Buffalo Bills - Fantasy News

Who to Start: Tyrod Taylor or Blake Bortles?

by Mike Rose

1/5/18

NFL

Buffalo Bills

Tyrod Taylor

An opening Wild Card weekend playoff matchup will occur at EverBank Field on Sunday afternoon when the Jacksonville Jaguars welcome the Buffalo Bills for the first matchup between these teams since 2016.

The combined playoff drought for these franchises is 28 seasons. The Bills last made it in 1999 while the Jaguars last qualified in 2007. With that in mind, this will be a year of firsts with quarterbacks Tyrod Taylor and Blake Bortles getting their initial tastes of postseason pressure.

Taylor is projected to hit 15.5 Dober Fantasy Points while Bortles is projected one point better at 16.5.

Fantasy Matchup: Tyrod Taylor (15.5 PFP) vs. Blake Bortles (16.5 PFP)

Taylor averaged 14.84 Dober Fantasy Points per game during the regular season, which was just under a point more than Bortles. The Virginia Tech product enters this tilt having played turnover-free football since Week 13. Now he’ll get to face the NFL’s No. 1 defense of the Jaguars that has given up a league-best 169.9 passing yards per game and is No. 2 in points allowed per contest (16.8). The Jags are also the No. 2 team in total yards allowed per game at 286.1, so this is going to be an extremely tall task for Taylor in his first career playoff start.

For the season, Taylor has thrown for 2,799 yards with a respectable 14-to-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He also added 427 yards and four scores on the ground and played to a quarterback rating above 100 five times.

The Jacksonville defense ranked No. 2 during the regular season with 21 interceptions. I don’t see Taylor having one of those 100 passer rating performances on Sunday. This Bills offense, however, did rank No. 6 in total yards per game during the regular season with 365.9 yards gained per contest.

Taylor, the No. 16 quarterback in fantasy during the regular season, passed for half of his 14 touchdowns on the road, so his play away from Buffalo was consistently good. Jacksonville, though, was No. 2 against fantasy quarterbacks giving up only 12.6 points per game to them.

Meanwhile, Bortles had a great season for the Jaguars. He threw for 3,687 yards with a nice 21-to-13 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He completed 60 percent of his passes while finishing with a passer rating of 84.7. There were, however, five games in which he went for a 100-plus passer rating.

He had three consecutive games over that plateau in Weeks 13-15, and he finished the season as the No. 13 fantasy quarterback. He’ll look to carry his team to the next round with a victory over the Bills, whose defense ranks No. 20 in passing yards allowed (230.5) and No. 18 in points allowed (22.4) per game.

Despite both quarterbacks not having any playoff experience, all signs point to Bortles and the Jaguars coming out victorious in this AFC Wild Card matchup. The difference maker? Jacksonville’s defense. Or, as many like to call it, #Sacksonville. The quarterbacks could struggle, but I’m going with Bortles to be the better option over Taylor on my Dober Play Card.

Wild Card Playoff Fantasy Matchup: Blake Bortles (-1) vs. Tyrod Taylor