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It’s been so much fun to write this column, sharing some of Awesemo’s grades and projections with you, this season. Thanks so much for reading and best of luck this week. Let’s take one of these GPPs down.
Slate strategy
As Awesemo pointed out in his weekly On the Contrary show with Evan Silva, with just a two-game slate, there aren’t a lot of value options at low-ownership to help differentiate your lineups. Add some really soft pricing to the mix (how often do you get Kamara at $6500 on DK?, or Gurley at $7500?), and you’re looking at a very chalky week with a lot of lineup duplication in large GPPs. So, in order to differentiate, you’re going to have to get creative with lineup construction.
One option that Awesemo suggests is to use a D/ST from a game where you’re already rostering a number of players. This makes a lot of sense, because there is almost nothing separating these defences this week, both from price and projection standpoints. Our natural inclination is to choose a defence from a team that isn’t going up against the majority of our rosters.
Another option is to game-stack and hope that one of these 56+ totals turns into a shootout, while the other duds. With such high totals from both games, the vast majority of DFSers are going to focus on getting as many strong plays from each side as possible.
Finally, two-TE stacks are often sub-optimal, but that’s also a strategy that won’t be used a lot, especially with the value at RB. Popping in a cheap, low-owned TE into your FLEX spot should be enough to differentiate your chalkier lineups.
The double-dip
A strategy that was briefly en vogue for a time in DFS circles – before everyone realized the odds of it happening were so slim that it wasn’t worth talking about – tries to take advantage of double points pairing a D/ST with a returner. On a smaller slate, I think it’s viable, because if it does happen, there’s a strong likelihood that your double-dip will be the nuts combo, especially with these D/STs and their matchups.
Tyreek Hill (punts) and Chiefs D/ST
Cordarelle Pattersson (kickoffs) and NE D/ST
Alvin Kamara (punts) and NO D/ST
The Plays
Robert Woods: DraftKings: B,A; FanDuel: A,B; Yahoo!: A,B
The man Troy Aikman called “the best wide receiver in football” gets a plus matchup against Saints slot corner PJ Williams, who’s been better than he was at the start of the season, but is still probably the weakest of the Saint DBs. Woods runs 50+% of his snaps in the slot and Williams covers the slot at an 85% rate, giving up .35 fantasy points per route run. Brandin Cooks, meanwhile, may draw a tough matchup against Marshon Lattimore. It’s possible McVay schemes Cooks away from Lattimore, but, thus far, he’s run 57% of his routes from the left side, where Lattimore resides 65% of the time. At there price point, I like both of these receivers as part of a Rams stack or an NO-LAR game stack, but I’m giving the slight edge to Woods.
Contrarian combo
Sony Michel (Grades: C, Values: C) James White (B,A; B,C; B,B) RB-stack
With Todd Gurley, Alvin Kamara and Damien Williams soaking up a lot of the RB ownership this week, the NE RB double-stack will help differentiate some of your lineups. Because of Michel’s TD dependency, and lack of action in the passing game, DFSers tend to avoid rostering him, but, recency bias aside, this shapes up as another run-heavy attack from the Patriots. While the Chiefs pass defence has positive home/road splits, it’s likely that a lot of it has to do with facing much better offences on the road, than at home. And their fantasy points allowed to RBs has been the same no matter where they play. The Chiefs have given up 12 TDs, and 1000 yards to enemy backs at Arrowhead this season. Couple that with the 8th most receptions allowed, 5th most receiving yards allowed and 2nd most TDs allowed to enemy RBs and you can see an offensive game plan coming together for Belichick and the Pats.
Low owned options
- Saints receivers: With Keith Kirkwood and Benjamin Watson both sidelined this week, that opens up snaps and targets for some rotational players that should see their roles increase. The question is, who is going to benefit? Settle on a core, and then mix and match in players like Dan Arnold, TommyLee Lewis, Josh Hill, and Austin Carr. You won’t need much to go overweight/differentiate, and having just one of these players in your lineup at 1-3% ownership should be enough to differentiate. Tre’Quan Smith could see an uptick as well – though his ownership is already projected at 10%.
- Chris Conley hasn’t seen much in the way of target share recently, but he is still running the 3rd most routes and snaps of the Chiefs WRs. He was on the field for 57 offensive snaps last week, and can be used as a flier in a lineup or two at just 5% ownership.
- The Rex Burkhead play didn’t work out as planned last week, and if it wasn’t for a little red-zone work, he would have been a huge disappointment. His snap share was down from the 30% he was seeing towards the end of the regular season, but Belichick does deploy him, both at the goal line and during entire offensive series’. With so much value at running back this week, Sexy Rexy is going overlooked at just 5% ownership.
- The New England perimeter WRs are all garnering next to no ownership this week, but they all have plus matchups against the likes of Steve Nelson and Charvarious Ward (slate high .44 fantasy points allowed per route run). The Pats move their WRs all over the formation, so matchups aren’t really a concern – they should all benefit. Though, admittedly, none of them grade out well in Awesemo’s rankings.
