5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 5
Pittsburgh Steelers' Rushing Offense
All those value options are going to come in handy. Le'Veon Bell's price is back up where it should be at $9,500, and it's a pill we should probably swallow with the Jacksonville Jaguars in town.
Overall, the Jaguars' defense is awesome. They're the fifth-best unit in the league, per numberFire's metrics. Most of that superiority comes via what they do against the pass, though.
They are easily the best pass defense in the league through the first four weeks. Their pass rush has been a nuisance, and cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye can keep even the best receivers in check. That's all fine and dandy. But it's also masking some pretty serious deficiencies against the rush.
They're 21st in the league in this category, which is a good chunk below average. This is an issue when you're as good against the pass as they are.
In order to avoid the exploits of Ramsey and Calais Campbell, teams can keep the ball on the ground, giving immense volume to opposing running backs. When that volume is paired with efficiency, it often leads to big days for opposing backfields.
We saw this just last week with the New York Jets. Bilal Powell and Elijah McGuire both broke long runs, combining for 256 yards and 2 touchdowns on 31 carries. Alex Collins turned just 9 carries into 82 yards in Week 3, and Derrick Henry racked up 92 yards on 14 carries the game before that. You can feast against this team even on limited work, and volume is never a concern with Bell.
Bell was a bit limited in Week 1 coming off of his holdout, but the leash has come off since then. He has 48.21% of the team's opportunities the past three weeks, the second-highest mark in the league. This has included his reintegration to the passing game as he has 13 targets the past two weeks.
Plenty of these carries are high-leverage chances, too. His 53.66% red-zone market share leads the league with only Carlos Hyde also sitting above 46.00%. The Pittsburgh Steelers have the second-highest implied team total on the main slate, so they're going to get red-zone chances. You know where the ball's going when that happens.
There are other appealing running backs this week who are cheaper (one of whom we'll discuss in just a second), but Bell is this price for a reason. You'll want to fork over the cash where you can. Situations don't get much better for him than this.
