For Fantasy Sake

The strategy is simple ... play Christian McCaffrey; win all the money. Every week.  He did it again. Like he does every week. He just gets it done. Christian McCaffrey is a machine. A robot. A man among boys. All the cliches. They all apply here. You're not getting away from him. Even at the $10.5K price tag this week on DraftKings. He's a lock every week at this point until he reaches Russell Westrbook and James Harden price territory -- shouts to all the NBA DFSers out there ... you know what I'm talking about. This weekend against the Packers is no different. They've seemed to have given up on trying to defend the run at all of late, and have been torched by backs throughout the season. McCaffrey's gotten insane amounts of work week in and week out, and there's no reason that we should believe it would change at all this week, even with him carrying an injury tag and getting in limited practices. He's their horse. A few years back, eve...

David Johnson is a game-time decision this weekend. If he does play, he's a great tournament play, but if he's held out, lock in Chase Edmunds into all your lineups. Your lineups can't be fully built yet. There's no way. Right? I mean, mine aren't even CLOSE to being built. There are still far too many tidbits of information up in the air and have yet to drop.  We got a bit of clarity on a few situations on Friday: Alvin Kamara is OUT with his ankle injury Todd Gurley and Saquon Barkley were taken OFF the final injury reports Davante Adams is OUT and Geronimo Allison is DOUBTFUL  What we're waiting to learn more about: David Johnson and Christian Kirk are GAME-TIME DECISIONS  Marquez Valdes-Scantling is QUESTIONABLE  Marquise Brown is QUESTIONABLE, but it doesn't sound all that good  Dede Westbrook looks like he'll carry a QUESTIONABLE tag into Sunday's game Maybe it's just a me thing, but the news that still...

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...

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...

Mike Evans' price has dropped below teammate Chris Godwin's, but he's still the No. 1 option. In a get-right game for the Tampa Bay offense, it's time to buy low on Evans and plug him into your GPP lineups.  Up. In. Flames.  How 85 percent of my tournament lineups ended up last week.  The other 15 percent managed to scrape together enough to almost break even.  That's the life of playing in GPPs. If you're playing to JUST cash in tournaments, you're doing it wrong. The method behind tournaments is to play to win the tournament. So, when you do finally have the lineup that hits, it should pay off large enough to keep your bankroll going for at least another year.  So if you don't enjoy the ups and downs of what the tournament life brings, you need to be allotting the majority of your entires to head-to-heads or double-ups.   Either way ... here's hoping Week 3 doesn't end with torn thumb ligaments or Tommy John surgery...

Upon first glance, Marlon Mack seems to be one the best running back plays on the slate -- and at a great value.   My. God. What a brutal weekend.

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...

Another woeful game for Todd Gurley signifies he is as good as done. That and more in our overreaction Monday.  Lamar Jackson is the best quarterback in football. Todd Gurley is done. Forever. And Sammy Watkins outscored Julio Jones, Odell Beckham Jr., Adam Thielin and Tyreek Hill ... COMBINED ! Of course, this is all tongue in cheek. ... right? Bruh. It's absolutely tongue in cheek. I mean, come on, Week 1 isn't even 24 hours old. For the purposes of this column, we're going to have some fun and dive into some of the most overreaction things you'll hear across the fantasy landscape after just one game played. Todd Gurley is dust. It's over for him.  Over his last six games played, Gurley has only managed to average 55.5 yards on the ground and 19.2 on 2.8 receptions per game; and, according to my math, that's a shade under 10 points per game. Now, we find out he's being usurped near the goal line by Malcom Brown -- as evidenced by him s...

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...