Week one is in the Books and was a great week for the DFS Army! We’re back in action for week two and there’s a 13 game Main Slate to feast on with huge prize pools once again! I’ve got you covered with all pivot and leverage plays off the Chalk Donkeys in this weeks article!
My name is Josh ThomasP, and I write the Chalk Donkey article for the main slate for NFL VIPs as well as focusing on the showdown/single game slates on both sites. In this article I’ll breakdown the games on the slate, what a Chalk Donkey is, identify who those players are at QB, RB, WR, TE, and DEF using our ownership projections and offer some pivots who are poised for big games at low ownership. I’ll justify those pivots using our one of a kind research station and in the process, hopefully teach you a bit about how to use that research station to identify solid pivots off the chalk.
Check out my Chalk Donkey PGA Article for this week here! –> Chalk Donkey PGA
Week One Recap:
Boy did the chalk hit in week one! Like literally, every single chalk play hit. Kamara, Conners, Sanders, Ravens D it all mashed in week one. If we take a look at the Milly Maker winner from week one though, its OK to eat the chalk in some places as long as you differentiate elsewhere.
That’s the goal of this article weekly, to help you find those lower owned GPP Pivots and stacks that can put you over the edge in these big GPP’s. Last week our low owned stack of Marcus Mariota and Delanie Walker didn’t quite pan out like we planned with both players getting hurt during the game, let alone the multiple breaks they had for lightning delays.
As you can see above though, finding the low owned stack can help you crush the competition in GPP’s. Something to note though, the plays I post below are going to be almost exclusively GPP. In cash just eat as much chalk as you can and find the safest floor you can.
I don’t play big GPP’s to min cash. I’m looking for winning upside and thats primarily the goal of this article. Identify chalk plays that aren’t necessarily in great spots, and show you the pivots or leverage plays that we can use in big GPP to take it down.
Slate Breakdown:
This week, the main slate consists of twelve games and the big storyline so far is the huge game totals in the Saints/Browns game and the Steelers/Chiefs game. Both games have a 50+ point total and should be shoot outs. The Saints/Browns game has a ten point spread favoring the Saints, so Vegas thinks that New Orleans can get back on track with a big win.
Other storylines this week deal with injuries. Will Aaron Rodgers play against the Vikings? Hurt his leg week one and came back out to lead the Pack to a win over the Bears, but hasn’t practiced yet this week (either has DeVante Adams). If one or both of them are out we could see the Vikings D become the chalk of the week.
Atlanta has had two big time injuries on their defense that should open up the game for Christian McCaffrey and Cam Newton to eat, but Greg Olsen going down hurts that offense a ton.
The Rams are massive favorites against the Cardinals who put up a pretty miserable performance in Week one. People are also starting to believe that Adrian Peterson is a thing again in Washington (I don’t) after a solid week one performance.
Overall, its a great slate of games this week and there are enough solid pivots and leverage plays that I don’t think we need to eat all the chalk this week like last week. Let’s get into it!
One way that I breakdown rosters is through our Research Station. We will have a stand alone research station for the Thursday games this year, which I’m pumped about, check it out here! –> NFL Main Slate Research Station
What is a Chalk Donkey?
First let’s breakdown what I consider to be ‘chalk’. In golf, I breakdown the chalk by price range, but for NFL I think its important to break it down by position. Note these percentages are for the main slate. On a smaller slate the chalk ranges become a little bit higher, I have no problem playing a QB at 30% ownership on a 3 game slate, but on a 12 gamer I’d rather pivot.
Quarterback: >20% Any time we have a Quarterback staring down 20% ownership or 1/5 of the field, its worth pivoting off of them. Quarterback scoring is often very flat and there isn’t a huge difference in point production most weeks, win or lose. Anytime there’s a chalk QB I almost always pivot.
Running Back: >20% Similar to QB, Any time a RB creeps up towards this 20% range we want to consider a pivot. I’m less likely to fade RB’s in smash spots at high ownership than I am QB’s just because of the ability of RBs to have massive games and outscore their closest competitor by 10-15 points. (See Todd GurleyP, 2017)
Wide Receiver: 15%-20% With 3 spots for Wide Receiver on all three sites, you have the opportunity for ownership to spread out a little more on WR’s than the rest of the position groups. That being said, ownership almost always pools on 4-5 WR’s with most above 20%. There are very few WR’s that are match up safe and many tend to be game flow dependent. Many times we see WR’s in smash spots drop single digit points at high ownership because of the variance of a football game.
Tight End: >10% With only one spot on your roster for a TE unless you roster two with a flex, we don’t usually see players with massive ownership here. Anything over 10% would be considered chalky for me, but for the most part I’m not really fading TE ownership most weeks unless Gronk looks like a 30% owned play.
Defense: >15% Similar to TE, I’m not often fading a defense as we usually don’t have a chalk donkey here and there isn’t always a huge spread in the top 10 defenses of the week in terms of point production.
One thing to remember as you construct lineups, players are ‘Chalk Donkeys’ for a reason, they are perceived to be good plays. Don’t fade the ‘Chalk Donkeys’ just because they are going to be highly owned. Very rarely does no chalk hit, and often times you find some of these ‘Chalk Donkeys’ in GPP winning lineups. In fact, 83% of Milly Maker winners in NFL rostered a player who was 20% owned or higher and 45% rostered a player that was 30% owned or higher!
Now let’s get to the Chalk Donkey’s of the week. In the next section of this article I will highlight one or two players at each position that are projected to be highly owned and give either a reason to fade or play them. I’ll also provide a pivot or two who are projected to come in with single digit ownership.
Quarterback:
Patrick Mahomes – Chiefs: DK $6,100/FD $7,500/FD2 $11,600
Mahomes had a heck of a stat line in week one. He was 15 of 27 for 256 yard and 4 TDS! That was good for 28.3 DK points and the #4 spot for QB’s this week. He now gets to face the Pittsburgh Steelers at home in a game with the highest total on the board…lock and load for another 25 pt. plus performance right? Thats what I think the masses will end up doing this week but as my good friend and fellow staff member @DFSnDonuts pointed out to me today the numbers may just be a mirage and we see a bit of regression with Mahomes this week.
Don’t get me wrong, Mahomes is going to be a player in this league for years to come and with the weapons he has around him, the Chiefs could be legitimate contenders for the Super Bowl in the near future but the reality is that he will most likely NOT be as efficient as he was in week one at any point the rest of the season.
Mahomes had 4 TD’s on 15 completions. Thats a 14% touchdown rate. Thats a ridiculous rate. The highest ever TD rate in the common era (1980-now) was Peyton Manning in 2004 with the Colts when he had a TD Rate of 9.9%. Last year Carson Wentz led the league with a 7.5% TD rate and the rest of the league was under 5% for the most part.
The thing that drove up Mahomes’ TD rate was two one yard TD passes. Those more often then not will go to a RB at the goal line. Take those away and he falls outside the top ten in terms of Fantasy Production among QB’s. Take one away and he’s 8th. Doesn’t look like as much of a slam dunk now does he?
Many may say well “He has rushing ability!” and he does, but he still won’t get more than 30-40 yards a game and he doesn’t have the Cam Newton type body to bang at the goal line.
Now he gets the number 7 pass defense from 2017, in their house, rattled that they tied the Browns, rattled about Lev Bell contract issue, and ready for blood. I think this SCREAMS regression.
Currently we are projecting him for 21 completions on 35 attempts for 246 a pass td and a pick. I think those numbers are actually too high going into this game against a tough Steelers defense. I think we see a bit of a regression here and while others are chasing the 4 TD’s and the Mahomes/Tyreek connection (I think its one of the highest owned stacks) I’ll be pivoting elsewhere to QB’s in better spots.
Matt Ryan – Falcons: DK $5700/FD $7100/FD2 $10900
Ok. I know. Matt Ryan?? Hear me out here…
Ryan’s statistics from week one don’t look great. 251 pass yards, no TD’s, and one pick, but lets dig in a little deeper. The first thing that sticks out is he threw the ball 43 teams. Thats a LOT of passes. The Falcon’s weren’t afraid to air it out. Another piece of supporting evidence for that is that of those 43 passes the total distance was 422 yards, which was second most in the NFL last week.
Ryan also had ten passes in the Red Zone and threw 5 deep balls. All these things show that his output is trending in the direction for a big game and his Fantasy Points didn’t necessarily show the type of game that he had. If he connects on a few more passes, and actually targets Julio Jones in the red zone we are looking at a top 5 QB last week based on the volume he had.
So, we have Matt Ryan who threw the ball a ton in game one and wasn’t really rewarded for it, back at home in the Mercedez-Benz Stadium with wide receivers that are in smash spots against Carolina’s secondary. @DabbingPuggle breaks it down in his article this week which you can see here —>Dabbing Puggle’s Draw Plays but basically Julio gets a short, rookie CB and Mohammed Sanu draws Captain Munnerlyn who was one of the worst slot DB’s in 2017 and only played 388 snaps for the year.
Matt Ryan will be virtually unowned and I think he’s a great GPP play in this game that I forsee hitting the over rather easily. I do have concerns about Steve Sarkisian’s play calling but this is a great spot for the Falcons and they should be able to handle Cam and the Panthers this week (Cam threw 3 picks in their last game).
My favorite play here is stacking Matt Ryan with Julio Jones and Mohammed Sanu and running it back with Christian McCaffrey on the other side who should be heavily involved regardless of game script. I think you can flip Sanu for Tevin Coleman if Devonta Freeman doesn’t start because of injury.
Other low owned QB’s I like: Deshaun Watson, Matt Stafford, Kirk Cousins
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Running Back:
There are three running backs that should get ALL of the ownership this week. James Conner, Alvin Kamara, and Todd Gurley. All three are in great spots and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I talked you off any of them. That being said, you can’t really afford all three of them unless you really sacrifice other positions in your lineup and thats usually a -EV move.
There are a couple things I look at when I’m identifying RB targets:
Heavy Favorite?
High Game Total/Team Total?
3 Down Back?
20+ Touches?
Favorable Game Script?
If a player checks all these boxes then I’m likely to include them in my player pool. They don’t always have to, but these are some of the main things I look for. So lets see if those three check all the boxes.
Alvin Kamara:
Heavy Favorite? Yep -450 favs.
High Game Total/Team Total? Yep, 50 point game total and the Saints have a TT of 30.
3 Down Back? No one else to even think about carrying the ball.
20+ Touches? Didn’t in Week One but still smashed. A bit concerning but not huge.
Favorable Game Script? Should be a high scoring shoot out which is favorable for Kamara. If they blow them out he could get less usage late in the game, but again, there’s no one else to take snaps really.
Overall, I like Kamara this week. He’s not my favorite of this group but he’s in a great spot. Will be chalky and he is pretty pricey but as we saw last week, he has 3 TD upside.
Todd Gurley:
Heavy Favorite? Biggest favorite on the board at -910
High Game Total/Team Total? Game total of 45 which is right in the middle but Rams have a TT of 29
3 Down Back? Always
20+ Touches? Projected for 19 rushes and 4 catches.
Favorable Game Script? Great game script for him. Should get up early and he can pound it out all 2nd half with the lead. Cardinals got crushed by both Chris Thompson and Adrian Peterson last week. You think they can stop Gurley? Think again.
Easily my favorite RB this week. Cash/GPP whatever. Lock Gurley in and move on.
James Conner:
Heavy Favorite? -200 favorites, not huge by any means.
High Game Total/Team Total? Highest total on the board. 53.5. TT of 28.5
3 Down Back? Yes. He’s the man until Lev Bell comes back.
20+ Touches? Currently projected
Favorable Game Script? Hard to say at this point. It looks like this is going to be a shoot out. If thats the case I’m not sure how involved Conner will be. He’s such an unknown at this point. The Chiefs Run D is AWFUL though so he should be able to have some success.
Conner is in a good spot, but I don’t love how this game script is shaping up for him. I didn’t love it last week either though and he proved me wrong there.
If I had to rank these three it would be:
- Todd Gurley – By a mile
- Alvin Kamara
- James Conner – Its close but all things considered I like Kamara’s spot better.
Any combination of these three RB’s is fine though and it’s a spot that I think we just have to eat the chalk here. If you are able to differentiate else where in your line up with a low owned QB like Matt Ryan you can eat a lot of chalk in the RB spot.
If you are looking for a low owned RB pivot though, boy do I got one for you, not only do I think is he in a smash spot, but he is also huge leverage off not only the QB that I’m fading above, but one of the chalk WR of the slate.
Kareem Hunt – Chiefs: DK $6200/FD $7800/FD2 $11700
Kareem Hunt for whatever reason wasn’t really a part of the Chiefs game plan in week one, or due to the game script they didn’t get him involved as they could have. As such, he only had 16 carries for 49 yards and no catches on 1 target, he also had 0 red zone touches as the Chiefs chose to go with the jet sweet shovel pass on two TD’s that normally Hunt would be in. Mostly this was because the Chargers were without All-Pro Defensive End Joey Bosa and they could exploit that matchup.
Last year Hunt averaged 17 carries, 4 targets, and almost 3 Red Zone Touches per game. Those are skewed due to him having a couple weeks similar to last week where for whatever reason he wasn’t a part of Andy Reid’s game plan. He had 6 games with over 20 carries last year and 6 with over 5 targets. Hunt is in a great spot against a Pittsburgh Steelers defense that is weak against pass catching RB’s and was bottom half of the league in Rush Defense in general. That same defense is going to do everything in their power to stop the huge plays to Tyreek Hill and I think that opens up a lot of opportunity for Hunt in not only the passing game but the rushing game as well.
Hunt is the premier leverage play this week for me. Tyreek Hill will carry massive ownership and has a negative correlation with Hunt. That means if Hunt has a good game, Hill likely wont and the opposite is also true. We can use Hunt in GPP and if he goes off, we can expect to be beating all the teams that use Hill. Thats a leverage play and Hunt is my favorite leverage play of the week and will be a staple in a lot of my GPP lineups.
Other low owned RB’s I like: Dalvin Cook, Lamar Miller, Duke Johnson Jr. (DK Only), Tevin Coleman, James White
Wide Receiver:
The chalk here for the most part are elite plays (Antonio Brown, Michael Thomas, Julio Jones loooooooovvveee me some Julio) and as I wrote above, I’m going to be slamming Hunt while fading Tyreek but there is another play that is underpriced that is getting a ton of buzz that I just don’t get.
Randall Cobb – Packers: DK $4600/FD $6200/FD2 $11000
Randall Cobb (he of multiple trade rumors and a player some though the Pack might cut) is looking like a top 5 owned wide receiver this week. Lets break this down for a second…
Here are the positives:
- Cobb had a great week one. He was targeted 10 times had 9 catches and busted a big one on a broken play for a TD.
- He appears to be Rodgers new favorite target.
Here are the negatives:
- Aaron Rodgers is hurt. He’s going to play, but he’s hurt. You aren’t getting the roll around and sling it Rodgers this week. He will be contained to the pocket.
- The Minnesota Vikings were the #4 pass defense last year, and are feasibly better this year.
- Against the Vikings last year, Cobb had a total of 7 catches for 50 yards in two games. Or 3.5 catches and 25 yards on average.
- Minnesota was the number one defense against slot receivers in week one.
- The Vikings will pressure Rodgers early and often. One hit and now you have Deshone Kizer throwing Cobb the ball.
I just don’t get it. People in the industry are saying Cobb is viable in cash! Maybe this is the homer in me but I’m not targeting many wide receivers against the Vikings this year, and I’m ESPECIALLY not targeting Randall Cobb and a banged up Aaron Rodgers.
That being said, I love the price on Cobb this week so lets look for a pivot in this price range. Thankfully there is one right below him in a smash spot as well at 1/3 the ownership.
Quincy Enunwa is right there as well but should have similar ownership as Cobb. Enunwa is a cash lock for me.
Kenny Golladay – Lions: DK $4800/FD $5700/FD2 $9500
If you watched the Lions take on the Jets on Monday Night Football this week you probably noticed three things.
- The Lions Defense was awful.
- Matt Stafford might be color blind because he kept throwing it directly to Jets players
- Holy shit Kenny Golladay looks good.
Golladay had a great night despite the Lions sucking. He was targeted 12 times and had 7 receptions for 114 yards. His 12 targets were 8th most in the NFL last week. He appeared to be the first look for Stafford on a lot of plays and as such delivered.
He gets a decently tough matchup with Akhello Witherspoon but they move Golladay around enough that it shouldn’t be an issue (he lined up 25% of the time in the slot in week one).
The big reason I’m on Golladay here is the game script. The Lions and 49ers should have a shoot out on Sunday with this game most likely easily hitting the over of 48. Both teams offenses are good and both teams defenses are mediocre. That being said the Lions have no running game and should be playing from behind. That means that Stafford gets to air it out and find guys like Golladay with the long ball.
Everyone is going to be off Stafford and the Lions after their dismal performance in week one but I’m going right back to them and expecting a big performance, especially in PPR, from Kenny Golladay.
Other low owned WR’s I like: Mohammed Sanu, Nelson Agholar, Chris Godwin, Robert Woods
We had some huge winners last year. Tops was DBarlow and his $250,000 1st prize. But, we had a couple heading to King of the Beach, we had another $150,000 winner, and several more 5-figure wins. You can find all of them on our Wall of Wins, and specifically read DBarlow’s story —> HERE!
Tight End:
George Kittle – 49ers: DK $3800/FD $5600/FD2 $8000
Georgey boy had a fantastic week one playing over 85% of the snaps and getting targeted 9 times! He had 5 catches for 90 yards but no TD’s. Jimmy G and Kittle seemed pretty in tune and they were able to eat on the Vikings secondary that was focused on shutting down the receiving corps.
Detroit was a bottom ten defense against TE’s last year and this seems like a spot that George should smash. I think that Kittle is a great play again but my only concern is that he’s never been able to consistently produce like he did in week one.
Last year in week one, Kittle had 5 catches for 27 yards, then he disappeared for 3 weeks before torching the Colts for 7 catches, 83 yards and a TD. He then disappeared again until the end of the year when he had a TD and then a 100 yard game with Jimmy G at the helm.
Some of that could be due to the Quarterback situation in San Francisco but he just tends to disappear a bit sometimes. Again, I think Kittle could be a great play this week and I will have some exposure to him but I caution against going all in here just due to the lack of consistency.
A pivot off of Kittle that I’m really interested in, in GPP this week was a top 3 TE last year that NO ONE is talking about.
Zach Ertz – Eagles: DK $6100/FD $6500/FD2 $10,800
Ertz is a little pricey on DK this week, but I can’t believe how little buzz he’s getting this week.
We are currently projecting Ertz for 13.8 points which would make him the number 2 TE on the week and I think he could easily be the highest scoring tight end. He had a quiet performance in week one against the Falcons but if you read my showdown article you know that we were expecting that with the tough Falcons D against TE.
This week Ertz gets to go up a pretty poor Tampa Bay defense against TE’s (and everything for that matter). Not only are they bad against TE’s but they are bad against slot WR’s. Ertz lined up in the slot over 50% of the time in week one. This is an absolute smash spot for Ertz.
Because of Ertz’ price I don’t think you HAVE to go here as there is a ton of good value below him (Jared Cook, George Kittle) but if you are trying to get off the chalk because you ate up a bunch of the good value. Paying up at TE could be a great play this week and I think Ertz has 2 TD upside this week against a poor Tampa Bay defense.
Other lower owned TE options: Travis Kelce, Jack Doyle, Ricky Seals-Jones
Defense:
This week as with most weeks, there doesn’t look to be a a chalk defense with most being projected under 10% ownership, so instead I’m going to share my favorite defense this week and why I think you should be rostering them in GPP and pairing them with their RB.
Los Angeles Rams: DK $3700/FD $4800/FD2 $7300
Whoa, really going out on a limb and recommending the highest priced defense on the board and the biggest favorite! I know, but I really think defense this week is all about not getting cute. Pair the Rams and Gurley and move on.
The Rams have in my opinion the best defense top to bottom in the league and they showed that on Monday night against the Raiders with 3 picks, a sack, and a touchdown while only giving up 13 points (1 TD and 2 FGS) This week they face an even worse offense in the Cardinals who looked anemic last Sunday.
Sam Bradford was awful going 20-34 for 153 yards and a pick. That was against a Washington defense that was good, but still ranked 5 spots behind this Rams defense that improved tremendously in the offseason. Their #3 ranked pass defense signed Marcus Peters, Sam Shields, and Aqib Talib. This Rams team is going to eat Sam Bradford alive.
The Rams should easily hit value this week and I don’t think you should be overthinking it here. I’ll have the majority of my ownership (75% plus) in gpp on the Rams and almost all will be stacked with Todd Goatley. I mean Todd Gurley.
Other defenses I like this week: Eagles, Vikings, Broncos, Redskins
Final Fade:
In this section I’m going to give you my one other play I’m absolutely fading regardless of ownership. This week that player is old man Adrian Peterson. Maybe I’m a Vikings fan thats been scorned by him but I’m not going to be fooled by one game against a terrible run D. He gets another good matchup this week against the Colts but I just don’t see him getting that sort of volume week in and week out. People will load up on him this week looking for a similar performance but the reality is he’s probably going to have 12-15 touches and 1-2 targets. Let’s remember this was a guy that was basically cut by two teams last year and he’s almost 34 years old! I’m not chasing a week one performance with Peterson and I’d advise you don’t either.
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Last Play:
Be smart with your bankroll this week. Don’t chase losses, and don’t go crazy if you won in week one. It’s important to stick to the process that has worked for you. For me it means that I’m playing the majority of my cash games in H2H’s, the rest in double and triple ups, and my GPP exposure is mostly in single or three entry max. I’ve had a solid start to the season but the volume I’m going to play will stay the same because its a long season. I want to be profitable for the year, not just one week.
I’m really looking forward to working with you guys throughout the year and can’t wait to see those helmets crushing at the top of the leaderboard!
Also, give me a follow on twitter @dfsupnorth as I’ll be posting updates there as well as useful retweets leading up to the games on Sunday.