Falcons vs. Rams Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 17

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 17 matchup between the Falcons and Rams on Monday Night Football.

Find a breakdown of every Week 17 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Matthew Stafford (TRUST): There is a chance that by the time this game kicks off, the Rams will be unable to be the No. 1 seed in the NFC or win the NFC West (if both the Seahawks and 49ers win), but I do not believe that will impact the way this game is played.

Sean McVay typically will rest players in Week 18, but Stafford is still pushing for an MVP that he can add on to here.

Stafford should be in a good spot to add significant numbers to his totals and is a front-end QB1.

Over their past eight games, the Falcons have allowed a 63.4% completion rate (19th), 7.7 yards per pass attempt (24th), and a 4.8% touchdown rate (17th).

Atlanta has run Cover 3 on 47% of their snaps, the second-highest rate in the league.

Stafford has torched those looks, completing 72.5% of his passes (7th) for 8.9 yards per pass attempt (8th), and a 4.9% touchdown rate (3rd).

The Falcons blitz at the second-highest rate in the league (35.5%).

Blitzing Stafford has been a terrible idea this season.

Stafford has a league-high 17.2% touchdown rate (not a typo) when blitzed. The league average is 7%.

Stafford has thrown 27 touchdowns to 0 interceptions when blitzed this season.

To top it all off, the Falcons have been sensitive to play-action passing.

Atlanta has allowed a 6.8% touchdown rate on play-action passes (28th).

Stafford leads the league in play-action rate (36.8%), posting a 9.4% touchdown rate (3rd) on those dropbacks.

Kirk Cousins: Cousins followed up his spike week in Week 15 (26.9 points) with a QB14 (17.6 points) week on Sunday against Arizona.

Atlanta has been more comfortable letting Cousins throw the ball, as he has attempted 35.5 passes per game over his past four games with a low of 30.

The passing game should be active here with the Falcons likely to be chasing points.

The Rams face 35.7 pass attempts per game, the sixth-most in the league.

If using Cousins as volume-based QB2 or playing him in single-game DFS, the Rams have allowed four consecutive QB1 scorers to Bryce Young (22.5 points), Jacoby Brissett (19 points), Jared Goff (25.5 points), and Sam Darnold (19.5 points).

All of those passers had uneven production, but each threw multiple touchdown passes.

Running Back

Bijan Robinson: Robinson cashed in a great matchup Sunday against Arizona, producing 168 total yards and a touchdown on 23 touches.

He rushed 16 times for 76 yards, catching 7 of 11 targets for 92 yards and a touchdown.

He comes into Week 17 leading the NFL in yards from scrimmage (2,026).

If it were not for Tyler Allgeier snaking a handful of short-yardage touchdowns, we would be talking about Robinson as the clear RB1 this season.

Robinson is a front-end RB1.

The Rams have been an excellent defense against running backs this season, allowing 3.9 yards per carry (7th) and 10.2 rushing points per game to backfields (3rd).

They are 21st in receiving points allowed per game (9.3), however.

They just allowed the Seattle backs to have 86 receiving yards.

Carolina backs had 62 yards and a touchdown receiving against them in Week 13.

Robinson has double-digit targets in back-to-back games.

The Rams have faced Christian McCaffrey twice and Jahmyr Gibbs, the closest comparable players to Robinson.

They stymied Gibbs to 58 yards on 17 touches, holding him to 38 yards rushing (2.9 YPC).

McCaffrey only rushed 2.5 YPC and 2.6 YPC in his two games versus the Rams, but did his damage in the passing game, posting receiving lines of 8-82-1 and 8-66-0.

Rams RBs: Kyren Williams played 70.7% of the snaps on Thursday, his highest rate in a game since Week 6.

He ended up with a season-high 26 touches but for only 85 yards.

Blake Corum had 15 touches for 61 yards and managed to get into the end zone to bolster his night.

Williams has still outtouched Corum in every game, but Corum’s involvement has been a nuisance for gamers looking to tap into the ceiling runout for Williams.

Corum has a rushing touchdown in four consecutive games, which has allowed him to finish as an RB2 or better in all four weeks.

If we had a “Rams RB1” in this offense on the level as previous seasons, that player would be smashing, but both backs have been viable options for gamers due to the success of this offense.

This is a tremendous spot for this backfield, keeping Williams as a volume-based RB2 and Corum as an efficiency and touchdown-based RB3/FLEX.

A lot has been made about the heavy personnel that the Rams have utilized.

They have been in 13 personnel for 59.7%, 62.3%, and 61.4% of their snaps over the past three games.

That is a problem for this light Atlanta defensive front.

Atlanta has played a three-man front on 61.8% of running back runs, the second-highest rate in the league.

The Falcons have allowed 4.9 YPC to running backs this season with multiple tight ends on the field, 29th in the league.

The Rams also run a lot of man/gap runs out of their heavy personnel.

Williams leads the league with 48.3% of his runs out of man/gap.

Corum is third at 40.5%.

Against man concept runs with multiple tight ends on the field, the Falcons allow a league-high 5.7 YPC.

Wide Receiver

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