Wild Card NFL Combo Plays

With only eight teams playing in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, DFS owners will need to take some extra risks with their roster construction in order to win GPPs. Here are the top combo plays to target in the first weekend of the 2015 NFL Playoffs:

Brian Hoyer and DeAndre Hopkins, Texans (vs. Chiefs)

The Chiefs allow an average of 9.4 targets per game to No. 1 wide receivers, according to Football Outsiders, with only five teams having allowed more. Hopkins received nine or more targets in 14 of his 16 games this season.

Here are Hopkins' numbers in those weeks:

Hoyer only played seven full and four part weeks, due to a combination of injuries and early-season struggles. He totaled 19 touchdowns on the season, with seven multi-touchdown weeks. Hopkins had three weeks with two touchdowns though Hoyer appeared in just two of those.

Here are the touchdown totals for each player in the games they appeared in together:

The biggest takeaway here is that Hoyer wasn't necessarily tied to Hopkins for success. Over half of his touchdowns came in games in which Hopkins failed to find the end zone. Of the Texans' 18 non-Hopkins receiving touchdowns, 14 came in games started by Hoyer.

Hopkins will be Hoyer's principal target, and he has the skills to exploit the Chiefs' unimpressive secondary. Should Hopkins falter, Hoyer should salvage an adequate day using his myriad of lackluster supporting pass-catchers.

Kirk Cousins and DeSean Jackson, Redskins (vs. Packers)

Few receivers are as revered as Jackson for their big-play ability. Though he was limited to just 10 games this season, he made eight receptions of at least 25 yards. Here are how many of such plays he's made in each year of his career (BPs = Big Plays):

Only two teams allowed more receiving plays of at least 40 yards than the Packers in 2015, even with only four teams allowing fewer plays of 20 yards or more. Jackson has made at least one catch of 22 yards or more in seven of the eight games in which he caught at least one pass.

Cousins has done his part as well, registering completions of at least 20 yards in every game, and surpassing 40 yards on six occasions. He finished the regular season with 11 touchdowns and no interceptions over his final three games. He hasn't thrown multiple interceptions in a game since Week 6.

Per Football Outsiders, the Packers' DVOA of 7.5% against No. 1 receivers ranks 22nd in the league, third worst among Wild Card teams.

AJ McCarron and A.J. Green, Bengals (vs. Steelers)

With McCarron declared the likely Wild Card starter by head coach Marvin Lewis, he'll form an even more contrarian tandem with Green in a game where the public is strongly siding with the visiting Steelers. Here are McCarron's numbers in four games - three starts - since replacing Andy Dalton:

With Dalton leaving early in the fourth-last game of the season against the Steelers, McCarron was the quarterback for approximately 25% of Green's season. Here's the breakdown of Green's 2015 stats:

With McCarron playing nearly a quarter of Green's season, it would be expected that 25% of his stats for the season would've come in the final four games. That's not the case, with Green's stats dropping as far as 7.6% below expectation with McCarron at the helm. The biggest difference, however, is that 30% of his touchdowns came in the final quadrant of the season.

The obvious reason for this is that TE Tyler Eifert also got hurt in the game against the Steelers, and only returned for the season finale against the Baltimore Ravens. Both Green and Eifert scored once in Week 17.

Still, three of McCarron's six touchdown passes went to Green; one went to Eifert, one to RB Rex Burkhead and one to TE Tyler Kroft. Green led the Bengals in receiving yards in three of the four games McCarron played.

Like most "rookie" quarterbacks before him, McCarron sticks to the hits, and Green and Eifert will lead the way in a high-scoring game against the Steelers.