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Only three weeks left! Where did this season go? Let’s dive in.
Slate strategy
Gonna be a tough week for team Pay Up At Running Back, with DFSers seemingly on all the top priced, top value options. Still, with so many game totals in the mid-40s this week, there’s a great opportunity to gain leverage on the field simply by opting to roster lesser-owned game stacks with similar totals. A number of quarterbacks are projected for similar numbers, but only four are garnering any sort of ownership. Pivoting off them to lesser owned QBs with upside will also give you an edge on the field.
The YAHOO! Play
You’ve probably already heard that Yahoo! has a fantastic million dollar contest this week, with a guaranteed $250,000 overlay. This is the best contest in recent memory and represents a great opportunity to welcome some new competition to the DFS market. More competition for our dollars means more value. So let’s fill it up.
The pricing in these Yahoo! contests is tight, which means value is scarce. For example, no A graded WR has an Awesemo value better than a C and no A value has a grade better than a C.
Yahoo: Taylor Gabriel. Grade: C, Value: B
Gabriel hasn’t gotten less than seven targets over the past four weeks. His air yards and targeted air yards are tops on the Bears and in the top-30 in the NFL. The Bears move Gabriel around quite a bit but he does spend the majority of his time on the right side, where he’ll line up with Jaire Alexander, who’s decent, but is allowing 1.31 yards per snap (19th worst in the NFL). Gabriel is a nice buy low option on every site this week, but I like him even more on Yahoo!, where value is hard to find.
Leonard Fournette: DraftKings: B,B; FanDuel: B,B; Yahoo: B,B
Not sure why, but Fournette isn’t getting the ownership I thought he would this week. He’s in a great spot as a home favorite against the banged up Washington football team. TJ Yeldon and Carlos Hyde have been non-factors since his return from injury (suspension aside). Fournette had a tough matchup against Tennessee and the game script never allowed him to get rolling, but in his three other games since returning he’s averaging 25.1 PPR fantasy point.
Other options to consider:
- Evan Engram and Sterling Shepard (C,B; C,B; C,D) didn’t get a price bump after their OBJless week, but both should see an uptick in target share with him out. Shepard led the Giants in offensive snaps last week and Engram will be low-owned on DK because of the Titans red 1st in fantasy points allowed to TEs. That’s more a product of a soft schedule against TEs than it is an indicator of great defence against them.
- I highlighted Bills burner Robert Foster last week at the bare min on both sites. The secret is out and the price is up, but after a 100 yard receiving day, he’ll be a huge part of the Bills offensive moving forward and is still priced reasonably well.
- Kenny Stills is cheap and should avoid a matchup with Xavier Rhodes. The Dolphins are likely to be down and they’re lacking depth at WR. He’s a great one-off GPP flier.
Sheppard didn’t have a great week with OBJ out.
Stack it up!
Give me the Minnesota Vikings and the highly correlated wide receiver combo of Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen. The ownership is decent, but the stack should be less than 5% owned, at home to the Dolphins who are going to be without top corner Xavien Howard. Throw in a smattering of Dalvin Cook and bring it back with the far too cheap, GPP upside, air-yards king Kenny Stills (who should avoid a matchup against Xavier Rhodes), and you’ve got a decently priced, not overly owned game-stack.
The Fades:
Joe Mixon is in a great spot this week, at home to the Raiders, and he’s one of the best values on the board. But the ownership is skyrocketing and he may end up being the highest owned player tomorrow on DraftKings at 40+%. With Gio Bernard syphoning some of the touches, I might pay up just a little to get over to Dalvin Cook, who gets a home matchup against a bottom feeder defence with a new offensive coordinator. The old one was fired for not running the ball enough. He’ll come in at just above 15% ownership.
If you want to play Mixon (which I do), head over to FanDuel and take a 15% ownership discount, where he’s got a Double A grade/value as well, or make sure to differentiate your lineup with a lower-owned QB/WR stack.
Tom Brady and the Patriots
Tom Brady has been downright awful when he’s been pressured this season. He has a 43% completion rate and is averaging under just 5.6 YPA, compared to his 72% completion rate and 8.4 YPA when not under pressure. With a road matchup against the Steelers, who boast the second best adjusted sake rate in the NFL this season, that does not bode well for Tom Terrific’s stat line come Sunday.
Another issue I have with any kind of Pats stack is how much they spread the ball around. James Develin might be coming in for the goal-line work, they have White, Edeleman, Gronk, and Gordon to feed with a half dozen vultures waiting to ruin your day even if you get the stack right.
With an implied total seven points higher than any other game on the main slate, there’s obviously some fantasy goodness in here, but I prefer stacking up the more centralized Steelers side of the ball and then bringing it back with a Patriot or two.
Stack note: Antonio Brown and JuJu have not correlated well throughout their careers. Pick one.
As always, thanks for reading. Good luck everyone!
