Yahoo Sports’ Fantasy Football Live crew looks ahead to Sunday’s matchup between Buffalo and Baltimore – and how James Cook, Khalil Shakir and Derrick Henry could impact fantasy managers.
Video Transcript
You guys get an A plus for all of your grades are perfectly done.
Let’s turn to our Fantasy game changers for this week powered by Ram Trucks where we’re identifying some of the most impactful players in one of the top Fantasy matchups on the schedule.
We’re going with Sunday night football, Ravens hosting the Bills.
We all know that this is an epic matchup for the ages.
We’ve got Buffalo at Baltimore Baltimore favor by 2.5.
The over under on this 46.5.
So when I say fantasy game changers, Matt Harmon, you say, oh man, I say James Cook because this Bills offense that people were freaked out about in the off season, you know, hey, no more.
Stefan Diggs, what are they gonna do from a pass catcher standpoint?
Well, the Bills offense is number one in the NFL in both EPA per play and success rate, largely because they have prioritized a downhill run game with James Cook who has just been so explosive as a rusher.
He’s at the center of that.
Now, this is a tough matchup against a stout Ravens defense, but Cook can still get home for your fantasy teams, I think based on his receiving chops, this is something I’ve been highlighting with James Cook since last year when Joe Brady took over.
But when he’s on the field, when he’s running routes, this offense makes it a priority to get him the ball.
He’s been targeted on 25% of his routes run even better when they throw to him, they throw to him further downfield almost any other running back.
His 3.3 average depth of target is absurdly high for running backs who usually are somewhere south of one point.
Oh, if not in the negatives, it actually leads all starting running backs this year and is tied with the team’s leading receiver Khalil Shakir.
So I think Cook is still a strong start in what should be an excellent game despite facing a tough Ravens run defense and is a top 10 running back, bare minimum the rest of the season, Andy Barns.
What do you think?
Yeah, Harmon mentioned my guy, uh, we are three weeks into the season and Khalil Shakir is a perfect 14 for 14 on targets this year.
Uh, a catch percentage of 100 is considered quite good.
Uh, Shakira has two touchdowns on the season leads the team in targets catches and easily in receiving yards.
He led all wide receivers last year in passer rating when targeted and he might run it back in 2024 on much greater volume this week.
It’s a Ravens defense that has been cooked via the pass so far, they rank last against the pass at 291.7 yards per game, 8.1 yards per attempt with another big game from Shakier.
We’ll just be thinking of him, I think as a set and forget fantasy starter, we knew there was gonna be at least one right answer in this receiving core and early on it looks like that guy is gonna be shaki.
It’s like a weekly tradition when we could do the segment that you two always seem to pick the same team.
And then I have to go to Tara and say, hey, there’s another team in this game, Tara give the people right now eating crab cakes that are very angry.
We haven’t mentioned Baltimore some hope in this.
What is your, uh what’s your guy?
I got you.
It is Derek Henry after a mediocre start to the season that had fantasy managers say, yep, we told you Derek Henry is cooked.
Now we have seen back to back top 10 finishes for Henry last week.
I mean, 25 attempts, 100 and 51 yards averaging six yards per carry, two rushing touchdowns.
He shut down all the rumors of everyone that looked at his production at Tennessee and thought, well, this is it downward spiral.
The rumors of his efficiency decreasing, they might have been a little bit overrated.
There this week brings a tough defensive matchup.
Buffalo’s defense has been solid overall but if you have one spot that you want to attack them on, it is the ground game.
It has been their slightly weak spot there.
Quarterbacks been struggling but running backs have performed decently well against them.
James Connor had a top 10 finish in week one.
Devo Achan had an insane week two performance last week, didn’t really stand out.
But again, we did see a decent performance in terms of yards for carry.
I think that Derek Henry is absolutely going to lead the way for this Baltimore team and be the dominating performer there.
