Packers (

22.75) at
WFT (

18.75)

Game Overview ::

By hilow >>

• One of the FIVE games on the slate with a game total of 43.0 points or less – only the Buccaneers has a larger spread of those games.
• Carson Wentz will miss this contest after having surgery on his finger, leaving Taylor Heinicke to start.
• Tight ends Logan Thomas and John Bates and wide receiver Dyami Brown missed practice on Wednesday for the Commanders – rookie wide receiver Jahan Dotson should return after logging a limited session Wednesday.
• Each team should largely be able to run their preferred offensive game plan here, as what they are likely to do lines up well with the shortcomings of the opposing defense.
• This is highly likely to be a gross game environment with not a ton to be overly excited about.

How green bay Will Try To Win ::

The Packers continue to play at a slow pace (28th in overall pace and play and situation-neutral pace of play) with moderate pass rates (17th-ranked overall pass rate at 59.90% and league average or below pass rate over expectation in four of six games), which they pair with a back-to-front, outside-in pass defense (have allowed the highest completion rate in the league at 70.86% but the sixth lowest yards per completion at 9.2). They run below-average man coverage from their 3-4 base, with an emphasis on swarming the point of reception after the catch. Poor marks against the run for the fourth consecutive year have primarily been due to the second level. Their usual offensive efficiency has taken a stark hit without Davante Adams, going from the league’s third most efficient offense last year to the 21st-ranked unit through six weeks of 2022.

The running back tandem of Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon has been everything from a strict timeshare to a 1A/1B situation to a lead back/change of pace back situation through six weeks, with Aaron Jones seeing between 56% and 73% of the offensive snaps throughout. Strangely enough, Jones’ opportunity share and fantasy output have been highly influenced by game script over the previous three seasons, with the second highest delta in fantasy output in wins versus losses over that time (second only to Derrick Henry’s splits in the same comparison). The Packers are currently installed as five-point favorites on the road (if it were played at home, it would be closer to eight points), which could signal an increased workload on deck for Jones. The pure rushing matchup yields an above-average 4.455 net-adjusted line yards metric against a Washington defense ceding 25.4 DK points per game to opposing backfields, including six total touchdowns to the position.

Slot wide receiver Randall Cobb is set to miss multiple weeks with an ankle injury sustained in Week 6, while Christian Watson did not practice on Wednesday after missing last week’s contest with a hamstring injury, which typically is not a good sign for a player’s status the following week. Sammy Watkins returned to practice this week after missing the team’s previous four games. He should combine with Amari Rodgers to fill the void in offensive snaps behind lead wide receivers Allen Lazard and Romeo Doubs. Although not responsible for the same level of volume, Lazard has done well stepping into Davante Adams’ shoes in this offense, scoring a touchdown or going over 100 yards receiving in all five healthy games this season. His low 20.9% targets per route run and 19.5% team target market share are nothing to get overly excited about, but the red zone role is robust (25% red zone target rate). Romeo Doubs holds a 21.8% targets per route run rate and 18.2% team target market share, while Cobb’s 23.4% targets per route run rate will be missed over the middle of the field. Tight end Robert Tonyan set a season-high snap rate in Week 6 at 63%. Typically splitting time at tight end with elite blocker Marcedes Lewis, there is room to grow should the Packers increase their 12-personnel usage in the absence of Randall Cobb and Christian Watson.

How washington Will Try To Win ::

• One of the players who was standing out to me on my early, pre-research practice builds was Romeo Doubs — but after a bit of building, I realized that Allen Lazard is only $1.1k more than Doubs, and is nearly invisible when scrolling through available options on the slate; Doubs is a sexier guy to consider, given the media hype around him (hype that was driven, of course, by his surprising rise in camp, rather than by him being a weekly can’t-miss player), and he carries a price tag that is easy to perceive as “too low,” whereas Allen Lazard’s price tag ($6.1k) is easily perceived as “too high”
• There’s a further psychological factor in play here, in that receivers under $5k immediately feel, to us, like riskier bets, whereas guys priced in the $5k range are typically known commodities with relatively solid, known-range production; in the same way my wife will tell me something is “three hundred dollars” when it is, in fact, three hundred ninety-nine dollars, Allen Lazard is “a $6k wide receiver,” which is a range in which we start seeing elite, “comfortable to click” names; Lazard is neither elite nor comfortable to click, which all contributes to early ownership projections of Doubs at 11.3% and Lazard at 3.9%; Doubs is the better value, but given that these two have been relatively interchangeable from a production standpoint, Lazard is the better tourney play in DFS; by Tuesday night, I had started building practice rosters around Lazard, and while the game environment here is ugly, there isn’t any reason he shouldn’t see another eight or nine targets; to be clear, Doubs is an equally “good play,” at a lower price tag, but neither player really pops, making Lazard the more interesting option from a “paths to first place” standpoint; I may not end up with either on my tighter builds, but I’ll probably mix in both in large-field play, with Lazard on more rosters than Doubs
• Given the potential that Washington could provide Green Bay with some short fields and easy scoring opportunities in this one, Aaron Jones is also interesting to me this week; I essentially never play Jones on my Main (he hits so rarely, and misses hard most weeks), but his ceiling is high enough that I’ll mix him in as well, essentially giving me a situation where I’m likely benefitting somewhere if Green Bay is having a good game.
• As a steep underdog with a yardage-and-touchdown role, Brian Robinson is not a “good play,” but early ownership projections have him at 0.5%, and he has exactly the type of role that can lead to a hundred yards and a pair of touchdowns; of course, Washington will have to get in position to score those touchdowns first, but Robinson is practically a must-play on a sliver of MME builds for the low-owned upside he can provide
• I do not expect to be on the Washington passing attack at all, though I wouldn’t go out of my way to argue against Samuel or my guy Dotson
• While I expect to have some one-offs from this game sprinkled across my builds, I won’t have any builds focused around this game