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The Sharp Report

One of the most proficient gamblers that sportsbooks have ever seen, Haralabos Voulgaris, is on record saying the main reason he retired from professional gambling is that he was gradually losing his edge against the sportsbooks. Voulgaris explains that every time he placed a bet, he gave the sportsbook a metaphoric piece to the puzzle that, once solved, would completely erase his edge to the point where he would no longer be a profitable bettor. The same way sportsbooks learned from Voulgaris' bets and eroded his edge, daily fantasy sports players can learn from their top competitors and eat away at their edge. These top competitors, known as sharps, typically play DFS at a much higher level and for much more money than others. These players normally have very advanced and accurate projection systems that give them their edge over the field. Fortunately, every time they enter a contest the sharp players' lineups are available to the public to be broken down, analyzed, and learned from. The Sharp Report will be a weekly article that uses all available and applicable data to draw conclusions regarding how the industry's smartest decision-makers and their projections systems come to their final conclusions when building lineups. Over the course of the entire season, The Sharp Report's goal will be to project what the best players in the industry will do in upcoming contests and, in turn, figure out what it is that gives these high-level players their edge over the field.

Throughout each week, more and better information regarding things like player availability, individual matchups, and depth charts will become available. The section of this article projecting which player is likely to be rostered by most of the sharp players next week will be updated by Saturday afternoon each week after all applicable information has become available. If enough data reveals itself that a completely new player is deemed worthy of being mentioned as Next Week's Sharp Play, the original section will appear in red font and the new section will appear in bold black font. If all available information leads to the same conclusion made earlier in the week, the original section will be changed to bold black font.

The players analyzed in this article consistently play, and win, in high-stakes contests and are also ranked in the top ten percent in RotoGrinders' super heavyweight division of DFS players. Players' names will be omitted from the article, but all lineups analyzed are from the GIANT $1,060 50-50 on DraftKings.

The One Where there were only two or three viable cash builds

This past weekend's combination of pricing, late-breaking injury news, and a weird schedule led to an incredibly irregular cash-game environment. Collusion between top-end players has been a hot-button topic, especially on Twitter, for a while now. This past weekend's standings and leaderboards only added fuel to the fire for the uninformed. It won't take very much time searching through this weekend's DFS Twitter archives, Reddit forums, or any group chat featuring low-level DFS players to find accusations of collusion because of cash-game lineups in Week 7. In reality, there is no foundation for these accusations, and the real cause of many sharp players running the exact same lineup in cash-games is simple: the sharpest DFS players play the best plays in their cash-game lineups. Oftentimes, the best players overlap on just a few players, while critical 2v2 or 3v3 decisions separate the winners from the losers. This past weekend, there were not many viable 2v2 or 3v3 options, and those that did exist were the same for almost every sharp player.

In this edition of The Sharp Report, instead of comparing the lineups of two specific DFS players and dissecting the overlap, let's dive into the core of the most-popular build, without getting too far into the weeds of each individual player, evaluate what very few 2v2 or 3v3 decisions there were to be made on the slate, and establish why this was the case.

The Builds

The Core

Both of the sharpest cash-game builds started with an identical core:

• Alvin Kamara
• Jamaal Williams
• Giovani Bernard
• Davante Adams
• Terry McLaurin
• Washington Football Team D/ST

This core featured the number-one overall play on the slate--Alvin Kamara-- who topped the charts as the best RB/WR in terms of both raw projected points and h-value by the FootballGuys consensus projections. In Week 7, Kamara was earmarked as an essential cash-game piece by almost every sharp cash-game player out there, as he was rostered by 94-percent of players in the GIANT $1,060 50-50 on DraftKings.

Next, the two obvious salary-saving running backs rounded out the RB2 and FLEX spots of lineups across the board. Jamaal Williams assumed the starting role in Green Bay once Aaron Jones was confirmed to be inactive, and Giovani Bernard filled in for Joe Mixon in Cincinnati. Both players were astonishingly safe options for their price and role this weekend, as Williams was stepping into a high-volume spot as the bell-cow running back for Matt LaFleur's offense. Simultaneously, Giovani Bernard's monopoly on passing-down work in Cincinnati insulated him from potentially-adverse impacts of a negative game-script if the Bengals were to fall behind in their matchup with the Cleveland Browns.

After saving salary at RB2 and FLEX, Davante Adams stood out as the no-doubt number-one receiver on the slate. In games that Adams has been active, his receiving volume is unmatched. Across the three games that Adams has been healthy enough to play at least 83-percent of snaps, he has averaged approximately 14.3 targets-per-game. The opportunity to roster Adams against one of the league's worst defenses, in the game with the highest total of any on the slate, was too good to pass up for sharp cash-game players. Ultimately, Adams made his way into 78-percent of lineups in the GIANT $1,060 50-50 on DraftKings.

Lastly, aside from the D/ST slot, Terry "F1" McLaurin rounded out the cash-game core that most sharp players deployed in Week 7. As the week's Projected Sharp Play, McLaurin lived up to expectations by hauling in 7 receptions for 90 yards and a score. F1's ceiling of production in this matchup was much higher than what he recorded, as the Washington Football Team got out to a massive early lead over the Dallas Cowboys, fostering a run-heavy game script for the slight one-point favorites.

The Decisions

The remaining positions where sharp players had to make critical decisions for their Week 7 cash-game lineups were quarterback, the third wide receiver spot, and the tight end spot. Here are the two prevailing approaches sharps took last weekend when filling out their lineups

Build #1

• Kyler Murray
• TreQuan Smith
• Travis Kelce

Build #2

• Deshaun Watson
• Keenan Allen
• Jared Cook

Why build #1?

• Kyler Murray, playing against the Seattle Seahawks' horrific defense, is one of the league's premier producers at the quarterback position. His rushing floor of production is remarkable, and now, with DeAndre Hopkins on the outside, his passing production is equally impressive. Plugging Murray in at quarterback was one of the safest and strongest plays of the week.
• With Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders sidelined, Tre'Quan Smith's role in the Saints' aerial attack was poised to grow significantly. Earlier in the season, while Emmanuel Sanders struggled to connect with Drew Bress throughout his first few games in New Orleans, Smith was the team's number-one non-Alvin Kamara pass-catcher. Now, with Sanders on the bench due to a positive COVID-19 test, Smith projected as one of the slate's best bargain bin options at wide receiver. In an expectedly-high-scoring clash with the Carolina Panthers, Tre'Quan Smith's $4,000 price tag was too low for his expected volume.
• Despite worries about the snowy conditions, Travis Kelce stood out as the number-one tight end option on the Week 7 slate. Kelce's production and receiving volume across the first six games of the season were as consistent as any tight end in the NFL. The All-Pro tight end scored 5 touchdowns across Kansas City's first 6 games, while accumulating no less than 3 receptions and 50 yards in each outing. Here, as hefty favorites over the Denver Broncos, Kelce was an elite cash-game option, regardless of the outcome in Week 7.

Why build #2?

• Much like Kyler Murray, who appears in the alternate build, Deshaun Watson is in weekly contention to quarterback cash-game lineups, especially now that Bill O'Brien is no longer the Texans' head coach. Watson, again, much like Murray, offers a significant floor of rushing production, and now that O'Brien is no longer calling plays, he is airing the ball out far more than he previously did in this offense. Houston's defense is hemorrhaging points, forcing the Texans' offense to light up the scoreboard if they have any hope of winning games. In a matchup against the Green Bay Packers' pedestrian defense this past weekend, the two teams were projected to total over 57 points, the highest mark on the slate. Rostering a world-class quarterback that provides rushing and passing production in the game with the highest projected total on the slate is almost always a smart decision.
• Keenan Allen, who returned to action this past weekend after exiting the Chargers' Monday Night Football clash against the New Orleans Saints early due to injury, was one of the strongest wide receiver options on the Week 7 slate. As the Chargers' undoubted number-one receiver, Allen was primed to exploit a soft matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars' secondary that ranks dead-last in the NFL in passing DVOA allowed this season. In short, rostering a high-volume pass-catcher in the low-6k range against a porous secondary will always be an enticing cash-game spot for a wide receiver.
• In the second build, instead of paying up at tight end, some players opted to pay up at wide receiver, while capturing another pass-catcher in New Orleans' offense whose role was poised to grow without Emmanuel Sanders and Michael Thomas. Jared Cook was a relatively popular option this weekend in cash games because of his middling price tag of just $4,300 against the Carolina Panthers. Much like Tre'Quan Smith, Cook's projected receiving volume received a boost following the confirmation of Sanders landing on the COVID/IR list last week. When the dust settled, Cook made his way into 24-percent of lineups in the GIANT $1,060 50-50 on DraftKings, and it's tough to argue with the reasoning that led to this decision.

Common threads between the builds

• Both of the prevailing cash-game approaches included paying up for a mobile quarterback in a game with a high total. I may sound like a broken record at this point, as I feel like I have reiterated this same point every week this season across my trio of articles here at FootballGuys, but running quarterbacks are effectively a cheat code in fantasy football. Deshaun Watson and Kyler Murray both fit the bill in Week 7, and there is no argument to be made against either player as a cash-game staple.
• Finding a way to get a second piece of the New Orleans Saints' passing game, in addition to Alvin Kamara, was a very popular strategy amongst sharps in Week 7. In any situation where a team's top two wide receivers are confirmed to miss a game late in the week, surely value will appear down the depth chart. Last weekend, Tre'Quan Smith and Jared Cook were the most likely beneficiaries of the team's notable absences.

This weekend, there is no use of separately analyzing my cash-game lineup, as I opted to utilize Build #1 in my cash game contests in Week 7-- both builds cashed.

Projected Sharp Play: Kareem Hunt

This weekend, the Cleveland Browns play host to the Las Vegas Raiders who, thanks to a handful of offseason acquisitions, field a much-improved offense but a horrendous defense. The Raiders' defense ranks in the bottom three of the NFL in rushing DVOA allowed, passing DVOA allowed, and, unsurprisingly, total DVOA allowed. The Browns enter this game as moderate three-point favorites, which should afford Kareem Hunt increased opportunities on the ground. Kareem Hunt is playing the majority of snaps in non-blowout games while Nick Chubb is out with a knee injury, as he has played at least 70-percent of snaps in two out of the team's last three matchups. This weekend, Hunt, who is one of the league's most impressive ball-carriers, gets an exceptional matchup against a defense that has allowed at least 30 points in every game except one this season. At $6,900, Hunt tops the charts as the number-one FLEX play on the slate according to FootballGuys' h-value metric at the time of this article's publishing, and he should be the first player locked into cash-game lineups in Week 8.

As always, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @StillZam with any questions, comments, or concerns about this article -- or with any fantasy football questions you may have for this upcoming week!