New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills Fantasy Football Matchup Breakdown For Week 10
Fantasy

New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills Fantasy Football Matchup Breakdown For Week 10

John Laghezza breaks down the AFC East tilt between the Jets and the Bills for the Week 10 fantasy football slate.

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Bills storming towards the AFC‘s number one seed as the Jets scramble woefully to end a month-long losing streak? Guess some things never change. If anything, I’m surprised the spread’s only in the single digits after Kansas City thoroughly outclassed New York for 60 minutes on Sunday.

Jets vs. Bills Matchup Breakdown For Week 10 Fantasy Football

*Fantasy Football Rankings listed are Fantasy Life's half-PPR consensus ranks at the time of writing.

BUF_bills-logo.svgBuffalo Bills Fantasy Preview For Week 10

Buffalo’s so unusual for an elite offense. I mean, here we are talking about the NFL’s top team in terms of PPG (32.0), yards/game (386.4), and scoring drive success (53.9%) — yet it’s not necessarily a mad fantasy dash to start everyone in royal blue and red. Of course, our goat Josh Allen, the QB1 in points/game, gets an automatic nod even if a hurricane touched down on the 50-yard line right minutes before kickoff.

I’ve been beating this drum all year, but it’s truly worth noting. The consistency it takes to avoid a single QB2 finish until Week 9 is found in the high quality of passing metrics. In other words, at 0.23 EPA/dropback, 66.1% completion, 99.3 passer rating, 8.6 yards/pass attempt, and a 39.4% first-down rate, this is no scrambling QB fantasy scam. Plus, every one of these metrics up and down the roster are at their most depressed after scoring a season-high 23 points off Minnesota’s vaunted D.

Running back James Cook seems to live his fantasy existence in Allen’s shadow, never really getting the love some other elite players with three separate top-5 finishes in six weeks might. He’s also working amidst a seven-game TD streak, displaying elite traits in both running (4.8 yards/carry, 0.05 EPA/attempt, 46.0% success, 8.9% explosive rush, 9.5% negative rush) and passing phases of the game (8.1% team target, 9.2 yards/reception, 16.5% target/route). I guess losing some goal-line carries to Allen forces managers to dream on what could be … but it’s pretty darn sweet as constituted. Remember, pigs eat. Hogs get slaughtered.

Avoid gleaning too much determinative data from any game versus the Vikings, who force all sorts of shifts in alignments and schemes to match up against their hyper-aggressive style. As expected, Buffalo ran their most +2-TE sets of the season, including a +32% TE-target rate to four different tight ends.

Under normal circumstances, there’s a three-man target tree clearly separated from the pack in the four games at full strength (Weeks 1, 3, 8, 9) — When DJ Moore’s in there, he’s the crystal clear WR1 (27.3% target/route, 2.49 yards/route, 122 air yards/game). That, plus some received inconsistency, is clouding how solid Dalton Kincaid’s been in those games as well (20.5% target/route, 3.20 yards/route), with Khalil Shakir soaking up whatever’s left underneath. Expect a major bounceback this weekend as New York’s defense continually falls apart, ranking dead last over the last month in EPA/dropback (-0.38), opposing passer rating (123.8), YAC/reception (7.4), and passing TDs (10). Nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills …

  • Start: Josh Allen (QB1), James Cook (RB6), DJ Moore (WR21), Dalton Kincaid (TE9)
  • Sit: Keon Coleman (WR50)
  • Sleeper: Khalil Shakir (WR35)

NYJ_jets-logo.svgNew York Jets Fantasy Preview For Week 10

Dating myself big time with this one, but I heard it so many times in the car growing up; this Jets season is one never-ending loop of “Easy Come, Easy Go.” Did we really think that Week 1 win on the road versus the dreadful Titans would portend some change in culture? C’mon, we’ve seen this movie before. New York’s got talent at the skill positions, no doubt. The problem for fantasy gamers? There’s no way to facilitate everyone playing this style of offense. Yes, Geno Smith brings an NFL-caliber QB presence to the huddle, but no team can survive on bottom-5 play volume (58.9 plays/game) plus bottom-5 sack allowance (23). As if all sacks weren’t total drive killers in the first place, Geno’s 8.4 yards lost/sack is dead last by nearly a quarter yard. Oof.

Of course the second NYJ provided any sense of reliability anywhere on fantasy rosters, it’s you guessed it. Easy come, easy go. Breece Hall’s return forced Braelon Allen’s magical run to a screeching halt — so much so, it may have actually killed two birds with one stone. Before the injury, I’m not quite sure anyone knew exactly what Allen might be capable of as a true lead back, and there’s no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Additionally, Hall’s a former second-rounder with a track record of success. Again, low play volume in a committee is going to create more downs than ups for managers. For the record, Allen secured 58% of snaps but only 38% of backfield touches. Hall’s still startable, but we’d never have paid a third-round ADP for this timeshare/situation.

Big gigantic Ls! That’s what I saw every time I closed my eyes last weekend after recommending Adonai Mitchell (and starting him myself) off a (7-142-1) breakout against the nosediving Raiders. Sigh. Losing on the Jets, and it’s always so obvious in hindsight. Apologies aside, Mitchell led the Jets with 7 catch-less targets on the fifth-most air yards (135) in the NFL last weekend. Garrett Wilson returning would’ve bumped Mitchell back out of standard league viability with the emergence of Omar Cooper, but that injury late in the fourth looked pretty nasty. Slamming your helmet on the sideline floor’s never a good sign. Easy come, easy go.

Last note, keep an antenna up once again for rookie TE Kenyon Sadiq. He went (4-49-0) on Sunday, leading the Jets tight end room for the first time since his Week 3 breakout. The sixteenth overall pick is clearly talented enough to deserve opportunities, and maybe the absence of Cooper will inspire more scripted looks down the stretch.

  • Start: Breece Hall (RB21), Garrett Wilson (WR11), Adonai Mitchell (WR30)
  • Sit: Geno Smith (QB21), Mason Taylor (TE29)
  • Sleeper: Kenyon Sadiq (TE28)

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