Game Overview ::
By HILOW >>
- Bengals WR Tee Higgins (quad) did not practice Wednesday after missing the team’s Week 8 game following a late-week quad injury sustained in practice.
- Raiders WR Jakobi Meyers was limited Wednesday as he manages his ankle injury, but he logged an 82% snap rate in Week 8 in his first game back from two missed contests.
- Ja’Marr Chase sees his aDOT shrink from 10.3 yards with Higgins on the field this season to 6.8 yards with him off the field.
- Bengals TE Mike Gesicki leads the team in yards per route run (YPRR), fantasy points per route run (FP/RR) and air-yards share with Higgins off the field this season.
- The Bengals are likely to utilize much more subdued offensive aggression as compared to their second-ranked pass rate over expectation (PROE) value on the season.
- The Raiders have scored more than 21 points just twice all season and rank 26th in points per game at just 18.0, with a season high of just 26 points.
How LAS VEGAS Will Try To Win ::
Four consecutive losses have left the Raiders with a 2-6 record and in last place in an AFC West division dominated by the Chiefs. Furthermore, the Raiders have the fourth-lowest points differential in the league at -66 points, with an offense that has scored more than 21 points just twice all season. In other words, this team is clearly in mid-season rebuild mode after shipping away Davante Adams to the Jets for relatively modest returns. The quarterback situation was significantly uncertain heading into the season following a camp battle between Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell. Most notable from that competition was a backing from Adams of O’Connell, who eventually lost out on the starting job to the veteran journeyman. Minshew started the first five games of the season before leaving Week 5 with an injury, then O’Connell started Week 6 and Week 7 before being placed on injured reserve due to an injury sustained in Week 7, bringing us full circle back to Minshew. The problem with this offense is they have been unable to sustain drives at a meaningful rate nor find the end zone when they enter the red zone, which has left each quarterback with sub-optimal, to put it lightly, fantasy-points-per- dropback marks of 0.32 (Minshew) and 0.28 (O’Connell). To put those numbers into perspective, they sandwich Deshaun Watson (0.31) at 43rd and 45th in the league, respectively.
The Raiders also have one of the most inefficient run games in the league, with their top two backs (Alexander Mattison and Zamir White) responsible for 3.2 and 3.0 yards per carry behind 2.43 and 2.09 yards after contact per attempt, respectively. As a team, they average just 79.0 rush yards per game (31st in the league). The pure rushing matchup is middling, at best, against a Bengals defense allowing 1.88 yards before contact per attempt and 22.1 DK points per game to opposing backfields. There really isn’t much left to say about this backfield other than we are almost never going here in DFS.
The Raiders have played just three games this season with Meyers and Brock Bowers both healthy and without Adams. In those three games (Week 4, Week 5, and Week 8), Meyers has returned 27% TPRR, 1.84 YPRR, a 32.8% first-read target rate, and 0.43 FP/RR to the 25% TPRR, 2.20 YPRR, 23.4% first-read target rate, and 0.50 FP/RR values of Bowers. No other pass catcher comes close to any of those metrics, with a likeliest scenario placing Tre Tucker in a near every-down role and DJ Turner and tight end John Samuel Shenker operating in situational roles. The Bengals have forced a middling 7.7-yard defensive aDOT and allowed a middling 6.5 yards per pass attempt by largely forcing opponents to march the field against them, which should play into where the Raiders will be likeliest to look to move the football through the air (Meyers and Bowers). That said, the upside from any singular pass catcher in this offense is relatively muted and requires piercing 100 yards through the air and scoring a touchdown, something this team has provided in just one such instance of the entire season (Adams in Week 2).
You must be logged in to view collective notes about a game.
You must be logged in to add notes about a game.