General Thoughts
We are nearly halfway through the season already! At this point in the season, we can start relying on some key statistics like playing time for those teams that have been fairly healthy. However, there are a lot of teams that have had to deal with injuries to quarterbacks or wide receivers.
One thing that is really easy to get into the habit of is looking at full-year statistics at this point in the year. But if a team has a new quarterback or receivers that are missing time you really need to take a look at what the team is doing with these new personnel packages. Something that looks good for the full year may not be good this week. It’s always better to identify changes before the rest of the public does, even if you are wrong more often than you are right. Because when you are right it will pay off with big tournament-winning results. Don’t be afraid to trust your gut and what you see. The public is wrong all the time.
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 chalk at quarterback looks to be between Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson. Both look like pretty solid chalk too. Of the two I am currently preferring Watson. I talked about all the issues that the Falcons defense has had last week. That trend continued last week as Goff righted the ship for 291 passing yards and 2 passing TDs. So, I don’t have any problems chasing Wilson. His floor is going to be high and has big upside.
However, I rather go with Watson. Watson’s matchup against the Raiders is similarly favorable. For the year the Raiders have allowed the 10th most passing yards. But what a lot of people don’t consider is that they have only played 6 games when many teams have played 7. If we look at net yards per pass we find that the Raiders are averaging 8.2 which is tied with the Falcons for the 2nd worse in the league. The matchups are closer to equal than most people will imagine so what pushes me more towards Watson is the Seahawks reluctance to pass the ball. Based on my metrics which take into consideration how often a team passes in a game neutral situation the Seahawks rank 2nd to last. They are more likely to take the ball out of Wilson’s hand than the Texans will be who rank more toward the middle of the pack. As such, when choosing between the two I favor Watson.
RB
Leonard Fournette was the major chalk last week and he looks like he is going to be again this week. Fournette rewarded his owners with 131 yards on the ground plus 2 catches for 14 yards against the weak Bengals defense. The problem is he didn’t get into the end zone which left his owners wanting more. This week Fournette gets another great matchup against the Jets.
Last we saw the Jets they were getting crushed by the Patriots and their offense continually gave the Patriots offense the ball in good field position which resulted in 3 Sony Michel rushing touchdowns. For the year the Jets rushing defense has been one of the bright spots only allowing 3.3 yards per attempt. But the offensive struggles have rewarded their opponents with 1.7 rushing touchdowns per game which is the worst in the league.
Fournette has gained a lot of yards this year but without an explosive offense, he has struggled to get touchdowns. This may be the week that Fournette gets a shot at the end zone after a few short fields for the Jaguars offense. As such I like going over the field.
WR
With Will Fuller injured maybe things will start to go back to normal with the Texans and they will rely on DeAndre Hopkins. Fuller has caused more chaos to DFS lineups this year with huge games, big drops, and early injuries. But not only has he caused us havoc he’s also disrupted Hopkins's role in the offense. Last year Hopkins was targeted on 34% of his snaps. This year that is all the way down to 30% with Fuller’s strong season as well as Stills sliding onto the team. With Fuller out we can expect Hopkins's role to step back up a bit even if maybe not quite to last year’s levels since Stills is healthy.
Hopkins gets the same defense that has been getting killed by the passing game as was discussed above with Watson. Not only has the Raiders defense been bad they traded away Gareon Conley this week to the Texans. Conley would have likely seen Hopkins a fair amount and this move puts the Raiders defense in a bit of disarray. I would expect rookie Trayvon Mullen to be the big winner that gets to cover Hopkins this week. That sounds like a good matchup for Hopkins and I think he makes a great receiver to stack with Watson. If you are stacking both of these guys together just remember you will likely need to take some chances on some contrarian plays to even out all of the chalk.
TE
Last week Darren Waller was one of my top plays at tight end and he rewarded his faithful owners with 126 receiving yards and 2 receiving TDs not to mention one that was called back. With Tyrell Williams out this week, Waller doesn’t have much competition for targets and should continue to be peppered heavily. If the Raiders are going to keep pace with the Texans they are going to have to keep Waller involved which will increase his chances at a touchdown. The problem is we have already talked about a lot of good chalky plays. Since we can’t play all the chalk Waller appears to be the best bet to go under the field on and hope that the Raiders go back to their ways of not scoring TDs.
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.
If you don’t want to eat the Fournette chalk a great alternative is to go with Gardner Minshew. The Jets run defense has been tough and the Jaguars could just give up on trying to run on it and just put the ball in the air where the Jets are closer to league average. If the Jets again turn the ball over on their side of the field and Minshew hits Chark or Westbrook for a couple of touchdowns you can quickly pass over all the Fournette owners.
I feel like I have suggested or have wanted to suggest Royce Freeman every week of the season but I am going back to Freeman again this week. Freeman continues to go under-appreciated as the DFS community seems to favor Phillip Lindsay but Freeman got 63% of the snaps last week to 40% for Lindsay and has out-snapped him in 4 games straight. Freeman is also getting targeted at about the same rate as Lindsay. The one issue that Freeman has had is finding the endzone as he only has one touchdown on the season. One bright spot is it did come last week. The Colts aren’t an ideal matchup but with his usage, price, and ownership you should make Freeman a part of your GPP plans.
Similar to Freeman, Mike Williams has a difficult matchup against the Bears. However, like Freeman, Williams has been getting a lot of opportunities with targets of 6, 10, 13, and 7 in his last 4 games. Also, like Freeman, Williams has had bad luck by not scoring a touchdown yet. It’s not like the Chargers haven’t been trying either as they have targeted him 8 times in the red zone. If Williams breaks that trend and gets into the end zone he should be able to pay off his dirt cheap prices across the industry.
I don’t really love the low owned tight ends this week but one that jumps out to me is Ben Watson. In his first game playing with the Patriots this year Watson played on 76% of the snaps. The receivers continue to be in disarray with Josh Gordon going on to IR and the team trading for Mohamed Sanu. Sanu is trying to catch up on the playbook quickly but will likely have trouble doing so in his first game. At some point, the Patriots defense isn’t going to carry the team to victory and the offense will have to put some points on the board. If this is the week and Watson is the one scoring you can get him at basically no ownership on the way to doing so.
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