Making any singular fantasy football start/sit decision usually comes down to some combination of four factors: Volume, talent, offensive environment and matchup. I typically prefer to lean more into the first three variables and let perceived on-paper mismatches serve as more of a tiebreaker, but then again sometimes VERY lopsided matchups can give fantasy footballers an edge in attempting to predict the future of this beautifully ridiculous sport.

This brings us to today's goal: Breaking down some of the week's biggest mismatches in an attempt to get an edge in fantasy football land. We'll be breaking down the following factors:

• Explosive plays
• Run-game advantages in the trenches
• Pressure
• EPA

A lot of this will be done through my weekly Mismatch Manifesto charts that combine commonly-used matchup metrics in an attempt to turn things into a one-way street as opposed to always having to go, "Offense ranks x, defense ranks y." To put the following data simply: Blue is good for the offense in question, and red is bad. Cool? Cool.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Week 9 Fantasy Football Mismatch Report

Explosions in the sky: Indiana Jones and Company are Looking Good

The below chart denotes every team's combined explosive pass (15+ yards) and run (10+ yards) play rates. Example: The Ravens have a great on-paper advantage in their quest to create explosive plays in the run game, while the Titans passing "attack" looks relatively screwed.

Credit to Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba for having the week's best advantage through the air, but it's the Colts' matchup with Pittsburgh's Paper Curtain defense that really gets me excited due to the potential for some of Indy's complementary receivers to take advantage of the league's second-worst defense in PPR points per game allowed to opposing WRs.

Consider:

• The Steelers run the league's fourth-most man coverage.
• Josh Downs (29% targets per route run vs. man, 24% vs. zone) and Alec Pierce (28% vs. 16%) have been force fed the football when left on islands. We saw this play out for Downs last season when he hung an 8-82-1 receiving line on (a better version) of this defense in Week 4
• Tyler Warren (17% vs. 26%) has been the unfortunate source of this newfound opportunity. This is fairly common across the league: RBs and TEs eat more against zone, and WRs more so against man.
• Michael Pittman (23% vs. 23%) doesn't have the same sort of extreme splits and deserves credit for being the team's most consistent pass-game producer this season (WR11 in PPR points per game!).

Keep an eye on Downs' (hip) eventual injury status, but if healthy I love his upside in the ever-muddled WR4 range and his receiving yards (36.5) and reception overs. It'd also make a lot of sense if Pierce booms this week after most of the fantasy world (including myself) thought last week would be his day. That's just the kind of sick shit the fantasy gods tend to pull in these streets, ya know?

Premium

Go FantasyLife+

Your league is unique. Your advice should be too. Get personalized tools, rankings, and projections tailored to your fantasy football league settings.

Learn More

More b-e-a-utiful matchups: The Bears and Packers join the Colts and Seahawks as the week's four best passing attacks when looking at who has the best chance to consistently create big plays. I'm particularly bullish on Caleb Williams finding a way to boom against the Bengals: Williams makes several throws per game that show off his "generational" upside—what better week for the easy to finally be easy than against the Bengals' sad excuse for a professional defense?

It's 2025 guys get it together: The Titans, Texans, Panthers and Saints stand out as the offenses least expected to produce some explosive chunk gains through the air. That said: Nico Collins will at least not have to deal with NFL CB1 Pat Surtain II (pec), although expecting Houston's offensive line to give C.J. Stroud ample time in the pocket doesn't seem wise. This Broncos defense stands out as the league's best when looking at their ability to simultaneously wreak havoc and limit big plays.

The Mount Rushmore of best RB run-game matchups

The following chart denotes every offense's combined *RB* rush yards before contact from Weeks 1-8.

The top 4 RBs feature:

Bears RB D'Andre Swift: This season started out relatively slow for Swift, but he's taken his production from borderline RB2 levels to legit RB1 goodness since returning from the team's Week 5 bye.

• Week 1: 9.5 PPR points (RB27)
• Week 2: 13.9 (RB23)
• Week 3: 10.8 (RB24)
• Week 4: 16 (RB20)
• Week 5: Bye
• Week 6: 25.5 (RB6)
• Week 7: 20.8 (RB6)
• Week 8: 15.1 (RB16)

That's good for RB12 status on a per-game basis this season, ahead of guys like Kyren Williams, Ashton Jeanty and Derrick Henry, among others. Not too shabby—and don't be surprised if the good times continue to roll against the Bengals' league-worst defense in PPR points per game allowed to RBs.

Bills RB James Cook: This is more so a testament to the Bills' league-best offense in RB rush yards before contact per carry (2.3!) than a true smash matchup. But yeah: Cook (as usual) profiles for a big afternoon on the ground, but it'd certainly be a lot cooler if the Bills considered throwing him the ball every once in a while. The man hasn't caught a pass since Week 4! Kyle Juszczyk has more targets this season! I get Cook has had some bad drops over the years, but c'mon, man!

Rams RB Kyren Williams: Many speculated that Williams would finally give way to Blake Corum and/or Jarquez Hunter this season, but the Rams' featured back is once again on pace to breeze past 300-plus touches. If anything, it's been Matthew Stafford's love affair with Davante Adams near the goal line that's prevented Williams (RB13 in PPR points per game) from returning something closer to top-5 production. Consider: Only Patrick Mahomes has more pass attempts than Stafford inside the 10-yard line, and nobody is even close to Adams' involvement (11 targets, next-closest has 7) near the end zone.

49ers RB Christian McCaffrey: You don't need conditionally formatted charts to tell you that CMC is in a good spot this week, but hey, any extra production on the ground would certainly help considering just how lopsided McCaffrey's production has been through the air vs. on the ground. Nobody at the position has come close to matching CMC's numbers as a receiver, but he's averaged fewer PPR points per game on the ground than Zach f*cking Charbonnet!

More RBs with plus matchups on the ground: Feature the Lions, Cardinals and Bengals backfields. We regularly made a mockery of Chase Brown's inefficient rushing in early-season editions of this column, but hey, the times they are a-changin'!

Brown rushing splits:

• Weeks 1-5: 65 carries, 160 yards, 2.5 yards per carry (last among 47 qualified RBs)
• Week 6-8: 32 carries, 223 yards, 7 yards per carry (3rd among qualified RBs)

This improvement coincides with 1.) Joe Flacco taking over at QB, and 2.) The Bengals finally getting some relief in the schedule. Luckily, both factors will continue ahead of Week 9—the only thing keeping Brown out of the top 12 in my rankings is Samaje Perine's involvement, but he should still be in fantasy lineups of most shapes and sizes against a Bears defense that ranks 30th in RB rush yards before contact per carry.

Tough sledding ahead: Things aren't looking too great for the Falcons, Raiders, Saints and Seahawks this week in the whole "open up big run lanes" department. Obviously the former three backfields are led by the sort of every-down workhorse who you can still start with relative confidence even in tough matchups, but the same can't be said for the ever-even split the Seahawks continue to deploy. Which hey, they're winning football games, and I get the idea of going out of your way to try to keep Kenneth Walker healthy; just realize the sentiment that KWIII is the more explosive back, and Zach Charbonnet the better grinder at picking up tough yards, hasn't exactly held up through eight weeks of action.

Could Jordan Love have all day to throw this week?

It sure looks like it based on combined Weeks 1-8 pressure rates between this week's offensive line and pass-rush matchups.

This is particularly good news for Love, who has been putting up legit MVP-worthy levels as a whole this season, but has seen his efficiency fall off a cliff when forced to operate under pressure.

While the Packers WR room is a bit too crowded to have too much confidence in any one party, Love comes in as the Fantasy Life consensus QB13, Josh Jacobs as the RB7—and his receiving over props are especially looking good—and Tucker Kraft as the TE2 inside an offense implied to score the second-most points in Week 9. Giddyup!

QBs who could be doing their best David Bowie impressions (get it? Under pressure?): Include Jared Goff, Tyler Shough, Bryce Young and J.J. McCarthy. I'm particularly concerned about McCarthy in this spot considering just how rough of a time he's had with limiting bad plays under pressure. Overall, McCarthy has let a league-high 40% of his passing attempts be under pressure–no other QB is at even 30%!

Guess who could have ALL day to throw this week: Well, the numbers say Caleb Williams, Dak Prescott and Aaron Rodgers could join Love as the week's top QBs who should have clean pockets on more dropbacks than not. We should also see some clean pockets for Mr. Joe Flacco … if his AC joint is healthy enough for him to suit up. It's tough to overstate the difference in the Bengals offense with Flacco vs. Jake Browning under center this season.

• With Browning: 12.3 PPG (31st), -0.32 EPA per play (32nd)
• With Flacco: 29.87

Get your popcorn ready for Cowboys-Cardinals

The following chart denotes every offense's matchup in combined EPA per play based on their Weeks 1-8 performance:

Two particularly cool stats that interest by about Monday Night Football's clash between the Cowboys and Cardinals:

• Kyler Murray is undefeated lifetime (9-0!) at Jerry World.
• The 2025 Cowboys trail only the 2000 Rams and 2013 Broncos when it comes to total combined points per game scored between their offense and opponent since 2000.

My official rankings of the league's best offenses: 1.) The Colts, 2.) The Cowboys and 3.) Whoever is playing the Cowboys. And honestly, I might need to think about flipping No. 2 and No. 3.

Underdog watch: This week the Dolphins (+7.5) are the only team with an on-paper advantage in combined EPA per play, yet are underdogs in the betting markets. Of course, the return of that Lamar Jackson guy is the main reason for this.

Blowout alert: The Chargers, Colts, Jaguars and Bears rather easily boast the largest expected offensive advantages in combined EPA per play.

Shootout city: Other than the Cowboys-Cardinals matchup, Chiefs-Bills and Colts-Steelers boast the highest game-wide numbers.

This could be ugly: Rams-Saints, Raiders-Jaguars and Texans-Broncos profile as the three matchups that could feature the most total offensive despair.

Join Our Newsletter

Trusted by 400,000+ fantasy football players. Get access to Fantasy Life's free award winning newsletter and tools, all in one step.

Email Address

Subscribe

By registering or logging in, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.