Week 2 Fantasy Football Outlook: Raiders Need To Let Geno Smith Cook
Ian Hartitz analyzes the fantasy football mismatches for Week 2, focusing on the Raiders' Geno Smith having a potentially great matchup against the Chargers.
It was a fun narrative in Seattle with Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson. For three quarters try to run the ball and play defense. Then if needed, Coach Pete would "let Russ cook" to try and win the game. Another constant from part of that era was then-backup QB Geno Smith watching it unfold. After passing for 362 yards and a score in a 20-13 victory in New England, can he keep it going against the Chargers and Justin Herbert coming off his own offensive explosion (318 yards and 3 TDs)?
This brings us to today's goal: Breaking down some of the week's biggest mismatches in an attempt to get an edge in fantasy football land.
A lot of this will be done through my weekly Mismatch Manifesto charts that combine commonly-used matchup metrics in an attempt to turn things into a one-way street as opposed to always having to go, "Offense ranks x, defense ranks y." To put the following data simply: Blue is good for the offense in question, and red is bad. Cool? Cool.
As always: It's a great day to be great.
Note: This is part of a Week 2 Fantasy Football Mismatch series featuring:
- Top Running-Game Matchups
- Kyler Murray Blowup Spot
- Justin Fields and the Jets offense continue to fly high
- Will the Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch shoot out?
Are the Raiders Willing to let Geno Cook?
I hope so! Geno Smith and Las Vegas have the week's second-best matchup in terms of combined pass yards per dropback.
The Week 1 numbers were also VERY encouraging in terms of Chip Kelly's willingness to air things out.
Week 1 leaders in dropback rate over expected:
- Patriots (+14.1%)
- Chiefs (+13.7%)
- Bears (+12.8%)
- Chargers (+11.6%)
- Raiders (+8.5%)
It'd be a lot cooler if Brock Bowers (knee) is good to go for Monday night's AFC West showdown, but hey, Jakobi Meyers, Tre Tucker and Dont'e Thornton all proved capable in their own rights during the team's Week 1 win over the Patriots. Geno is accordingly my QB17 on the week—the highest of any alleged Fantasy Life expert ranker.
There should also be plenty of aerial success from the … Jets, Seahawks, Bills and Browns. Of course, Joe Flacco and company have a very different challenge on their hands this Sunday against the Ravens, but then again maybe it's about time we give Mr. Elite his flowers. Consider: Flacco has averaged 292 passing yards in his 13 starts since 2023. Jared Goff (271.3) is the only QB even close!
Local birds beware: On the bad side of things, the Titans, Bengals, Broncos, Panthers, and Giants profile as the five-worst passing attacks. Luckily, that Malik Nabers guy remains quite good at football—at least Giants fans have that to be happy about, even if Nabers himself doesn't do a whole lot of smiling on the sideline.
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