The Wrong Read has had many lives — first as a reflection on insights from the RotoViz podcasts; then as a freeform space for exploring a variety of metrics and strategies. It will likely continue in that latter function, but at least for now — in season — it’s an in-depth matchup lookahead article.
Each week I’ll gather advanced stats from our tools — mainly the Advanced Team Stat Explorer — to paint a picture of the upcoming week and offer some thoughts on how the games might unfold. My interest is in how the games will impact fantasy teams, and as such I’m looking mainly at the metrics that I think can help us predict how different teams and players will (or won’t) score fantasy points. We’ll be focusing on the most recent eight weeks to help paint a picture of what the teams are like now.
This is an early week preview featuring the Thursday night and Saturday games. Stay tuned for the full version later in the week.
New Orleans Saints at Los Angeles Rams
- The Saints are as healthy as they have been in weeks. Kendre Miller is questionable but is expected to be available. Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, and Jamaal Williams are all without an injury designation.
- The Rams have some weaknesses against good passing teams, which is good news for a Saints’ passing offense that’s perhaps been better in reality than on paper in recent weeks (at least given the spate of offensive injuries they’ve suffered). L.A. has given up back-to-back 20-point games to cold players like Zay Flower and Terry McLaurin. The Passing Matchup Rater has Olave in a slightly above neutral matchup, with the Game Level Similarity Projections liking his chances to go off.
- The Saints on the other hand are eminently beatable on the ground. No team gives up big running plays at a higher rate. Kyren Williams has been an RB1 in 70% of his games, and should be able to improve that number.
