The Prime-Time slates are one of my favorite slates to play during the NFL season. The size of the tournament that you are playing in will determine how risky and creative you will need to be in order to take 1st place. To win a single entry or contests under 2,000 entrants does not require you to get off the wall. Meaning that you do not need to have the 1% off the wall play in order to win. For me, it is all about playing the players in the best possible spots. Game theory becomes more important as the size of the tournament increases. Your lineup should tell a story of how you think these games will pan out. In this article, I will break down this slate by position, giving you the best plays in each spot along with a couple of low owned plays.
Prime-Time Breakdown By Position
Quarterback
Philip Rivers- The Sunday night game will have the majority of my ownership and Rivers is my favorite QB on the slate. With Gordon being out, this makes Rivers stock shoot through the roof. If the Chargers are scoring TD’s it should be by Rivers throwing the ball. I do not see Ekeler being able to run it in on this defense, but him catching a TD is not out of the realm of possibilities. The over/under on this game is currently at 52 with the Steelers being 3 point favorites. This implies that the game will be high scoring and that the Chargers will be losing late in the game. This leads to a lot of scoring potential for both the Chargers and the Steelers.
Big Ben- Is my next favorite QB on this slate. He is a close 2nd, but his scoring upside is lower than Rivers because the chance for Conner to run in a TD is much higher than Ekelers chance to run one in. Like I said in my Rivers statement, this game should be high scoring and with how dynamic both of these offenses are there should be lots of fantasy points to go around in this game. Plus Big Ben at home almost always plays a lot better than when he is on the road. Only 2 games this season he has thrown less than 30 times in a game and 7 times he has thrown the ball over 40 times. Those numbers are crazy and can lead to a lot of fantasy points.
Colt McCoy- is nowhere near as appealing as Rivers and Big Ben. However, with that being said he is my sleeper at this position. McCoy can make things happen with his legs and arm. The Eagles defense is not that good and if for some reason the Steelers game duds OR the salary saved by rostering McCoy becomes worth it, he will be in the gpp winning lineup. Rostering McCoy will allow you to fit more studs into your lineup and on this slate that could be worth it. I would recommend using a 45-35-20 approach on Rivers-Big Ben- McCoy or some variation of those percentages.
Running Back
Austin Ekeler– is the top choice at RB on this slate. He is an excellent dump-off running back and is an excellent play on both FD and DK. He saw 11 targets last week and he was not even used to his full rushing capability. Ekeler will be my highest owned RB on this slate. He played great last week after Gordon left the game and is in another great spot this week. The other RB options on this slate are decent, but on DK he is my top ranked RB, but Adams and Conner are pretty even when it comes to FD because of their scoring abilities. On this slate, I am preferring to pay up at WR and going with the not so high priced RB on this slate.
Josh Adams- Has been one of the only bright spots on this Eagles offense. He has seen the bulk of the usage for the Eagles at the RB position. With how bad the passing game has been on this offense, Adams has been consistent over the past couple of weeks scoring a TD in each of the last 2 games. He is not limited to only rushing as he has been used in the passing game when needed. If the Eagles can get an early lead, it would not surprise me that they begin to lean on Adams to literally carry them to a victory.
James Connor- is a great talent, but his price is a bit too high for me on this slate. With that being said, that is exactly why he makes for a great gpp play. I believe that he will be low owned and his capability is much higher than his ownership should reflect. He will not kill your lineups, but he definitely could be the difference maker that could take you to the top. He is still be used in the passing game, and this could be the week that the Steelers start feeding him the rock as they did earlier in the season. He is a risk worth taking on a small slate. Other gpp targets that I would consider are Clement and bibbs for some sneaky value.
Wide Receiver
Keenan Allen- Is my top option at WR on this slate. With Gordon being out, Allen’s stock rises a lot. He should see in increase in usage and has been on a tear recently. The price is right and the fact that this game is trending towards a high scoring game, Allen should see a lot of use and a lot of scoring opportunities. He has seen at least 7 targets in the last 4 games catching a TD in 3 out of the 4 of those games. He is Rivers top option and should be in the gpp winning lineup because of how consistent he is.
Juju Smith-Schuster- is another top option on this slate. He really has been a thorn in the side of Antonio Brown statistics wise. He is averaging 10 targets per game this season and should see around that same amount in this game. I love targeting players from high scoring games, and my lineups will have a majority of players from the Sunday night game. He will be highly owned due to his performance last week, but he is well worth the ownership and the price tag in this game.
Josh Doctson- is my value WR of choice on this slate. In McCoy’s first game as a starter, Doctson saw 10 targets last week. The Eagles secondary has not been good at all this season and I am hoping McCoy can take advantage of their weakness. The path of least resistance for the Redskins in this game is to pass the ball. Doctson and Reed should be the leading beneficiaries of the passing game on this team.
Antonio Brown- is still in my mind the best WR in the NFL. On any given week, he could explode and put up 30-40 points. He cannot be covered 1 on 1 and this is a perfect leverage spot to get some exposure to Brown. He has not lived up to the hype that he had in the preseason, mostly due to how good Juju has been. However, with that being said Brown could easily break this slate and I will force him into my lineups to hopefully be slightly overweight on him compared to the field. He is averaging 11 targets per game, which is more than Juju and he could easily outscore him on this slate and is in a perfect pivot spot.
Alshon Jeffery- Is a gpp option only. Outside of Ertz, the passing game has been awful since the Eagles acquired Golden Tate. It seems like the Eagles cannot figure out what to do with all the talent that they have on their offense. Outside of Ertz and Adams, the rest of the offense should be low owned. Feel free to throw some darts with Jeffery and Tate if you are mass entering lineups. If you are playing less than 20 lineups, I would not bother using any of the WR on this team.
Value Trio- The Williams WR’s are guys I can never get right. Whenever I roster Mike, Tyrell goes off and vice versa. Along with Trey Quinn makes for some interesting gpp value options on this slate. I would not go too crazy on any of these 3 receivers, but I would definitely have exposure to these 3 in large field tournaments. One of these guys will go off and exceed their value, but I am not sure which one it will be. If I was forced to rank these 3 players it would be Mike W, Quinn, and Tyrell W in that order.
Tight End
Zach Ertz- I am Locking Zach Ertz in the majority of my lineups on this slate. No other TE really compares to him on this slate. Even though the Eagles offense has been out of sync lately, Ertz has been a bright spot this entire season. His floor and ceiling are considerably higher than any other TE on this slate. He has only seen less than 8 targets in 2 games this season, otherwise, he has been Wentz and Foles favorite target this season.
Jordan Reed- Is a solid play on this slate. Injury concerns with Reed always scare me, but that is the risk we have to take on some of these players. He is one of the most talented TE in the NFL and if it was not for injury, he would probably be a top 5 TE every season. Reed has seen at least 6 targets in each of the last 5 games. In the last two games, Reed saw 8 and 11 targets. McCoy should lean heavily on Reed once again in this game because he is one of the best options to throw the ball to. I am not interested in any of the other TE on this slate outside of these 2. I would have a sprinkle of Davis and McDonald as well just because anything can happen on these small slates.
Defenses
Redskins- The Redskins defense is my favorite option on this slate for a couple of reasons. Since the Eagles acquired Golden Tate their offense has been off. It looks like they do not have the ability to use their talent wisely, thus creating an inefficient offense. Ertz and Adams have been the lone bright spots on this team as no one else has played well at all in the past 4 weeks. The other reason why I like the Redskins d is that they are getting to the QB and either getting sacks or creating turnovers. Sure shutting down an offense is great, but creating sacks and turnovers is where you earn the bulk of your points in DFS.
Eagles- Even though I like McCoy a lot this week, the Eagles defense should be able to create some pressure on him in this game. He is still a backup QB and will likely always be a backup in the NFL. With that being said, outside of the Redskins holding the majority of my ownership at this position, I am equally interested in the Steelers defense. They are at home, it is going to be cold, and they are one of the best teams at getting to the QB. My coverage of these defenses in MME situations would be 50-25-25 on the Redskins-Eagles-Steelers.
Final Tips
It is perfectly okay to leave money on the table in your lineups. Many people will fill the need to use up all of their cap space and this is another strategy for these small slates that I love to use. While everyone is zigging you have to find spots to zag to leverage yourself against the field. This is where game theory comes into play and should be very important in order to take down a tournament. Choosing which position to use the flex spot on is tough on this slate because of the salaries. To give you what I am using, I love the idea of using both Ertz and Reed in the majority of my lineups. Not many people go double TE and to me, that is a viable option on this slate. Make sure you give Geeks primetime slate breakdown a listen and use dfsupnorths showdown article to help you construct your lineups as well. We have amazing coaches here and should all be used to maximize your ability to take down any tournament.
