What is up Karma Nation! Welcome back to another edition of my WR/CB Matchups Article. In this article, I will be breaking down three of the best and three of the worst matchups across this weekend’s games. I can’t believe we are already through a quarter of the season; it seems like this season is flying by already. Although, the good news is that we have plenty of data to dissect going into this week to find the best edge to win you the week. On top of the free articles, we have a FREE discord where we are always bouncing ideas off each other. Outside of all the FREE content, we offer paid subscriptions. Whether you are low on time or just want to know exactly what we are playing, the premium side of discord is always active, as we have subs continuously asking questions about how to build their lineups.
Last Week’s Results:
Best Matchups:
Jakobi Meyers: 12 Targets, 8 receptions, 70 Yards
Calvin Ridley: 13 Targets, 7 Receptions, 80 Yards
Stefon Diggs: 10 Targets, 7 Receptions, 114 Yards
Worst Matchups:
Diontae Johnson: 13 Targets, 9 Receptions, 92 Yards, 1TD (Jaire Alexander injured mid-game)
Brandin Cooks: 7 Targets, 5 Receptions, 47 Yards
Mike Williams: 4 Targets, 1 Reception, 11 Yards
Wide Receiver and Cornerback matchups are one of the staples of fantasy football. A lot of people will take a look at the overall matchup on defense. While that is important, it is also critical to take your research a step further and dive into the micro matchup between the WR and who he is lining up against the majority of the game.
Best Matchups:
Davante Adams vs Eli Apple
It is no surprise that Davante Adams is still one of the best wide receivers in the league. He has not popped off the sheet fantasy points wise this season, mainly due to his touchdown regression. Last season, Adams led the league in redzone targets and targets inside the 10 by a large margin, while only appearing in 14 games. He averaged two redzone targets a game and 1.42 targets inside the 10 a game, resulting in 50% of his redzone targets turning into touchdowns. This volume seemed unsustainable and it is proving so. Adams only has five redzone targets on the season and three targets inside the 10. This has resulted in just one redzone touchdown. Even with his lack of redzone targets, he has still found plenty of opportunities to be productive. He is tied for the league-lead with 45 targets, resulting in the outright league-leading 31 receptions. He is top-5 in receiving yards with 373 yards and two 100+ yard games which is tied with 10 others for the league lead. All-in-all, Adams still has put together a strong 2021 campaign, he is 8th in PPR points, 13th in PPR points per snap, but comes in at 74th in PPR points per touch due to the lack of TD production.
This is the perfect spot to remind fantasy owners why they took him in the first round of drafts this year and why he was the first WR off the board in most drafts. Eli Apple has been bad but his numbers don’t tell the whole story. He had two games of giving up big numbers and two games where he controlled the coverage. On the season, he is allowing the 4th most targets (31), resulting in the 6th most receptions (20), but only allowing the 27th most yards (174). In week one against the Vikings, he allowed seven receptions on seven targets for 70 yards. In week three against the Steelers, he allowed nine receptions on 16 targets for 69 yards. Outside of those two games, he has controlled his WRs but that was against the Jags and the Bears, two bottom-tier offenses. Now he has to deal with one of the best WRs in the league. It is going to be a tough time for any Bengals’ corner that is lined up against Adams this weekend.
Tyler Boyd vs Chandon Sullivan
On the flip side of the ball, there is another matchup I want to expose this weekend. That is Tyler Boyd going up against Packers’ slot corner, Chandon Sullivan. Normally when King is healthy, he is the starting slot corner and Sullivan does not see the field. While King may return this week, he is going to have to fill a big role with the absence of Jaire Alexander. So, I am expecting Sullivan to remain in the slot as King slides outside.
Although Boyd has looked fantastic over the course of the last few weeks, that has come with a concentrated usage rate as Tee Higgins has been out with a shoulder injury. This would normally deter me from playing Boyd, but he has the matchup advantage and the loss of Joe Mixon, due to an ankle sprain, boosts him back up to playable. Boyd should see his target share remain high as they look to use him as a safety valve similar to how Mixon has been normally used outside of recent games. Boyd has looked great with Higgins out, averaging 18.1 PPR points resulting in the 11th best WR over this two games stretch. Bengals’ WRs in general have performed well for fantasy owners, Chase ranked 10th over that time with Higgins absent from the lineup. He has put up 13 receptions for 154 yards on 16 targets over these two games, these rank top 16 in all those categories. I expect a production drop moving forward but we can take one more crack at it due to the matchup and the Mixon injury.
Jamison Crowder vs Avery Williams
Crowder seems like the forgotten star in fantasy football. The target machine hauled in seven receptions on nine targets last game for 61 yards and one touchdown while just playing 62% of offensive snaps and running a route on 28 of 38 dropbacks. Last season, Crowder recorded four 10+ target games and three 100+ yard games while scoring a touchdown in five of those games. These aren’t amazing numbers but he only played 12 games and two of those games came against New England. He finished as a WR1 in 33% of his games last season, he is just one out of eight players to finish outside of the top-12 WRs to record four games of top-12 WR numbers. Last weeks’ great game correlated with Wilson’s first good game as a pro where he threw for 297 yards two touchdowns and one interception. Prior to this game through three weeks Wilson threw for a total of 628 yards, two touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Crowder plus a bottom defense helped him make the jump last week, let’s see if they can replicate it against another bad defense.
Crowder gets another nice matchup for the second week in a row. The Jets take on the Falcons for the first London game of the season. If I was not a degen and up early anyway this is not a game I would want to wake up early for. Of course, we send two of the worst teams in the league overseas. The Falcons’ defense has been decent this season, mainly AJ Terrell, but they just lost their slot corner for the season, Isiah Oliver. This has led to Avery Williams sliding into the Nickel corner role. Williams was the Falcons’ 5th round rookie this season who is forced into a starting role after being a special teams player only. Last week, Williams allowed 44 yards, 4 receptions on 7 targets. Nothing insane but Washington is not a team that relies heavily on a slot WR like the Jets are.
Worst Matchups:
Juju Smith-Schuster vs Bryce Callahan
The Steelers’ offense has looked rough to start the season but that doesn’t mean they don’t have fantasy relevance. Juju has not looked good this season either and this weekend should not change things. He has had 7+ targets in three of the four games this season and all three games he did not get injured in so let’s just focus on those because he was on pace for another 7+. Juju has had 10.1 PPR points or fewer in every game and he is mainly just a high-volume floor player without much upside. One thing Juju is lacking this season is redzone targets, he ranked 11th in the league with 17 redzone targets and 7th most targeted redzone WR. This resulted in six touchdowns. This season Juju has zero redzone targets and until that changes he is a must fade for me.
Here we go again, if you are a returning reader, you know I love mentioning Bryce Callahan in the worst matchup section. Every week you want to avoid slot WRs against Callahan as he is the best slot corner in the league. Callahan lines up in the slot 94% of routes covered, he is allowing 0.07 fpts/route covered, a catch% of 33% and 0.38 yards per route covered. He has covered 109 slot routes, he has allowed 44 yards and 4 receptions on 11 targets. He leads the league with a reception every 27 snaps. Expect him to shut down another player this weekend in the slot. Engrain in your head, avoid slot WRs v Denver as long as Callahan is playing.
Terry McLaurin vs Marshon Lattimore
Scary Terry continues to make his mark in the league as one of the up-and-coming WRs trying to crack the list of top 10 best WRs in the league. The third-year wideout has improved his stats year over year going from 74.5 Yards/game to 88.5 yards per game this season while only seeing 0.6 more targets per game. He has almost matched his touchdown numbers from last season and we are only four games in, he just needs one more. McLaurin has already surpassed his 2020 numbers, finishing top 5 in two of the weeks already, where he only finished top 5 once last season.
McLaurin gets a tough matchup this week against Marshon Lattimore. Even though Lattimore’s numbers don’t tell the whole story since last week against the Giants his numbers got inflated since he was defending Barkley on that 54-yard touchdown. Lattimore was able to hold Adams to 37 yards and 2 receptions on 3 targets in week one as the Saints blew out the Packers. In week three he held Agholar and Bourne to a combined 38 yards and 3 receptions on 8 targets. On top of that, he only allowed 3 yards after the catch to Adams and 6 total yards after the catch to those Patriots WRs. I am expecting last week’s numbers to not fully reflect what Lattimore brings to the table as a shutdown corner.
Darnell Mooney vs Casey Hayward Jr
Mooney had the coming-out party I had been expecting from him since the offseason. I was high on him coming into the season because of his talent which had not fully translated to fantasy points. Mooney has seen 7+ targets in all but one game this season, that was the game where the Bears first started Fields and had 1 net passing yard. Clearly, that was not sustainable and led to an explosion from Mooney as he went for a career-high 125 receiving yards, this was the first time he reached yards in his career. So, before you hop right back on the Mooney train, I would pump the breaks for one week. Although they have a tough stretch of defenses coming up.
Hayward has been right outside of that elite tier of cornerbacks since he joined the Chargers but has been 1B for years now. Since leaving the Chargers that has not really changed much. Hayward is leading the league allowing a reception every 31.6 snaps and is second in the league allowing a target every 12.2 snaps. On the season he has allowed 39 yards and five receptions on 13 targets while only allowing 5 yards after the catch. The Raiders defense is a perfect combo of elite pass rushers and elite cover corners making passing on them extremely difficult. Although these stats may be skewed as the only elite passer they have faced this season was Justin Herbert last game where they held him to 222 yards, mainly due to the fact the run game was so effective.
Individual WR/CB Matchup Chart
