Fantasy Football Week 15 Lineup Strategy: Steve Smith should feast on Eagles

Looking for a wide receiver with a promising matchup for Week 15? There are two that should have fantastic matchups in the Eagles-Ravens game.

Week 15 Rankings: Standard | PPR

We talk about matchups in Fantasy Football a lot, but too often we look at it on the macro level. We think if a team is good or bad against the pass then that affects all receivers the same.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

Thankfully, our friends at ProFootballFocus provide data on the coverage skills of individual players, which gives us a much more reliable starting point. Each week in this column I'll focus on some of my favorite matchups for wide receivers, and at least one matchup you should try to avoid.

I look at PFF's individual coverage grades. This helps sort out some of the noise and give us an idea of how each cornerback has performed, where they generally line up and who they'll cover most often.

I've included the PFF grade of each corner we're targeting this week. This grade is on a scale of 0 to 100, making it easily digestible.

Steve Smith vs. Leodis McKelvin (PFF Grade: 68.7)

Smith's recent struggles (12 Fantasy points in his past three games combined) directly correlate to his move outside. The Ravens are playing Kamar Aiken more in the slot, and that's matched Smith up with better corners on the outside. Lucky for Smith, the Eagles don't have good corners on the outside and he should bounce back nicely.

For the most part Smith should line up across from Leodis McKelvin, the Eagles' best outside corner. McKelvin is giving up more than 11 yards per attempt on the season and opposing quarterbacks have a sparkling 122.5 QB rating when targeting him. Smith will have his way with McKelvin, and as an added bonus he'll face an even worse corner when he lines up on the other side of the field.

Willie Snead vs. Justin Bethel (PFF Grade: 39.8)

Unlike Smith, Willie Snead is still staying inside for the most part and that is a great place to be against this Cardinals defense. It has been bad against slot receivers since Tyrann Mathieu went out and it suffered two more devastating injuries in Week 14. When asked about slot corner Justin Bethel's season, Bruce Arians wasn't exactly encouraging.

Arians, asked if CB Justin Bethel was a work-in-progress: "Failure in progress."

— Darren Urban (@Cardschatter) December 12, 2016

It does sound like there's a small chance that Mathieu returns this week, and if that's the case, you would have to get off of Snead. As it is, he's a borderline No. 2 against the Cardinals this week. The Saints will not be able to run the ball, and we still don't know if they'll have Michael Thomas back.

Jordan Matthews vs. Shareece Wright (PFF Grade: 68.3)

So, Doug Pederson did it again. He commented last week how Matthews was better in the slot and then played him almost exclusively outside. Normally that would be a problem against the Ravens, but with Jimmy Smith likely out, Matthews should see a heavy dose of Shareece Wright.

Wright rightly lost his job earlier this year because he's been one of the worst corners in football. He's tied for the fourth worst yards per cover snap (1.71) and has give up a league-worst six touchdowns despite not playing at all from Week 6-11.

One to avoid

Kelvin Benjamin vs. Josh Norman (PFF Grade: 82.4)

Listen, Kelvin Benjamin hasn't been good against bad corners this season. Now he has to go on the road to face one of the best corners in football in a revenge game. You're starting almost any WR with a pulse over Benjamin.