Fantasy football was made for nights like these, when the 1-5 Cardinals will host the 2-4 Broncos. The winner will have bragging rights throughout the Mountain West region of the country.
The game will "feature" back-end QB2 Case Keenum and QB3 Josh Rosen. Keenum was one of my handful of preseason undervalued quarterbacks to target late in drafts. His season really could go either way, but I believe he's a buy-low 2-QB-league target. After tonight's face-off against a mid-range Arizona pass D, Denver will face only bottom-half pass defenses the rest of the way. Courtland Sutton gives the franchise its first decent #3 receiver since 2014. And their highly efficient running game keeps drives moving.
And consider this: Denver is 26th in the league in third-down conversations. I believe that stat is an outlier, as they possess the talent to convert at a mid-range level. If they can right that ship, the whole offense gets a boost in fantasy.
Arizona's defense is giving up a league-worst 10 rushing TDs and a league-second-worst 151.2 rushing yards per game. That helps put Phillip Lindsay (who I've been admittedly slow to celebrate) and Royce Freeman on the Week 7 flex map. After catching six balls last week -- two more than Freeman's caught all year -- Lindsay has the clear edge.
I'm eyeing at least a 250/2 night out of Keenum, so it'll hard to bench Emmanuel Sanders or Demaryius Thomas in this one, as both have TD potential. Courtland Sutton remains a better dynasty stash than streamer, but keep in mind Sanders and Thomas are both signed thru the 2019 season. Unless Sutton leapfrogs one of them, he'll remain a risky weekly starter for a while in all but very deep leagues.
On the other side of the ball, the Cardinals' path to victory is on the ground, ass the Broncos are yielding a league-high 5.6 yards per carry. David Johnson, who's quietly compiling a nice back-end RB1 season, has obvious breakout potential. But he needs to get more involved in the passing game to return to a near-elite or elite level. As some of you remember, I cautioned against Johnson this preseason at his extraordinarily high RB-3 ADP, believing that his YPC and TDs would be lower than people expected, and that he'd have trouble coming close to his 80-catch performance in 2016.
Well, his scoring is surprisingly high: six thru six games. Yet he's averaging merely 3.2 YPC and is on pace for only 45 receptions. If he busts out today against the horrendous Denver D, I would sell high based on numbers that probably can't be sustained.
On the receiving end, Ricky Seals-Jones is an acceptable streamer despite his sparse usage (2.5 catches per contest). And Christian Kirk is fairly obviously the WR to roster and stream. Hard to witness Larry Fitzgerald's precipitous decline. Of course, it'd be a different story if the 2016 version of Carson Palmer were throwing to him. And actually, Fitz dominated last season despite catching most of his balls from Mike Glennon and Sam Bradford. So what the heck's going on? He's averaging three receptions per game since Week 2 after amassing a career-high 6.8 per game in 2017.
Very few players are streamable at three catches per game -- even future Hall-of-Famers.
The game will "feature" back-end QB2 Case Keenum and QB3 Josh Rosen. Keenum was one of my handful of preseason undervalued quarterbacks to target late in drafts. His season really could go either way, but I believe he's a buy-low 2-QB-league target. After tonight's face-off against a mid-range Arizona pass D, Denver will face only bottom-half pass defenses the rest of the way. Courtland Sutton gives the franchise its first decent #3 receiver since 2014. And their highly efficient running game keeps drives moving.
And consider this: Denver is 26th in the league in third-down conversations. I believe that stat is an outlier, as they possess the talent to convert at a mid-range level. If they can right that ship, the whole offense gets a boost in fantasy.
Arizona's defense is giving up a league-worst 10 rushing TDs and a league-second-worst 151.2 rushing yards per game. That helps put Phillip Lindsay (who I've been admittedly slow to celebrate) and Royce Freeman on the Week 7 flex map. After catching six balls last week -- two more than Freeman's caught all year -- Lindsay has the clear edge.
I'm eyeing at least a 250/2 night out of Keenum, so it'll hard to bench Emmanuel Sanders or Demaryius Thomas in this one, as both have TD potential. Courtland Sutton remains a better dynasty stash than streamer, but keep in mind Sanders and Thomas are both signed thru the 2019 season. Unless Sutton leapfrogs one of them, he'll remain a risky weekly starter for a while in all but very deep leagues.
On the other side of the ball, the Cardinals' path to victory is on the ground, ass the Broncos are yielding a league-high 5.6 yards per carry. David Johnson, who's quietly compiling a nice back-end RB1 season, has obvious breakout potential. But he needs to get more involved in the passing game to return to a near-elite or elite level. As some of you remember, I cautioned against Johnson this preseason at his extraordinarily high RB-3 ADP, believing that his YPC and TDs would be lower than people expected, and that he'd have trouble coming close to his 80-catch performance in 2016.
Well, his scoring is surprisingly high: six thru six games. Yet he's averaging merely 3.2 YPC and is on pace for only 45 receptions. If he busts out today against the horrendous Denver D, I would sell high based on numbers that probably can't be sustained.
On the receiving end, Ricky Seals-Jones is an acceptable streamer despite his sparse usage (2.5 catches per contest). And Christian Kirk is fairly obviously the WR to roster and stream. Hard to witness Larry Fitzgerald's precipitous decline. Of course, it'd be a different story if the 2016 version of Carson Palmer were throwing to him. And actually, Fitz dominated last season despite catching most of his balls from Mike Glennon and Sam Bradford. So what the heck's going on? He's averaging three receptions per game since Week 2 after amassing a career-high 6.8 per game in 2017.
Very few players are streamable at three catches per game -- even future Hall-of-Famers.