NFL

Fantasy Football Mailbag: Wednesday 11/23/16

Fantasy football research never stops, and roles change drastically from one week to the next. That's where our fantasy football mailbag comes into play.

Have a question about a certain player, team, strategy, or anything football? Shoot us a question on Twitter or send an email to Brandon.Gdula@FanDuel.com, and we can talk anything fantasy football related -- even daily fantasy football.

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Now, let's answer some questions.

Email submission from Deven S.:

Which of these three running backs is the best to have over the rest of the season (and especially the next 2 weeks): LeGarrette Blount, Thomas Rawls, or Carlos Hyde?

That's an interesting trio for sure. We'll break them down player by player.

First, you have LeGarrette Blount, who is in a pretty good spot this week against the New York Jets as a nine-point favorite, but he will have to contend with James White and Dion Lewis when the situation isn't quite as enticing. Regardless of his likelihood for a good game this week, he's not the big-usage back that the other two can be, but we project him to finish as the RB12 from here on out, best of the three.

Thomas Rawls is stepping into a pretty promising situation with the injury to C.J. Prosise even with a shaky offensive line. He's projected as the RB17 for the rest of the season, just about six points behind Blount -- so not that big of a gap. And Carlos Hyde is our RB21 rest of season, so it's all pretty close in terms of expected points left to be scored.

If you're factoring in matchups, Rawls has the best remaining schedule of the three based on our metrics. For safety and upside, it's probably best to rank them Rawls, Blount, and Hyde, but it's all pretty close.


In this one, I'm leaning heavily toward Jordan Matthews against the Green Bay Packers. Matthews gets to face off against a weak slot cornerback in Micah Hyde and has had 10 or more targets in four straight games. We project Matthews for 13.51 PPR points this week. Mike Wallace is actually above him at 14.54, but the Baltimore Ravens are playing in a game that could be windy -- currently projected for winds of 16 miles per hour. You'll have to monitor that by Sunday.

That does mean that Donte Moncrief should be seen as the lowest of the three this week. We project him for just 11.56 PPR points after his downgrade from Andrew Luck to Scott Tolzien. You could justify a touchdown-dependent Moncrief over most replacement-level options, but you have two good fill-ins, and I think you have to lean toward Matthews in Week 12.

Want to have your questions answered in our mailbag? Submit your questions by tweeting @numberFire or sending an email to Brandon.Gdula@FanDuel.com.