Baltimore Ravens @ Los Angeles Rams

Spread - Ravens -3.5

O/U - 47

Defense Rankings

Ravens - Run D - 7th  Pass D - 17th

Rams - Run D - 4th  Pass D - 16th

 

Offensive Breakdown 

Passing

Lamar Jackson on Monday Night Football is going to be a feast for the football soul. It’s close enough to thanksgiving. We have the overall QB1 on a showdown slate, which is going to make things very interesting from a strategy standpoint. On most showdown slates, you don’t want a quarterback in your captain spot. Why? Because there is typically a RB or WR that puts up more FP’s. The average quarterback can’t do it by themselves. Lamar Jackson completely changes that narrative with his rushing upside. On top of his usual 180-250 passing yards, he’s been over 60 rushing yards in every game since October 6th and has five rushing scores in that span. The Rams defense is set to play man to man and they are going to struggle to contain Jackson. He’s my favorite captain on the slate and a lock on FanDuel without the adjusted price. This defense has actually been worse at home and Jackson should have fun running around in the Coliseum. The Ravens are 3.5 point road favorites and it’s hard to pass on playing Jackson in some capacity here, whether captain or not. He’s been over 30 fantasy points in two straight weeks and will look to make it a third tonight. 

I’m a fan of targeting Jared Goff in this match-up. While the Ravens have been extremely solid defensively over the last three weeks, Goff will finally have his healthy receiving core at home in 71 degree weather. We’re assuming the Ravens are going to put up points and the Rams are going to throw to keep up. They ran the ball a ton against the Bears a week ago, but this game script sets up a lot differently. Goff has averaged 45 pass attempts in the Rams losses this season and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him over that number tonight. He also spreads the ball around to a ton of different receivers, so there is an agreement to be made in a large field GPP to play Goff at captain. Much crazier things have happened than the Rams turning it on late in the season at home.

Now comes the roster construction side of things. If you roster Lamar Jackson at captain on DraftKings, you’re left with just under $6K per spot. I don’t think you must play Jackson at captain, but I do think there are enough savings to do so. We’ll get to them. He’s going to be extremely popular and this slate is going to come down to how you utilize him. 

Rushing

I can’t see myself rostering Mark Ingram in anything but a league field tournament as a captain pivot off of Lamar Jackson . Ingram has been on the field for less than 50% of snaps in four of the last five weeks and saw his first two red-zone targets just last week. With Gus Edwards seeing more and more playing time, I’d much rather go there for the extreme discount. He’s picking up consistent carries every week and has seen five carries inside the five yard line this season. He also has two scores in the last three games.

Todd Gurley saw the most volume he’s seen all year long, carrying the ball 25 times and catching three. He finished with 133 total yards and a score. It’s encouraging to see the workload increase, but I don’t like the way this game sets up for Gurley. We already touched on how many times (45.5) the Rams throw in losses and we’re fully expecting them to play keep up with the Baltimore Lamar Jackson ’s. In all seriousness, there is a path to success for Gurley tonight, but it’s a contrarian game script that includes the Rams getting off to an early lead. I don’t hate the move in tournaments, but think there are four or five better pivots off the basic Lamar Jackson captain build. Darrell Henderson Jr. is worth noting at his price as he’s seen a lot more work in recent weeks and we need saving if we want to play Jackson at CPT.

Receiving

Let’s touch on the Ravens passing game first. Mark Andrews is your highest priced option and he’s obviously the guy you’d bet on for the highest raw projection if everyone was the same price. With that being said, that’s obviously not the case and we have a guy that’s costing us a premium tonight at captain. Hayden Hurst has been on the field a ton recently and he’s seen two targets in four straight games. At his price, I love the value. The same goes for Nick Boyle . Marquise Brown is a phenomenal GPP target, but I’m not sure you can target him as he’ll almost certainly be shadowed by Jalen Ramsey all game long. He’s not fitting my build. 

It’s obviously hard to see yourself paying for Cooper Kupp after what he did the last two weeks, but we also know what he’s capable of. The same line of thinking that went with Andrews goes with Kupp. I’ll have some exposure in large field tournaments, but you need value and these guys aren’t consistent enough. In tournaments, by all means. Robert Woods is expected to be back and I’d rather play him at a slight savings in price. The same goes for Brandin Cooks , who’s even cheaper than the pair. Gerald Everett has the seventh most targets of all tight ends in football and I like this match-up for him. I also think he goes overlooked by the field with everyone back in the mix. You can safely avoid Josh Reynolds with Robert Woods active. 

Kickers may be worth noting in this game. We have two of the absolute best in Justin Tucker and Greg Zurlein. With that being said, we’re expecting points in this game and I would only play Zuerlein or Tucker in a cash game as your last piece. Either could easily finish with 12+ fantasy points in this weather. As for the defenses, no thank you here. If you make me choose one, it’s the Ravens. They’ve shut down Deshaun Watson and Tom Brady since getting Marcus Peters in a trade and Jimmy Smith from injury. I still won’t have any exposure to either of these defenses. 

FD Cash

FD GPP

DK Cash

DK GPP