Bold Predictions For Week 6 Fantasy Football: Kirk Cousins Poised For A Big Bounceback

The bye weeks aren’t slowing down, and in Week 6, there are a ton of elite fantasy options out of action. Our bold predictions for Week 6 article tends to highlight some more under-the-radar names to consider for instances just like this.

Fantasy Football Bold Predictions For Week 6

Kirk Cousins Throws For 400 Yards and 3 TDs

After a scorching start to the season, Cousins came back down to Earth in Week 5, throwing for 243 yards and one touchdown. It was a bad game for the Raiders offense as a unit, but a bounceback is in store this week.

The Raiders return home to host a tired, struggling Buffalo Bills pass defense that just surrendered nearly 400 yards and three touchdowns to Matthew Stafford. On the season, the Bills are now coughing up 22.8 fantasy points per game to opposing signal callers, the fourth-most in football. Buffalo’s pass rush has improved this season, but if Greg Rousseau or Deone Walker don’t generate pressure, this team gets torched through the air. When the quarterback is not pressured, the Bills are bleeding production:

77% CMP (3rd-worst)
7.9 yards/attempt (8th-worst)
7.4% TD rate (5th-worst)
15.7 passing FPPG (4th-most)

Overall, the Bills are now allowing the league’s fifth-highest explosive pass play rate (16.4%) and fifth-highest EPA/dropback (0.226). We’ll see if the Raiders' run game can get going here, which will help Cousins continue thriving off play-action. But regardless, the Bills are going to put up points in this game, forcing Cousins to drop back to pass 40-plus times potentially. With Buffalo’s linebackers and corners looking lost in zone coverage, Cousins should be able to pick this secondary apart, while volume should allow him to flirt with 400 passing yards.

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Carnell Tate Bounces Back With 100 Yards and a TD

Tate has had an up-and-down start to his rookie season, which comes with the territory of being a wide receiver on the worst offense in the NFL. Still, the underlying metrics are encouraging, as Tate is sporting a healthy 26% target share, while accounting for 46% of Tennessee’s air yards, the fifth-highest rate in the NFL. Even in the league’s worst offense, Tate is capable of making explosive plays, especially against a Colts pass defense that has been surrendering a ton of them through the first five weeks of the season.

Indianapolis is allowing 8.7 air yards per target to pass-catchers this year (7th-worst) to go along with a 15.2% explosive play rate through the air (10th-worst). And that’s despite deploying Cover-3 at the highest rate in the NFL, a coverage shell Tate is averaging a strong 2.21 YPRR against so far this season. While the Colts have been more susceptible to slot receivers (Tate has operated from the slot just 26% of the time), I do think he can do some damage in this matchup.

MarShawn Lloyd Finishes As A Top-24 RB Again

Admittedly, I’m still a bit hesitant to fully buy into Lloyd. Green Bay will still use multiple running backs, while the overall run game has been arguably the league’s worst for weeks. Lloyd is far from a sure thing. The Dallas Cowboys defense, however, is a guarantee.

Guaranteed to be among the league’s worst, that is.

After giving up 175 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns to Bucky Irving last Thursday, Dallas is now surrendering the 12th-most fantasy points and fourth-most rushing touchdowns per game to opposing backfields. The Cowboys have stuffed just 16.3% of runs at or behind the line of scrimmage, the fourth-lowest rate in the league, while their 10.9% explosive rush rate allowed is the fourth-highest. Lloyd may have only averaged 3.1 YPC last week, but he looked much better than the numbers suggest. With Chris Brooks sidelined, Green Bay still used two running backs, but Lloyd barely outsnapped Pierre Strong, while out-touching him, 11-8. Kaleb Johnson, meanwhile, saw all nine of his snaps and all seven carries in the fourth quarter of a blowout.

Lloyd should be able to flirt with 15 touches in this game, which is enough to warrant FLEX consideration in a matchup and game environment this favorable. With Jahmyr Gibbs, Chase Brown, Aaron Jones and Ollie Gordon on bye, Lloyd is a very viable replacement option this week.