DFS: Debate Team - Is Philip Rivers or Carson Palmer the Better Play?
Each week, two of theScore's DFS experts weigh in on a contentious daily fantasy topic. This week: Is Philip Rivers or Carson Palmer the better Week 7 option?
Ken Conrad: There are certainly compelling reasons to choose Palmer this week, but I'm siding with Rivers because he's on pace to break the NFL records for both passing yards and completions in a season. That's hard to pick against!
Granted, I don't expect that he (or the Chargers) really care about either possibility, considering they're 2-4, but it's not like his workload can realistically decrease. San Diego really can't run the ball, ranking 29th with an average of only 86.7 rushing yards per game.
Yet, in terms of total offense, the Chargers lead the league in averaging 433 yards per game. Basic subtraction reveals that Rivers is an enormous part of the team's offense.
Rookie running back Melvin Gordon has had fumbling issues, and has only averaged 13 carries and 50 yards per game. Danny Woodhead has only received 44 total carries and does most of his work in the passing game, which obviously benefits Rivers for fantasy purposes.
Rivers' steady diet of slants and dump-offs to his variety of targets makes up for the team's lack of a rushing attack, and allows him to pile up the passing yards each week.
Jason Wilson: Neither Palmer nor Rivers is an objectively bad choice, but Palmer is definitely the better one. It comes down to the matchup. The Baltimore Ravens are awful. Almost impossibly so.
Colin Kaepernick threw for 326 yards against them. He did that on only 16 completions; that's an average of 20 yards. Josh McCown threw for 422 yards. Derek Carr managed 351. Andy Dalton topped off at 383. All of those totals were season highs. The collective TD:INT ratio of those four QBs against Baltimore was 10:2.
Palmer is absolutely a better quarterback than three of them, and he's probably better than Dalton, too. No matchup all season will favor Palmer more than this one. The once vaunted Ravens are a shell of their former selves. Rivers' big yards every week won't matter when Palmer torches Baltimore for 500 and four TDs.
Ken Conrad: Well, if Palmer can manage 500 yards and four TDs, then I will tip my cap to you. Palmer has thrown at least 300 yards in four of six games this season, but he also has two games where he threw for under 200. That's not an indictment of his performance, either - Arizona's defense has shown an ability to bury lesser opponents with touchdowns of its own.
I'd be more worried about Arizona getting a big lead and salting the game away on the ground than I would be about the same thing happening with San Diego.
Oakland has a terrible secondary of its own, with Antonio Gates possibly becoming the latest tight end to terrorize its defense. It says a lot about Peyton Manning's performance this season that he managed to complete zero passes to Owen Daniels when, in the previous four weeks, starting tight ends facing Oakland had combined for 31 catches, 380 yards and six TDs.
Gates should have a strong performance, Keenan Allen is coming off of a 14 catch game, Woodhead always sees a handful of passes, Stevie Johnson. Ladarius Green and Malcom Floyd are in the mix - San Diego's game plan involves throwing early and often, and I see no reason to go away from Rivers this week, especially when he's cheaper than Palmer in most DFS games.
Jason Wilson: Gates is the only member of the Chargers' offense who should rank better than his contemporary in Arizona. Palmer's top three of Larry Fitzgerald, John Brown, and Michael Floyd spread the field and pose more consistent threats than San Diego's.
There's also the risk of Rivers' arm falling off. He threw the ball 63 times in Week 6. That's, not surprisingly, a Chargers record. This desperation didn't even lead to a win. Eventually, this will catch up to him. He's averaging 42 passing attempts per game. He's been remarkably durable during his tenure in San Diego, but he's asking for trouble.
Palmer got his one bad game out of the way against the Steelers and he can now put up Madden numbers with the Ravens traveling West for the fourth time this season. Could the Cardinals get ahead early and lock things down? Yes, but even in that Lions game where Palmer threw for a paltry 11 completions, he hit the end zone three times.
Yards are nice, but touchdowns are king in fantasy. And who has more TDs? That's right, Palmer.
Ken Conrad: If we're worried about Rivers' arm falling off, we should also be concerned with Palmer suffering another knee injury. Rivers also has only two fewer TDs than Palmer, and at the rate he's racking up the pass attempts, I'm not worried about him trailing for too much longer.
Maybe I just love watching Rivers' weird, shot-put throwing motion and the fact that for all the trash-talking he seems to do, he apparently doesn't curse. Regardless, despite all my biases, I still feel that he's not only the safer choice of the two, but also has a higher upside.
Jason Wilson: I don't know about safer. Palmer, outside of one start, has been like clockwork. He's far more efficient, which doesn't always translate to DFS, but when he's low on yards he throws TDs. Palmer is about as safe as you can get at the position.
Two fewer TDs may not seem like much, but that spread is going to be wider after this week. The edge has to go to Palmer, even if Rivers has more upside, because of just how pathetic Baltimore is.