Colts @ Giants Week 17 Game Preview
The Giants should comfortably take care of business with a win and cover against the spread while facing the struggling Colts in New York.
Colts at Giants
This game is going to put the difference that quality coaching can make on full display. The Giants have overachieved this year due to the coaching performance of Brian Daboll and his staff in spite of their mediocre roster. The Colts, on the other hand, appointed the least experienced HC in modern NFL history to finish out the season and have suffered as a result, most notably by being outscored 90-9 in the fourth quarter since Jeff Saturday took over.
In a sign that the Colts have no interest in winning this game, they are sticking with Nick Foles at QB despite his 143 passing yards and 3 interceptions on Monday Night Football. This kills the fantasy value of the entire offense and makes it very difficult to start anyone on this team. Michael Pittman is still a WR3 in the Fantasy Life consensus ranks, but it is difficult to see any real ceiling for him so I hope you have another option to turn to.
The backfield appears to be all Zack Moss, as he has handled 65% and 90% of the RB carries over the past two weeks. The one player Foles did show some chemistry with last week was rookie TE Jelani Woods, who is a fun DFS play but probably shouldn’t come anywhere near your lineup in a season-long championship week.
The Giants’ offense continues to be better than the sum of its parts and has turned the likes of Richie James and Darius Slayton into viable fantasy options in recent weeks. There shouldn’t be too many teams relying on Giants’ WRs in their fantasy championship, but there will be plenty looking for a big game from Saquon Barkley. The good news is that he gets a Colts defense that ranks 24th against opposing RBs and projects among the best matchups at the position. His current pick’em line on Underdog Fantasy is 95.5 rushing + receiving yards, but we have Saquon projected for 113 rushing + receiving yards so that looks like a nice value as long as that line holds.
At the time of writing, the Giants are 6 point favorites and I think that might not be enough. The Colts rarely looked like a threat to score last week and have nothing but their draft slot riding on the last two weeks of the season. New York is in a good position to secure a playoff spot and can do so with a win here. Add in home field advantage and all signs point to the Giants taking care of business rather comfortably.