Alfred Morris Will Be Fantasy Monster vs. Giants on Thursday Night Football

After an inconsistent start to the 2014 season, Washington running back Alfred Morris is poised to be a fantasy owner's dream on Thursday night against the New York Giants. 

Even though the NFL won't admit it because ratings and money speak louder than anything, playing games on Thursday has hurt the product. This will be the fourth Thursday night game of the season, third with teams playing on a short week and the results from the last two have been horrible. 

The combined scores in the last two games, featuring Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore and Tampa Bay vs. Atlanta, has been 82-20. Home teams are destroying the opposition thus far, so why should we think Week 4 will be any different?

All of this is a way of saying that Washington is going to win this game, put up a lot of yards and remind New York fans why the Giants started the season 0-2. 

There have been a lot of problems for the Giants this season. They still turn the ball over too much—seven times in three games—and are allowing 364.6 yards per game. 

Morris hasn't exploded on the fantasy scene so far this year. He did have a 20-point game, per ESPN standard scoring, two weeks ago, but that was against Jacksonville. Anyone who has a good fantasy week against the Jaguars will be marked with an asterisk because it's not a notable achievement. 

In Washington's two games sandwiched around the Jaguars, Morris has totaled 16 points with 168 rushing yards and no touchdowns. More alarming is his yards-per-carry total has gone down each week, from 6.5 in Week 1 to 3.3 against Philadelphia last week. He also had a fumble last week that was recovered by Pierre Garcon. 

Grant Paulsen of 105.7 The Fan pointed out that fumbles have been a problem for Morris throughout his career:

Now that you are good and depressed about Morris' performance so far in 2014, we are going to build him back up to tell you why he's going to be a star this week. 

In addition to the Giants' issues giving the ball up and allowing a lot of yards, Morris has always had success against them. He's recorded 390 total yards in four career games against New York, including two 100-yard rushing games as a rookie in 2012. 

That's a key point to make because last year the Giants gave Morris problems. He racked up 88 rushing yards in two games against them in 2013, but that was when nothing was working for Washington on offense. Robert Griffin III couldn't do anything right and was clashing with Mike Shanahan. 

Right now, things are looking up for Washington's offense. Kirk Cousins has led the team to 75 points in the last two games. Jay Gruden is a coach who likes to use the running game, though last week was an anomaly because they needed to use the pass in the fourth quarter to get back in the game. 

Cliff McBride/Getty Images

Look at Gruden's history as an offensive coordinator. In three years with the Cincinnati Bengals, his offense ran the ball between 430-481 times. That hasn't gone away, as the team is sixth with 93 carries through three games. 

Morris has 59 of those carries and will continue to be a focal point of the offense moving forward. He's going to have opportunities to break big plays because he's got Trent Williams, who was the 15th-best player last year by Pro Football Focus metrics, blocking Jason Pierre-Paul in the trenches. 

When Cousins is able to open up the offense by burning New York's depleted secondary early, Tom Coughlin will have to drop more people back into coverage, opening up even more holes on the line for Morris to break through and attack the second level. 

All of this adds up to Morris breaking the 100-yard barrier for the first time in 2014 and adding at least one touchdown. Fantasy owners are going to be very happy with the production they get from the third-year back in Week 4. 

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