Bills vs. Cardinals Fantasy Football Outlook
By Dennis Moody
Arizona Wide Receivers and Tight Ends
On the other side of the ball, the Bills have a huge matchup problem with Larry Fitzgerald. The ageless future Hall of Famer is on pace for 1,264 yards with 24 touchdowns after two weeks. The issue the Bills will have with him is that he no longer lines up on the outside, he plays from the slot and he does it well. According to Chris Wesseling of NFL.com, he’s the top slot receiver in the league.
Fitzgerald is 6’3″ and a powerful receiver. The Bills nickel corner, Nickell Robey-Coleman is the smallest and lightest player on the team at 5’8″ and 165 pounds according to the team’s website. He will not be able to compete with Fitzgerald. Instead, the Bills should have Stephon Gilmore shadow Fitzgerald, even when he is in the slot. Gilmore is 6’1″ and 190 pounds. He is much more suited to handle the responsibility of staying with Fitzgerald.
Robey-Coleman can play man against the speedy John Brown who at 5’11” and 179 pounds is a much better matchup for him. That leaves Ronald Darby to deal with Michael Floyd and Jaron Brown who are 6’3″ and 6’2″ respectively. It’s not all about height and size when matching up defensive personnel but in this game the Bills should strongly consider it.
The Cardinals don’t utilize their tight ends enough in the passing game because their receivers are talented. There is no reason to start one of their tight ends in your fantasy leagues.
As you can see the Bills are going to have issues matching up against the Cardinals receivers and just like the against the Jets last week many of the Cardinals receivers could end up with 100 plus yards. It’s up to Stephon Gilmore and Ronald Darby to step it up this week to prevent that from happening.
You can find my predictions for the quarterbacks on the next slide.