Sneaky Starts: Week 13

Nov 27, 2019

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All but the luckiest fantasy owners at some point need to find the proverbial diamond in the rough—a waiver wire or bench player capable of putting up some points in a pinch. This weekly feature is dedicated to that part of fantasy football. It's not pretty, but it's part of the game.

A good way to identify a potential spot start is to leverage 4for4’s signature strength-of-schedule metric, adjusted fantasy points allowed (aFPA). Many sites publish raw fantasy points allowed by position, but 4for4 goes a step further and adjusts those numbers for a defense’s relative year-to-date schedule strength. So if a defense has seen a murderer’s row of running backs, it will be reflected in the defense’s aFPA. As a ranker, I use this metric weekly when putting together our award-winning projections.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, my work week is compressed, so this edition of Sneaky Starts will be shorter than usual. Instead of a paragraph blurb about each player, I’ll present the players in a bullet point format for brevity.

Let’s take a look at the top Sneaky Starts for Week 13...

Quarterbacks

Sam Darnold, Jets (@ CIN, 27) - Darnold has at least 21.7 fantasy points in three straight games and a tasty matchup with the Bengals on tap.
Nick Foles, Jaguars (vs. TB, 31) - In two starts since his return, Foles has thrown for 296/2 against the Colts and 272/0 against the Titans. He should post good numbers against the pass-funnel Bucs.
Ryan Tannehill, Titans (@ IND, 13) - Tannehill has at least 18.9 fantasy points in five straight starts including 32.4 last week against the Jaguars. The Colts have yielded 298/2 to Deshaun Watson and 296/2 to Nick Foles in the last two games.
Jared Goff, Rams (@ ARI, 32) - Goff has been terrible of late, but a bounceback game is possible against the 32nd-ranked Cardinals who have yielded at least 18.3 fantasy points in the last three games, with a 25.6-point average.