3 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in the Wild Card Round
Dallas Cowboys' Rushing Offense
This is where our discussion around context is important. The Seattle Seahawks' rush defense isn't bad relative to the entire league. But it does lag in comparison to the rest of the teams in action this weekend.
For the full season, the Seahawks ranked seventh against the rush, according to numberFire's metrics. But among teams playing this weekend, it ranks fifth out of eight teams. It's also third out of four teams on the Saturday-only slate as they edged the Colts by a couple of slots. When they're facing a guy bound to get as much work as Ezekiel Elliott, that actually is a pretty solid matchup.
Things get even a bit better with this game being in Dallas instead of Seattle. In Seattle, the Seahawks have allowed opposing backs to record just a 37.1% Rushing Success Rate (which measures the percentage of carries that increase the team's expected points for the drive). Outside of Seattle, that number creeps up to 41.8%.
That makes what Elliott did against them back in Week 3 even more impressive. In that one, Elliott turned 16 carries into 127 yards in a losing effort for the Cowboys. He also had eight targets, making him one of 11 running backs to get at least five targets against the Seahawks this year. Five players have gone for at least 50 receiving yards against them, as well.
The other part of that Week 3 game for Elliott is that it occurred before his workload really blew up. With Amari Cooper in town, the team has basically been running exclusively through those two.
After sitting out Week 17, Elliott has now played eight games alongside Cooper and seven games without him. Here's a look at Elliott's per-game splits in those two samples.
| Elliott in 2018 | Rushes | Rush Yards | Targets | Rec. Yards | Yards From Scrimmage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Cooper Trade | 18.9 | 88.4 | 5.1 | 25.0 | 113.4 |
| Since Cooper Trade | 21.5 | 101.9 | 7.4 | 49.0 | 150.9 |
Elliott has had at least 109 yards from scrimmage in every game that he and Cooper have played together. You're getting a 10-point floor to start with Elliott before factoring in points from receptions and touchdowns.
Speaking of touchdowns, those haven't necessarily been in Elliott's favor of late. He has been held out of the end zone in now three straight games and hasn't scored on the ground since Week 12. As you likely guessed, that's not a major concern.
From Week 13 to Week 16 -- the four games in which Elliott didn't score on the ground -- the Cowboys ran 43 plays inside the red zone. Elliott got either a carry or a target on 46.5% of those plays. He just hasn't been able to cash in on that volume yet.
Even without a touchdown, Elliott scored 25.2 FanDuel points in Week 14, and he has had at least 13.2 in every game with Cooper. Nobody else on either the two- or four-game slate can touch that floor, and his ceiling is unreal if the touchdown regression hits on Saturday.
Given Elliott's workload -- and that of the other running backs on this slate -- you almost have no choice but to use him. He has the best combination of floor and ceiling on the slate, and his salary is far from prohibitive at $8,800. The matchup isn't terrible, and with the Cowboys slight favorites at home, Elliott's the first player you should lock into each lineup.
