 What is up everybody? Welcome to this week's edition of the Thursday night football Fandall Q&A For this week. It's this week's edition for this week week 11. Let me be the first to say that this is It's crazy that it's already week 11 I know nobody said that before But it does feel pretty strange that we're already in to the 11th week of the regular season I know we have an extra week this year So we're not as far in percentage wise, but you know, it's a lot of hard work, but I'm gonna miss this even slates that are pretty problematic such as the one we get tonight for the Patriots and the Falcons The reason it's problematic. I'll get into but it's really just a whole bunch of question marks It's skill position plays outside of the quarterback. So welcome on in to the Fandall NFL Q&A for this week I'm your host Brandon Gadoula on the managing editor over at number fire Com you can head over to number fire and check out all of my content But a lot of other great content as well including things like projections, but I know for this this show I'm Generally trying to focus on the single game slate from a Fandall standpoint, but I do get start-sit questions So as always I like to point out that I publish a start-sit column on number fire Each week that goes up Thursday morning, and it's not your typical start-sit column It's not just like kind of highlighting some guys who have really good or really bad matchups. It's more a top-down focus of the slate Looking at slate simulations and the probability that certain players Finish for quarterbacks and tight ends is top 12 among the position for the week for running backs and receivers It's top 24 based on half PPR scoring So if you have specific start questions, I would direct you to that But of course, I'm always willing to take a look at those but more specifically get those questions in for tonight's game I see some already coming through but as always I like to stick with my You know sort of again top-down focus of this game Try to get our bearings and see what stands out before we kind of really dig in to the play So again hit up the comment section on YouTube Facebook Twitter or Twitch And I will start getting to those questions in just a few minutes Starting with this game from a top-down standpoint We have the Patriots as six and a half point favorites over the Falcons with a total of 47 points my My NFL betting model that's based on underlying data and like expected points per play Views this one a little bit closer than that spread indicates It's about three points in favor of the Patriots on the road So I think that the easiest way for me to get a little bit different for this week is just to assume That the Patriots are a little bit more popular because they're favored And then I will go a little bit heavier on the Falcons from a DFS standpoint So that's kind of the step one for what I'm looking at for the slate But again Patriots pretty happy favorites in a dome with a total of 47 points You can head over to Number Fire And check out a lot of different stats different landing pages to schemes and lineups page We'll show you some things like injuries, but also just baseline projections for players Win probability the model here at Number Fire viewing the Patriots is about 77% likely to pick up the win You know again six and a half point favorites on the road My model is a little bit Sees us a little bit closer to a coin flip But again, I think you can really make the case for the Patriots Being the default build going heavier on the Patriots with a 3-2 possibly a 4-1 lineup on Fandall But I think the sneakiest play obviously is just going a little bit heavier With the Falcons jumping over into matchups for tonight's game again I always like to look at passing rushing receiving and pace numbers Trying to figure out where the most exploitable matchups are for tonight and For the Falcons, they're exploitable against the pass for sure 28th in Number Fires passing that expected points per drop back Allowed to quarterbacks 29th and success rates So not only bigger plays but also consistent gains which should really fit into Mac Jones's wheelhouse, but for the Patriots a bit tougher against the pass for sure A third in opponent adjusted Fantasy points per drop back allowed in top five in passing that expected points per drop back allowed Both teams, you know top 12 and expected points allowed per carry But not not so stingy from a consistency basis So we could see a little bit more consistent gains But maybe we see a cap on explosive rushes for tonight For the Falcons again, just exploitable against the pass specifically Against receivers and tight ends. So we have two tight ends For sure from the Patriots with Hunter Henry who scored a touchdown on what feels like 5,000 straight games and Johnny Smith Back in the lineup. So that's that's one area We can go to for a little bit more of a touchdown heavy site on Like for you know with Vandal being half PPR touchdowns are worth, you know A higher percentage of fantasy points than on other full PPR sites New England top five top, you know top four against receivers top seven against the posing tight ends That doesn't take Kyle Pitts out of play, but Again, we're looking at easier matchups for the Patriots offense here Um, which is to be expected for sure But again, my model has this game a little bit tighter So I think that there's a lot of leverage we can gain if we're willing to roster More heavy Falcons lineups And one thing that really jumps out is these two teams typically play pretty fast And they're also fairly pass heavy the Falcons ranking 10th in pass rate whenever the their presnap win probabilities between 20 and 80 percent The Patriots, uh, not quite as pass heavy, but definitely not the worst they're 19th But they're even faster than the Falcons on a per play basis Just in terms of snapping the ball while things are still winnable or, you know, loseable depending on The score there. Okay. So that's my I know I've said this like a thousand times, but there's just the top level view of how I'm looking at this game I think a lot of people will trend toward the Patriots tonight But I think the sneaky way to go obviously then is the Falcons And I really don't think it's that egregious to talk yourself into going a little bit heavier on the Falcons playing at home And playing With some good value options within their lineups. All right jumping into questions Question from grim fan on youtube stevensson or harris. So I will jump over to my slate simulations for tonight This is based solely in number fires baseline projections And then I tweak I've done a lot of research on ranges of outcomes Kind of specifically like dynamic ranges of outcomes. So, you know higher a dot receivers have a wider range of outcomes things like that But here's what this spit out over 10 000 simulations of this slate Again median fandal point you would pretty much expect to be on the quarterbacks But specifically I got asked about stevensson and harris Damian harris looks like he's going to play Cordell Patterson looks like he is not going to play so that's kind of the news at running back for tonight from under stevensson great game last week Without damian harris harris again trending toward playing and his touchdown odds on fandal sportsbook Minus 115 so more likely than not according to the sports book to score number fires projections have him combined for 0.48 Scrimmage touchdowns, which is pretty much in line with what you're what you're seeing here on sports book But number fires simulations their projections Are also pretty keen on stevensson here in terms of touchdown equity now If you ask me and you are asking me grim fan stevensson or harris Straight up. I think I have to go with damian harris for that extra 500 We're seeing some prescency bias with from andre stevensson And yes, he most likely And I think you'll find conflicting info on this like conflicting takes Presumably to me rwanda stevensson earned a bigger chunk of the pie Than he had before his showing last week, but I also don't Think that there's enough to consider him As this teams lead back unless we really get some news by kickoff So i'm going to lean damian harris for the better touchdown expectations both by a smidge on uh, you know, according to number fire, but also From fando sports book and I really would presume that harris gets the early down work It's a lot of the goal line work Just might be more susceptible to losing receiving work, which was in it wasn't a big part of his game. Anyway Grim fans also asking start the patriots defense um Assuming that's a season long question from a season long standpoint number fires projections have them Uh 12th this week. I think that they're a fine defense. I don't think you have to go away from them It does sound like you know without cordial or Patterson that takes away a playmaker Obviously the the falcons are without calvin ridley as well So I think you can really make a case for the patriots Um with a lot of teams in play you might be able to do a little bit better just because there are You know, frankly more teams in play without teams on buy But if I were you know quote unquote stuck with The patriots defense, I don't think I would try to go away from that Even though I've been a pretty big uh advocate of matt ryan's passing efficiency since week three Uh really since week four, uh, but his efficiency wasn't too bad on week three This team's a little bit down without calvin ridley. Um, and of course they're going to be without cordial So I think that's a very justifiable play for this week The other question from grim fan nick folk status, um seems like Uh, okay, and also from dj uh nick folk or young waku. Okay, so I'll jump over to my sims here so for nick folk He's questionable seems like he's always uh questionable but tends to play so I'm not concerned there. Um, but I think from a kicking standpoint and one thing I skipped over is uh, the hort historical optimal analysis Which I'll jump to in a second, but you know Generally you want to side with the favored kicker. So that's going to lead you toward nick folk who is projected for 9.1 median fandal points compared to uh, young way at 8.4 but If you take the angle that the falcon if you're willing to take the angle that the falcons play from ahead I think young ways in play But if i'm not mistaken here, um, yes kickers in okay, so in similar games to this one Uh since 2019 where the spread has been Um between four four and a half and eight and a half because it's it's six and a half now And whenever the total has been between 45 and 49 again, it's a 47. So right in the middle We actually see kickers in make more optimal lineups or make optimal lineups at a higher frequency than the overall simulation or the sorry the overall optimal Just probability that we've seen it in total games since 2019 So you can definitely make the case for kickers tonight and with the likely dispersion At running back and receiver and possibly even tight end for every team aside from I guess you would say Aside from Kyle Pitts. He's not going to share Tight end roles, especially with uh, Hayden Hurst banged up so But you could say that you could say that there are probably committee approaches for the Falcons backfield for the Patriots backfield as always for their receivers And then even for the Patriots with their tight ends You could kind of see that everyone's just sharing the ball and that could make the kickers More in play for tonight and I still think that you have to side with nick folk But I have no issues if you're building that more falcons heavy lineup that you go with young way for tonight Okay Question from Andrew. Is there anywhere mac can be played in the MVP slot with as much as the pat pager's run and that he has not scored 20 or more points, I believe Only once yeah, so max ceiling is a big question mark Um, and that is a bit scary for plugging someone in To the MVP slot now the simulation still like him To lead this slate in fantasy points at about a 33 percent rate That's of course a slate like a slate high But it's also Less than a third 32.7 percent The reason that it's just easier to project quarterbacks for a slate high in fantasy points Is because their median projections high and if you don't have players projected full We don't have a we don't have a key running back here projected for 15 Now damien harris could have that type of role if he returns back to The role that he has had whenever he's been healthy um, we could see Kyle pits get wide receiver one treatment And maybe be projected for a little bit more than 11 points, but I still think that mac jones is very much in play at mvp But he might be a little bit more popular than he deserves to be again Here's the key thing with with projecting this game Is the baseline projections for everyone other than the quarterbacks is low because we don't know what to expect, right? and historically in similar games to this The mvp has been the favorite quarterback about 44 percent of the time That's mac jones the favorite comes from the mvp side 70 percent of the time So that points again to mac jones his ceiling is a real issue and i'm i totally see where you're coming from andrew Project projecting this slate says yeah mac jones makes the most sense to lead this slate in fantasy points, but I'm probably not going to play mac at mvp And that's going to take me over to the other side of quarterback with matt ryan and just assume That the falcons win and if they don't win matt ryan can still be the mvp. Um, it can still happen. Um, the Whenever the mvp is an underdog and he's 57 comparable games It's generally a quarterback or a running back. I don't think any running backs on the falcons have that juice unless we see mike davis really um return to a feature role, which is possible Because the coaches basically came out and said like wayne gallman's Playtime last week was because that game got out of hand against the cowboys And because they knew that they had a short turnaround So I think mike davis is a very sneaky mvp play But i'm probably not going to get to mac i'm going to disagree with the overall trends because mac jones Is a specific type of quarterback And I think that he'll be more popular in the mvp slot than he deserves to be because as you point out He doesn't really have a massive ceiling and if he's just okay if he gets 18 Um, I don't think that that necessarily means that any patriots are up past 20 unless you see a two touchdown game from damien harris But uh, that's why i'm very keen on the falcons as well. But great question Okay question from dj should I play deontay harris this week versus philly that would depend on your alternatives? um This is when I would definitely point you to um my start set Column on number fire again, it goes through and just ranks the the probability of every player who's you know relevant That they'll finish as a relevant receiver If you're talking dfs, I don't like that game a lot. Um, and I even with value at receiver being kind of bleak I'm not particularly there myself. So you can probably do a bit better Um than deontay harris this week Question from sally on youtube a trade on marie cooper for adrian peterson and divante smith. Did I win? um So there's a path Okay, I love a marie cooper. Um, his target share probably will I mean Dallas's target shares are generally capped anyway. Um, and with michael gallup back We're probably looking at like 24 for cd lamb 21 ish percent for a marie cooper and about 15 for michael gallup That's within a very very good offense. Um divante smith has a fantastic target share, but Philadelphia has really trended toward the run over the past three weeks. They are effectively the the most run heavy team in football So From a market share standpoint Smith's going to be in a good spot Um But I don't think that that really wins out against the marie. So bigger question is, you know, it's a two for one How do you view adrian peterson? And there's a path to adrian peterson having a good goal line, uh roll. I'm moving forward with the titans Jeremy mcnickles is banged up We could see deontay forman and adrian peterson form a two person committee as opposed to the three person committee that they've seen So if you need a running back, I I could say I could definitely see the case for that But I I do love a marie. So that's a that's a tough one For me just because of how I view that cowboys offense a question from jim hunter henry or tj hawkinson ppr Okay, let me jump over to the start sit page And Let me get this one out real quick. Um Let's do hawkinson And this is ppr. All right, so this is based on number fires projections The hawkinson is going to jump out to a nine point about a half point lead there Um, but as you can see uh based on their range of outcomes It's dead even so even though hawkinson has the higher Uh baseline projection the odds that he outscores henry Pretty pretty tight. Uh, but hawkinson does have the higher ceiling Which is kind of baked in he's a bit of a higher a dot tight end So you can see higher outcomes lower floors. So overall it's about equal But the the better ceiling belongs to hawkinson So I think I've been with hawkinson for tonight, especially with johnny smith back You know hunter henry and johnny smith have basically the same workload. Um But it's hunter henry who's cashing in on every touchdown chance So I think eventually that's got to regress a bit I can't go wrong with either again because of how close it is But I would side with hawkinson by a tinge for For tonight or for for this week. Sorry. Um Okay question from joseph paterson or d johnson rb 1 Um, I'm assuming So cordero is unlikely to play Um, is I'm a is that De earnest johnson nick chubb might play But I I don't think you can play. I don't think you can plan on playing cordero tonight And even if he does it sounds like it sounds like he's way too limited to be very effective So I would try to find an alternative for Cordero for this weekend Question from amon celtics. Do I start locket or mike williams? I'll default this to half half ppr I don't really care so much what the sins say because i'm going to side with tyler locket most likely unless this is just way out there um Oh, yeah, uh, the the better baseline projection belongs to locket again and half ppr just assume it's safe to assume that um the game for the seahawks has issues at the divisional matchup russia wilson looked pretty terrible, but I think that this one's fairly easily tyler locket because mike williams has had target share concerns Like his his his workloads going down We we kind of know that he was phenomenal to start the season Been tailing off, but you know, we don't have those market share concerns with tyler locket the market share is going to be there It comes down to pass volume and efficiency Russ is another week removed from his surgery. So i'm going to side with tyler locket between those two Okay, um Adam says matt ryan sucked last weekend. He sure did um But one week of sample is not That relevant um from a long-term viewpoint. Um matt ryan also has been quite good um entering last week. I know this will change but Matt ryan was The number one graded quarterback from week three on according to pro football focus one of the best adjusted uh pastors in terms of efficiency and I think that this is a spot where you can take advantage of uh, the recency bias And take a chance on matt ryan in this offense again That's only because the consensus is on the patriots to play from ahead To beat the falcons who looked bad last week But even without calvin really this team's not been that bad from an offensive standpoint So it's more of like yes if you want the safer play between the quarterbacks tonight It's obviously mac jones if you're looking for a way to be different We can go to this falcons offense and matt ryan Um adam also says gallman should be started tonight I don't know if that's I haven't seen that news if you're saying that he should be starting But I did see some reports that that this team basically said The reason that gallman got so much work last week is because they had A short turnaround. So I think that actually puts a lot of emphasis on Mike davis for tonight. Their salaries are Um pretty similar 75 for davis 65 for gallman Um And gallman does rate out as the better value according to number fires baseline projections I don't think gallman's out of play by any means, but I think Mike davis at 75 if you're willing to take a chance and put him in the mvp And you say hey cow pit or uh, sorry, uh, red cow pits right above mike davis You say hey mike davis, uh scores twice They just hand the ball off and this game is a bit low scoring The Patriots spread the ball around as usual You know and remand randian Just kind of have a committee themselves But we trust what the coaches say and mike davis has that sort of featured back role Which is exactly we've actually seen from him. He's he's played a lot of snaps Until cordial patterns and really really got involved. Um, he's been on the field. It's not that productive So I think that mike davis is very much in play for me Tonight and gallman still in play but not unnecessarily a big priority for me even at 6500 I could be wrong there, but That's just going off of what the coaches had to say after that game Uh, jonathan says I have ryan an mvp slot. Is that a good spot for him? I think it's a great spot simply because Look, we want to get cute. We want to think differently about you know single game slates, but overall, um, if you go back to the start of 2019 The optimal player The optimal mvp in perfect lineups has just been a quarterback almost half the time in games like this where there's Enough scoring to go around for multiple touchdowns for quarterbacks But not so much that we're seeing You know certain players put up two touchdowns plus 150 yards because the totals, you know The the the totals 55 and a half and it actually scores 60 plus points in games like this that are comparable Yeah, it's more likely that uh, it's a quarterback in the perfect lineup And again, it is more likely that it's the favorite rather than the underdog But it just comes down to whether you think that again like adam said rightfully matt ryan sucks again This week or if matt ryan jumps back To the way that he had been trending before and that's the fun of single single game dfs You really got to think differently think about you know is last week the most in telling or is it a larger sample? So for me, I think matt ryan's a great mvp play Uh, and I prefer him to matt jones from an upside standpoint Uh adam says jones will do good. The falcons defense is trash. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, uh bad 28th again in passing unexpected points per drop back 29th and success rate allowed 31st in player level adjusted fantasy points per drop back allowed Again, I get the case for him. I see the I see the floor standpoint We haven't seen the ceiling from him and you know, all it takes maybe is like a a a sneak touchdown And damien doesn't score remandry doesn't score But it's you know, matt jones gets that one yard sneak and Throws two touchdowns. So nobody else. No the pass catchers have a huge game And then that's that's the recipe for matt jones being mvp It's a pretty easy case to make again the sims View him as the most likely mvp for tonight about 30 about a third of the time But that's just not the way that we've seen this team play and matt jones operate overall Uh question for michael. I've uh de foreman or de johnson for rb2 Um, so de jonte foreman. I think could be in a good spot this week. I'm assuming that's de anis johnson I would go de ante or de anis johnson. Sorry de anis johnson. Um de anis for sure if nick chubbs out Um, that's a pretty easy one but If not, I don't feel that bad about de anis foreman simply because Jeremy mcnickles might not play johnson foreman Should be getting more and more work Throughout the throughout the end of the season with derek henry out So that's going to come down simply to the the status of nick chubb again Um, if chubb plays I could still see a case for De anis, but realistically I would just go uh with foreman there The adam says the falcon say gulman will probably get more touches than davis I have not seen that if that's the case. That's the type of news that we want to react to Um, but that goes against what they said earlier this week Um, okay Andrew's asking or yeah, indra says does gauge become the number one with patterson out If you don't consider pits as a wide receiver rule So yeah, I'll actually pull up my spreadsheet here my usage spreadsheet and go just to the falcons. Um and look at This filter out here All right, there we go. So this is the past three games with no calvin ridley I'll swap our route right here Okay, so kyle pits is at 80 percent of the routes the past three games russle gauge 74 percent Tajah sharp 73 percent Alameda is a key is all the way down at 47 percent. So that's that's noteworthy there from a market share standpoint though Just kind of the bigger thing is kyle pits at 24 percent Um, you know cordial 16 percent you take that out It's gonna be russle gauge and zakias kind of battling out I think from a route rate standpoint from a market share standpoint and just kind of applying it from there You got to go russle gauge as the top option without cordial. Um, so I think that he's very much In play for tonight um Larry's asking regardless of whether chub plays or not, would you still start dearness johnson? I also have freeman who should get the nod for week 11. So there I would um, I would go with so I talked I talked to My co-host jim sonnis on the heat check podcast this week. I was low on dearness johnson um, jim and again Assuming we were playing the assuming nick chubb is out jim loved dearness johnson, which I totally get I just don't think the workload's going to be there enough for dearness if nick chubb plays Um, we will need to see what the conditioning report is on chub So it's a little bit hard to answer at this point I would probably just go with freeman there. Um, if we're going to get a committee for the browns Okay, uh Question from smoky the cat cat, uh, russle kurt cousins or toa this week. So this is a really interesting question This is one russle wilson was actually kind of the The featured player in my start sit column for this week just because he didn't rate out particularly well So I'll run this through here Just just just to kind of get somewhat of a baseline for this week, um Look, I get the case for wanting to stick with russle wilson But it's a divisional matchup for him. I know it's a divisional matchup for Miami as well against the jets, but that's a very different conversation The cardinals are top six adjusted past events according to number fire the jets or the jets um Since 2016 quarterbacks like qb ones Throw for an average they get to 300 passing yards in about 26 percent of games If you look at games where they play they're playing on a divisional opponent and that divisional opponent is a top six adjusted past defense entering that week That goes from 26 percent to 18 percent With russle wilson's injury and with how bad he looked last week. I think the safer play Is just going to be to us. So he's going to get the nod for me Especially with this one being pretty close. I don't think hurt cousins is quite in that conversation again He also plays a good adjust the past defense within the same division as well That is going to do it for me Uh, a little bit over time here. Um, if you have any specific questions any follow-ups here uh, regarding the Single game slate or this weekend you can hit me up on twitter at gaduola 13 gdu la I will be back on youtube tomorrow at 4 p.m. Eastern with jim saunas and jj's aca recent Doing a live snake draft on the fan duel platform and then also after that we go through and answer some questions You definitely want to get jim and jj's input on some of these first six questions because it's a pretty tough week Simply because we have so many options very few buys for this week. So again, that's going to do it for me For today's show big. Thank you to calvin theobald for producing this video Making sure things run smoothly there. Um, again, uh on twitter at gaduola 13 Best of luck tonight best of luck this week. Let's hit a big stack tonight