DraftKings GPP Domination: Week 8

Photo: USA Today Sports

All roster percentages cited below are based on Devin Knotts’ projections which are refined and updated throughout the week. Click here or use our Lineup Optimizer to make sure you are using the latest projections before setting your lineups.

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. Studying a list of projected roster percentages is a helpful first step, but without the context of how those players fit together under the salary cap, you’re left guessing what type of lineups you’ll be up against most frequently.

To gain some insight into how the majority of entrants will allocate their cap space, with the goal of building your lineups differently, let’s think about how the crowd will attack each position:

Quarterback

Our opponents might try spending up to Aaron Rodgers ($7,600), Russell Wilson ($7,800), and Patrick Mahomes II ($8.100), but it won’t be easy unless more value opens up at other positions. As a result, Ryan Tannehill ($6,800) profiles as the highest-priced quarterback we’ll see in common roster builds, and many will drop even lower to play the matchups with Joe Burrow ($6,200), Derek Carr ($5,500), and Jimmy Garoppolo ($5,400).

Pivot Points: Unless you think last week’s dismal performance by Cam Newton ($5,700) was an aberration (it sure didn’t look like it), viable price pivots off this week’s most popular quarterbacks are difficult to come by. One strategy to differentiate at the position is to target the quarterbacks who are opposing the chalk-plays and hope for a shootout. Baker Mayfield ($6,100) appears to be the best candidate due to the Browns’ massive advantage in the trenches over the Raiders pass-rush.

Running Back

We can safely expect Kareem Hunt ($6,900), Derrick Henry ($8,000), and the returning Dalvin Cook ($7,500) to be the crowd-favorite luxury purchases at the position. Aaron Jones ($7,300) may also factor into the RB1 mix if he’s practicing in full by Friday. Spending at RB2 and Flex should be moderate-to-low in most lineups. Myles Gaskin ($5,200) and Giovani Bernard ($5,800) are the usual suspects, though some will splurge on Jonathan Taylor ($6,600) who comes out of a bye week and into an appealing matchup against the Lions.

Pivot Points: Alvin Kamara will remain popular, but his price ($8,200) and perceived poor matchup (Chicago) should allow us to roster him at more favorable rates than usual. Assuming Tevin Coleman remains out, Jerick McKinnon ($5,700) is an intriguing price pivot off Bernard. McKinnon hardly played last week, but we later learned it was a planned rest. The crowd will shy away because he scored negative fantasy points in Week 7, but McKinnon should be reinstalled in the game plan thanks to the respective absences of Jeff Wilson and Deebo Samuel.

Wide Receiver

We’re coming off a week in which Davante Adams ($8,800) was a requirement in tournament-willing lineups. He is this week’s mega-chalk at wide receiver and is the reason most entrants won’t get carried away with running back spending. Pairing Adams with an RB1 at Hunt’s salary (or above) will push the crowd towards mid-priced receivers, namely Keenan Allen ($6,200) and Brandon Aiyuk ($5,800). Look for A.J. Green ($4,500) or Rashard Higgins ($4,200) to round out the chalky wide receiver corps, as the top projected target-per-dollar value-plays at the position.

Pivot Points: Fading Adams is scary, but Minnesota had two weeks to gameplan coming off their bye week -- plenty of time to rewatch how Adams beat them for a 17-14-156-2 receiving line in Week 1. Division rematches rarely produce the same results twice in the same season and rostering Adams at a lower percentage than the field is the easiest way to differentiate your lineups this week.

Tight End

The tight end position gets uglier each week outside of the top options. George Kittle ($7,000) and Travis Kelce ($6,600) will draw the crowd, as usual, but Darren Waller’s salary ($5,600) makes him the easiest to squeeze into lineups.

Pivot Points: Pickings here are slim. It may be best to spread most of your exposure out between Kittle, Kelce, Waller, and Mark Andrews and differentiate your lineups elsewhere. The other route would be to target cheaper tight ends in potentially high-scoring games and hope for a touchdown to bail you out. Robert Tonyan Jr ($4,300), Jonnu Smith ($4,100), Harrison Bryant ($3,200), and David Njoku ($3,800) each fit the bill.

Can You Trust The Chalk?

The term chalk in sports betting simply means the heavily-favored side of a bet. In DFS tournaments, these are the most popular players on the slate. Identifying and taking a stance on the chalk is a crucial part of tournament strategy. If you fade a chalky player, and he fails to deliver on his scoring projection, your lineup will be positioned to pass a large chunk of the field in the standings. But when a popular player lives up to expectations and you choose not to roster him, your lineups can quickly get buried in the standings.

Some suggestions on how to treat this week’s most popular players:

Kareem Hunt (vs. LV, $6,900, 32% rostered)
Hunt’s salary is relatively affordable in comparison to the other top-tier running backs tied to potentially high-scoring offenses. His production was modest in Week 7 (21 touches, 100 total yards, and one receiving touchdown), but his role as Cleveland’s unquestioned bell-cow continued to grow in the absence of Nick Chubb. Hunt handled a season-high 95% of the Browns’ running back touches and played on 90% of the team’s offensive snaps, which were both season-highs. With his rib and thigh injuries now safely in the rear-view, Hunt draws a Raiders defense allowing over 30% more PPR fantasy points than league average to running backs this season. He is good chalk for the second-straight week.

Davante Adams (vs. MIN, $8,800, 24% rostered)
Adams proved he’s back to full health in emphatic fashion with a slate-breaking 47.6 fantasy points against the Texans in Week 7. While Adams owes at least a portion of his standout performance to Houston’s struggling defense, the matchup for Green Bay’s receivers is even better on paper this week. Minnesota has allowed the third-most DraftKings points to enemy wideouts, including blow-up games to Julio Jones (10-8-137-2), DK Metcalf (11-6-93-2), and Will Fuller (7-6-108-1) in each of their last three games. Fading Adams in this spot is not for the faint of heart, but as mentioned above, it represents the clearest path to gaining leverage on the field this week. At his season-high price, Adams can once again catch double-digit passes, but if he’s held close to 100 yards and fails to find the end zone, his chances of appearing in a first-place lineup are slim. Come in under the field and pray for your bankroll.

Darren Waller (@CLE, $5,600, 16% rostered)
Waller doesn’t have quite the cachet of Kelce and Kittle, but he is close enough to their level statistically and available for $1,000 less (or more). The crowd won’t miss the somewhat surprising 55-½-point opening game total in the Raiders at Browns tilt, which suggests an ideal environment for tight end fantasy scoring. Tight ends haven’t had many issues getting over on Cleveland’s linebackers and safeties this season, which hardly matters for the plus-sized wide receiver, Waller, who leads all Las Vegas pass-catchers in target share, receptions, and air yards. It’s rarely a sound tournament strategy to follow our opponents at tight end, but where are you making up the points if you fade Waller? The same question applies to Kelce and Kittle. Keep your exposure even with the field.

Leverage Plays

You won’t necessarily be sneaking the players in this section past your opponents. But their percent rostered projection is lower than the probability they can appear in a first-place lineup. If you are multi-entering tournaments, raise your exposure higher than their projected roster percentage.

Jonathan Taylor (@DET, $6,600, 15% rostered)
Betting on Indianapolis to take the training wheels off Taylor and use him as a workhorse has been a losing proposition to this point, but (and stop me if you’ve heard this one before), THIS is the week we’ll finally see him crash through a 30+ point ceiling. Taylor’s usage was ramping up prior to the Colts bye week. The rookie handled 73% of the team’s total backfield touches in Weeks 5 and 6, compared to his 55% season-to-date workload market share. The beat reports out of Indianapolis have the coaching staff singing Taylor’s praises, and this week’s matchup against the Lions 23rd-ranked rush defense (DVOA) is favorable. Assuming Taylor’s roster percentage sticks on the low side of the high end at running back, you’ll want to be early to his breakout party by using him in lineups at a 1.5x higher rate than the field.

Jerick McKinnon (@SEA, $5,700, 8% rostered)
In case you had any doubts about whether the crowd will prioritize Jimmy Garoppolo and his receivers this week...

The Seattle Seahawks have allowed 368.67 passing yards per game in 2020.

Good morning.

— Al Smizzle (@AlZeidenfeld) October 29, 2020

Despite his reasonable price tag, McKinnon will fall well behind Kittle and Aiyuk in the crowd’s plans to capitalize on the matchup against Seattle. But we shouldn’t underestimate what the loss of Deebo Samuel means for McKinnon’s role in the offense. In the four games San Francisco has played while Samuel was either out or limited, McKinnon accounted for 13% of the team’s targets, which ranked as a top-10 market share at the running back position. During that span, he was the cumulative RB12 in DraftKings scoring, yet he’s priced at RB19 this week. About 10 rushing attempts and five receptions are a modest projection for McKinnon in a timeshare with JaMichael Hasty, which is enough work for him to generate the chunk plays and red zone touchdowns we saw during the first quarter of the season.

Jonnu Smith (@CIN, $4,100, 7% rostered)
We’re going to see plenty of Derrick Henry lineups and tons of Tannehill-A.J. Brown stacks, but not a whole lot of Smith despite the green “32nd” next to his name on DraftKings. Smith made an early return from an ankle injury to post his second consecutive one-catch dud in Week 7 against Pittsburgh, but he was able to play on 70% of the offensive snaps. His route participation on Tannehill’s dropbacks was below season average, but Smith won’t need to block nearly as often against the Bengals defensive line as he did against the Steelers. Cincinnati has allowed a staggering 120% more DraftKings points to enemy tight ends than league average over the last three games, and Smith possesses more than enough athleticism to give their defense fits when he gets the ball in his hands.

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