Streaming Quarterbacks: Week 9 Targets

Nov 03, 2020

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Game conditions were the primary focus heading into Week 8. Five different games were projected to have wind speeds over 20 mph. Two games were set to feature light rain. So on top of the injury concerns and the pandemic, managers were forced to refresh the forecast as the fantasy gods added another layer of difficulty. The elements may have played a role in the poor outings, but let’s review what happened and what we can take as head into Week 9.

Other Week 9 Streaming Articles: TE | K | DST

Week 8 Review

If Nick Foles is the highest scoring streaming recommendation, it’s likely things didn’t quite go as planned. Let’s review where things went wrong and how we can adjust in the future.

Top Streamers

Jimmy Garoppolo – 1.8 pts (QB)
Derek Carr – 12.6 pts (QB)

Deep Plays

Baker Mayfield – 7.8 pts (QB)
Kirk Cousins – 10.4 pts (QB)
Nick Foles – 16.9 pts (QB)

Garoppolo was injured midway through the game but was unable to take advantage of Seattle’s secondary (-0.3 EPA per Play, +0.1 CPOE). He took multiple sacks and threw an interception prior to re-aggravating his ankle injury suffered in Week 2. Nick Mullens immediately found success in San Francisco’s comeback effort (238 yards, 2 touchdowns, 0 sacks) which calls Garoppolo’s grasp on the offense into question. If pressure (or adjusting to pressure) will be an issue, we’ll need to adjust our expectations in future matchups.

As much as I recommend patience when approaching bad weather games, the forecast in Cleveland was an extreme case. Wind speeds of +30 mph were expected in the area and it clearly had an effect on the game. Neither quarterback had more than 125 yards passing. In addition, few adjustments were made on either side to reduce the impact of the elements. The results were clearly a function of the poor game conditions as only 22 points were scored in the game. Not all weather plays a factor, but extreme conditions like what we saw in Cleveland will be closely factored in for future games.