Slate Overview
Last week didn’t play out exactly as I had hoped which is unfortunate because it is typically one of the most profitable weeks of the season. I say one of the most profitable weeks because week 2 tends to be even better. Last week I preached about how you should embrace the uncertainty since there are a lot of things that could happen. That is exactly what happened when Lamar Jackson throws for 323 yards with 147 going to Marquise Brown!
Where the edge comes in this week is how to properly adjust our perceptions of players. Using the Jackson example preseason rankings had him typically averaging 180-200 passing yards per game. His 323 yards from week 1 is well above that. But what we don’t want to do is adjust our preseason rankings too much. This is called recency bias. I don’t think many people will adjust their expectations of Lamar Jackson to average 323 yards going forward but his real expectation should be a lot closer to the 200 range than most people expect.
In addition to Jackson, some of the week 1 heroes include Sammy Watkins, John Brown, T.J. Hockenson, and Desean Jackson. This doesn’t mean these players are bad plays this week. In reality, several are in great spots. For example, Watkins should benefit from Tyreek Hill’s injury and Jackson/Brown should benefit from the up-tempo pace the Cardinals are playing. But it does mean that you should be critical of the players that did well in week 1 and make sure you aren’t overreacting.
The Chalk
The most heavily owned quarterback seems to be down to Patrick Mahomes II and the previously mentioned Jackson. Both quarterbacks have their plusses and minuses. For Mahomes, he is simply on a crazy run similar to Peyton Manning a few years back. Devin Knott’s, on our power grid show, said you should play Mahomes in cash games without hesitation for the foreseeable future. That seems like a pretty safe solid take to me! However, in GPP we have to consider his risk, upside, and ownership. Losing Tyreek Hill, who seems to break my projection model regularly, is not going to be easy. But he has a plus matchup against the Raiders which should at least partially offset it.
Similarly, Jackson has a great matchup against the Cardinals and is coming off the best passing game of his career. The problem, as always with Jackson is will he be able to support enough of his passers to make for a great stack. He did last week but I am not sure he can every week still. Both are good plays but at such elevated ownership levels, I will likely come in under the field given their risks.
At running back we got to see Josh Jacobs jump onto the scene with 23 carries for 85 yards and 2 TDs. As a first-round draft pick that Gruden has said that he wants to be heavily involved in the offense each week he sounds great! But there are some major concerns here. First of all, he only caught 1 pass. If the Raiders aren’t going to use him in the passing game it is going to majorly limit his upside. On top of that, there is a high probability that the Raiders are trailing in this game against the Chiefs. If Jacobs isn’t catching passes and his rush attempts are limited due to game script I am worried. His price is great but at high ownership levels, I will likely be under the field.
We have already talked about Watkins big game and it looks like it has driven him to the top of the ownership boards. Mahomes is unreal and the opportunity without Hill is great but this is still Sammy Watkins. He finished last year with 519 total yards and has only eclipsed 1,000 once in his career. This year will likely be his second but no way I am paying this much ownership for him.
The top of the ownership board at tight end is crazy. It looks like a 4-way race between Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Darren Waller, and Evan Engram. Rightfully so as they are all of my top 4 values in projections as well. Similar to Watkins, Kelce will see a big bump from Hill being out. Evan Engram will see a bump due to Sterling Shepard being out. Waller gets a bump due to Antonio Brown leaving the team and he played all 55 of the snaps last week. On top of their good situations these are familiar tight ends that we are used to playing, outside of Waller, so there isn’t a lot of negatives to point out. I am going to mix and match in pieces of each of these as long as no one's ownership gets too out of hand in my Saturday update. In that case, I will likely fade that one for the other three.
Being Contrary
Everyone is off of Aaron Rodgers after his disappointing 203 yards and 1 TD in the Thursday night season opener against the Bears. A lot of blame went to the new Matt LaFleur offense but what we have continued to see over the years is that Thursday night games tend to be more defensive in general. As such I am going to give Rodgers a pass on this outing and go over the field with him.
We’ve already discussed how the whole DFS community seems to be on the chiefs passing game. But it appears they are completely forgetting that Damien Williams can score too if the passing game gets them in a good position. When everyone is zigging one way. Zag the other and plugin Williams at 5-10% ownership. LeSean McCoy came in and played 29% of the snaps last week to 66% for Williams. I expect McCoy to continue to cut that gap but Williams should see plenty of snaps either way.
Everyone wants to play the Chiefs and Raiders so why not zig to a completely different game that is going under-owned which has just about as much shoot out power with a Vegas over/under only 1.5 points lower. All three of the Rams receivers are in the 5-10% ownership range and each has as much if not more upside than Watkins at similar price points. I would rather be overweight on each of them than play Watkins.
Weekend watch
One key piece of news to follow through the weekend is Joe Mixon’s status. If Mixon is out Giovani Bernard should shoot up the ownership ranks and change the whole slate as his price is great which will allow you get higher-priced players like Kelce much easier. If Mixon is out, then play Bernard in your cash games. However, if his ownership gets above 30% I have no worries about fading in tournaments. Check back Saturday night for all my latest ownership projections.
As always please send any questions or comments to Buzzard@footballguys.com or follow me on Twitter Follow @SteveBuzzard
