For Fantasy Sake

With six teams on bye, a lot of the top options we usually go to on DraftKings, like DeAndre Hopkins, won't be available to play. So who are we going to this week with so many fantasy studs on the sidelines?  It's officially Bye-Nado. With six teams on bye, which, obviously, shrinks the slate; but with so many teams having their week off, it diminishes the talent pool. The teams that are on bye: Denver New England Philadelphia Washington Jacksonville Houston Obviously, Washington, and even Denver to an extent, are outliers on this list. The other four, however, have fantasy-viable players up and down their roster.  New England: Tom Brady, James White, Sony Michel, Julian Edelman, Mohammed Sanu and Pats DST Philadelphia: Carson Wentz, Jordan Howard, Alshon Jeffery, Zach Ertz Houston: Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins  Jacksonville: Leonard Fournette, D.J. Chark There are some fantasy heavy-hitters in that list above. But the more important fac...

Latavius Murray went absolutely off again, scoring 39.7 DraftKings points  and was the third-highest-scoring player on the slate. Having the lead role  at $5,800 should have been a signal to everyone to play him, especially in  a primo matchup against the Cardinals.  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That ... that right there? That's the only thing we need to be saying about Latavius Murray . With Alvin Kamara ruled out again in Week 8, all DFS players should have found the way to lock Murray into their lineups. In large-field tournaments, he was only 28 percent owned, which is far too low based on the first week we saw him take the feature-back role with Kamara out. He should've been close to 50 percent owned at $5,800. Especially considering Drew Brees was making his return and teams would have to start respecting the quarterback play a little bit more than when Teddy Bridgewater was under center. That matchup with the Cardinals...

Maclolm Brown is going to define the DraftKings slate in Week 6 now that Todd Gurley has all but been ruled out. So what's the play with Brown? It's weeks like these that can totally turn a slate upside down late in the week. Injuries on injuries on injuries. Which, in the NFL, shouldn't really come as a surprise, since it's such a violent sport to begin with. However, this week ... this week?!? We have some injuries to major players that are going to change ownership drastically. Read as: Time to take advantage of some of the values that have popped up like the whack-a-mole game, and spend up on guys that should be owned, that will now go overlooked. So, about those values Maclom Brown ($4,300) is looking like he's going to be the lead back for the Rams with Todd Gurley listed as doubtful after popping up on the injury report. Brown is likely going to be the most-owned player on the entire slate now. Obviously, the value is good, but don't under...

George Kittle is carrying a $5,200 price tag coming into Week 6, which is just TOO cheap. He's going to be chalky, but he's a damn good play.  Will Fuller week happened. So, you -- and basically everyone else playing DraftKings -- got a piece of that 50-burger he tossed up. Scores were crazy. Some of my lineups hit solidly in the 200s and didn't return much. It felt like every bit of the chalk hit last week, which is bound to happen from time to time throughout the course of a 17-week season, I guess. There is a benefit to come out of weeks like Week 6, though. The chalk donkeys will continue to chase the chalk and use the "this guy went off last week, so I have to play him again." And another golden nugget: the game log watchers will thumb through the DK player pool and see the dud games put up by guys like Alvin Kamara and refuse to click the plus sign next to their name. Take advantage of those people who will fully fade the guys coming off bad w...

Oooohhhhh, whammmmmy. That's about the only way to sum up Week 5. It was a freaking scoring frenzy. Six players topped the 40-point mark in DraftKings scoring and the high-scoring chalk game of the week hit 85 points. And it didn't involve the Chiefs. #Shocker. Let's take a minute to channel our inner Alex Trebek, "and let's take a look at the scores." Not 1. Not 2. But 3. Yes. Three players put up 50-burgers. Will Fuller, 56.7 Aaron Jones, 52.2 Christian McCaffrey, 50.7 The other three to go over 40 were: Deshaun Watson, 44.74 Michael Thomas, 44.2 Amari Cooper, 42.6 If you didn't have a lineup with at least two or three of these guys, you were doomed from the start. However, with Thomas' price at $6,600, Aaron Jones' at $5,900 and Will Fuller's at $4,500, it wasn't unfathomable to run into lineups that had four or five of these guys.  That, kids, is what they call the buzzsaw.  It's a progressive...

Michael Thomas' price has dropped significantly since Weeks 2 and 3 ($8,000 and $7,400, respectively), but, let's not forget, people, he's still Michael Thomas. He's going to go overlooked in GPPs this week, which means ... FIRE HIM UP!  Tournaments are the best, aren't they? They're far more fun when it comes to lineup building, projecting ownership and taking shots on some of the guys who you know have immense upside. Obviously, it's my preferred style of DFS play, despite my gills coming out in full force and fishing my way out of my Week 4 run at winning a GPP. That's the glory of DFS. If you make a mistake in any given week, it's not reflected in the slates or weeks to follow. Unlike seasonal fantasy football, where one bad decision or trade can send your season into a tailspin. Thankfully, no blunders have been made in any season-long leagues I play in ... yet. But you didn't come here for season-long talk. You came for the g...

Josh Jacobs looked great in his NFL debut against the Broncos. He's likely going to be incredibly chalky in Week 2, but at his price point, it's almost too hard to resist. After going through and dissecting some of my favorite plays from across the DraftKings main slate, it's time to take a little deeper look at who the best cash game and tournament considerations are. Below I've compiled a handful of players from each position I see being viable options in both formats. Granted, my mind is mostly geared toward the tournament prospective, so take the cash game plays with a bit of a grain of salt.  I can tell you, though, my tournament player pool is relatively small for the week. I'll probably roll out two or three tournament lineups, and I'm debating on lock-buttoning one QB and WR combination. My cash game lineups, however, I haven't settled on just yet. But this is where I'm starting.  Cash Plays QB Lamar Jackson $6,700 (vs. Arizona...

Alvin Kamara is in a smash spot this weekend agains the Los Angeles Rams, and, for my money, is likely to be the best play on the entire DraftKings slate.   This is where the fun begins. No one has had a month and a half to look at pricing, run model projections and research the slate like they had for Week 1. It's back to the usual only-got-a-week-to-prepare guide. Don't get me wrong, that's definitely long enough to overthink and tinker your way into a trash lineup. The single most important advice after a rough Week 1 is this: Don't overhaul your process because you didn't find a green screen after just one week. Think about the weird things that happened you would have never predicted: Lamar Jackson throwing 5 TDs and being the No. 1-scoring QB Jamies Winston & Cam Newton scoring less than Robert Griffin III Derrick Henry catching ONE pass for a 75-yard TD Sammy Watkins almost dropping a 50-burger T.J. Hockenson going absolutely of...

If I told you Sammy Watkins would be the highest-scoring player on the DraftKings  main slate on Sunday, you wouldn't have believed me.  Hell, I wouldn't have even believed me. But he was.  So with an early look at DK pricing, who will be this week's Watkins? If you followed some of the Week 1 DraftKings plays suggested like, say, Sammy Watkins, Lamar Jackson and DeSean Jackson, you just won all the money. But, uh, you know, just forget about the Tevin Coleman, Cam Newton and Todd Gurley calls. Although Week 1 isn't officially in the books, the lovely people at DraftKings always put out the coming-week's pricing before Monday night games.  Every Monday, we'll have a preliminary look at the next week's DK prices and list a handful of players who stick out based on matchup, price, injury news, etc.  Again, this is for the DraftKings Sunday main slate ONLY. So don't go asking about Thursday or Monday guys. Because, guess what? Not answ...