Baltimore Ravens - Fantasy News

Who to Start: Tom Savage or Joe Flacco?

by Mike Rose

11/22/17

NFL

Baltimore Ravens

A matchup of two subpar teams is set to occur inside of M&T Bank Stadium this week when the Baltimore Ravens welcome the Houston Texans on Monday Night Football for the first time since the two teams hooked up back in 2014 at Houston.

In that contest, the Texans logged a rare win as the Ravens lead the all-time series 7-2. Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco underachieved in that contest, while Tom Savage wasn’t on the Houston roster at the time. The encounter this week, though, could be interesting with both teams going through rough 2017 campaigns.

Fantasy Matchup: Tom Savage (6.0 PFP) vs. Joe Flacco (10.5 PFP)

There’s no question that Savage shouldn’t be under center for Houston. But due to the unfortunate ACL tear that caused Deshaun Watson to miss the remainder of the season, Savage has been thrust back into a starting role.

He’s averaged 5.52 Dober Fantasy Points per game in limited action this season, which is about 3.0 points less than Flacco. So it’s no surprise that he enters this matchup as a 4.5-point underdog.

In four games, Savage has completed just 52.8 percent of his passes for 732 yards and four touchdowns against three interceptions. He hasn’t managed to play to a quarterback rating of 100 yet and now has to face the league’s No. 2 ranked pass defense that’s conceding just 215.1 yards and 11.8 fantasy points per game to opposing quarterbacks. On top of that, Baltimore’s defense has forced 16 turnovers via the interception.

Savage has been at his best at home where he’s only thrown one interception compared to two on the road while guiding the No. 17 passing attack in the NFL. He is the No. 41 ranked quarterback in fantasy football, though four games is a rather small sample size.

Meanwhile, Flacco has completed 209 of 319 passes for 1,734 yards with nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions. It’s been a struggle for the No. 30 ranked fantasy quarterback, who has averaged just 8.66 Dober Fantasy Points per game.

Despite a rough season for the former Super Bowl XLVII champ, he’ll be going up against the league’s worst pass defense in this one. The Texans have given up better than 285 passing yards per game and 214.8 total fantasy points (21.5 per contest) to opposing quarterbacks. Expect some fantasy goodness from Flacco under the Monday Night Football lights.

While the No. 32 passing attack of the Ravens will be going up against the No. 32 passing defense of the Texans, the rushing attacks still might end up being the difference in this game. Baltimore has the No. 13 run game while Houston checks in at No. 6.

This is a rare MNF game in which I don’t have much interest, and I probably won’t waste my time watching as both teams are going nowhere this season. I won’t be picking either one of these guys for my Dober Play Card, but if you need one of them on yours, go with Flacco. Savage stinks!

Week 12 Fantasy Projection: Joe Flacco (-4.5) vs. Tom Savage