Strategy

In the long run, avoiding the chalk to find unique roster builds and leverage points increases your likelihood of spiking a tournament and getting in on the top heavy prizes. It doesn’t mean it will work every week though. Week 5 showed that sometimes the chalk hits and fantasy gamers who faded them don’t have much of a chance. We won’t adjust our process; we continue to zoom out and focus on the strategies that work best over the long term.

Kyler Murray is always in play for GPP tournaments regardless of price. Beat the market by pairing him with Rondale Moore whose role has expanded each of the last three weeks before his price catches up. Meanwhile we explore stacks for both teams in an under the radar potential shootout.

Injuries have ravaged the running backs position for a second straight week, allowing several backups to find feature roles. The super-charged ‘handcuff’ Kareem Hunt leads the pack, who is a viable play every week without injury, and now becomes the top play on the slate at $6200. My attitude with Hunt is similar to Mattison last week. He’s a game script proof option in an elite environment. There’s no path to a comfortable fade.

It is going to be extra imperative to find structural ways to reduce your ownership this week with so much consolidation around the top games. Chiefs-Football Team and Ravens-Chargers are the clear-cut top games and injuries in both leave very few paths to differentiation within your stacks. Especially when playing those lineups, you need to implement structural leverage points to stay unique.

We saw late last year that Cleveland is willing to play a higher-pace, pass-first style if drawn into it by a high-octane opponent and the Chargers could be that team. The Chargers are among the fastest-paced, most pass-heavy teams in the league this year and concentrate targets heavily between four players. I’m willing to stack the Cleveland side of this game with Mayfield, Beckham and Austin Hooper, or to roll out a Chargers stack with Chubb. I’m also quite interested in Mike Williams as a contrarian tournament option.

With the Bengals potentially losing Joe Mixon this week, I expect Cincinnati to build on their progression last week and turn in their most pass-heavy game-plan of 2021. All three Bengals wideouts are under $6000 and I will be playing each. I expect the lowest owned to be Ja’Marr Chase given the highest price ($5800), although its possible Tee Higgins comes in under his ownership projection in his first game back from injury. At just $5000 he’s one of the best values on the slate.

Trevor Lawrence has the easiest matchup of his season in terms of passing and recently discovered his love for playmaker Laviska Shenault. If he can put all three together, we could see a big Week 5. I am concerned about the Titans above-average pressure rate while forcing 20 hurries on the quarterback thus far. Lawrence has been dreadful with defenders in his face, with only a 31.3-percent (No. 29 among qualified quarterbacks) Pressured Completion Rate. However, if this forces him to run more often, I’m all for it. 

D’Andre Swift has and hasn’t been what we hoped for throughout the first four weeks. Against the Vikings, volume shouldn’t be an issue as they are giving up 119 total touches to the position. If Michael Pierce misses time, this DFS Week 5 matchup could be even more enticing. As for Justin Jefferson, I don’t know how you can fade either one. With Kirk Cousins and the offense coming off a bad week, this is the perfect opportunity for a bounce back. Cousins hasn’t put up two sub par performances consecutively since 2019. Don’t expect it to happen against the Lions, regardless of how far they pull ahead.

Since relieving the injured Ryan Fitzpatrick, Taylor Heinicke has been a fantasy revelation. He’s finished as a top 12 QB  in each of his three starts. Yet despite this, DraftKings won’t budge on his sub $6k price. Heinicke is cheap and has been productive through the air and on the ground. By pairing him with his favorite target, you can expect a solid target floor with plenty of ceiling, as we saw last week. With McLaurin’s bump in price, he also becomes an intriguing leverage point off some more popular WRs in the same price range (D.J. Moore and Deebo Samuel in particular).

Tampa’s league-leading 3.14 Pace of Play fuels all of their volume and allows Tom Brady to keep playing at a high level. This week, they have one of the highest implied team totals, and have shown a willingness to continue throwing both near the goal line and when leading in games. We’re paying up for the more expensive of the lead WRs with Mike Evans. Between Evans and Chris Godwin, we’re making a play for ceiling given their respective roles.

For GPP tournaments with heavily weighted payout structures, it’s not enough to find high scoring players. You need to find points where others aren’t getting them. Where some fantasy gamers have moved off pre-season favorites who have underwhelmed, we see an opportunity for contrarian upside. We stack lowly rostered teams because that gives us the chance to find leverage and score where others aren’t.

In a week where it’s tempting to extrapolate the first few games of the season, it’s important to cut through the noise when building your daily fantasy football lineups. We expect a pass heavy game plan for the Cowboys this week which means a Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper stack are in play. We also look at why the advanced stats say to stick with Stefon Diggs even as his price holds steady.

Through a three week sample we can definitively say Cooper Kupp is ahead of Robert Woods. It would take a role swap in the opposite direction to even things out moving forward. However, like a falling knife, the gap between Woods and Kupp in price and ownership widens at an even faster rate than the gap in projection. With $2,500 between them, I am inclined to play Mr. Woods in more lineups once again, but I will make room for Kupp.

Derrick Henry chalk week is upon us. With both lead Titans receivers declared out, Henry is set to expand his already expanded pass game role. You can play Henry by all means, but if you want leverage off him, my favourite play is Anthony Firkser. The artist known as Firk-a-Licious is healthy this week, and at just $3,100, could viably lead the team in targets. He also plays more in passing situations so he’s a direct bet against Henry’s preferred script.

You should take shots with both Matthew Stafford and Kyler Murray in your lineups. With the injury to DeAndre Hopkins, Murray had his worst game of the season but was still able to accumulate 22.54 points. He could again rely more on his legs in a competitive contest against the Rans. The Cardinals let Kirk Cousins ring up three touchdowns on only 32 passes in Week 2. Assuming the Rams will have to pass, Stafford with three touchdowns will pay off his cost. So the issue becomes: is there upside? 

Jalen Hurts was set up to fail in Week 3, and if the Eagles have any chance of beating the Chiefs, they have to get him in better third down situations by running the ball on first and second with a running back. As for the Chiefs side, Patrick Mahomes should have no problem picking apart this defense. My hesitancy comes in whether or not the Eagles can keep this competitive. In addition, can the Eagles get pressure on Mahomes who has a 36.8-percent (No. 26 among qualified quarterbacks) Pressured Completion Percentage and has suffered from a 31.3-percent (No. 25) Deep Ball Completion Percentage?

Last week’s late-swap oriented strategy went belly up. But I think there is a case to go back to the well if the Dalvin Cook situation comes down to the wire. With only two strong game environments in the late window, many will steer clear of the Vikings backfield if we don’t have any clarity when people finalize their lineups. If this occurs, we can expect Cook or Alexander Mattison to be among the best projected plays on the slate and under-owned. Giving yourself the ability to take advantage either way is profiting from uncertainty.

It is fascinating to see which usage trends the market buys into and which they are selling after two weeks. Robert Woods has fallen behind Cooper Kupp in the Rams pecking order thus far, but his Week 2 usage was actually strong in a vacuum. He is now $1100 cheaper than Kupp, and projected for nearly half the ownership. Meanwhile, for Los Angeles’ other franchise, Mike Williams has looked every bit a co-alpha alongside Keenan Allen. Draftkings has responded, with only a $200 gap in salary. Nonetheless, ownership is projected to remain much heavier on Allen.

The matchup with Minnesota looks better for Russell Wilson at first glance. However, he has only scored 1.5 more points per game on DraftKings than Kirk Cousins. Now you have two quarterbacks more evenly matched. However, the pricing is not. Although Wilson might slightly have the edge in expected points score, the pricing is not. By pivoting down to Cousins you save $1,300, which is the difference between Cooper Kupp and Sammy Watkins or Christian Kirk: Massive. This makes Cousins an ideal quarterback for the DFS Week 3 matchups.

The Buccaneers/Rams may mirror the Cowboys/Chargers game from Week 2. Significant assumed point total, two underrated defenses, and two brilliant systems on both sides of the ball. However, I’m still attacking this game. From what we have seen so far, both secondaries seem to be the weaknesses of these teams. Carlton Davis and Jalen Ramsey are the only players who you don’t want to attack for this game in these DFS Week 3 matchups. However, predicting their roles in these games is difficult.