The Saints are hosting 1-11 Carolina, but it’s hard to get excited about their offense.
They’ve got some key injuries, and they’ve been underwhelming anyway, with only 24 touchdowns in 12 games. That’s 2 per week, and they’ve exceeded that total in only a third of their games. The Panthers, meanwhile, are better than some of the numbers suggest. They’re next-to-last in scoring, but they’ve held half of their opponents to 2 or fewer offensive touchdowns. The money line for the game suggests the betting public believes just 2 TDs is more likely than a move up to 3 (the Saints are favored by 5, but with an over-under of only 37.5 points).
Derek Carr has suffered concussions in two of his last three games, making it wildly unlikely that he’s active on Sunday (he’s probably more likely than not to also miss the Week 15 game). It will be some combination of Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill. Winston probably will be the starter, but with his tendency to dish up interceptions, sacks, and fumbles, Hill may wind up logging a big portion of the work.
When Carr missed 25 plays on Sunday, Winston was on the field for only 9 of them. And against this opponent, it makes a lot of sense to emphasize the ground game. Carolina ranks 2nd in pass defense but has a bottom-10 run defense. Despite that 1-11 record, the Panthers are allowing only 192 passing yards per week, and with only 14 TD passes. This is a good pass defense. Dak Prescott is white hot right now; his only recent down game was against these guys (204 yards and 2 TDs). Similarly, C.J. Stroud will be the Rookie of the Year, but he passed for only 140 yards against this defense.
The Saints definitely want to give Winston too many chances to undermine the offense by trying to do too much. Better to emphasize the ground game, with Hill probably lining up plenty as a gadget quarterback. Probably south of 190 yards and a touchdown for Winston. And it should be a busier than usual game for Hill. Thus far he’s averaging 29 rushing, 6 passing and 19 receiving yards, with a combined 6 TDs. He’s run for more than 50 yards in a third of his games, and probably another one of those weeks coming up.
For Alvin Kamara, he looks a lot better than usual as a runner, and a lot worse than usual as a pass catcher. He’s averaging 6.6 receptions per game, consistently grabbing dump-off balls, but this isn’t one of those kind of weeks. Not with Winston and Hill handling quarterback. This is a week for the ground game, with Carolina struggling against the run all year. It’s allowing 125 rushing yards per week, and with a league-high 20 rushing touchdowns. They’ve allowed 6 more touchdowns rushing than passing, with multiple rushing touchdowns in two-thirds of their games.
A week ago, we would have fretted that Hill was the team’s primary goal-line runner, but Kamara scored 2 of the team’s 3 rushing touchdowns on Sunday. As an older back running behind a diminished line, Kamara isn’t having a great year. He’s averaging only 3.8 per attempt and 56 rushing yards per game, reaching 70 rushing yards only once. But he’s got a good chance of hitting that mark on Sunday, as well as getting in the end zone.
With a more run-oriented approach probably on the docket, we’re slotting the wide receivers lower than usual. Chris Olave at least is in top form. He’s averaged 6 catches for 92 yards in his last four games, with 2 TDs. But unlikely they give him the green light for that kind of game. A.T. Perry probably will be the other starter, with Rashid Shaheed (quad) not practicing at all last week. Perry has operated as a starter the last two weeks and has caught only 1 pass in both of those games. As Michael Thomas pointed out on social media, however, Perry was wide open for what might have been a catch of 40-plus yards early in last week’s game, with Derek Carr instead throwing a short pass that was intercepted. If Jameis Winston is at quarterback and gunning away, we would have interest in Perry (or a healthy Shaheed) but that’s probably not going to happen.
Juwan Johnson should be the main tight end, but he doesn’t look relevant this week. He’s caught 9 passes for 74 yards and a touchdown in two recent games, but he’s caught only 2 passes for 7 yards in his last three other games. He let a ball bounce off his hands for a tone-setting interception early against Detroit.
With the Panthers being 1-11, you would think they’d be an ideal opponent to line up a kicker against. But they’ve instead allowed an average of only 6.9 points against the position. Too many touchdowns and not enough field goals. So we’ll put a modest grade on Blake Grupe. He’s been an above-average kicker, averaging 7.9 points, but this is kind of different team now anyway, with the quarterbacking change.
The Saints Defense lands a plum matchup, with Bryce Young struggling to learn the ropes while surrounded by a lesser supporting cast. He's taken 44 sacks, with 9 interceptions, 4 lost fumbles, and 4 of those turnovers returned for touchdowns. There’s been no improvement, with Young sacked at least 4 times in six of his last seven games. But the Saints have an older, slower defense that might not be able to take advantage. They’re playing without their best corner, Marshon Lattimore, and they rank next-to-last with only 19 sacks all year.
This report is just a small snippet of the Week 14 edition of Fantasy Index Weekly, part of the In-Season Analyst package. The newsletter includes our player rankings and 20-plus pages of matchup previews, plus stat projections and custom rankings for the games being played this weekend.
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