Welcome to Week 11! We are well over halfway into the season and the DFS Army has been crushing!
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 break down 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 break down 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 chalk
Week Ten Recap:
Short, sweet and to the point this week as I’m getting this out fairly late and I want you guys to get the real nuts and bolts of ownership and the pivots we can make off the chalk.
Baker Mayfield crushed while chalk Phillip Rivers was underwhelming. The chalk RB’s all were solid with the exception of Kareem Hunt who had a nice day on the ground but as it can happen with the Chiefs, he just didn’t find the end zone. 92 yards is a solid day, but when we pay up for an RB we expect a few more points than what we got.
James White and the Patriots, in general, were disappointing in a loss against the lowly Titans, but low owned RB’s Nick Chubb and David Johnson both had fantastic days, especially Chubb who was great leverage off the Duke Johnson Jr. chalk.
At WR we got a massive dud from Taylor Gabriel. Like legitimate horse poop. A big fat Donut. No, not that @DFSnDonuts though some of those words could be used to describe him as well. I stacked the Bears and unfortunately missed all the actual point scorers outside of Mitchell Trubisky.
At TE, Austin Hooper once again smashed value hitting 6x for the week. It wasn’t quite Eric Ebron smash with a zillion TD’s in the first half, but he was still an excellent play, and one I’m going to look to again this week.
Overall, a decent week for me, but mostly in GPP as my cash lineups TAAAANNKEEDD. Thanks a lot, Fitzy. I’m looking forward to getting back in the saddle again this week in what is an interesting slate!
One way that I break down 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 Eleven Preview:
Three games with over a 50 point total? What world are we living in? The scary part is that I actually like a lot of pieces in some of these lower total games, but I’m going trust Vegas this week at least in cash and utilize as many players from these three games as possible.
The New Orleans Saints are at home against the Eagles in the highest total game of the day. Both Carson Wentz and Drew Brees are cash viable this week and will likely be the highest owned QB’s in my lineups and overall. Michael Thomas is a slam dunk as usual, but particularly on Draftkings. I’m also extremely interested in Golden Tate and how much run he gets this week. His snap count was low in his first game but coach Doug Pederson has said he looks to get him involved more, and the matchup with PJ Williams is the best you can get.
The next highest total is the New York Giants against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This Tampa Bay defense is historically bad and now they get to go up against my man crush Saquon Barkley. He’s going to be my highest owned play this week and I think you can actually stack him, Eli Manning, and Odell Beckham Jr. in GPP which is really scary and gross to think about it but could be the highest scoring trio of the day.
The final 50 point total game is the Indianapolis Colts vs. the Tennessee Titans. The Titans trounced the Patriots last week and while everyone is likely to flock towards Derrick Henry, I’m going right back to the well with Dion Lewis. The same thing will happen on the other side of the ball with players chasing the 3 TD game from Eric Ebron, but Jack Doyle is playing the majority of the snap and has the better opportunity. Great ways to leverage the ownership here.
Other games that are interesting here are Houston/Washington and Pittsburgh/Jacksonville as both could potentially be shootouts and have pieces that I want in my rosters.
What is a Chalk Donkey?
First, let’s break down what I consider to be ‘chalk’. In golf, I break down the chalk by price range, but for NFL I think it’s 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, it’s 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 an 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 matchup 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 Donkeys 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 6100/FD $8400/FD2 $11,400
Projected Ownership: 10.94%
While not highly owned, Matt Ryan is projecting to be the third highest owned of all the QB’s and won’t be someone I will be going to this week. He is also priced up over 6k and while I love the Falcons at home typically, this matchup isn’t one that I want to target.
The Cowboys play SLOW. Epically slow, over 28 seconds per play. They also want to grind it out with Ezekiel Elliott which is going to limit the number of opportunities Ryan will have to air it out.
Ryan has the 10th best Rocket Arm rating in the DFS Army research station which doesn’t bode well for him either. Our guys at Beat the Bookie like this matchup to score more points than Vegas currently has it at so I don’t mind taking a shot or two on Ryan and the pass catchers in a big GPP, particularly if you pair him with a lower owned player like Austin Hooper.
Eli Manning: DK $5200/FD $6700/FD2 $10,200
Projected Ownership: 2.9%
Like I said earlier, I don’t hate stacking up Eli with his pass catchers this week against a terrible Tampa Bay defense in a high total game.
This could be Eli’s last chance to really prove he is the starting QB in New York before they likely move on to someone else. He gets a lot of heat, especially playing where he does and I think its a bit unwarranted, at least from a fantasy standpoint.
Eli has thrown for over 300 yards in 3 of his last 5 games and has thrown for multiple TDs in two of the five. He has the highest rocket arm rating of any quarterback on the main slate this week, and the prime matchup against this Tampa defense at home is one that I want to exploit. At his low salary point, it’s not going to take much for him to 3x and 4-5x is well within reach.
I love pairing him with Saquon Barkley and Odell Beckham Jr. in a game stack. Typically we don’t like pairing RB’s and QB’s but Barkley is averaging a ridiculous amount of yardage on the ground each week and makes a natural stacking partner.
Other low owned QB’s I like: Matthew Stafford, Blake Bortles, Marcus Mariota
Running Back:
Here are the top 5 RB’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
Play all of them. Seriously. All of these guys are STUDS and I love them this week. If I had to pick one of these five its obviously my man crush Saquon Barkley in that juicy matchup against the Bucs.
James Conner is a really interesting play against the Jags at a depressed price. He’s someone that I think comes in even lower owned than our projection and could be the guy that wins you a GPP.
The player I will likely have the least of is Melvin Gordon III more or less based on price. There is value on the card this week, but you have to find spots to save and with how much Barkley I want, you need to make a stand somewhere.
Alvin Kamara is a great play in a great game environment but I think the GPP play is fading him and leveraging his ownership with Mark Ingram who is still underpriced. This doesn’t feel like a Mark Ingram game, but it’s a good leverage play.
If you want to play these guys who are not only highly owned, but high priced, you need to find a low owned player who is also cheap to pair with one or two of these studs, and I have a guy I really like this week.
Kerryon Johnson: DK $5800/FD $6200/FD2 $10,900
Johnson is the future in Detroit and it was encouraging to see him still used as such last week with the return of Theo Riddick, especially in the passing game.
Johnson had 6 targets last week even with Riddick back and caught all 6 of them. On top of that, he had 14 carries for 51 yards against a top 5 defense against the run in the Chicago Bears.
Johnson is cheap, and likely an afterthought. I love running game stacks with Cam Newton back with Kerryon. Everyone is going to be on Kenny Golladay and even Theo Riddick is likely to garner a ton of ownership on speculation that he lines up in the slot this week. Similar to last week’s situation where everyone flocked to Duke Johnson instead of Nick Chubb and Chubb was the guy who went off, we could see a similar situation here this week.
This is strictly a GPP play, and likely a guy I’m only playing in PPR formats like DK/FD2. He’s had multiple 20 point games this year and I think we see another one this week against a defense that has been just mediocre against pass-catching backs.
Other low owned RB’s I like this week: Leonard Fournette, Alex Collins, Peyton Barber (he sucks but he’s mega cheap and the Giants suck too)
Wide Receiver:
Here are the top 5 WR’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
Keenan Allen: DK $6700/FD $7600/FD2 $12,600
Projected Ownership: 20.13%
If I have to poke holes in one of these guys’ game, Allen is likely the easiest to do it to. Allen’s price is juicy, but while the volume has been there for him the last few weeks, the production hasn’t and now he goes up against his toughest matchup of the year in Chris Harris and the Denver Broncos.
Allen’s price has gone down over the last few weeks and the reason being that while the volume is there, he just hasn’t been catching touchdowns. He only has two on the year and I think that our projection of .5 receiving TD’s might be a little high for his role in this offense now. This is Melvin Gordon’s team and everything runs through him.
While Allen used to be a stud, his role just isn’t what it used to be. He’s a solid slot possession receiver, but not the guy who was averaging a touchdown a game a few years ago.
Seth Roberts: DK $3000/FD $5100/FD2 $6000
Projected Ownership: 1.59%
There is NOT a lot of low price/low owned options or high priced low owned options that are in good spots. Which leads me to an EXTREMELY DEEP GPP PUNT. Like Mariana Trench deep. Seth Roberts, one of the starting WR’s for the worst offense in football.
The Raiders are banged up. Martavis Bryant is out and so is Jordy Nelson and that leaves Seth Roberts starting opposite Brandon LaFell. This doesn’t feel good, believe me, but we are getting a starting WR in the NFL for min price on FD2 and DK. We don’t get that opportunity very often.
The floor is really low here, he hasn’t had more than 50 yards receiving or 5 catches this year, he does have two td’s though (same as Keenan Allen) and he will likely continue to line up in the slot this week which is important because Cardinals Safety Budda Baker is out and that is who covers the slot for them.
So we get a min price starting receiver against a backup? Yeah, I think I can get on board with playing him in some GPP’s so I can pay up for studs, it’s not pretty and its very likely he could end up with only 2-3 points, but hey sometimes you gotta get silly to win the milly.
Other low owned WR’s I like: Christian Kirk, Tyler Boyd, Golden Tate.
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Tight End:
Here are the top 5 TE’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
If you need me to tell you that Zach Ertz is an elite play this week (and every week) you need to rethink your choice to play DFS. He’s a top 20 receiver that has TE designation. Play him. Play him in cash if you can, but if you can’t I’d be overweight in GPP.
So if we are fading Ertz in a great game environment which you likely have to do if you want to pay up for a stud WR like Michael Thomas or RB like Alvin Kamara who do you play? Any of these guys are great options, but they are all priced up over 4k and if I’m going to punt TE, I REALLY want to punt TE.
James O’Shaughnessy: DK $2600/FD $4000/FD2 $5000
Projected Ownership: 2.44%
Essentially minimum price across the industry, O’Shaughnessy has found himself in a starting role for the Jacksonville Jaguars since the injury to Austin Sefarian-Jenkins and has run over 21 routes each of the last three weeks while averaging over 5 targets.
The volume is there for O’Shaughnessy and he gets a fantastic matchup against the Steelers who are giving up over 12 DK points to opposing TE’s every week. Essentially with his price, we are hoping for 3 catches for 30 yards to hit 2.5x value, if he is able to accidentally fall into the end zone or get a few more catches he SMASHES value at this price.
I love what you can do with your the rest of your lineup by punting this spot this week with a guy like O’Shaughnessy and it’s possible he smashes value. (it’s also possible that he gets a 0 so be aware of that when building your lineups).
Other low owned TE Options: Ricky Seals-Jones (a little safer, but he has Josh Rosen throwing him the ball), Jack Doyle, Jared Cook
Defense:
Back to my old “Don’t Get Cute” motto here. Generally, I don’t like to pay up for Defense, especially in cash. In Cash/GPP/Hybrid I’ll be sticking with the following defenses.
Arizona Cardinals: While I do like a few pieces on the Raiders, they are the worst offense in the NFL and we get a cheap Cardinals D that actually has been scoring and can crush here.
Pittsburgh Steelers: Have been an improved defense over the last few weeks, especially with TJ Watt leading that defense. They get Blake Bortles this week and we know he likes to turn it over.
Houston Texans: I don’t love this play but the Redskins are SO beat up that they are playing guys who shouldn’t even be in the NFL on their offensive line. Alex Smith doesn’t turn it over a ton, but he does get sacked. Sneaky GPP play with the Texans this week.
Final Fade:
I personally am not playing any Ravens defense this week, and I think that stacking the Bengals is a sneaky GPP strategy. They looked pretty bad last week and the Ravens are good, but that makes them a great GPP play as NO ONE will be on them. They are a competent offense and while AJ Green is still out the Red Rocket can still sling it.
Sports betting is legal in the US! It’s been a long time coming, but we’re so pumped for it that we created our own division here at DFSArmy called ‘Beat the Bookie’. These guys are crushing it on the daily and you’re gonna want in! Tell em’ UPNORTH sent ya and you’ll get 10% off for life!
Last Play:
Be smart with your bankroll this week. Don’t chase losses, and don’t go crazy if you won last week. 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 first half of the season but the volume I’m going to play will stay the same because it’s 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! Give me a shout in my coaching channel with any questions you have! #dfsupnorth-nfl-pga
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.