It’s time for championship week folks, so let’s dive into who got the most work inside the red zone last week and who has the best match-ups to repeat those showings for Week 16.
Red Zone Passing
Baker Mayfield CLE - Mayfield has the Browns on a roll at the moment and now they get the Jets this week, who in five of the last six weeks have been very porous against opposing quarterbacks. Mayfield is 8-1 against non-divisional opponents this year and they are still needing a win to clinch a playoff spot for the first time in 17 years. Mayfield threw seven times inside the 20 on Sunday for two scores and also ran it twice as well. The Jets have a stingy red zone defense this year, but the Browns’ offense has been one of the best units at converting their offensive chances into scores so far this year and with them no longer wanting to win, it might make things easier for Mayfield and company to score.
Tua Tagovailoa MIA - Tagovailoa has been deceptively good this year and that includes being efficient in the red zone. Last week he posted his third-straight game with five red zone passing attempts and he also added three more rushes including two for touchdowns. He’s facing the Raiders this week who rank 27th in stopping opponents from scoring in the red zone at just over 66-percent of trips turned into touchdowns. While the Dolphins were underpowered last week, they should be back to close to full-strength this week and the match-up is tasty and should allow the Dolphins to perform well while still trying to secure a playoff spot in the AFC.
Mitchell Trubisky CHI - The Chicago offense has been a lot better with Trubisky starting than Foles and that bears (excuse the pun) out in the stats including points per game, yards, and chances in the red zone. Trubisky may have only had four passing attempts inside the 20 last week with one going for a score, but he also put up three rushing attempts as well including two inside the 10. Now this week they get the Jaguars’ defense who hasn’t been great at stopping opposing offenses in the passing attack and only so-so at stopping the red zone trips as well so Trubisky could very well be in a great spot this week.
Red Zone Rushing
Josh Jacobs RB LV - Jacobs had a whopping 12 red zone carries last week which is by far a season-high with the next best total being seven in Week 8. In fact, he had seven carries just inside of the 10 and six inside of the five alone which equal his previous two season-highs for games overall. One of the carries resulted in a touchdown. Against the Dolphins it’s a bit of a tough match-up according to their red zone percentage allowed where they rank eighth-best but against the rush in general they rank 24th in rush DVOA. Also with Derek Carr injured, Jacobs will need to carry a bit more of the load this week if the Raiders hope to leave with a win.
David Montgomery RB CHI - Montgomery has been on fire since Week 10 and has been giving us the type of fantasy showings we’d been hoping for from the get go, but it wasn’t until Week 15 that he really had a great game inside the 20. He carried it nine times including five inside the 10 and converted two of them for touchdowns. Those carries are a season-high for him and were two carries more than his prior three games combined and are more than a quarter of his season-total of 33. The Jaguars have the 23rd-ranked rush defense in DVOA and have been so-so at stopping teams inside the 20 to this point. If the game is a runaway for Chicago, Montgomery should get more work upping his value.
Salvon Ahmed RB MIA - Ahmed had a season-high in Week 15 with eight, besting his previous high of seven back in Week 10. Six of those carries came inside the 10 and one was for a touchdown. The Raiders aren’t good against the run in the least and haven’t been great in the red zone either. The only question is just how much work Myles Gaskin will see with him coming back this week but if Ahmed gets the shot, it could be a productive week for him again.
J.K. Dobbins RB BAL - Dobbins continues to get work inside the 20 with regularity and last week he saw five carries which tied a season-high. He has 12 carries in the last three weeks combined and now facing the Giants weak rush defense it should be another day for him to see quite a bit of work. The trick will be how successful the Ravens can be inside the 20 as the Giants are a top-five defense inside the 20. He could work as a contrarian play of sorts in DFS with a solid shot at getting in the endzone.
Red Zone Receiving
Gabriel Davis WR BUF - Davis has seen red zone targets in the last four games with three of them being two-target games. That means that seven of his 11 targets on the year came in the last four games since John Brown hasn’t played. Buffalo is playing New England this week and Stefon Diggs will likely be locked up by Stefon Gilmore and that should allow Davis to see a fair share of targets and the Patriots are allowing just over 64-percent of opponent trips to their 20 to end in touchdowns this season. Consistency is valuable this time of year and Davis has just that.
Russell Gage WR ATL - Gage stepped up big time last week in targets without Julio Jones on the field and saw two targets inside the 20 which led the team. He also turned one of those into a touchdown and now has six targets inside the 20 in the last four games. The Chiefs are the worst team in the red zone defensively and rank 22nd in DVOA against number-two wideouts this year. Gage should see a nice target share even if Jones is on the field as the Falcons will have to pass to outduel the Chiefs.
Darnell Mooney WR CHI - Mooney has consistently been the Bears second-leading target all season and now he gets a match-up against the worst pass defense in the league and a team allowing 64.2-percent of opponent trips to end with touchdowns, ranking 21st in the NFL. With Mitchell Trubisky at the helm, the Bears have posted better than 28 points a game which gives more red zone shots for guys like Mooney and with Allen Robinson having a revenge game, there’s a chance the Jaguars try and lock down Robinson to keep them from beating them and then that opens things for Mooney who led the Bears in targets inside the red zone last week including catching a score.
Hayden Hurst TE ATL - There are only two tight ends in the whole of the league that have seen at least one red zone target come their way in the last five games, Hurst and Darren Waller . That’s it. And for both it actually goes back seven-straight games with a target with six targets coming in the last five games for more than half of his seasonal total. He’s not only here because of his consistency but also because of the match-up for Week 16. The Chiefs rank 32nd, dead last, in the league for stopping teams in the red zone allowing 30 of 39 trips to turn into touchdowns. They also haven’t been strong against tight ends either this year in general with 8.6 points a game allowed to them. Atlanta will have to pass to keep up with the Chiefs and even if Julio Jones plays, Hurst will still get looks and had a red zone score just last week.
Red Zone Defense
Minnesota Vikings - The Vikings are in a tough match-up this week against the high-powered Saints’ offense, but there’s one place that they have an advantage and a strength against New Orleans...red zone percentage. They are allowing their opponents to score just 53.1-percent of the time they make it to their 20-yard line which is fifth-best in the league. Meanwhile, New Orleans ranks seventh-best at converting trips to scores, though that did get a boost with Taysom Hill at quarterback since he had quite a few rushing touchdowns that helped. Drew Brees is coming off one of his worst games as a pro and if that lingers into this week, Minnesota could be in for a solid day.
New York Giants - The Giants weakness over the last few weeks has been stopping the rush and that’s what the Ravens’ are good at. However, one of the Giants’ strengths is the ability to stop teams from scoring inside the 20 as they rank fourth-best in the league in that category. Baltimore meanwhile is 12th-best in converting their trips in the red zone to touchdowns at nearly two-thirds of the time. So if the Giants’ can keep up their ability to keep opponents from scoring, they may stand a chance at slowing down the Ravens’ scoring attack that’s put up over 40 points per game the last three games.
New York Jets - One thing that stuck out in the Jets’ victory last week over the Rams was that they were stout in the red zone, like they have been much of the year. They rank ninth in red zone percentage allowed and have been in the top-10 basically the whole season. They face the Browns this week who are fourth in red zone percentage scored so whichever side wins the battle will likely determine the game. As they say it’s the typical immovable object and unstoppable force match-up.