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Atlanta Falcons at Washington Commanders
When the Falcons have the ball: The focus will once again be on Michael Penix Jr. one week after he started his first NFL game. The competition could almost not have been any easier than drawing the Giants but I’d say Penix largely passed his initial test. The rookie was pressured on nearly 50% of his dropbacks last week but didn’t put the ball in harm’s way and took zero sacks. The ball came out of his hands well and he didn’t make classic rookie errors. You also saw his arm strength right away, as Penix was able to drive the ball from the far hash on deep out routes to the field.
The ability to make those throws is key for Darnell Mooney, who has run those routes for this offense all season. He’s back on the high-end WR3 radar with Penix under center, especially as this game could get high-scoring. The rookie quarterback also showed a nice connection with Drake London before the wideout left the game early with an injury. It sounds like London will be able to play in this game, and we should expect him to get a significant workload. London has been a key chain-mover on slot routes against man coverage for the new Falcons offense. The Commanders play man at the fifth-highest rate on third and fourth down this season.
Bijan Robinson is one of the five best backs in the league right now, so the following isn’t exactly a piping hot take, but I anticipate him being a huge title-game swinger. Robinson touched the ball 24 times in Penix’s first start as the engine of the offense. According to Fantasy Points Data, Washington has allowed the ninth-highest success rate on zone runs this season, which is the meat and potatoes of the Atlanta run game. He should be able to keep the offense on schedule and rip off big plays in Week 17.
When the Commanders have the ball: We are dealing with hyper-small sample sizes here but the Falcons defense has been on a weird mini-heater lately. Since Week 14, Atlanta has ranked sixth in EPA…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/3-week-17-games-that-will-determine-fantasy-football-championships-150317756.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-12-27 15:03:00
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