The Week 13 matchup between the St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals features two strong defenses facing off while only one team has a good offense. We’ve got the fantasy projections courtesy of numberFire.
Fantasy football projections, Week 13: Cardinals-Rams featuring Carson Palmer, Larry Fitzgerald and Todd Gurley
We break down the Week 13 matchup between the St. Louis Rams and the Arizona Cardinals.
St. Louis Rams
It’s been quite a season for running back Todd Gurley, even though he started the year on the sidelines thanks to injury. Unfortunately for his fantasy owners, Gurley finally had a disappointing effort under his belt. It was bound to happen given how fantastic he’s been all year. The Cincinnati Bengals held him to just 19 yards on nine carries last week and he was held out of the end zone. If there is one reason to feel alarmed about Gurley, it’s that he hasn’t crossed the 100-yard plateau since Week 8. That’s probably more a product of opposing defenses stacking the box than anything Gurley is doing wrong. It may actually be wise to sit him against the Cardinals since reaching his projected totals will prove challenging.
That’s especially true if the Cardinals happen to get out to an early lead. A blowout scenario won’t be good for Gurley’s owners, but it may benefit anybody that owns Tavon Austin. Although Austin is talented, there really isn’t a receiver in St. Louis worth owning unless you are in an incredibly deep league. That said, he’s got quickness and speed that few receivers in the league possess, so if you were to take a chance on a Rams receiver, it would be Austin.
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals have officially righted the ship. The team has won five straight games, and although Carson Palmer was held without a touchdown pass for the first time all season last week against the San Francisco 49ers, he still managed to throw for 271 yards and didn’t turn the ball over. His ability to take care of the football is what allowed him to still deliver fantasy points despite not finding the end zone via the passing game. St. Louis has a good defense and everyone knows that, but there’s no way it keeps Palmer’s passes out of the end zone for the second week in a row. He’s been one of the best quarterbacks in the league this season.
Hopefully that bodes well for wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald hasn’t scored a touchdown since Week 8, but he continues to be a highly targeted PPR machine. Fitzgerald has been targeted 111 times this season and 52 of those targets have come just in the last four games. Last week Palmer threw his way 14 times and Fitzgerald corralled 10 passes for 66 yards. That kind of volume puts the veteran receiver among the league’s elite, a territory he hasn’t seen in a number of years until now.
