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General thoughts
This week the byes are hitting us a bit harder with four teams on bye as well as the Jaguars and Texans playing the early Sunday morning game in London which takes them off the main slate. Not only is it six teams missing from the slate but it includes a lot of big names that have been staples in our lineups during the first half of the year. Guys like Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, Deshaun Watson, Leonard Fournette, Alvin Kamara, Tyler Boyd, Jared Goff, Cooper Kupp, Todd Gurley, Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, and all pass catchers playing the Falcons. Even Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, the Patriots Defense, and the tight end going against the Cardinals defense are on the showdown slates.
With a lot of our consistent scorers out this week, I think it could be a great week to play GPPs and to go a bit contrarian instead of paying up in terms of salary and ownership for players that are a bit less proven and maybe not in the most ideal place. As such I think this could be a great week for our Footballguys subscribers as you will be armed with great GPP coverage from our staff, great point projections, and the most accurate ownership projections in the industry!
If you are playing GPPs this week I want to make sure that you are paying attention to how much of the prize pool is going to first place. As the season goes on the sites across the industry are hesitant to decrease how much they are awarding to first place finishers but will continue to shrink the overall prizes for the contest because if they didn’t they might not fill which causes the sites to make less money. When looking at contests we should want to see about 10% of the prize pool going to first place. That has become less and less frequent in today’s DFS environment so you may not find many of those. If you do that would be one of the first contests to join. If the percentage to first starts getting much over 20% I would recommend avoiding that contest. It would be nice to be able to win a lot of money winning first place. But most weeks you won’t win first place. In fact, you could be a really great player and go a lifetime without winning first as you are competing against so many players. By playing a tournament with less going to first you will give yourself a chance to continue to fight for that big payout since you will win more on weeks you don’t win it all.
How to play the chalk
One of the biggest decisions each week is how to handle the chalk on the slate. The chalkiest players are typically the ‘best’ plays on the slate if you are trying to maximize your total points produced. However, if you are looking to win a big tournament you can gain a lot of ground on your competition if you choose a player that outperforms there. If that player is in a lot of lineups you can pass a lot at one time. Balancing scoring the most points and playing against your competition is the toughest part of DFS. In this section, we talk about how to handle the toughest decision of the week. What to do with the chalk:
QB
The name everyone is going to want to click on first, second, and third this week at quarterback is Russell Wilson. Wilson is not only the biggest name on the slate as he tries to make a run at the league MVP. But he also gets the best matchup on the slate going against the Buccaneers. Through 7 games the Buccaneers have allowed the third-highest points per game and have allowed slate breaking games to Daniel Jones, Jared Goff, as well as multi-touchdown games to lowly Ryan Tannehill and Kyle Allen the last two games.
It shouldn’t be difficult for Wilson to put up a lot of points on this Buccaneers team and if Winston doesn’t throw multiple interceptions this is the game on the slate that is most likely to shoot out. As such, I wouldn’t completely fade Wilson. But since his ownership is currently at about twice that of the rest of the players on the slate, I am likely going to be looking elsewhere more often than not. As I mentioned last week the Seahawks are the second heaviest run team when accounting for game situation. So, they may build a lead and rely on the run to close out the game. If I am building one lineup for the week it wouldn’t have Wilson in it. In fact, I would be more willing to have his opponent, Winston, or my contrarian pick. If his ownership ticks down a little closer to the rest of the slate I will make him a core play.
RB
Without a lot of the big names on the slate, everyone is going to flock to Christian McCaffrey who has scored the most DraftKings points in the league despite already having his bye and is second to only Deshaun Watson on Fanduel. Last week McCaffrey had an imposing matchup against the stifling 49ers defense. All he did was put up 117 and a TD on 14 carries to go with 4 receptions for 38 more yards. McCaffrey is a true workhorse and the Panthers are going to make sure they keep him involved no matter who they are facing. Of course, the sites realized both McCaffrey’s performance as well the number of stars that are missing from the slate and priced him at his highest point of the year, especially on DK where he is $600 more than his previous high.
Not only is McCaffrey priced high but he is likely going to garner the highest ownership on the site and doesn’t get the friendliest matchup against the Titans who rank 25th in rushing yards per attempt. If we throw all these factors into the blender it comes out a bit blurry on how we should handle McCaffrey. My current lean is that I am going to be overweight on the field as I can find other places to save money as well as low owned options. If I was building one team I would probably go with McCaffrey and maybe two more contrarian picks.
WR
At wide receiver, the Seahawks and Buccaneers game is well represented with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Tyler Lockett looking to absorb about 60% of combined ownership. For fun, this week I took a look back at which wide receivers have offered the biggest ROIs across the industry year to date. No surprise that Mike Evans leads the way thanks almost exclusively by his 190-yard 3 TD game in week 3 and his 198-yard 2 TD game last week. The rest of the season he has failed to reach 100 yards and has only scored 1 TD. But also, in the top 10 is Godwin coming in 9th with a bit more stable production including 4 weeks where he had over 120 yards. The last 4 that Evan’s didn’t blow up.
In 6 of the 7 games this year either Godwin or Evans has racked up over 120 yards and scored a TD. The only time they didn’t was week one against the 49ers stout defense. Following this trend, it makes a lot of sense to put one of the two Buccaneers into your lineup but not both and you can stack him with Winston as mentioned above. If you want to ‘run it back’ with Lockett in the same game you are going to have a lot of concentrated ownership on the same game so you will likely want to fade McCaffrey and Darren Waller, see below, in that lineup but I think it’s a reasonable approach.
TE
Waller looks to be the major chalk at tight end this week as we don’t have the Cardinals defense to pick on who got stiff-armed by George Kittle last night. We are also missing Kittle himself, Austin Hooper, and Travis Kelce is priced up like Patrick Mahomes II is playing when it is likely going to be Matt Moore. Waller ranks second behind only Hooper in TE points per game and is finally starting to see the end zone with touchdowns in two straight games. The Lions aren’t the most imposing matchup either as they are allowing over 8 targets per game to the tight end and since Waller plays almost every snap we can assume that he will get the majority of those targets. With limited options at tight end this week I think you need to make Waller a part of your GPP core. But would I include him in my single-entry lineup? Probably not. That is reserved for some of the names above.
Playing contrarian
If you play too many chalky players you will be competing against too many people to win first place and the odds will be stacked against you. If you play too many contrarian players you won’t score enough points. Remember, the plays are contrarian because most likely there is something wrong with that player. In general, the public is very smart. Finding that right mix is the second hardest thing to do in DFS. In this section, I will try to point you to some of the most contrarian options on the slate.
It looks like Patrick Mahomes II may miss another game which leaves us with Matt Moore again. Last week against the Packers Moore looked like a capable QB given that he is stacked with talent surrounding him as he ended up with 267 passing yards and 2 TDs. He spread the ball around to all his pass catchers with 4 different players surpassing 40 yards and all but Mecole Hardman getting 8+ targets. When you have Kelce, Tyreek Hill, and Sammy Watkins at your disposal, are one of the cheapest QBs on the slate, and aren’t getting much ownership I will take a shot or two.
At running back I could take the easy route and write up Royce Freeman again as an under-owned play but at this point, you already know that he should be a staple in your contrarian plays as long as he stays so low owned. So, I will take a different route and mention Adrian Peterson who is currently slightly over the 5% threshold I try to target on Draftkings but is under it on Fanduel. Since Bill Callahan took over as the head coach Peterson has played 72%, 65%, and 63% of the snaps and has surpassed 75 rushing yards in each game. This has certainly been helped by Chris Thompson being out but it looks like he is likely to be out again. Double-check before locking in your lineups. If Peterson makes it to the endzone he will be a great value.
The Dolphins have looked competent, at least offensively, since Ryan Fitzpatrick has been reinserted as the quarterback. The last two weeks he has thrown for 282 yards and 1 TD and 190 yards and 2 TDs. The biggest beneficiary of Fitzpatrick’s play has been Devante Parker who is leading the way with 18 targets over those two games which is a target on about 32% of his snaps. Parker is getting no love from the public and who can blame them for ignoring the Dolphins. But all players have a price that we need to include them in our player pool and Parker has hit that range for me.
With Emmanuel Sanders taking his skills to San Francisco it opened up an opportunity for Noah Fant as he played 82% of the snaps and led the team with 8 targets. This only resulted in 5 of 26 yards so the crowd is staying off Fant. This makes him an intriguing cheap low owned option at a position that is lacking for options this week. One unknown is who Brandon Allen will prefer as he takes over for an injured Joe Flacco but new quarterbacks tend to rely on their running backs and tight ends more often than their receivers so there might be some added upside.
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