 What is up everybody? Welcome to the Thursday night football Fandall NFL Q&A Talking about a pretty good game that could have been even better with the Arizona Cardinals hosting the Green Bay Packers As you can see here on Fandall sportsbook got it still got a 51 point over under despite tons of injuries and players on the COVID 19 list Devonte Adams Alan Lazard Marquez Valdez scantling all Presumably out for the Packers Valdez scantling unlikely to be activated for tonight JJ Watt also out Potentially for the season with the shoulder injury So we've got a lot of news to go over of course the skill position players for the Packers are going to be the bigger talking point For today's show. So welcome on in to the Fandall NFL Q&A for this week. I'm your host Brandon Gadoula I'm the managing editor at number fire.com. You can find all of my content over there I do a bunch of simulation based stuff. I do a lot of sort of weekly prep Articles that help you with you know things like matchups pace Ranking every game in terms of the fastest pace games the the games with the highest adjusted pass rates things like that The types of things you want to figure out for your daily fantasy lineups But I'll go over that and turn and what you know what we need to know for tonight's slate But if you have questions for the weekend, you can find all that there and you can also find I Think this will be very helpful Because I get a lot of start sit questions on this Thursday night Q&A you can find my start sit column And what I do there for a start sit column. It's a little untraditional. I go through and I simulate out this slate a thousand times And I show the odds that for quarterbacks and tight ends that they finish as top 12 players And for running backs and receivers It's top 24 at their position kind of helps you get an idea of the range of outcomes the expectations For players, it's a little bit like a rankings list but shows a little bit more than just flat rankings So I would recommend that of course If you do have start sit questions You can ask those here, but I will be trying to focus primarily on the Thursday night game In particular how it pertains to the Fandall single game slate So get those questions in on YouTube Facebook Twitter or Twitch if you have questions for tonight's game or again the weekend, but I'm gonna start as I always do By breaking down the game for tonight So at least get that out of the way and then I dig in to the questions So jump over to my spreadsheets here and look as I always like to do first at matchups and pace and pass rate These numbers here for the past defense show Number fires passing net expected points per drop back allowed to opposing quarterbacks this season as well as Passing success rate allowed the Cardinals clearly as you can see here good past defense overall They're second in passing that expected points per drop back allowed to opposing passers And they also hold opposing passers to a top eight success rate allowed So the success rate basically shows consistency consistent gains The expected points looking at more at big plays limiting big plays, you know generating sacks things like that again with the JJ What injury we can expect this to regress a little bit But still overall a very good past defense But the same can kind of be said for the Packers to a lesser lesser degree 16th so about league average in passing success rate allowed It's still top 10 in passing that expected points per drop back allowed to opposing passers As far as the rushing matchups go neither team Is particularly stout overall from a rushing success rate allowed standpoint Both teams sitting outside the top 20 so we could look at some consistent gains And I think that's relevant because the Packers despite being really past heavy last week They seemed like they want to throw the ball. They're without a lot of key pass catchers. So their game plan might be To run the ball tonight and slow things down because they are the slowest adjusted offense in the league If you look at their passes and rushes when their pre snap win probability is between 20 and 80 percent So basically excluding garbage time excluding blowouts They run the slowest offense in football you would anticipate that they try to run the ball plenty They might be able to do it with that one to punch of Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon So if you're looking for a way to say this game stays under there's not as much offensive production as a 51 point Overunder implies it's probably because Green Bay is able to run the ball and they try to milk with a clock place Some keep away from Kyler Murray and this Cardinals offense As far as the passing goes though In terms of the the skill position players and their individual matchups It's gonna be tough for the Packers based on how the Cardinals have rated out overall In terms of player level adjusted Fandall points per target. So this looks at, you know, what's the difference between a target from Devonte Adams and Alan Zard Of course those guys are out for tonight, but I like to look at that player level stuff rather than team level stuff just because it's something that I don't see a lot elsewhere And as the sample grows throughout the season, I do like this number And the Cardinals have been really good top 10 across the board across all three positions. I Will say that this is not going to be enough to avoid Aaron Jones To avoid Robert Tonion just because they rate out well here It's just more that maybe we should keep expectations a little bit more in check and be more in on Tonion For example, whenever we think that the Packers do kind of place and keep away. Maybe Tonion scores One or two touchdowns and the Packers don't put up a ton of points, but neither do the Cardinals That's kind of situation that you're trying to look for whenever a Team is really good against tight ends or running backs out of the backfield As for the Packers not quite as strong against receivers and just about the average against the tight end position And the running backs out of the backfield and I'll get to some questions in a second But again keep those coming on YouTube Facebook Twitter or Twitch But I want to go over the historical optimal lineup trends just to get an overview for What we're kind of looking at for similar games comparable games since 2019 On Vandal, so if you look at a 65 game sample since 20 the start of 2019 Where totals have been at least 48 and a half spreads between four and a half and eight and a half We see that overall This is the total sample right here these numbers here So we see quarterbacks a little bit more likely to finish as the MVP the top score on a slate In games like this makes sense plenty of points to go around chances for multiple touchdowns It's kind of what you need is a passer Both these quarterbacks do have some rushing potential for tonight So that's that's very telling and that means that we should probably Primarily anticipate that Rogers and Kyler Murray are the best MVP choices from a process standpoint. We do see however Running backs go down a little bit Looks like I have these in first, but you get the point And running backs go down a bit from 28. So they're actually down Just a spreadsheet area right there Go down about six six percentage points wide receivers stay about the same tight ends never really a good MVP bet to begin with you could maybe make the case for Tanya tonight Just because he might have the majority of the touchdown equity for this team without Davante Adams and his elite red zone share So you can make the case for Robert Tanya. If you if you're willing to play Robert Tanya at MVP You don't have to do a whole lot else differentiate. I'm probably not gonna get that crazy But for as far as like Zachary, it goes the target share Probably not strong enough for him to lead this slate in fandal points That's for favorites versus underdog splits go favorites in these comparable games accounted for about 65 percent of the optimal MVPs And then overall you're most likely player if you if you take a step back kind of remove the names from these players and you say Who Process wise is most likely to finish as the MVP It's Kyler Murray because he's the he's the favorite quarterback and favorite quarterbacks in these comparable games Finishes the MVP about 35 percent of the time Followed by underdog quarterbacks about half the time Compared to the favorite quarterbacks, but you know, this isn't really groundbreaking quarterbacks always the typically the best bet For MVP odds wide receiver favorites, though I would say pretty pretty intriguing here From this standpoint, it would most likely just be Deontre Hopkins. We'd be considering at MVP As far as kickers go, I think as you see a quicker kicker question in here already Not the right type of game environment relative to a full split For kickers to make the optimal MVP about still about a third of the chance, you know, 29 30 percent For kickers to make an MVP in these sort of high scoring game scripts So you don't have to write off the kickers, but not necessarily as good a play as we have in lower scoring games With fewer touchdowns and then of course whenever an MVP does come from the underdog side It's more often than not that it's the quarterback But a running back underdog still very much in play So I think that that should leave us on erin jones plenty despite the game script All right, I'm gonna dig into these questions now that I've broken down kind of the top level view Of what I'm looking for for tonight's slate So again, if you have any questions youtube facebook twitter or twitch question from Grim fan rogers mvp Murray cob jones erts I would say that's probably a very Good baseline lineup I would say that That's a probably a very chalky lineup. That's the kind of lineup where yes, you have rogers and mvp instead of kyler That alone is still a good lineup. That's probably going to be duplicated a lot. So it comes down to your tolerance level of Whether you're okay Having the same lineup and if that lineup goes off Your top prize might be split up a bunch So this is the this is kind of what single game Dfs comes down to is do you want to build the most obvious sort of optimal lineup? Or do you want to try to factor in ranges of outcomes invariant? So again, great lineup Nothing wrong with that But I think it'll be a very popular lineup overall another question from grim fan thoughts on marsadies louis So i'll jump over to my simulation results for this game specifically And we can see that Where you at marsadies down here um projected for 3.3 median fandal points Not the worst value overall not someone that you would consider for mvp. Obviously if you're going tight end Um at mvp Um, you could do better with robert tonion even zack erts But again just very unlikely that that tight ends even someone like travis kelsey. He doesn't really finish his mvp very frequently um, but his flex odds still kind of low In terms of top five scoring potential The way that marsadies louis makes this is probably with And erin rogers mvp stack because that would give rogers an extra touchdown or possibly two We haven't seen marsadies louis with a great red zone role Over the past three games at least he doesn't have a red zone target But they're they're so depleted and marsadies louis profiles as someone who Definitely can score um in the red zone because he's just so big and athletic so At 6 000 i think that marsadies louis is a fantastic pivot play the type of play who again Probably not a better process based play a better floor play than someone like Equinemia st. Brown who rates out with basically double the the projected sort of median fandal point outcome But you know, that's just more of a volume-based play marsadies louis definitely has touchdown upside And i think that he's actually a pretty good play For uh to score a touchdown. He's listed at plus 8 50 on fandal sportsbook. It's about 10 and a half percent likely there Number fire does project him for about point one two touchdowns. So you can kind of say 12 chance he scores there I like marsadies louis as a long shot touchdown bet and if he scores that's going to be enough for him Most likely to make the optimal lineup unless this game is an absolute shootout Which it could be still um But one thing with the cardinals that kind of keeps me um, you know Just keeps me worried on like main slates is their target shares are very dispersed and so We're looking at something like a rondo more game where He gets four targets, but has a long catch a long catch like long touchdown Um to really separate him. So it's really deandre hopkins has been separating which kind of sounds weird But his target shares been relatively down to start the year it's trending up zackers was very involved for being a an incoming tight end Last week But the market shares overall for the cardinals kind of make it a little bit less likely That multiple guys really pop off. So someone like a marsadies louis could get there At 6 000 really gets you access to both quarterbacks in your lineup Question from john I need to play one wide receiver in a flex out of chris godwin. Calvin Ridley, kyle pits and joe mixon. Who am I playing? Very good Very good situation to have um, I would probably say One receiver one flex boy So i'm really big on the falcons this week I talked on the heat check daily fantasy podcast this morning previewing the main slate About how matt ryan has actually been a lot better the past three games than he was to start the season And you can pinpoint the fact that His air yards numbers have gone way up the past three games His a dot is up from i think 4.2 4.4 somewhere in that range the first three Which is crazy low to 9.1 over the past three games. So i like the I like the falcons offense I still think i'd have to go with chris godwin there And probably calvin ridley joe mixon was a little bit limited. Um They're playing the jets. They probably don't need to give joe mixon a full workload It's honestly a really good situation to be in But I would lean chris godwin and and calvin ridley there Unless you really think that joe mixon is set for his full workload, which just probably doesn't have to happen against the jets Question from andrew is cob the favorite target of rogers tonight with all the receivers out also connor or edmunds So I will start with the Cobb question I would anticipate that Randall cob robert tunyan and erin jones should kind of go into this game with really flat Target market share projections if I were making my own projections from scratch I would probably put them all in a bucket of like 20 to 22 percent Maybe 18 to 22 percent, but really really kind of flat overall. You do have to factor in Um, you know the a dot uh for those targets so I don't think that randall cob is going to see like a 30 35 percent target share He's not going to replace the vante adam's workload. His market share is insane I do think that randall cob is in the mix But I kind of view that those three as flatter at the top and then I would also sort of say project st. Brown a j dillon for about Like in even more cities lives in that eight to ten percent range So I kind of see like two flat tiers for rogers I don't think that any one player gets the davante adam's role which obvious is obvious to say But I kind of view it as a little bit flatter. Um, then we might like um But cob definitely in the mix for You know to lead this team in targets, but I don't really have a strong preference or a strong You know lean in terms of who of those three will lead the team In targets for tonight as for connor or edmunds It's always such a tough question because edmunds can get you the yardage connor's just going to scoop in For the touchdowns. Um, we have At number fire we project james connor for points. Uh, five seven scrimmage touchdowns At fandall sportsbook. He's plus 120. So even at plus 120 kind of number fire sees him Um, oh, sorry. He's actually minus 110. No, that's that's new. Sorry. Um plus 120 and then connor again point five seven so That's really That's really nice. That's kind of the the game script you're looking for for a lineup work. Maybe kyler murray's not The mvp, which seems like a long shot because my sims haven't met 43 percent still less than half But compared to everyone else that's just crazy high um for tonight, but I would probably lean Chase edmunds just due to the sheer fact that if james connor does not score He's not going to get you much um chase edmunds has Touchdown regression coming his way if he ever gets in on the on the goal line. He can still You know have a long touchdown I would lean edmunds there, um, especially at the lower salary between the two um question uh Emmanuel sanders or jaylen waddle. Um good spot for Sanders so sanders is someone I haven't thought about a ton Um, just because his salaries up for this week from a main slate perspective, but from a season long perspective Um pretty good. Actually, I tried to build this. I don't know if this is going to work I built this in about 10 minutes before we came on Just because you get so many start set questions. Um, I wanted to kind of see what I could do here because I do a lot of simulation uh simulation work And I I don't like to kind of just talk randomly about stuff. So yeah, I mean this formatting is all It's pretty gross But we can still see here that it's it's super close. Um number fire projects jaylen waddle and this is for ppr Leagues, I don't know what your scoring system is but uh waddle for 12.1 Fandal points mani sanders for 11.2 But the the odds that they kind of finish the same it's about the same I would lean then Emmanuel sanders because his offensive expectation Just significantly higher than jaylen waddles for this week A question from kyle thoughts and urts and edmunds tonight. So I kind of gave my thoughts on Chase edmunds when I went over the the chase edmunds versus james connor situation But as for urts Really good role for him last week, which was kind of surprising just because He's a tight end and it takes a bit of time to transition Usually for for players. So it was really promising to see him Get that 59 percent route rate last week I could see like a you know a high target per route rate But at a route rate of about 30 where they just schemed up some place for him You know, so he went out there and he knew what to expect 60 percent of the routes is pretty strong for a tight end. Um, Especially for someone who just joined the team about half the snaps for him as well The five targets are really strong as well, but some leverage on those targets too Um one downfield one red zone target for him With a 10 yard a dot pretty good workload for a tight end So if you're looking for ways to stack kyler murray, if you want to play kyler at mvp, which again About 43 likely that kyler murray ends up as the mvp on this slate if you want to stack him and avoid Uh de andre hopkins I think you could probably justify a double stack with sack urts and chase edmunds because if chase edmunds catches a touchdown That's going to be a stack that you know Definitely pays off because the salaries low of 9500 But that's going to be a stack that's a little bit more unique than what we get with the most obvious plays same for zack urts you know, he's not going to have a ton of yarders upside just because It's who he is, but he actually did tie for the league the team lead In yarders last week with 66. So I think urts is very much in play edmunds very much in play And for me, I I know that kyler murray is going to be chalky at mvp probably about 35 40 percent I've seen some lower projections than that But should be some leverage still on kyler at mvp and then the what you want to do from there Is maybe not max out your salary with the packers values because that's what a lot of people will probably Default toward doing but maybe just stack him with Somewhat other than the undre hopkins It's going to feel strange But if you're building like 10 lineups try it a few times because that's really what we see in optimal lineups Very rarely do optimal lineups spend all of the cap. So that's kind of the way that i'm playing it tonight But zack urts and chase edmunds very much in play for me A question from blue crew half ppr chase edmunds or elie mitchell I'm going to go elie mitchell there pretty easily just because chase edmunds has a ton of he has Both of them have touched out issues mitchell because the offense Edmunds because of the role but elie mitchell they featured him on sunday night He played 66 of the snaps had 18 carries and no no targets, but he had ran 14 past routes Which was about 45 of the teams routes It was ugly. It was rainy, but elie mitchell great workloads. So I would lean elie mitchell there over chase edmunds Question from scott. Does tonion score again? And do you think dylan's workload has expanded tonight? So um, I'll check out the touchdown odds here for Tonion just because it's I want to say yes because he's robert tonion and davante adams is vacating a lot of red zone work um, but tonion here 0.33 touchdowns Are projected for him at number fire right in line with what the odds at vandal sportsbooks say I know it's 0.33 and is the third My instinct says yes for tonion to score. He's one of my favorite ways to get exposure to this offense, but also aj dylan great great Point to bring up because I think aj dylan is going to be overlooked for tonight Just because we're replacing past catchers with the the three the big three out for The packers, but that doesn't mean that it's all going to go To tonion and other receivers aj dylan has been involved in this offense at times You would think erin jones replaces more of that wider seat. He can split out wide And get some targets, but aj dylan then can play in the backfield He's rates out as a pretty good value at 6500. I think this is a great spot where You know, everyone's going to default toward looking at You know randall cob robert tonion saint brown Maybe we get some news as to who might start who might run some extra routes, but aj dylan we've seen him involved We know that he can score And I think that he's going to be one of my favorite ways he and tonion just because they have touchdown probability That that I I really want exposure to aj dylan for tonight. So kind of sounds like I might not everyone Which I know But it's hard because it's we have a ton of value from the packers and the cardinals are the cardinals and It's really easy to like the cardinals tied to kyler murray But the way that I think I'll probably differentiate most Um is be a little bit low on erin rogers is mvp just because he is going to downgrade in terms of efficiency without Devonte Adams out on the field So if i'm playing quarterback at mvp, it's going to be kyler which and I'll differentiate elsewhere I'll leave a bunch of cap um out there because I don't want to chase the value in max out lineups Just because I think that's a little bit too duplicated And with how random in high variance football is that's not the way that I like to play things And I'll also probably be low on do android hopkins just because the target share Um is getting better, but it's still not crazy high Um, and he's kind of due for some negative touchdown regression this season If you bake in last year, he's just kind of making up for not scoring as much as he should have So I'm going to be low on Hopkins and rogers because you have to take a stand somewhere. So that's kind of The two studs. I'm looking to be a little bit lower on um van normal. All right. Um Dg's asking connor or edmunds the better play tonight. I answered this one. I think it's edmunds Just because of the overall workload Connor if he doesn't score twice probably doesn't have a whole lot of a ceiling also doesn't have much of a floor either I'm just asking how I think randall cob does tonight. Um So again, you would think he's the The sort of most he might be the most popular play just because his salary 7 000 he rates out as the best median value for tonight Um, the there's pretty high scoring odds relative to the salary. So I think he'll probably see Seven eight targets again. I projected him in about that 20 target share range. I don't think that He's gonna get 30 of the team's targets. So so I think he's fine But I do not really think that It's gonna sound weird because process wise he's a great play Uh strategy wise, I think that cob probably a little bit more Popular than he deserves to be just because the the sheer end upside The yardage upside probably not what we needed to be Um for him to to match what the popularity likely will be at such a low salary Dg's asking prater or crossbie I basically always go with the favorite. Um, so I go With prater not a whole lot of difference here in terms of the projections But I would always lean with the favorite when it comes to kickers Tyler's asking cob kirk or landry is wide receiver three this week That's a good one. Um, let me see what the numbers say here Um Because we know that randall cob stepping up into a bigger role Uh christian kirk Yeah, I'll clean this up for next week. I just again, I kind of built this real fast So the numbers very clearly prefer randall cob. It looks like He is about 44 likely to finish among these three as the highest projected score Um, again, not a ton of upside But still about 30 likely to get over 15 So I would just take the take the targets with randall cob and feel pretty good there Grimm fan is asking mvp murray with no stack It's crazy enough to work Provided that everything is really dispersed Um and provided that the running back score And Probably get like receiving touchdowns there. Um, and there's not a whole lot of rushing touchdowns. So I think you could do a murray plus four packers and you would have enough value probably just to put rodgers in there. Um, We did just see a lineup like that He was jamming hurts against the raiders. He was the mvp, but uh, nobody was with him So you could kind of if you project a similar game script, uh, that would be in play for tonight um, all right, I think I'm scrolling through here Evan's asking michael thomas and josh jacob's for henderson. I have eclair mitral moss montee and get henderson um I would probably Go ahead and And do that. Um henderson's role Really good. He hasn't done a whole lot with it. But you know, you can plug in daryl henderson every single week And we don't know what what michael thomas is coming back into For the rest of the season I did you asking do i like kenneth game or davante booker? um Yes, I haven't looked at booker much because he's not on the main slate Um, so let me do this real fast Oh, yeah, um, so we're gonna have sake one halft. So that's kind of hard It's hard to answer that without knowing In advance, so I would probably have to just wait until sunday to get that one figured out I'm jim's asking thoughts on dylan tonight. I went over dylan. I think he's a great pivot I think he's just a great leverage play. Um, there's obviously a path to a very low low floor low ceiling, but I think there's also a path to The packers just using Um, erin jones more as a receiver and letting aji dylan get some more of that running back work I think he's a great way to get access to the packers without chasing the wider c were in tight end value So i'm pretty big on aji dylan for tonight um dj's asking colt's defense this week, um You could probably do a little bit better. It's a high scoring game And 60 of fantasy points come from sacks and turnovers So I can see from that perspective, but you probably could do a little bit better on the waiver wire against a little bit of a worse Worst offense there and then final question from kyle favorite out of green kirk and more Um, probably their Um christian kirk. I don't know what the sims say. I would assume it's christian kirk. Um aji green Ran a bunch of routes last week just the three targets christian kirk should rate out better in terms of just high end upside though In terms of the air yards that he gets and with ron do more taking a step back a little bit with Zachards there. I would go christian kirk out of those three That is going to do it for today's show. Um, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for the questions It's always great to have a lot of single game strategy just because I think Um, it's it's it's it's fun to go over and think differently about how a game might play out So that's going to do it for today's show. Uh, thank you Thank you to all of you and big. Thank you to joy aflech for producing the video side of this show Feel free to hit me up on twitter at godula 13 You can check out all my content on number fire dot com best of luck tonight and let's hit that mvp