Welcome back for another week of Daily Fantasy Football prognostication. Week two featured a plethora of key injuries with fantasy significance. As DFS’ers, one of the most important things we do is try to navigate those situations and look for the best opportunities. Last week, after the injury to Keenan Allen, we were all over Travis Benjamin. That worked out really well for me and hopefully for you all as well. This week we saw a number of key players go down which should also lead to some interesting opportunities for us.
Strategy Tip
Every season things change in the DFS landscape. This season, Fanduel and Draftkings have both gone away from the Sunday-Monday main slate in favor of a Sunday only slate. The reason for the change is to capture an extra volume of entries in the smaller two-game Sunday-Monday Primetime Slate as well as the Monday-Thursday two-game slate. In past seasons I had actually avoided two-game contests. There is so much overlap in the lineups that it makes it difficult to find an edge. Most of the contests were relatively small and not worth spending the time to mass multi-enter lineups. This season that has changed. Both Fanduel and Draftkings have rolled out massive 60K entrant contests for the small slates. The prize pools have grown to the point where these contests are actually worth attacking. As a bonus, it gives us a reason to watch the Monday and Thursday games. The question then is how should we attack these contests. The first thing to understand is that unlike the main slate contests where it is rare to impossible to pick the perfect lineup, in a smaller slate it will almost always take the nuts lineup to take down 1st place. In last week’s prime-time slate, Eddie Royal and Eagles TE Trey Burton were the nuts players. You needed these two in there to find the perfect lineup. Both were incredibly low owned with Burton coming in at an anemic 1.8% ownership. The lesson from all of this? If you are going to attack a two-game slate you need the balls to be different and take chances. Normally, my philosophy when constructing lineups is “don’t get too cute”. In the case of the two gamer, for GPP purposes, you actually should get cute. You will need a unique lineup to differentiate from the crowd. Try not spending anywhere near the total cap as an example. Try stacking up one game and then the other, leaving a stud or two on the bench. There are no wrong answers.
Injury Landscape
We had a wild week of injuries. At RB, Adrian Peterson, Arian Foster, Danny Woodhead, Jonathan Stewart, Doug Martin, Thomas Rawls, Rashad Jennings, and Ameer Abdullah all got hurt. At QB, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jay Cutler, and Josh McCown should all be out for a bit. At WR, Doug Baldwin, Tyler Lockett, and Donte Moncrief all got banged up as well. Some of these are actionable for fantasy purposes and some are best to avoid. Let’s try to figure it out as best we can.
My Top 3 Injury Replacement Plays:
- Melvin Gordon – With Woodhead out of the way, Gordon should get all the opportunities he can handle as he faces the swiss cheese Colts Defense. I’m all in on this guy.
- Miami Defense – Miami should benefit most from the injury to McCown. All in as well.
- Theo Riddick – With Abdullah likely out, Riddick should get some extra run. He’ll cede some touches, particularly on the goalline, to Dwayne Washington, but with all his work in the passing game, it shouldn’t be difficult for Theo to make value.
Bankroll Management Tip
Earlier I discussed how Draftkings and Fanduel have changed their “main slate” concept to Sunday only. One of the other changes I’ve noticed this season is that the have jacked up the rake to 15% for most of the larger GPP contests. It was tough enough to maintain profitability in GPP’s with the 10-11% rake of yesteryear. It’s even harder now. It’s important to be aware of the rake and payouts of every contest you enter. The good news is that the cash game rake has remained more stable in the 10-11% range. At this point, you shouldn’t need it, but this is another great reason to maintain 80/20 discipline when it comes to your game selection.
Fantasy Draft Swag Contest
Congrats to JGwoods67 on winning last weeks beat the geek contest! Email me at [email protected] with your address and size to claim your DFS Army T-Shirt! I had a pretty good week on Fantasy Draft as well. I took down a share of 1st in the prime time slate, had a clean sweep in my double ups and survivors, and placed in most of the GPP’s I entered. Big thanks to Travis Benjamin, DeAngelo Williams and Cam Newton for making that happen.
Fantasy Draft and the way its set up reminds me of Fanduel back in 2013. The site was smaller and not as sharp. Most of the GPP’s were on the smaller side with the larger ones hitting 5000 entrants. Players had a much more realistic shot at winning one of them. I built up my bankroll in that type of environment and I really believe that those type of contests are the best ones for newer players to build up their bankrolls before stepping in with the sharks on the bigger sites.
I’m running another Beat the Geek contest on Fantasy Draft this week. I’ve expanded this one to 80 entrants. Let’s see if we can fill this one up. Heres how it works – $5 to enter – Top 25% get paid – 1st place gets a DFS Army T-Shirt and a mention in this column next week!
WEEK 3 BEAT THE GEEK WIN A T-SHIRT CONTEST
DFS ARMY VIP MEMBERSHIP
I started this site to help newer players learn the DFS ropes. One of the reasons we’ve has so many members post 5 and 6 figure wins (Check out The Wall of Fame) is because the focus has always been to teach lineup construction methodologies and bankroll management skills. That’s one of the reasons we give all of our members links to download two Daily Fantasy Football strategy eBooks, each with 200 pages of in-depth daily fantasy football strategy. In addition, we put together our Training Camp series which condenses much of the strategies in the books down to the essential tidbits and rules of thumb. I share my personal notes with our VIP’s including my weekly player pick mix for both Fanduel and Draftkings which is great, but we also have the best all purpose cheat sheet around. Our cheat sheet includes custom DFS Army projections, Values, DVP, Targets, Workloads, Trenches Breakdowns, too much to list. The idea is to give our members the tools they need to succeed. The last and possibly best part of our membership is our DFS Army Team Slack Forums. All of our pros are fixtures there answering questions and talking strategy. We all help one another and root one another on during big sweats. We’ve built a great community and the method works. If you want to check out DFS Army VIP Membership FREE it’s simple. Register for one of the DFS Sites below with a new depositing account. I’ll hook you up with a free month of DFS Army VIP membership as well as the links to download our DFS Strategy eBooks.
Fanduel – They are running a special where you get 5 free entries to paid contests when you register a new depositing account via this link
Draftkings – You get a ticket ($20) to the Millionaire Maker contest when you register via our link
Fantasy Draft – Get a deposit match of up to $600 when you register via our link
Remember to email me at [email protected] to get your eBooks and a free month of membership code!
Week 3 Vegas Lines Breakdowns
Houston -2.5 At New England 41
On Thursday night the Texans travel to New England to face a Patriots team that is rolling out their third string QB. Vegas sees a close and low scoring affair with the Patriots as slight home dogs. Somehow the Patriots always seem to find ways to pull off miracles. Vegas must believe in them because one would have expected the Texans to be favored by more than just 2.5 points when going up against a team rolling out their third stringer at QB for their first ever NFL game action.
You never really know how the Patriots will approach and attack a game. Last week they were heavily favored and leaned on Blount and the running game for the most part. Bennett also had a big day filling in for Gronk as the #1 TE. I expect Belichick will want to hide his QB as much as possible in this game which probably means more Blount. That doesn’t mean it will work but I would assume that they aren’t looking to win by having the third stringer a ton of passes. There is some sleeper appeal with the lower priced pass catchers for the Patriots. Hogan has been a consistent option for cheap salary so far this season. I can’t see spending up for Edelman in this type of matchup, as his QB is simply too much of a question mark for me.
The Texans can beat teams in a lot of ways. Lamar Miller has been money so far this season; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we want consistent 20+ touch, three down backs in our cash lineups- Miller is one of those guys. In my Monday – Thursday lineups I used quite a few Brock to Hopkins/Fuller stacks so I’m hoping they go bonkers tonight. Normally, it takes rookie WRs a few weeks to get into the swing of things but Fuller has looked amazing so far this season coming out of the gates with guns blazing- 24.7 and 17.4 DraftKings points in his first two weeks. He is a bargain priced player with a high ceiling right now. Hopkins remains an every-week stud.
The line on this game is low enough that we can safely fade the game. I like the Texans offense for the most part but on the road in a game Vegas sees as low scoring I can’t see making any of them core parts of my T-M entries.
Secondary Plays: Osweiler, Hopkins, Miller, Fuller
At Cincinnati -3 Denver 41
The Broncos bring their top of the line defense to Cincinnati to take on a solid Bengals team in a close and low-scoring game. There are a lot of juicy lines this week and this game is not one of them. It’s possible we will see some production from A.J. Green at home, but in DFS we need our studs to put up monster games and I can’t count on that here. The same goes for the Denver offense aka C.J. Anderson; he should do fine in this spot and will get his 20 touch workload but there are other players in better spots facing weaker defenses in games with higher totals. This game is a complete fade for me.
At Tennessee -1.5 Oakland 46.5
The Raiders head East to take on a scrappy Titans team in a game that Vegas sees as close and high scoring.
Let’s start with the Raiders defense, which has been shredded through the air in both of their games so far this season. This is a really solid spot for Mariota & Co. to air it out and potentially put up potentially big stat lines. The key players on the Titans offense are Mariota, DeMarco Murray, Tajae Sharpe and Delanie Walker.
In the passing game, it starts with Walker; he continues to see solid 5-7 targets per game and plenty of red zone looks. Murray has seen a ton of targets in the passing game as well for the Titans; through two weeks he has 14 targets and 12 receptions. At seven targets per game, it doesn’t take much for an RB to make or exceed value and he’s also been averaging around 15 carries per game. Sharpe came back down to earth last week after an 11 target week one game, but he is certainly an option at his price. Last week he got seven targets and four receptions for a mild 7.3 fantasy points. He should do better this week facing the porous Raiders secondary, so the Mariota-Sharpe stack will be GPP only for me.
The Titans have been surprisingly stingy on defense so far this season, especially against the run. Vegas is looking for a bit of a shootout here but I’m not completely convinced we will see one. As bad as the Raiders defense has looked, their offense looks pretty good. Here is a troubling stat – last week Latavius Murray put up 22 DraftKings points, and on paper, it looked like he had a pretty nice game. When we delve a little deeper into the numbers, Murray only had eight carries for 57 yards and a TD. He did some damage in the passing game catching all six of his targets for 44 yards. Sounds OK at first, but here’s the problem – Jalen Richard and Deandre Washington combined for 14 carries and a target. So now, we basically have a three-man RBBC situation going up against one of the top ranked rushing defenses in the league; therefore, I’m passing on Lats this week.
If the Raiders are going to do any scoring, and Vegas thinks they will, it will have to be through the air. If I need exposure to the Raiders, it’s going to be either Cooper or Crabtree. Looking further at the numbers, this could be an anomaly after just two games but, the Titans have been torched by opposing WR1s. Last week, Marvin Jones Jr. put up a nice stat line against them and Amari Cooper could be in line for the same type of production, thus, making him the only play on the Raiders offense for me.
Elite Plays: Mariota, Sharpe, Walker, Demarco Murray, Amari Cooper
Arizona -4.5 At Buffalo 47
Last week my beloved Jets torched the Bills for 37 points. It has been said this was the worst beating a Rex Ryan defense has ever taken. Obviously, I enjoyed watching that game very much. The Bills looked like a complete mess and the score was not a true indication of how bad this game was. Now the Cardinals are coming to town bringing their high-octane offense with them. Yikes! The Cardinals are favored on the road in a game with a fairly high total.
The past two weeks it’s been the Larry Fitzgerald Show for the Cardinals, as the man with the best hands in the NFL has had 11 and 10 targets respectively in the two games. I mixed in Larry and Michael Floyd across my lineups last week. Floyd bailed me out with a lone TD grab but I’m not falling that again anytime soon. At the price Floyd is at right now, I need a lock for about eight targets every game, and he isn’t there right now. I do think the Cardinals will score a fair amount of scoring here, but I think the safest player to target is David Johnson. Matt Forte tore up the Bills last week with 100 yards and three TDs. David Johnson has multiple TD upside in a game where I expect his team to be leading throughout.
The only good thing I can say about the Bills offense right now is if you use them you are certainly going to see very low ownership. Arizona is ranked in the Top 5 as far as run-stopping, so that limits my desire to use Shady McCoy. OK, I never had any desire to use him this week but you get the idea. Sammy Watkins has health concerns right now, and sure, he could break one at any time but I expect Patrick Peterson will keep him in check. If I wasn’t an AFC East guy I wouldn’t even know the names of the other WRs for the Bills. I’m not going to mention them because they are not fantasy viable, but trust me, I know the names.
Elite Plays: Carson Palmer, David Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald
at Jacksonville PK Baltimore 47
The Jags return home off a thrashing from the Raiders to take on an enigmatic Ravens team. The game is a pick ‘em with a 47-point total, on the high side for this week’s slate.
In Week 1 we saw the Ravens completely shut down the Bills. You had to feel good about them at that point, but come Week 2, the Browns were putting the beat down on them for a while until McCown started to fade with his injury and the offense went stale; at this point, we still don’t know much about the Ravens defense as a whole. Going back to last season, the Ravens were exploitable via the pass. The good news for Blake Bortles & Co. is that their running game sucks, but I expect the Jags to bounce back strong at home after their loss to the Chargers. Allen Robinson has been one of the biggest disappointments to start the season and his salary across the DFS sites has been coming down to reflect that disappointment. This is a sneaky spot to get a stud WR at super low ownership, so I will have some Bortles to A-Rob stacks queued up this week just in case they go bananas. Julius Thomas and Allen Hurns are also in play for the Jags.
For the Ravens, it’s been the Mike Wallace Show this past couple of weeks. Wallace is a perfect match with Joe Flacco, who likes to sling it downfield; he made Terrible Torrey Smith look good at times in the same role a few seasons back. Wallace is the classic low volume home run hitter in fantasy football, not the type of player to use in cash games. On the flipside, we have Steve Smith, Sr. who has seen his salary drop each week of the season, but it’s now reaching a palatable $4100 on DraftKings. SSS saw nine targets in Week 1 and then six targets in Week 2. He has been in on 70% of the snaps for the Ravens. I like him as a reasonably high floor punt this week on the PPR sites.
Elite Plays: Blake Bortles, Allen Robinson
Secondary: Mike Wallace, Joe Flacco, Julius Thomas, Steve Smith Sr., Dennis Pitta
At Miami -10 Cleveland 41.5
The Browns travel to Miami with their third string QB in tow for what Vegas expects will be a thrashing. The 15.75-point team total may be too generous for the Browns in this spot.
Miami has actually played well defensively so far this season. In Week 1, they did a fairly decent job against Seattle on the road and now have five sacks, two forced fumbles and an INT over the first two games. The Browns have some nice weapons in the passing game but I’m not going near any of them with a rookie QB at the helm. They have been featuring Crowell as a workhorse RB so far this season, and that’s all good and well, but I expect them to be playing from very far behind this week. Not an ideal spot for the RB position.
Vegas gave Miami a generous 25.5 total and they should have little trouble exceeding that against the porous defensive unit of the Browns. Ryan Tannehill, Jarvis Landry and Devante Parker are all in play here. Parker looked great last week hauling in eight receptions on 13 targets for 106 yards. Landry had a similar line and should be a safe cash play. The most interesting aspect of this game will be the RB situation for the Dolphins. Arian Foster got hurt last week and his status for this week’s game is unclear. The situation behind Foster is quite sketchy right now with Jay Ajayi, Kenyan Drake, and Isiah Pead all in the conversation. Normally I’d go all in on an RB in this type of heavily-favored situation, but there needs to be a clear starter to make that worthwhile. If Foster is somehow healthy and suits up, I can see taking a GPP shot on him. Foster is a supreme injury risk whenever you use him so it’s important to go into a decision like that with eyes wide open.
Elite Plays: Miami Defense (ALL IN), Jarvis Landry, Devante Parker
High-Risk Potential Elite Play – Arian Foster – Coming off the injury I’d be surprised if Miami rolled him out this week, but if he does play and take on a big workload, he should beast in this match up. Even if he starts this is a high-risk move, so GPP only for me.
At NY Giants -4.5 Washington 46.5
In a divisional rivalry game, the Redskins head north on I-95 to take on the Giants, who are slight favorites in a game with an above-average total for the week.
The Redskins have been torched in the passing game so far this season, but they have actually been pretty solid at stopping the run. Eli Manning’s thoughts on all of this? “Fine by me!” The Giants don’t have much of a running game anyway, but add on the fact that Rashad Jennings is dinged up with his hand in a cast…no thanks. He says it’s nothing and claims he wants to play, but a messed up hand does not bode well for passing game work in my opinion. Even when healthy, he’s been a lineup killer this season; no reason to go there. The Giants are probably going to attack through the air and have actually been spreading the football around a lot more this season which hasn’t been great for Odell Beckham Jr.’s fantasy production. Last season they would regularly feed him 10+ targets per game, but so far this season he’s averaging a healthy nine targets per game.
Let’s talk narratives for a minute. This game represents the return of Josh Norman and a reminder of his incident with OBJ last season. One criticism of Norman so far this season is that he lines up on the left side and does not shadow opposing WRs. I’m going to assume the Giants are aware of this and are game-planning to keep OBJ and Norman separated; that probably means lining him up on the opposite side of the field. Sterling Shepard had a nice breakout last week catching all eight targets for a solid 117-yard total. Assuming I’m correct about OBJ, Shepherd should draw Norman for most of the game.
**Edit – ESPN’s Britt McHenry reports Redskins CB Josh Norman will go “anywhere Odell Beckham goes except for the slot” in Week 3.
Beckham has only run 6.8 percent of his routes from the slot through two games, so this should be a showdown for much of Sunday. The Redskins have drawn heavy criticism for not letting Norman move off his left cornerback post against Antonio Brown and Dez Bryant in Weeks 1 and 2, but they’re apparently going to change that on Sunday. Norman is Pro Football Focus’ No. 1 cover corner after Week 2 and held Beckham to a 4-30-1 line on seven targets in his matchup with OBJ last season.
With the Redskins giving Norman free reign at OBJ, this actually opens things up nicely for Sterling Shepard. Victor Cruz is the third option in this offense and he saw eight targets last week as well. It’s going to be tough for any one of these guys to have a monster game with Eli spreading it around so evenly. That scenario hurts OBJ the most because Shepherd’s salary reflects much lower expectations.
The Redskins still haven’t clicked on offense this season, but they should get right at some point and this could very well be the time. They face a Giants defense that does an exceptional job of defending the opposing WR1, but that’s about it. I don’t feel great about any of the other WRs for the Redskins either. Garcon, Crowder, and Doctson all will see targets but generally not enough for consistent fantasy value. The best way to get exposure to the Redskins offense is via Jordan Reed. His breakout is coming and the Giants can’t stop opposing TEs.
Elite Plays: Eli Manning, Sterling Shepherd, Odell Beckham Jr, Jordan Reed, Shane Vereen (only if Jennings is out!!!)
At Green Bay -7.5 Detroit 48
The Lions head into Green Bay as surprisingly heavy underdogs in a game Vegas thinks will be high scoring.
Stafford & Co. are facing a Packers defense that has been surprisingly stout to start the season- try saying that five times fast. They have completely shut down opposing RBs and we saw a little of that last Sunday when they were shutting down AD. The good news for the Lions is that they don’t have a traditional running back. Ameer Abdullah is done for the season leaving Theo Riddick as the primary RB; Riddick has been heavily involved in the Detroit passing attack and that’s the type of play they will need as they try to keep up with the Packers offense. I’ve been all over Marvin Jones Jr. since Week 1 and this week is no exception. The Packers have been below average at defending the opposing WR1. Eric Ebron is also in consideration in this game; the Lions have been making every effort to get this guy involved in their offense with seven targets per game on average. He’s still priced at punt levels on most of the sites and is almost always low owned.
I love it when teams play in prime time because I get to sit down and really watch a game in full. On Sundays, I’m generally juggling three or four games at a time and it’s tougher to get a real feel for how the coaches are using players in particular situations; watching the Packers convinced me not to use Lacy anytime soon because he doesn’t get nearly enough touches to justify his salary level. He is extremely game flow dependent as well. I could see him doing well in a situation where the Packers are protecting a lead, but if the game is close or the Packers are behind, he is basically useless. Randall Cobb is another player I’m completely off; he sports almost stud level salary on the sites but his production and usage don’t match the salary at all. No thanks, I’ll take Jordy Nelson in this game and it may be an all-in play for me since he is just so damn consistent. According to our DFS Army VIP NFL Spreadsheet, Nelson has been in on 90% of the team snaps and is targeted 15% of the time. I see that number continuing to rise as the season progresses. Rodgers loves going to him for good reason and I think I love him too. There’s more buzz again this week around Jared Cook; the Lions are bad against opposing TEs and the Packers want Cook more involved. He was the one who recovered that late Rodgers fumble last week and Aaron may want to reward him. I’m not ready to jump on the hype train just yet, but Cook has some punt appeal here facing a Lions defense that can’t cover TEs.
Elite Plays: Jordy Nelson, Marvin Jones Jr, Theo Riddick
Secondary Plays: Eric Ebron
At Carolina -7 Minnesota 43
Sam Bradford and the Vikings travel to Carolina as heavy underdogs in a game that has a low total. Both teams sport well-rounded defenses that are ranked in the Top 10 against the pass and the rush. This game doesn’t stand out as a great DFS target and the players should go low owned on both sides. Both teams have lost their lead RBs and will be rolling out backups with uncertain workloads. There is absolutely no reason to risk using any of the RBs on either side of this particular game.
For Carolina, Cam Newton is always usable in cash. His week-to-week floor is the highest of any QB in the league and sometimes these competitive games wind up leading to a great deal of fantasy scoring. Outside of Cam, Kelvin Benjamin has been crushing it the first two weeks, and going forward, he still sports a weekly multi-TD upside. I don’t have a problem using him in this spot and Greg Olsen is in play as well.
The Vikings are in a tough spot on the road but I’m not sleeping on the chemistry between Stefon Diggs and his new QB. Diggs is still priced reasonably across the DFS landscape and he could make value even in a low scoring game like this. The Panthers have been solid at stopping opposing WR1s, but not completely shut-down. The value for Diggs and his 10 targets per game average is still there.
Elite Plays: Cam Newton, Kelvin Benjamin, Stefan Diggs, Greg Olsen
At Seattle -9.5 San Francisco 40.5
The 49ers head north as massive underdogs in a divisional matchup against a Seattle defense ranked #1 overall according to Football Outsiders. Yikes! The 49ers defense has actually been pretty solid to start the season but I’m not sure that can last with their offense stinking up the field on a weekly basis. The Vegas team total for the 49ers is a modest 15.5 points, which doesn’t bode well for them. Seattle gets a more generous 25-point total here, so this could certainly be a get-right game for Wilson & Co.
I’m not going to discuss the 49ers offense here; you can use them at your peril. I’m fairly confident that I’ll get a question in Slack asking me if Hyde is a good play this week. I’ll say no and then he will go off. Still, even if this monumental surprise occurs, I’m not playing anyone from the 49ers this week.
For Seattle this is tricky. The Vegas line screams play the running back. If we knew that Rawls was going to sit it would be an easy call to roll out Christine Michael in a game where the flow should favor the RB. The issue is that all reports right now seem to indicate that Rawls is fine and should play. If he does, I don’t trust the split at all. Doug Baldwin is also dinged up but if he’s healthy I wouldn’t mind grabbing a few shares of him in my lineups as well.
Elite Plays: Seattle Defense, Cristine Michael (Only if Rawls is inactive)
At Tampa Bay -5 Los Angeles 42
The Bucs are looking to get right after a thrashing at the hands of the Cardinals defense. They face a tough test at home against a Rams defense that shut down the Seahawks last week. The Bucs are favored by 5, in what Vegas thinks will be a low-scoring affair.
There just isn’t much fantasy goodness to be had in this game. The Bucs defense isn’t great at anything but the Rams offense is virtually immobile outside of Gurley. Originally, I was considering using Chuck Simms in this spot with Doug Martin out this week. Then I got a tip from a Tampa local that the coaching staff is talking up Jaquizz Rodgers to somewhat fill the Martin role. The whole situation stinks. The one thing we know for sure at this point is that the Bucs are going to feed Mike Evans targets. Evans saw 17 targets last week and actually made value in that stinker game against Arizona. He will be a low ownership GPP stab in the dark this week.
Elite Plays: Mike Evans
Pittsburgh -4 At Philadelphia 46
In a Pennsylvania showdown, the Steelers head to Philly as four-point road favorites in a game with an above average 46-point total.
The Eagles have been surprisingly stout on defense to start the season. They have a -57% DVOA against opposing WR1s this season. They’ve been a bit more vulnerable to opposing rushers with a slightly below average ranking in that area. It’s not clear after two games if these rankings are just noise or how much stock we should put into them. Realistically no CB can stop Antonio Brown. This is a game to fire up DeAngelo Williams and AB for the Steelers.
The Steelers have been nothing special defensively; not terrible, but nothing to fear for fantasy purposes. Watching the Eagles on Monday night I was impressed by the poise that Wentz has shown. The Eagles have spread the ball around a bit but Jordan Matthews is the clear top dog in that offense. With Ertz still sidelined, I expect J-Matt to see a few extra red zone targets as well. Nelson Agholor has gotten in on some of the fun as well averaging six targets per game through two contests; he has some punt appeal this week. I do have a word of caution on Ryan Mathews- Last week in a game script that was massively favorable to Mathews, he only wound up with nine carries for 32 yards! He turned two of those carries into TDs but those are high variance events. Oddly, Darren Sproles actually wound up with 12 total carries for 40 yards. Even Kenjon Barner and Wendell Smallwood got in on the action with each seeing a few carries. This is far too many names being used at RB for comfort. I’ve been rolling with Mathews for the first few weeks, and he bailed me out on Monday with the tuddies, but I’m getting off that train until the Eagles commit to him as a workhorse back.
Elite Plays: Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, DeAngelo Williams, Jordan Matthews
Secondary Play: Nelson Agholor
At Kansas City -3 NY Jets 43.5
The Jets are coming off one of their most prolific offensive performances in years against the Bills last week. On the other side, the Chiefs bring a reputation as a tough defense, but the stats haven’t shown that to start the season. Every Jets game follows a similar script- they will stop the Chiefs rushing attack and make them win it through the air. I would assume Darrelle Revis will be on Jeremy Maclin for the majority of this game. Revis isn’t what he once was but Maclin is the type of WR that he should be able to limit. I don’t hate Maclin here but I’m actually leaning more towards the TE Travis Kelce as the best play on the Chiefs offense. The Jets have never been great at stopping opposing TEs and it would be an appropriate touch of karma for Baby Gronk to feast on the team that Big Gronk normally torches.
The biggest question mark for the Jets is Brandon Marshall’s health. Unfortunately, we won’t have an answer until Sunday on this situation, but if Marshall is out, I’d be extremely high on Quincy Enunwa who is emerging in the Jets offense this season with a pair of six reception games. His DraftKings salary of $4800 is way too high, assuming Marshall plays, but it becomes a bargain if the Jets #1 WR is on the shelf. Eric Decker is coming off a monster performance at Buffalo with 126 yards and a TD. That said, his $6800 salary is also a tad high for a guy competing with two others for targets in a game with a very low total. The last piece on the Jets offense is Matt Forte, who has been incredible to start the season and has seen 25+ opportunities in both games so far. He should continue to be a high floor, high ceiling RB stud.
Elite Plays: Travis Kelce
Secondary Plays: Forte, Decker, Maclin
At Indianapolis -3 San Diego 52
Chalk Alert! I’ve got that tingle going up my leg for the game which features the highest total on the slate. As a bonus, the offensive skill position players are cheap enough to stack any way we like. Vegas sees a close and high-scoring affair that will likely develop into a shootout.
The Colts are at the bottom of the league defensively right now and there’s no hope for improvement on the horizon; this bodes well for Phillip Rivers & Co. Last week I pushed Travis Benjamin hard here in the column and on my podcast/player picks sheets and rode him to an almost complete sweep of my cash game entries; I’m getting back on the train this week. It only took 6 targets for T-Benj to put up a 115 yard, 2 TD performance. Rookie WR Tyrell Williams was used in the Malcom Floyd deep ball role and had a respectable 61 yards with a TD last week. #3 WR Dontrelle Inman didn’t do much with his 3 targets. Antonio Gates is usable in this spot, but his limited speed caps his ceiling a bit even though he generally gets a couple of red zone looks every game. The player I’m most excited to use this week is actually Melvin Gordon. When Danny Woodhead went down with the torn ACL, Gordon stepped up to the tune of 25 carries, 100+ yards and three receptions on three targets in the passing game. There is no legitimate threat to Gordon for touches this week. I’m ALL IN!
The Colts are in a similarly great spot this week. As I mentioned earlier, the Chargers defense is nothing special. As a bonus, the Colts lack a real threat at the RB position since Gore has looked mediocre to start the season. That forces Andrew Luck and the Colts to make things happen through the air. Donta Moncrief is out for a few weeks with an injury. I believe his normal targets will go to #2 WR Phillip Dorsett and Dewayne Allen. T.Y. Hilton has already been a target hog seeing an average of 11.5 per game to start the season; he hasn’t done much with those targets so, but this week that should change.
I’ll be stacking this game like crazy in my GPP entries. I’m guessing, based on salary and recent performance, that Rivers to T-Benj will be the most popular stack. I’ll use the Rivers stack as well as a plethora of Luck-Hilton-Allen-Dorsett combinations in my GPP’s this week.
Elite Plays: Melvin Gordon, T.Y. Hilton, Andrew Luck, Travis Benjamin, Dewayne Allen, Tyrell Williams, Phillip Dorsett,
Secondary: Frank Gore, Antonio Gates
At Dallas -7 Chicago 45.5
Wow, I got so excited about that Colts – Chargers game that I actually just went outside to have a cigarette. It’s going to be difficult to get excited about the Sunday night hammer game after that climax but I actually do think there are some viable plays in this game. The Bears roll into Dallas this week with new starting QB Brian Hoyer in tow. The Cowboys are favored by seven in a game with a mid-range total.
This game script sets up well for Zeke Elliott and the Cowboys running game. The Bears defense is not very good. Cowboys QB, Dak Prescott, has found a nice rapport with the original mullet man, Cole Beasley. I like Cole on the PPR sites as a salary saving high floor punt play this week. Jason Witten has also gotten in the targets mix and seems to have a floor of four or five receptions this season. I’m not ready to pay up stud level salary for Dez Bryant just yet.
For the Bears, I actually think Hoyer is an improvement over Jay Cutler. He will have a nice day on occasion but Cutler kind of sucks for the most part. At least when teams like the Jags are behind their QB starts slinging it and putting up garbage time goodness. For some reason when the Bears go down big, they turtle up and quit. Another thing I noticed watching the Bears last week is that Langford kind of sucks. Last week the Bears gave carries to three other RBs. Obviously, game-flow may have played a factor but for now, I’m staying away from the Bears running game altogether.
Elite Plays: Alshon Jeffrey, Cole Beasley
Monday Night Football Line
At New Orleans -3 Atlanta 54
I’m kind of glad that DraftKings and FanDuel removed Monday Night from their main slate of games because it was going to be tricky to decide which game to target in stacks between this one and the Colts/Chargers game; luckily, we don’t have to make that decision now. It’s all hands on deck in this divisional match-up between two of the highest flying offenses in the league right now. You don’t often see a 54-point total in a game so this has to be fantasy gold. I took a brief glance at the defensive rankings to see if either of these teams stands out in any one area and Atlanta has been particularly bad against RBs and WR1s while the Saints have been crap across the board.
For Atlanta, we start with the Matt Ryan-Julio Jones stack. Matty Ice has been money to start the season and that should continue. Mohammed Sanu is coming off a bit off a disastrous five target, three reception game and is more of a GPP dart throw at his inflated salary level. In an interesting twist, TE Jacob Tamme has seen eight targets each of the past two weeks and has been crushing value; you gotta like him in this spot. Now for the interesting part- Freeman vs Coleman. Every week people ask which guy they should play and interestingly enough, Freeman has out-touched T-Cole both weeks, but Coleman has outscored Freeman both weeks. Freeman’s DFS salary has been coming down but not as fast as it should. This week his salary is identical to Melvin Gordon’s on DraftKings, so I’ll take Gordon. Based on the salary difference alone, if you absolutely must choose an Atlanta RB, Coleman is probably the play.
The situation is similar for the Saints, as it’s an all hands on deck situation. Drew Brees has the highest salary and highest projected player of the week, while Brandin Cooks and Willie Snead are both elite options. My sneaky play on the Saints is Mark Ingram; everyone is off of him after two disappointing games and I’m buying low in my season longs for sure. In DFS we want exposure to this game and as a bonus, it’s nice to get low ownership exposure. I checked out the stat line from last week’s game and Ingram got four targets and four receptions. He didn’t do much with them but it was encouraging that they were there. Another interesting takeaway from last week was that Fleener saw eight targets but only reeled in two of them. He sucks so bad right now but one of these weeks he’s going to have a breakout game.
Elite Plays: Brees, Cooks, Snead, Ryan, Julio, Tamme
Secondary/GPP: Sanu, Fleener, Coleman
Conclusion
That’s it for the Week 3 Vegas Lines breakdown. For those of you that are DFS Army premium members, I’ll have my complete player picks posted later this week. Also be on the lookout for my VIP Exclusive Podcast where we will break down each game in greater depth than what I can do here in the column. That should be live on Thursday morning. If you are reading this via the DFS Army Android APP please be kind and leave a review. Click here to grab the app from the google play store or to leave a nice review if you have it already!