DFS: Debate Team: Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Each week, two of theScore's DFS experts weigh in on a contentious daily fantasy topic. This week: which team will provide the most DFS value in Week 12?
Andrew Potter: It's the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against the Indianapolis Colts. It all starts with Jameis Winston, who has overcome a very slow start to his career to look like a true franchise QB. His price has remained similar to his Week 1 salary and in some cases, it's even dropped a bit.
His emergence as a passer does wonders for WRs Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson, while keeping defenses from stacking the box against RB Doug Martin. The Colts have the fifth-worst pass defense and the 12th-worst run defense; this could be another big game for Winston.
Esten McLaren: Winston has been impressive of late, but he got away with a goal-line fumble that got called back due to a Dallas Cowboys penalty in Week 10. Had the fumble stood, public opinion on Winston would be very different right now. As it stands, they won the game by a ridiculous final score of 10-6. Hardly impressive.
Yes, the Colts defense is an atrocity - but it isn't the charity the San Diego defense has been. The Chargers have given up 282 points this season; only New Orleans (315) has surrendered more. The Chargers defense ranks second-last in pass yards and rush yards allowed per attempt, and their 12 rushing touchdowns allowed ranks them 31st in that category.
RB T.J. Yeldon has been running the ball well, and his breakout is coming as he has only one rushing TD on the season. The receiving duo of Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson had combined for 10 touchdowns in six games prior to the Week 11 Thursday night game. The Jaguars have plenty of tools, and the Chargers don't have the personnel to stop either facet of that offense.
Andrew Potter: The name I'm not hearing yet is Blake Bortles. The man has nine interceptions in his last six games and somehow his completion rate has fallen from 58.9% in his rookie campaign to 56.5% this year. Former Jaguar Byron Leftwich's career completion rate was 57.9%.
I'll admit that the Chargers' defense smells like something died. That said, they have some experience with inconsistent second-year QBs this season: They held Teddy Bridgewater to just 121 yards and a pick in Week 3 but surrendered 289 yards and three TDs to Derek Carr in Week 7. The Chargers' defense is capable of making Bortles' life difficult.
The biggest difference between how the Jaguars run their offense and how the Bucs run their's is that Tampa Bay can run the ball. The Bucs are second in the league with 142.2 yards rushing per game, which makes it a lot harder for the Colts to game-plan for one aspect of the Tampa Bay offense. From a value perspective, there are simply more options to choose from.
Esten McLaren: Bortles is known for giving the ball away, but that's a risk I'll take against a Chargers team that simply can't take it away. Their nine total takeaways this season is fewer than all but two teams, and only four teams have fewer than San Diego's five interceptions.
In terms of value, Robinson and Hurns are both cheaper than Winston's No. 1 option of Mike Evans across most DFS platforms. While Jackson is the cheapest of the four options, he has had more than four receptions and more than 60 receiving yards only once. He has just three touchdowns on the season, with zero multi-touchdown games.
While Winston has four rushing touchdowns to Bortles' zero, Bortles has rushed for 94 more yards on three fewer attempts. Winston's luck will run out, and the safe bet is that it happens in Week 12.
Andrew Potter: These teams are so close, so I'm giving the tie-breaker to bigger philosophical questions. The Bucs are a team that know who they are because other than one improbable Super Bowl win, they've been shades of awful for the past 40 years. They're building, slowly but surely, to relevance.
By the sheer mediocrity of the AFC South, the Jaguars sit just one game back from the Colts and Texans for the division. They've been convincing themselves "why not us?" while they rack up wins against the rudderless Ravens and forgettable Titans. It feels that, like Icarus, Bortles and the Jags are flying a little too close to the sun.
This feels like a big hubris game, where the Jaguars are reminded that they are eternally a snake-bitten franchise, being upset by the Chargers at home.
Esten McLaren: Yes, the Jags have gotten to where they are by picking on horrible divisional opponents, but the fact of the matter is the Chargers are the worst of all these opponents in many ways. To cap it off, they're yet to win on the road.
Las Vegas has the Jags as a four-point favorite and the Bucs as a three-point underdog for a reason - the opponent is weaker, and the matchup and the offense are better.
Winston has thrown just nine interceptions this season compared to the 18 he threw in his final year at Florida State. You were right about something smelling odd earlier. I think those crab legs have been out in the Florida sun a little too long.