3 NFL Storylines to Watch in Week 3

Enter the Lions' Den

Three NFC teams enter Week 3 with a 2-0 record, two of whom will be facing off on Sunday when the Detroit Lions host the defending NFC Champion Atlanta Falcons. According to numberFire's Matchup Heat Map, this game carries the second-highest over/under game total, 50.5 total points. The Lions are one of the many home underdogs this week, but have exploitable matchups and can reshape the power structure of the NFC with a victory.

The NFL's highest-paid player, Matthew Stafford, started the season performing at a high level. He's currently tied with -- of all quarterbacks -- Trevor Siemian for the league lead in touchdown passes at 6, and has completed more than 70 percent of his passes in each contest.

According to the game charting data from PlayerProfiler, Stafford ranks 12th in average pass attempt distance. However, he has still taken a good number of chances downfield -- in fact, 8 of his throws have traveled 20 yards or further in the air. That ranks Stafford in the top-10 of quarterbacks taking deep shots thus far.

Atlanta's defense wasn't exactly tested by Mike Glennon in the opener, but it is coming off a game in which Aaron Rodgers threw for 343 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Furthermore, the NFL's sack leader from a year ago, Vic Beasley, is going to miss at least a month with a hamstring issue.

In addition to seeing a downgraded pass rush coming after him, Stafford will have a number of a good matchups to target. While Desmond Trufant is an impressive cornerback who should be able to contain Marvin Jones, Atlanta has serious issues defending running backs who catch the ball.

After giving up the most receiving yards to running backs last year, Atlanta continues to struggle in 2017. Both rookie Tarik Cohen (12 targets, 8 receptions, 47 yards, 1 touchdown) and Ty Montgomery (7 targets, 6 receptions, 75 yards, 1 TD) were highly successful in the passing game over the last two games. That's great news for Theo Riddick, who caught a touchdown pass in the opener. He's only played on 30 percent of the offensive snaps thus far, but Detroit would certainly be wise to get Riddick more involved given this juicy matchup.

Golden Tate is the Lions' most elusive receiver in the league with the ball in his hands. Brian Poole is a respectable slot corner, but could easily himself overmatched in this one.

While Atlanta has been decent against tight ends thus far, the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers saw something they wanted to exploit and combined to target the Falcons with their tight ends a league-high 24 times.

Fantasy Takeaway

In DFS, teams that play on Monday night are often excellent values the following week because a strong performance will not be reflected in a price that was set ahead of time. Over on FanDuel, the combination of Stafford ($7,900) and tight end Eric Ebron ($5,200) creates a very affordable stack in cash games that will allow you pay up at the remaining positions.