this game close but if this passing game is on the same page, the Giants don’t stand a chance.

On the ground, both Miles Sanders and Kenny Gainwell are in play for DFS purposes. The Giants have the dead last DVOA against the rush this year and gave up 5.3 YPC which was the 3rd highest rate in the NFL. When these teams met in Week 14, Miles Sanders ran the ball 17 times for 144 yards and two scores. We had him as the RB1 overall before that slate had started and this was the write up that week:

Miles Sanders (Philadelphia Eagles – $6,200/$7,100)

This matchup lines up perfectly for Miles Sanders to eat. The Eagles have done a great job of attacking a team’s weakness and keeping their foot on the pedal until they suffocate the opposing team. The Giant’s main weakness is covering the opposing teams WR1 (AJ Brown is a good play this week) and stopping the run. They give up very few receptions to opposing RBs but good thing Miles doesn’t catch balls anyway. On the ground, Miles has been dominant and is the unquestioned RB1 for the Eagles. He sees about 70% of the snaps while the Eagles are playing competitive ball and has taken 187 out of 265 rushing attempts for the Eagles RBs this year. He has also seen a ton of goal line work, pumping out nine rushing TDs so far this season. I expect the Eagles offensive line to dominate in this game and the only way for Miles to fail is if Hurts vultures his goal line scores.“

The exact same thing applies this week. So piggybacking on the idea that the passing offense sputters a little bit, I don’t think Miles Sanders or the running game will have any issues. I’ll be laddering all of Miles Sanders yards as I expect him to rip off chunk play after chunk play and see 15+ carries. I’ll also be playing his 1-3 TD props and the only way he doesn’t score, as I mentioned back in Week 14, is if Hurts vultures his TDs. 

Takeaway

I think the Giants can pull this one off. The Eagles are going to come out flat and the Giants are firing on all cylinders. I certainly think the Giants can cover but as I mentioned, there is an outside chance that either the Eagles are clicking from the first snap or get it together later in the game and come back on the Giants after being down early. I’ll take the odds in my favor on the Moneyline and the 7.5 points in what I think will be a very close game. Hitting the Eagles live is a viable strategy as well if the Giants get out big early on in the game.

Prediction

NYG: 27

PHI: 23

NFL Rank in PPR PPG Allowed Per Position (Weeks 10-19):

QB

  1. KC (20.5)
  2. JAX (18.6)
  3. PHI (17.7)
  4. NYG (17)
  5. DAL (16.5)
  6. CIN (16.1)
  7. BUF (15.6)
  8. SF (15)

 

RB

  1. NYG (22.9)
  2. PHI (22.1)
  3. JAX (21.5)
  4. CIN (20.6)
  5. BUF (20.6)
  6. KC (19.2)
  7. DAL (17.9)
  8. SF (15.6)

 

WR

Wide

  1. DAL (20.6)
  2. SF (16.9)
  3. NYG (15.6)
  4. BUF (14.7)
  5. KC (13.4)
  6. CIN (10.4)
  7. PHI (9.3)
  8. JAX (6)

 

Slot

  1. SF (21.9)
  2. JAX (21.6)
  3. BUF (20.9)
  4. PHI (20.1)
  5. NYG (19.3)
  6. DAL (18.7)
  7. KC (18.2)
  8. CIN (18.2)

 

TE

  1. JAX (20.9)
  2. CIN (15)
  3. NYG (15)
  4. PHI (11.2)
  5. KC (10.7)
  6. SF (10.4)
  7. BUF (8.7)
  8. DAL (7.3)

 

NFL Rank in PPR PPG Allowed Per Position (Weeks 1-19):

QB

  1. KC (20.1)
  2. JAX (18.2)
  3. NYG (16.5)
  4. DAL (15.2)
  5. SF (14.9)
  6. PHI (14.9)
  7. CIN (14.5)
  8. BUF (14.2)

 

RB

  1. JAX (23.4)
  2. KC (23)
  3. PHI (22.3)
  4. NYG (21.6)
  5. CIN (20.7)
  6. BUF (20.7)
  7. DAL (18.1)
  8. SF (16.3)

 

WR

Wide

  1. DAL (17.4)
  2. SF (15.3)
  3. BUF (14.6)
  4. NYG (14.2)
  5. KC (13.1)
  6. JAX (10)
  7. PHI (9.7)
  8. CIN (9.4)

 

Slot

  1. SF (21.3)
  2. JAX (20.7)
  3. KC (20.5)
  4. CIN (19.2)
  5. PHI (18.9)
  6. BUF (18.3)
  7. DAL (18)
  8. NYG (17.6)

 

TE

  1. JAX (14.7)
  2. NYG (14.3)
  3. CIN (12.8)
  4. KC (12.3)
  5. PHI (11.2)
  6. SF (10)
  7. BUF (9.2)
  8. DAL (8.5)

 

Sanaynay
Author: Sanaynay

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