Week 9 Preview: Dallas Cowboys should lock in against Cleveland

Let’s preview this week’s NFL action by first focusing on the games that are expected to produce the most real and fantasy points before I go around the league to highlight the key players we should be watching and why. An important note every week: check the player’s status. There is so much injury uncertainty and Friday’s practice, which occurs after this is posted, is key.

[Week 9 rankings: Overall | FLEX | QB | RB | WR | TE | DEF | K]

Colts at Packers (O/U 54): On paper this is a great QB matchup, but Andrew Luck ($35) is 26th since 2015 in yards per passing attempt and Aaron Rodgers ($38) is 29th (between Blaine Gabbert and Brock Osweiler). This game features two of the least efficient wide receivers, too, in Donte Moncrief ($16) at 49th in yards per target among 57 wideouts with at least 100 targets since 2015 and Davante Adams ($24) 56th.

Cowboys at Browns (O/U 48.5): Dak Prescott ($31) is the No. 1 streaming option this week against arguably the worst defense in the football (the Colts and Raiders are in that conversation, too, in yards allowed per play). Dez Bryant ($25) looked great last week and this is a great spot. Dez has mostly played with terrible QBs since 2015 but his yards per target (6.1) is third-worst in the period. He needs to explode in this spot to make expectations of No. 1 WR production going forward realistically. The trouble though is that the Cowboys don’t seem to care that much about targeting him heavily unless they’re desperate, like at the end of last week’s game against the Eagles. Dallas’ defense is below average in yards per play and thus this is a good spot for Browns. You’re obviously playing Isaiah Crowell ($19) and Terrelle Pryor ($23), but Gary Barnidge ($18), with 33 catches and over 400 yards, is long overdue to find the end zone.

Titans at Chargers (O/U 47): Make sure you check the status of DeMarco Murray ($39, toe). I’d play guys like Nick Foles ($26) and Colin Kaepernick ($29) over Marcus Mariota ($31) this week. There is nothing bettable about any of his receivers, either. Philip Rivers ($34) is great (though better on the road), but his receiving corps is taking another big hit with the expected loss of Travis Benjamin. Security blanket Antonio Gates ($17) is a shadow of himself but still heavily targeted (19 in the last two weeks). The models say to bet targets, period, if they are cheap.

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Notebook

— The film makes clear that Foles stretches the field more than Alex Smith (out) and that’s double-good news for Travis Kelce. Kelce ($19) should get more work in the deep seam, his strength, and also gets the field opened up underneath for the routes that Kansas City uses him on so frequently.

— Blake Bortles ($28) is garbage-time machine. He creates it with his early poor play, like a goose laying golden eggs, and then exploits it when no one but his fantasy owners (and their opponents) care.

— Brandon Marshall ($27) leads the NFL with six drops but as much as we remember them all for the lost stats they are not remotely predictive. He’s on pace for 154 targets and should leverage them much better going forward as Ryan Fitzpatrick ($27), while being below average, is not nearly this bad. I’d expect 45 catches for 600 yards and five TDs going forward. So I think Marshall’s still a WR1.

— Quincy Enunwa ($22) is much more volatile but should be considered a WR3 — don’t try to stream him though (lack of predictable scoring is the problems with most WR3s).

— Jay Ajayi ($29) is great in all the efficiency stats but this is a very tough matchup as the Jets are 2nd in the league in yards allowed per rush. Ajayi will have to crease them a couple of times to pop 100-plus. If he does that against this caliber of opponent, we have to move him up from a RB1 to maybe the top RB.

— I like Kenny Stills ($17) this week against a big-play-prone Jets defense.

— I don’t understand Ben Roethlisberger ($37) being so bad on the road with nine touchdowns and 13 picks in his last nine road starts dating back to the start of the 2015 season. But I don’t understand how television works either. In his career at Baltimore, he has seven touchdowns and 11 picks in eight games.

— Antonio Brown ($37) has never caught a TD pass in Baltimore.

— I said on The Breakfast Table Podcast with Scott Pianowski that Kaepernick is bettable because he’s like a Bortles who spreads his meaningless (but impactful) scoring over the entire game instead of the last eight minutes. Kaepernick is definitely a top 12 QB this week, and I like Torrey Smith ($15) for about 4 catches for 80 yards and a score, too.

— Todd Gurley ($24) now gets the No. 1 defense in yards allowed per rush. I and many others saw this coming but nowhere near to this degree. On paper, though, Gurley’s explosiveness makes him match-up proof. But is Gurley’s explosiveness also only on paper?

— Kenny Britt ($22) is the No. 2 receiver since the start of last season in yards per target (10.13) and No. 1 (Sammy Watkins) is not even active. He also crushes it in relative yards per target, which is yards per target minus what the other wideouts generate. We talked about this in August, highlighting Britt. But note that in the vast majority of cases, bad QB play is crippling for any WR.