For teams that have yet to have their bye week, there is officially half of the NFL season in the books. What does this mean? It means we finally have a large enough sample size to begin looking at the strength of schedule for the remainder of the season. As always, your fantasy team’s context will determine how you deal with this information. If you’re sitting at 6-2 and feel comfortable about your chances of making your league’s playoffs, you should be trying to trade with the playoffs in mind. Conversely, if you’re at 3-5, you need to win now and you need to be focusing on the next couple of weeks rather than the playoffs. Without any further delay, let’s dive in.
Strength of Schedule:
Running Backs with favorable ROS schedules:
-Eddie Lacy and the Green Bay Packers have only one matchup that’s against a team in the bottom 25% of the league in points allowed to opposing running backs, and that’s @BUF in Week 15. Everything else should be smooth sailing.
-Unquestionably, the greatest RB match-ups for the remainder of the season belong to the Carolina Panthers, five of their remaining seven games (not including Week 17) are against the easiest 25% of the league in terms of fantasy running back points allowed, and none of the other match-ups are in the bottom 25%. In other words, Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams would ostensibly be very intriguing if they could ever be even slightly trusted from a fantasy perspective. But, since Cam Newton takes much of the goal-line rushes away, they are only mildly intriguing as trade targets. Don’t go nuts here.
Running Backs with unfavorable ROS schedules:
The backfields for the New York Giants, Arizona Cardinals, Seattle Seahawks, and Oakland Raiders have some tough work ahead of them. Bad news for those waiting another week on Rashad Jennings to come back from injury; bad news for those hoping Andre Ellington finds the end-zone more over the second half; bad news for those hoping Run DMC, Darren McFadden, re-emerges as a reliable fantasy back; and bad news for the “Beast Mode” apologists hoping that Marshawn Lynch starts putting up more than the 20 points he’s combined for over the past three weeks.
Wide Receivers with favorable ROS schedules:
While a lot of their opponents look difficult at first glance, none of the remaining matchups for the Seattle Seahawks are in the top 25% of the league in points allowed to fantasy receivers on paper. Doug Baldwin has juicy match-ups in the fantasy playoffs. He’s one that I would target, as I expect his emergence to continue.
The New York Giants may have some uphill sledding over the next two games with Indianapolis and @Sea. But after that, the schedules softens up nicely for the playoffs. Weeks 13-16 are match-ups versus: Jax, Ten, Was, StL. It doesn’t get much juicier than that for Odell Beckham Jr. and Rueben Randle. Make your offers now.
Wide Receivers with unfavorable ROS schedules:
Perhaps no team has a worse matchup the remainder of the season at the Wide Receiver position than the Jacksonville Jaguars. Their next four opponents include CIN, DAL, IND, and NYG… all of which rank in the bottom 25% in terms of allowing fantasy points to opposing WRs. For the Allen Robinson owners, it’s time to look for alternative options in your WR3 slots over the next month.
Other teams with less than ideal WR schedules are New England and Minnesota. Brandon LaFell, Julian Edelman, and Cordarrelle Patterson may have some tough days ahead.
Grubbs’ Week 9 Rankings:
Some good projections for who to start on a weekly basis if you want a thorough breakdown of two individual players stats can be found with our friends over at NumberFire.com right →HERE
You can follow Logan on twitter @NotFakeFantasy
