Chalk Donkey – Week 6 Main Slate

NFL has been back for a month and a half? What?! We are starting to see trends develop with player usage and ways to attack defenses with offensive weapons, yet the average DFS player is still targeting ‘Chalk Donkeys’ in perceived good matchups that really aren’t that good at all. I’ve got you covered with all the pivots you need here! 

My name is Josh Thomas, 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 NFL Showdown Article where I breakdown all the GPP winning lineups her

–> Showdown Smackdown<-

As a reminder, this article identifies who the chalk is each week and provides options on how to either differentiate your lineup with it or pivot. Chalk isn’t always bad and I play chalk every week. There are times we have a chalk player and while I provide an option to pivot here, if Geek, CashKeg, or Marley say “All In” on the chalk, guess what? We go “ALL IN” on the chal

Week Five Recap:

Week five was interesting to say the least, some of our chalk pivots absolutely smashed, like Austin Hooper who went off and was on the Milly Maker Winning Lineup and some of the chalk we faded in GPP absolutely crushed like TJ Yeldon. Such is the GPP life and something that I try to preach is that if you are playing a heavy volume of GPP every week you have to be ready for weeks where you just scrape and weeks where you lose outright, because they happen and are part of the journey.

The other big thing that I try to help guys understand is that chalk is NOT bad. You need to eat some chalk because they are chalk for a reason, they are in a great spot! Last week’s Milly Maker winning lineup was actually one of the least chalky we have seen this year in that he had a total ownership of 113% but he also had David Johnson and TJ Yeldon who were two of the highest owned players on the slate.

My boy @burns273dfs  breaks down this and more in his weekly Shark Autopsy Report  and its an absolute must read if you are playing large field GPP’s or want to learn more about the game theory that goes into not only the winning lineup, but the top ten as well.

Overall it was a pretty good week for the Chalk Donkey as our pivots outscored the chalk for the most part, but again its a work in progress as is every week of the NLF season. You need to continue to improve and not just fade the chalk because its the chalk. This quote from Burns’ article about the Milly Maker winner really stood out to me.

 What’s interesting is that the top 10 field was bearish on the remaining 8 players of the 10 highest rostered players, so much so that none of the top 10 lineups even rostered them in their lineups.  The top 10 scoring lineups take a stand on a play or two and either go under or over weight on those respective plays that week.

Alright, enough about the week that was and let’s get to the week that is! We have a juicy slate and one that I’m really excited about!

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

Week Six Preview:

We get a 12 game main slate with a couple of juicy matchups full of fantasy goodness with totals over 50. The highest projected games right now are Atlanta/Tampa Bay, Cincinnati/Pittsburgh, and Denver/Los Angeles Rams.

With these higher total games, players are obviously priced up, and we can find some pivot/leverage plays off the more expensive and more chalky plays.

A game that really interests me on this slate that also has a pretty high total is the Raiders/Seahawks in London. The game total of 48 and close spread of 2.5 makes me think that we see a pretty good game here and one interesting thing to note is that the Seahawks got to London an entire day before their counterparts the Raiders. They’ve also been working with sleep scientists to ensure that their players are well adjusted come Sunday evening. The Raiders and their head coach Jon Gruden who is stuck in 1998, have not been and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Seahawks get up early and take care of business in London.

One thing interesting to note is that the three highest total games on the slate two are divisional games and one has a ton of injury news to sort through as well as the possibility of snow. Divisional games typically are defensive battles and tend to go towards the under and if you live anywhere with snow you know that makes a complete mess of things. The game theory play may be to fade these high totals that could go under and instead focus on some games that you think could hit the over.

Outside of those high total games I have some interest in players from Carolina and Greg Olsen’s likely return provides some value at the TE position. I’ll also be looking to play guys in the Chicago/Miami game which for some reason has one of the lowest totals on the slate and I think we see that game turn into a shoot out, even though both defenses (the Dolphins not so much lately) have been pretty good.

Overall theres a great mix of games and value to be had on this slate, lets get into who the chalk donkeys are this week and where we can pivot or leverage it!

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 Gurley, 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. Note projected ownerships are for Draftkings you can find the other sites on our Domination Station.  

Here are this week’s top 5 projected owned players for Draftkings. We have ownership projections updating all weekend for all sites in our Domination Station! Check it out here!
——–>DFS Army Domination Station<——–

Quarterback:

Here are the top 5 QB’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points

Matt Ryan: DK $6800/FD $8300/FD2 $12700 

Projected Ownership: 12.56%

Ryan is the highest priced player on the slate on Draftkings, and is projecting to be the highest owned player as well. He gets a just matchup this week against the Tampa Defense that is ranked 32nd against the pass. Over his career Ryan has had a ton of success against Tampa, going 13-7 in 20 career games. Over his last 6 games against the Bucs, he has averaged 312 yards passing, but just under 2 passing touchdowns. If we look at his entire career against Tampa, its actually much worse, but he has a few games he won while throwing for barely over 200 yards (that was a much different Falcons offense and Tampa Defense)

This season so far, here is what the Buccaneers have been allowing to opposing QB’s, the screenshot is snagged from our Research Station .

Oofta. Not good. This Bucs secondary has been getting torched by absolutely everybody and I would expect nothing less from Matt Ryan this week, but I do have one concern about Ryan, and that is his offensive line.

Ryan’s offensive line is ranked 25th in NFL for Adjusted sack rate this year. They have given up 16 sacks, and Ryan has been hurried 51 times. That means that on average he is getting sacked 3 times a game and hurried 15. Tampa’s pass rush is nothing too impressive, but neither were the Saints and they got to Ryan 3 times and hurried him ten times. (He did torch them for a bunch of points though so..)

If you watched the game last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan was under constant duress and it showed in his final stat line of 285 yards, 1 TD, 1 Fumble, and 6 sacks. I don’t expect him to be under that sort of pressure this week, especially at home where it seems that the Falcons consistently show up, but its worth noting.

Devonta Freeman has been ruled already which leaves Tevin Coleman and Ito Smith. In addition to being a strong between the tackles runner, Freeman is also the best pass blocker of the three which further hurts Ryan. This does elevate Coleman to almost a cash lock for me at his price. He should smash value, and if Ryan is under pressure again, those quick safety valve dump offs will net Coleman a ton of PPR oints giving him a really solid floor.

I don’t think Ryan is an awful play by any means. This game could absolutely go off and Vegas seems to think it will (and I’m FOR SURE not smarter than Vegas, check the bet slips) but I don’t think he’s a MUST play by any means, and the game theory play would be to fade him and Jameis Winston in this game at their ridiculous high ownership in big gpp’s like the Milly Maker.

For me, I’ll have pieces of this game in GPP, particularly Coleman and Julio Jones, but for the most part be I’ll be taking an underweight approach. If you want to play Ryan or stack this game in GPP and go with low owned options else where thats an entirely viable strategy and one that could pay off. For me though I’ll stick to Winston or Ryan in cash with their floor and avoid this game in big GPP’s.

Russell Wilson: DK $5700/FD $7600/FD2 $11,200

Projected Ownership: 5.48%

This is more of a DK/FD2 play for me than Fanduel but I love throwing some GPP Darts at Russell Wilson in a game that many will forget about. This is strictly a GPP play and reserved for GPPs that have a lot of entrants, but I think we could see some vintage Wilson across the pond in London this week.

Our current projections have Wilson for around 20 points which has been a pretty standard floor for him this year, but he’s in a high total game where they are the favorite with a close spread. Yes he’s on the road, but its not really a home game for the Raiders as its in London.

Wilson’s passing totals haven’t left much to be desired this year with an average of only 220 yards through the air and barely anything on the ground, but he has been extremely efficient with his passing throwing for 10 TD’s and only 3 interceptions. He’s had 2 games this year with 3 TD’s which is more than some of the other chalkier plays at this position can say this week.

While its difficult to figure out who to pair him with in this offense, I really think there are only two options. Tyler Lockett has the best matchup but Doug Baldwin is the squeaky wheel that might get the grease this week.

The Raiders can’t stop anyone, through the air or on the ground but they are the 3rd worst pass defense compared to the 8th worst run D. I think that we see Wilson efficiently move the ball down the field and if they can establish the run game (which they’ve been able to do the last few weeks) take some downfield shots like he did last week against the Rams with completions for 44 and 39 yards.

Another benefit for Wilson in this matchup is that the Raiders have basically put no pressure on any QB they have faced. They are last in the league with 6 sacks. Wilson’s O-Line is bad and he’s been running for his life this year which has limited his production a bit, so if he is able to settle in a bit this week (and the O-line did play better against the Rams) he may be able to pop off for a big game throwing the rock.

My big concern with this play is that Brian Schottenheimer is the worst play caller in the history of the NFL. I don’t even know that that’s an exaggeration. I just don’t think he can screw it up this week (he probably can but I’m hopeful).

This is a 10 lineups out of 150 play, don’t go all in on a guy like Wilson, but he checks the boxes of a guy ready to breakout and help you take down a big GPP at low ownership.

Other low owned QB’s I like: Andy Dalton, Jared Goff, Deshaun Watson

Running Back:

Here are the top 5 RB’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points

I’m going to skip over James Conner/TJ Yeldon/Christian McCaffrey/Melvin Gordon all of whom I think are in great spots and talk about the highest priced guy on the slate and how we should utilize/attack him.

Todd Gurley: DK $10000/FD $9500/FD2 $18900 

Projected Ownership: 19.01%

Todd Gurley becomes the first play priced over 10K on DK this year and while the track record of these players hitting value (3x salary) is not great, Gurley couldn’t be in a better spot and he has continually performed each week this year regardless of game flow/matchup.

Gurley heads on the road to Denver to take on the Denver Broncos and their 26th ranked rushing defense. Gurley has caught on average 4 passes a game and not only are the Broncos bad against the run, they are also bad against pass catching RB’s, ranking 20th in the league.

This spot screams smash for Gurley, but what do we do with the rest of our lineup if he’s taking up 1/5 of the salary himself? Do we think that he’s a guarantee to outscore Conner for 2300 less? Or heck even TJ Yeldon for 3600 less? I think that answer to that question is yes, but do we need him to?

At 10k the big issue with Gurley is what do you do with the rest of your lineup? Its not as ugly as I thought it was going to be and I kinda like the lineups I’m making with him. You have to find some punts but there are some viable options at receiver that you can make it work.

Check out the screen grab from the RS that shows what the Broncos have been giving up to opposing RBs this year. 132 RUSH YARDS PER GAME!!! And now they get arguably the best running back in the game, its in their house, but I don’t care. Gurley should crush. Throw in the fact that the Rams receivers, outside of Robert Woods, are a bit dinged up and they have the most creative coach in the NFL this is a great situation. I think Gurley should easily go for 3x value here.

I personally don’t see how you don’t play him in cash this week if you can make it work and feel comfortable about it (which I think you can) In GPP I will probably be around field average with him, if he goes off I’m fine, if not its not the end of the world. I don’t think this is an all in spot at the price tag, but it’s a great play this week and chalk I will happily eat.

Marshawn Lynch: DK $5300/FD $6500/FD2 $10,000

Projected Ownership: 4.58%

REVENGE GAME NARRATIVE! Just kidding, I don’t believe in that. Marshawn is just in a good spot against a mediocre run defense at a great price. Last week, the offense was anemic against the Chargers, barely able to get anything going and having to throw the ball often to try to comeback.

Lynch heads to London to take on a Seahawks defense that has given up just under 100 yards  per game and if we look at my favorite little addition to the RS the Offensive + Defensive Average for Rush yards/game and Receiving yards per game, it looks like a great spot for Marshawn.

One thing that really caught my eye with Marshawn was that the Raiders were actually targeting him in the red zone through the air.

Lynch has the same amount of targets inside the 10 yard line as…. Todd Gurley. And he has more receptions! When the Raiders get into the red zone they are looking two ways, to Marshawn or Jared Cook. And its actually more Marshawn than anyone, which was really surprising to me as I looked through the running back options this week. It feels weird to call Marshawn a pass catching RB, but in the redzone, he is!

I expect this game to be high scoring and I expect Beast Mode to be right in the middle of it. I doubt he is gameflowed out this week but that possibility is still there and means I don’t really want to look to him in cash even though he’s in a great spot and cheap.

Other low owned RB’s I like: Carlos Hyde, Royce Freeman/Phillip Lindsay, Bilal Powell 

Wide Receiver:

Here are the top 5 WR’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points

 

Julio Jones: DK $7900/FD $8500/FD2 $14900

Projected Ownership: 33.04%

Welcome to Julio Jones Chalk Week! This almost NEVER works out and he typically goes nuts the week after he’s chalk when he’s 10% owned. Well last week he was chalk and now he’s chalk again so I don’t know what the heck to do!

Look, Julio is in a great spot, he’s a great receiver and you should play him. Personally I’ll get most of my exposure to him in cash if I can afford him and only if Matt Ryan isn’t my cash QB. Stacking QB/WR is fine in cash but I do like to spread my risk around in cash games and if my high priced qb/wr stack some how duds then I’m likely not crossing the cash line. Yes this looks like a high scoring shoot out but this is the NFL and crazy things happen every week

Let’s look at the WR/CB match up and break down how good Julio’s matchup actually is. Where do we find that though? Right here –> WR/CB Matchup Chart

On the Wide Receiver side its pretty easy to read. Julio plays mostly on the left side, which is why he is listed as LWR. The WR vs CB Heigh Difference is green and a 2.0 that means that Julio is 2 inches taller than the cornerback who will likely cover him.

The rest of it is pretty self explanatory. Green is Good, Red is bad. The one thing about Julio is that he is targeted a lot, but his Fantasy Points/Target is showing slightly red. Thats because he rarely finds the back of the end zone, but it also has to do with his catch rate, which isn’t great, mostly because he gets a lot of jump balls that aren’t necessarily catchable.

Overall, if we are just looking at this side of the chart, it looks like Julio is a pretty good player (duh) but its the other side of the chart that is the most important, the corner back covering him. Since Julio lines up on both sides of the field typically, he will see both Brent Grimes and Carlton Davis

 

As you read across, you want to look for GREEN as that is GOOD for your WR. Neither of these DB’s look very good, with Davis being possibly the better of the two Neither have a pick on their year and each are allowing a significant number of FPTS/Target which is a key to look for, as well as target rate. If a DB is getting targeted more than 20% of the time, that means that its likely they are getting picked on and QB’s don’t pick on good DB’s.

What I can tell from this is Julio has a great matchup, but if he lines up across from Grimes (which is likely) he is going to absolutely torch him. This is also backed up by Tampas’s ranking against number 1 WR’s this year (26th).

Julio’s got a great matchup this week and should go off regardless of who he lines up against. Personally I’ll have most of my shares in cash and I’ll be underweight in GPP as a game theory move, but he is viable no matter what format you want to put him in just get him in there.

JuJu Smith Schuster: DK $7300/FD $7800/FD2 $13,700

Projected Ownership: 8.26%

After two mediocre weeks we now see Juju’s ownership depressed below 10% and he’s actually in maybe the best spot of the year. The Cincinnati Bengals are going to sell out to try shut down JuJu’s teammate Antonio Brown and that should open up a ton for JuJu. My boy DabbingPuggle does a great job breaking down the match up in his article here —> Dabbing Puggle’s Draw Plays

If you are too lazy to click the link (You shouldn’t be, he spits hot fire with these draw plays each week) here’s what he has to say about the matchup.

JuJu Smith-Schuster Vs. Darqueze Dennard

I like how each week I can look back and find multiple things I previously wrote that help further my point for a current play. Last week I loved JuJu… I feel like this most weeks come to think of it. If you’re a fan of my article you may remember a couple of weeks ago I warned people about how good William JacksonP is. He may of gotten beat by Julio, but a lot of my thoughts there came from how badly he shut down Antonio BrownP last season. Last season with Jackson covering Brown he was targeted 8 times. He didn’t record a catch. We once again should see this match-up and it should open up a ton more targets for my man crush, JuJu Smith-Schuster. After 3 straight big weeks, he’s been quiet which is worrisome but the ball has to go somewhere. When Brown struggles, JuJu often benefits. Dennard is giving up a 74% catch rate out of the slot which will do just fine for me.

Yep, fire up some JuJu this week. High Total game with depressed ownership and the best matchup on his team? Yes please give me some. There’s some legitimate concern about Big Ben Roethlisberger on the road in a divisional game, but I think regardless JuJu should eat here. I actually think he’s cash viable to if you are running Dalton in cash and want to run back a WR from the other side.

Other low owned WR’s I like: Desean Jackson, Chester Rogers, Taylor Gabriel, KeKe Coutee, Tyler Lockett 

Looking for a podcast to listen to on your way to work or while mowing the lawn? Check out our Podcast Page for some great listens from @ffootballgeek and @DFSnDonuts

Tight End:

Here are the top 5 TE’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points

 

Wait, hold up, who is that guy on the top of the ownership list for TE’s this week? My boy Austin Hooper. Hooper ate against the Steelers last week and gets another plus matchup this week against the Buccaneers in another fantastic matchup. I think he’s fine this week, but I’m not super sold as I think he gets less targets this week as the Falcons spread the ball to their WR’s who are in great matchups.

Cameron Brate chalk can only end well…wait a second… Look I’m a Cam Brate guy and have been for a long time, he’s a great safety valve for Jameis Winston but even with OJ Howard out he has only been getting four targets. He’s been productive with those targets but he’s just not super involved in the passing game compared to some of the other options in this range. People have been targeting TE’s against ATL for what seems like the entire season and it just hasn’t been working out. They held Vance Chalkdonald to one catch for 6 yards. The rest of this ATL pass defencse is bad but they have continued to hold TE’s in check and the 5th ranked pass defense in the NFL against TEs. Brate is almost free on FD, but I think fading him on DK can be a smart move.

Eric Ebron is going to play if he’s not in a body cast. Seriously did anyone see that injury report? He was listed as a limited participant, injured (Shin, Quad, Ankle, Knee) Holy buddy you OK? I think he probably plays, but if he doesn’t then Erik Swoope becomes a really interesting GPP candidate.

Jared Cook is my favorite TE play of the week as his floor is always just so safe and if he finds the endzone he can crush value. He has a tough matchup but I think he is cash viable. I don’t get the Trey Burton love this week. I think he’s viable in a crappy pool of options for TE, but not someone I’m really going to target.

There is one low owned QB that is almost min price on DK that I do want some exposure to this week.

C.J. Uzomah: DK $3000/FD $5100/FD2 $5900

Projected Ownership: 4.8%

Uzomah gets a great matchup against the Steelers this week who are 25th against opposing TE’s and he’s basically the only show in town for the Cincinnati Bengals at TE. The Tyler’s are both hurt (Eifert and Kroft) and last week Uzomah played 94% of the snaps. Thats kind of a ridiculous amount of snaps. He only turned it into 2 catches and 43 yards and this is really only speculative but I think that Uzomah could be a GPP winning play this week if he can even get 4-5 catches I don’t even know that he has to find the endzone here.

The Steelers are almost dead last in fantasy points given up to TEs and Uzomah is basically going to play every single snap for the Bengals this week. He could absolutely crush here at minimal ownership. I love throwing a dart here on Uzomah and pairing him with Andy Dalton, and Tyler Boyd and running it back with JuJu Smith-Schuster is one of my favorite stacks of the week.

Other low owned TE’s I like: Geoff Swaim, Erik Swoope

Defense:

Back to my old “Don’t Get Cute” motto here. Generally, I don’t like to pay up for Defense, especially in cash and to be honest I don’t really care for any of the high priced defenses. In Cash/GPP/Hybrid I’ll be sticking with the following defenses.

Minnesota Vikings: A decent defense against a Rookie QB on the road? Yep. Don’t overthink this. If you are paying up for D you play the Vikings.

Tennesee Titans/Baltimore Ravens: Either side of this matchup is fine with me. I lean the Titans a bit just because of their price and the fact that they are consistently scoring better than the Ravens.

Chicago Bears: No one has scored more than the Bears D this year and the fact they aren’t the highest priced D is actually kind of ridiculous.

Final Fade:

I’m personally not playing any of the Minnesota Vikings running backs this week regardless of if Dalvin Cook is healthy or not. If Cook is healthy, I think I could maybe be talked into it but this is legitimately one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL and its no coincidence that Kirk Cousins has the 3rd most pass attempts in the league, and its because they legitimately can’t run the ball, Dalvin Cook or not. I’ll be avoiding this situation and letting others chase here, especially if value opens up with Latavius Murray and everyone flocks to the cheap RB option so they can fit Todd Gurley in.