Daily Fantasy Week 10: Shootouts and Defensive Struggles

Hi Daily Fantasy Veterans and Rookies,

Week Nine delivered pretty much exactly what we expected with our Shootouts and Defensive Struggles with both of our big games, Broncos/Patriots and Colts/Giants posting 64 points, well over the Vegas lines, while our low scoring game to avoid, the Jets/Chiefs came in at only 34 points.  In our big games we had many fantasy studs, including: Tom Brady – 32 points; Gronk – 28.5; Julian Edelman – 30; Peyton – 26 points; Ronnie Hillman – 25; Demaryius – 22; E. Sanders – 28; Eli Manning – 26 (mostly in junk time but in fantasy that’s ok); Odel Beckham, Jr. – 26.6; and Andrew Luck – 33.7.  In our negative game, only Percy Harvin had over 22 fantasy points, and with the exception of Eric Decker, no player scored over 20 points.

Hopefully you had most or at least some of these studs in your lineups too and managed to avoid the fantasy busts in the low scoring games, but since this is Daily Fantasy, our teams that took us into the money are no more and we once again, will be building our team from the ground up. 

To help you set the optimal team (and hopefully take home some major cash prizes, including yet again another cool $1,000,000 first prize up for grabs in this week’s $2.5 Million Guaranteed contest) each week we look for those games that the odds makers in Vegas see as high scoring affairs, which means a lot of fantasy points should be racked up, and which should be low scoring games where the points will be hard to come by. 

To check out the first article of this series for a complete description of the strategy: CLICK HERE

We have a total of six teams on bye this week with some major Fantasy Studs, so it will be even more important this week to find those games where a ton of points will be scored and where you might find the relatively lower priced player (like Jeremy Hill last week who for only $4,000 blew up for 32 points) who could really light it up and take your roster to victory.  Teams on bye this week are: Colts; Patriots; Vikings; Chargers; Redskins; and Texans.

Here we go: Looking at Week Ten, there is a single game that meets our 50 point over/under threshold. 

Over/Under with Positive Impact on Value: TARGET PLAYERS ON THESE TEAMS THIS WEEK

For our negative game(s) we look for games under 42 points.

Over/Under with Negative Impact on Value: AVOID PLAYERS ON THESE TEAMS THIS WEEK

Basic strategy with the above information is to look for studs and lower priced value in the “POSITIVE” games and look to avoid most but not all of the players in the “NEGATIVE” games.

Now with our tools (FFC Strength of Schedule, FF Champs Defense Stats Allowed , The FFCPI and the FFC Daily Fantasy Rank Tool) primed and ready to go, we can now review our target games and make some decisions and look for value:

POSITIVE GAMES:

Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers:

Both of these teams are coming off a bye week so their offense studs have had plenty of time rest up and get healthy (hello Aaron Rodgers’ hamstring).  Neither of these teams have a defense that scares anybody, in week eight, the Packers allowed 44 points to Drew Brees and the Saints and Chicago gave up five TDs to Tom Brady and the Patriots, while giving up a total of 51 points.  I don’t know about all of you, but I am totally drooling over this game!

Looking at the Bears, Matt Forte has been a complete monster (especially in PPR) this year averaging 26.2 FFPG and this week he gets the Packers who are giving up an average of 153 combined yards per game to RBs this year.  He is expensive at $10,000, but if you combine him with an inexpensive QB who can get you 20 points (Sanchez ??), Forte could be your key to victory.

Jay Cutler is $7,800.  If you take out the stinker of a game he had versus Miami (9.9 points), he is averaging around 22 FFPG and worth a look against Packers who are giving up the 9^th most fantasy points to QBs.

At WR, Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffrey are averaging only 13 and 15 FFPG respectively, and in week four the Packers held them to 25 points combined (10 for Marshall and 15 for Jeffrey).  While the Packers’ secondary has been more porous of late, especially with the absence of Sam Shields (whose status is still cloudy at the time of this writing), Marshall and/or Jeffrey could have a big game, but it is tough to know which one and because of this, I would probably look elsewhere for my WRs.

At $5,600, Martellus Bennett could be a solid play, after a hot start and then a few poor weeks (he didn’t get in the end zone); he rebounded nicely against the Patriots in week eight for 21.5 points.  I like him this week.

For Green Bay, here is who you will want in your lineup:  Aaron Rodgers -  23 FFPG ($9,400); Jordy Nelson – 21.1 FFPG ($7,600); Randall Cobb – 20.5 FFPG ($7,400); Eddie Lacy – only 14 FFPG but coming off a 29 point performance against the Saints ($6,900); and if you need a low priced, but high potential player in your flex, Davante Adams continues to increase he role in his role in the offense (7 catches for 75 yards against the Saints in week eight), and at only $3,800 he provides strong potential in the Flex position.

If you don’t want to spend the budget on Rodgers at $9,400, a nice play would be to pick up a less expensive QB like Big Ben at $7,500 and then double up on Rodgers’ receivers Nelson and Cobb for only a combined $15,000 to cover the potential for Rodgers “going off” against the Bears.

Before moving on to the “negative” game, we should note that there are several games with an over/under in the 48 to 49 point range.  While they don’t meet our 50 point threshold, these games, more blowouts than shootouts, should be considered extremely “juicy”, especially with so many teams on bye this week.  Those games are: The Niners @ the Saints; the Bronco @ the Raiders; and the Panthers @ the Eagles.

Players to target are: Brees at only $8,200, that’s cheap for Brees in the DOME!; Manning at $9,700, expensive yes, but he is good for at least 3 TD against the Raiders if not more; Ingram at $5,900, the Saints have rediscovered the run and Ingram has been impressive; Hillman at $6,100 against the 29^th worst defense vs. RBs; LeSean McCoy at only $5,600 against a bad Panthers run defense and with a backup QB for the Eagles, McCoy should step up; Jeremy Maclin at $8,300, the man has 46 and 37 fantasy points in his last two games!; Demaryius and E. Sanders ($8,500 & $8,100), these guys are unstoppable; Anquan Boldin ($5,600), he is making the catches, averaging 7 catches per game in last 3 games with 2 TDs; Jimmy Graham is getting healthy and he is relatively cheap at $6,300;and  Julius Thomas is also inexpensive at $4,900 and with Wes Welker “Day to Day”, Orange Julius should get many more looks from Manning, just remember the beginning of the year when Welker was out, Julius Thomas went nuts with five TDs in the first 3 games.

Now, on to the games to avoid:

NEGATIVE GAMES: (Remember, a negative game does not mean that all players will stink and not put up fantasy numbers, it just means that there is generally better value to be had elsewhere)

We only have one game in this category this week, and it is really a story of two solid defenses versus one team that doesn’t have a running game (Bills) and one team that has a very pedestrian passing game (Chiefs).

Kansas City Chiefs @ Buffalo Bills:

The Buffalo Bills are eighth against the run and 13^th against the pass and the Kansas City Chiefs are 19^th versus the run and first against the pass.  So, what we have here is defenses that play very strongly against their opponent’s strong suit and are still very solid against the other component.

The Chiefs run Jamaal Charles and Buffalo stops the run, the Bills throw the ball to Sammy Watkins and the Chiefs are demons against the pass.  So, what do we do, well we downgrade Charles whose $6,400 salary would normally make us lock him into our lineup and we look at Sammy Watkins at $6,200 and say “maybe not this week”.  Alex Smith becomes pretty much unusable and Kyle Orton @$6,700 just seems too pricey against this defense.  I don’t think I have to mention the mess that is the Bills backfield. 

This one could easily be 17-10, just not enough points for us to spend our budget on.  If you want to take a flyer on either Charles or Watkins, I can’t say it’s an absolutely terrible move and if I had to pick one I would say go with Charles.

As for the defenses, both are pretty good plays with the Bills at $3,000 and the Chiefs at $3,400.  I would say the Bills are the safer play, with the Chiefs having a bit more upside in terms of point scoring turnovers as the Bills will most likely be passing more with their RB problems.

Well, that is it for this week, remember to do your research, look for more daily fantasy articles in the upcoming days.

If you have any questions, comments or just want to talk fantasy, hit me up on Twitter (@Beaudog2).

Good luck this weekend!!!

Beaudog

Woof!!