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KNOW YOUR ENEMIES

To place near the top of a large field GPP, your roster has to stand out from the crowd in some way. Knowing which players will command the highest ownership is a helpful first step, but without the context of how those players can fit together under the salary cap, it’s difficult to project the type of lineups you’ll be up against most frequently.

Sometimes, the clearest path to creating a unique roster is to allocate more of your salary cap to the positions your opponents are not. To gain some insight into how most other entrants are likely to think as they construct their rosters, with the goal of building yours differently, consider these bullets:

• Two of our favorite teams for fantasy points -- the Chiefs and Rams -- are off the main slate, which shines the spotlight on Atlanta at Houston and it’s slate-high 48.5-point over/under. Many will also look to Arizona at Cincinnati (47.5) in an up-tempo matchup between two of the league’s worst defenses, and hevy ownership should also settle on home favorites, particularly the Cowboys and Eagles.

• Without Patrick Mahomes II on the main slate, we should see extremely flat ownership rates at quarterback. Deshaun Watson ($6,700) will likely be the most popular option but isn’t easy to fit under the cap along with this week’s running back and wide receiver chalk. The same goes for the always popular Lamar Jackson ($7,100). As a result, we should see significant ownership concentrate on Watson’s counterpart this week, Matt Ryan ($5,900). Other medium-priced options who fit more comfortably in common builds include Carson Wentz ($6,100) against the Jets’ dismal pass defense and Dak Prescott ($6,000) in a bounce-back spot at home against Green Bay.

• Get ready for a top-heavy week at running back, especially after Christian McCaffrey ($8,700) and Austin Ekeler hit as expensive chalk in Week 4. While Ekeler is no longer a high-equity option due to Melvin Gordon’s return, McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara ($8,600), Dalvin Cook ($8,300), Ezekiel Elliott ($8,300), and David Johnson ($7,500) each have enticing matchups. Expect at least two of these players to appear in most of your opponents’ lineups, with Kamara the most likely to draw the short straw from an ownership standpoint. Heavy spending at running back should create buying opportunities in the middle price tier, where Joe Mixon ($6,100), Derrick Henry ($6,000), and Aaron Jones (if Jamaal Williams sits) are in good spots.

• Assuming Falcons at Texans is the game everyone chases, DeAndre Hopkins ($7,800) and Julio Jones ($7,700) are two reasons why the most common rosters won’t include three running backs over $7.5K. The savings to make it all work will have to come from at least two wide receivers spots. Will Fuller ($4,500) becomes a likely candidate (despite his lack of production) due to Kenny Stills’ injury and his association with the Texans’ offense. Another option is Cincinnati’s Auden Tate ($3,500), who has performed reasonably well over the last two games and should see more targets with John Ross sidelined. Mid-priced receivers -- and balanced lineups in general -- should provide leverage this week.

• It’s not easy to spend at tight end and the absence of Travis Kelce and George Kittle on the slate further encourages minimal spending at the position. Austin Hooper’s price ($4,500) has been slow to rise despite his cumulative TE2 season-to-date production. Below Hooper, Tyler Eifert ($3,300) should be way higher-owned than he has any right to be due to how well enemy tight ends have performed against Arizona. Paying all the way up to Zach Ertz ($6,000) or Evan Engram ($5,800) won’t necessarily be contrarian, but it will force you to build lineups differently than the field.

• DST is another tough spend on this slate, but significant ownership will still find its way to pricy options like New England ($4,300), Chicago ($3,800 in the Khalil Mack revenge game), and the Eagles ($3,700). The most common lineups, however, will feature a team defense at $3K or below. Tennessee ($3,000) and Carolina ($2,600) stand out as home favorites facing inexperienced quarterbacks.

TAKING A STAND ON THE CHALK

These players are the odds-on favorites to score the most fantasy points relative to their respective salaries. The problem is most of your opponents are well aware. Fading popular plays entirely for the sake of differentiating your lineups is rarely the best decision when multi-entering tournaments. Instead, decide how much exposure you are comfortable with for each player in comparison to their projected ownership percentage. Some suggestions on how to treat this week’s highest-owned players:

QB: Deshaun Watson (vs. ATL, $6,700, 12% owned)
Watson has been held under 13 DraftKings points in two out of the last three games, but the crowd will forgive him in a matchup against the Falcons defense. Atlanta has allowed a combined 537 passing yards and five touchdowns to Marcus Mariota and Jacoby Brissett over the team’s last two games. Watson’s struggles can usually be attributed to facing heavy pressure. Fortunately for him, Atlanta’s pass-rush has produced just five sacks through four games and their secondary is below-average as well. Two of Houston’s wide receivers will be on the right side of a defensive mismatch on any given play this week, which is a key to unlocking Watson’s ceiling. He deserves to be one of the five-to-seven quarterbacks in your player pool this week, but the leverage plays on the Texans side are Carlos Hyde and Duke Johnson Jr against a soft rush defense missing Keanu Neal, one of the best in-the-box safeties in the game.

RB: Dalvin Cook (@NYG, $8,400, 23% owned)
Cook was bottled up in Chicago last week, but the Bears defense hasn’t allowed a running back to reach 55 yards on the ground against them all season. While the tough matchup led him to fall short of 27 DraftKings points for the first time in 2019, Cook’s three-down plus goal-line role still netted him 19 points. Against the Giants, 19 points aren’t even a median projection for Cook. New York’s rush defense has been a bright spot this year, mostly because of how easy it’s been for teams to withstand their sorry excuse for a pass rush and get behind their defensive backs. If the Vikings ever passed the ball, Cook might be in trouble. But they don’t. And he’s not. Minnesota comes in averaging a league-low 24.8 pass attempts per game and 18% of those attempts have gone to Cook. The game script may not require Cook to catch many passes this week, but he should make up for it via scoring opportunities. Squeaky wheels Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen are excellent leverage plays on Cook’s popularity, but don’t overthink it too much. 25-35% exposure is recommended.

WR: DeAndre Hopkins (vs. ATL, $7,800, 19% owned)
It feels like forever since Hopkins smoked the New Orleans secondary for 34 DraftKings points in Week 1. Over the last three games, however, he’s had to deal with shadow coverage from Jalen Ramsey, Casey Hayward, and James Bradberry -- three of the league’s premier cover corners. The Falcons have Desmond Trufant, who looks as good in the season’s early going as he has in years, but they haven’t used him to shadow. Hopkins should get plenty of opportunities to burn Isaiah Oliver, who has played like one of the league’s 10 worst cornerbacks. It’s a shame Hopkins’ slow start won’t net us much of an ownership discount, but there’s little point in playing Watson without him this week. There are very few paths to Watson paying off at his salary and ownership without a ceiling game from Hopkins. Play him in at least 15% of your lineups.

TE: Austin Hooper (@HOU, $4,500, 13% owned)
Jamming in running backs requires being thrifty at tight end and Hooper’s sub-$5K price tag doesn’t match his 2019 production. Targets, receptions, receiving yards, air yards, yards after the catch, routes run, PPR fantasy points -- Hooper ranks inside the top-5 tight ends in every category. The attention opposing defenses devote to stopping Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley has opened things up underneath for Hooper, and poor offensive line play has forced Matt Ryan to look him down more frequently. Hooper has always possessed the athleticism to become one of the top pass-catching tight ends in the league. To borrow a term from the venerable Sigmund Bloom, he has finally “grown into his paws” in his fourth pro season. Houston has been stingy against tight ends this year but defense vs. position stats matter far less than volume, particularly when it comes to a high variance position like tight end. Hooper jumps off the page in point-per-dollar rankings. Attempting a unique roster construction is the only reason to fade him.

DST: Carolina Panthers (vs. JAX, $2,600, 10% owned)
The Panthers defense has stepped up in the absence of Cam Newton, combining for 14 sacks and four turnovers in their last two games. Gardner Minshew isn’t quite the sack magnet Carolina’s last two opponents were (Kyler Murray and Watson), but he was taken down five times last week by a Denver defensive front that came into the game with zero sacks through their first three contests. Minshew has been a great story thus far but he’s badly outclassed against Carolina on the road. Their bargain price will make it tempting to max out your Panthers exposure but going overweight on the most popular DST is rarely how tournaments are won. Go even with the field at 10%.

MORE CHALK:

MID-RANGE OWNERSHIP VALUES

You won’t be sneaking these players past your opponents. But their projected ownership percentage is lower than the probability they will score more fantasy points than their salary implies. If you are multi-entering tournaments, raise your exposure higher than their ownership projection.

QB: Lamar Jackson (@PIT, $7,100, 7% owned)
Don’t let Pittsburgh’s demolition of Andy Dalton on Monday Night Football fool you. The Bengals' bottom-three offensive line didn’t give Dalton a prayer of picking apart the Steelers' suspect defensive backfield the way Tom Brady (341-3-0) and Russell Wilson (300-3-0) did earlier this season. Baltimore won’t have the same problem. Football Outsiders ranks the Ravens’ pass-protection second-best in the league. His receivers will get opportunities for splash plays to develop against a beatable secondary, which sets the table for the type of 35-point ceiling game we saw from Jackson earlier this season.

RB: Joe Mixon (vs. ARI, $6,100, 12% owned)
The same terrible offensive line that nearly got Dalton killed on Monday night is also a problem for Mixon, who hasn’t topped 17.4 DraftKings points this season. But even if his ceiling isn’t quite as high as the elite running backs, Mixon’s salary and projected ownership more than make up for it. Both defenses in this game are awful and both offenses play at a fast pace. The Cardinals average the fewest seconds per play in the league while the Bengals average the 12th-fewest. Mixon has been a workhorse, handling 70% of Cincinnati’s running back touches, but it has only amounted to 14.5 touches per game. The added offensive plays we can expect in this game should allow him to get at least 20 high-quality touches. Arizona’s defense has been strafed by Christian McCaffrey (188 total yards) and Chris Carson (145 total yards) in each of their last two games.

WR: Courtland Sutton (@LAC, $4,900, 7% owned)
Sutton offers much-needed cap relief without sacrificing upside. His price only came up $300 from last week, which marked the second time this season he exceeded a 4x salary multiple. A blind taste test of Sutton’s season-to-date fantasy numbers next to Emmanuel Sanders’ reveals no discernible difference, yet Sanders remains the more expensive Broncos wide receiver. As long as Sanders is able to play through a bruised quad, Sutton should avoid shadow coverage from Casey Hayward and get a few opportunities to burn Brandon Facyson. Per Pro Football Focus, opposing quarterbacks have a 120.3 passer rating when throwing into Facyson’s coverage this season.

TE: Evan Engram (vs. MIN, $5,800, 9% owned)
Engram is the cumulative TE1 in PPR leagues through the first four weeks of the season, but he won’t command too much attention in Week 5. The crowd is scared off by Engram’s middling game against Washington last week, the return of Golden Tate, and the threat of the Vikings defense. The only one of those things worth considering is how Tate is integrated into the offense. Otherwise, the targets will be there for Engram and the Vikings defense has actually been a catalyst for opposing tight end fantasy production in games they have won convincingly this season. Austin Hooper (9-9-77) and Darren Waller (14-13-134) were both featured when their respective teams fell behind Minnesota. The Giants are implied to lose by 5.5 points, setting Engram up for a similar game script. If Engram played wide receiver, it’s a fair bet he would cost about $500 more, so we’re getting him at a good salary to go along with his modest ownership.

DST: Chicago Bears (@OAK, $3,800, 9% owned)
This is listed as a road game for Chicago, but remember it’s being played in London where the weather and field conditions often favor sloppy offensive play. It’s not like the Raiders need help looking sloppy on offense anyway. Derek Carr has been sacked eight times and turned the ball over on four occasions since Week 2. The Bears enter averaging 4.2 sacks per game and all-world defensive end, Khalil Mack, circled this game on his calendar the moment Oakland refused to pay him what he’s worth last season. Double the field.

MORE MID-RANGE OWNERSHIP VALUES

CONTRARIAN PLAYS

Hitting on one-or-more of these players will gain you massive leverage on the field. Due to their low ownership, the better they perform, the faster your roster separates in the standings. Keep in mind, using a 5%-owned player in only 2-out-of-10 lineups gains you four times more exposure than the field when you multi-enter a tournament. Be careful not to over-invest in these players, but you’ll need at least two from this ownership tier in your lineup for a shot at first place in most large-field GPPs.

QB: Kyle Allen (vs. JAX, $5,100, 2% owned)
Allen is neither as good as he looked in his four-touchdown debut against Arizona in Week 3 or as bad as last week’s three lost fumbles would suggest. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, which should be good enough to 4x his salary at home against Jacksonville. The Jaguars defense remains formidable but they’re not the same without Jalen Ramsey, who remained sidelined with a back injury as of Thursday. Without Ramsey last week, Jacksonville allowed Joe Flacco to pass for 303 yards and three touchdowns and both Sutton and Emmanuel Sanders had strong games. Carolina’s offensive weapons -- Christian McCaffrey, D.J. Moore, Curtis Samuel, and Greg Olsen -- are superior to Denver’s and could buoy Allen into first-place lineups if he can take better care of the ball.

RB: Mark Ingram (@LAC, $6,300, 4% owned)
Ingram’s 24% ownership in the Milly Maker was probably the most shocking result of Week 4, which highlights the impact of recency bias on tournament strategy. If we could have guessed one-quarter of the field would chase Ingram’s fluky three-touchdown game in Week 3, he would have been the easiest fade on the slate. But now that he busted as the (surprise) chalk, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Both Seattle and San Francisco have gotten the better of the Steelers’ rush defense this season and Ingram has flashed a high tournament ceiling in half his games thus far. The chances he appears in a winning lineup are greater than 4% in any given week as long as he remains Baltimore’s lead runner.

WR: Phillip Dorsett (@WAS, $4,900, 3% owned)
Josh Gordon is generally perceived as New England’s top perimeter receiver, but Dorsett has outperformed him to this point. Dorsett’s 24% market share of the Patriots’ air yards leads the team, as do his three receiving touchdowns. Provided Gordon plays through the knee injury that limited him in practice all week, he’s a fine play against Washington's shoddy secondary also, but at $1,200 less, Dorsett should be prioritized. Speed has killed Washington’s defensive backfield this season, as evidenced by DeSean Jackson in Week 1 (10-8-154-2), Devin Smith in Week 2 (3-3-74-1), and Taylor Gabriel in Week 3 (7-6-75-3). Dorsett brings 4.33 wheels to the table against a former elite cornerback, Josh Norman, whose career is running on fumes. If his ownership projection sticks at 3% on Sunday morning’s update, don’t be afraid to 5x the field.

TE: Dawson Knox (@TEN, 3,100, 3% owned)
Knox’s snap-share bumped up to a season-high 65% last week and he ran 37 pass routes, which was good for a top-5 finish among tight ends. His 3-3-58-0 receiving line vs. New England came on the heels of a 4-3-61-1 finish against the Bengals in Week 3. Rookie tight ends are hard to trust in any fantasy format, but we shouldn’t write off what Knox has shown us in consecutive games. Knox is a third-round pick with elite size-adjusted speed and above-average burst and agility. He’s putting at least one highlight-reel play on tape each week, suggesting he’s exactly the type of tight end we want to roster in DFS. Knox’s $3,100 price tag makes him an easy pivot off Tyler Eifert, who has nothing going for him this week besides the perception of a can’t miss matchup.

DST: Buffalo Bills (@TEN, $3,100, 3% owned)
Buffalo’s defense made life difficult for the Patriots in New England last week. One good game against the toothless Falcons defense doesn’t mean we should trust Marcus Mariota in this difficult matchup. The return of offensive tackle Taylor Lewan is a boost for Mariota and Tennesee’s offense in aggregate but this still profiles as a mismatch for Buffalo’s defense. The Bills have a path to a 15-point ceiling this week if they can get pressure on Mariota.

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