Hello and welcome to the Week 4 Sunday Morning Update. What is this article? Mostly it’s a follow-up to yesterday’s big DFS piece – Scott Barrett’s Week 4 DFS Breakdown. But this article should also offer some utility of its own for redraft and dynasty players.
Each week Graham Barfield and I will be breaking down the key injuries, news, and notes from Saturday / Sunday and will be updating this article up until kickoff (1PM EST). And we’ll also be providing a sort of TL;DR to yesterday’s big DFS article. Who are my core cash game plays? Who are Graham’s preferred low-owned plays for tournaments? You can find that at the end of this article.
Key News, Injury Updates, & Notes
Sunday Morning Update
(11:30am ET) – Antonio Gibson is ACTIVE.
– Dalvin Cook is ACTIVE.
– Curtis Samuel is ACTIVE.
– Lane Johnson is INACTIVE… the Eagles are without 4 of their 5 starters on the offensive line.
– Andy Dalton is INACTIVE.
– Jamison Crowder is ACTIVE.
(9:30am ET)
– Elijah Mitchell is NOT EXPECTED TO PLAY. Trey Sermon was the only 49er RB to get a carry last week (10), but FB Kyle Juszyck got a career-high 5.
– Melvin Gordon is EXPECTED TO PLAY.
– Tyler Lockett is EXPECTED TO PLAY.
– Darrell Henderson is EXPECTED TO PLAY.
– George Kittle will play.
Saturday Update
- QB Justin Fields will start for the Bears. QB Andy Dalton has been downgraded to doubtful.
- Panthers RB Christian McCaffrey is out.
- Titans WRs Julio Jones and A.J. Brown are out.
- Giants WRs Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton are out.
- Jets WR Elijah Moore is out.
- Falcons WR Russell Gage is out.
- Packers WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling is out.
- Steelers WR Chase Claypool is out.
- Seahawks RB Rashaad Penny is out.
- Seahawks TE Gerald Everett and WR Dee Eskridge are doubtful.
- Washington WR Curtis Samuel will play.
- Washington RB Antonio Gibson was apparently legitimately questionable, but it sounds like he’ll play.
- Packers RB Aaron Jones (ankle) is off the injury report.
Things I Think
I said last week’s slate was fairly tough. And that was wrong. It was a pretty great slate.
Hopefully that’s what we’re looking at again this week. It no doubt seems tough, with a lot of injury news and notes to sift through. (That’s why this article exists.) And there’s a lot of sexy high-priced plays at the top, but not a ton of value.
It’s a tough week, but I’m actually loving my lineups. I don’t yet have a favorite gamestack (probably KC@PHI or ARI@LAR), and I don’t yet have a favorite QB-stack (though Dak Prescott and his pass-catchers are a little too cheap on DraftKings). Anyway, here are some of the low-owned plays I really like:
- Truthfully, the far majority of our top plays from yesterday’s TLDR are coming in at ownership levels (<10%) much lower than I had expected. That’s a great sign for us.
- For instance, RB D'Andre Swift at 6.8% on DraftKings is dumb.
- WR Terrace Marshall is our No. 1 WR value on DraftKings (2.45X), and he’s coming in at just 4.5% ownership.
- I wrote like 800 words on why WR D.K. Metcalf was a great GPP play this week and he’s coming in at just 5.5% ownership on both sites.
- Nick Chubb remains a great GPP-play (8.5% on DK, 4.5% on FD). He’s hit 80 rushing yards in three straight games. The Browns are favored to win (-1.5). And the Vikings rank 7th-worst in YPC allowed to opposing RBs (4.83).
- We have Diontae Johnson at <1% ownership on both sites, which is very exciting. Is he not a mortal lock to either get hurt or see double-digit targets? He’s too risky for cash (coming back from an injury), but I like him a lot for tournaments.
Discord user Teddy Ruxin passed along a great stat. Over the last three weeks, the winner of the Milly Maker’s combined ownership was just: 78.1% (W1), 87.9% (W2), and 72.4% (W3). So, yeah, don’t be afraid to fade the crowd and get weird for large-field tournaments. In fact, that’s exactly what you should be doing.
Graham Barfield’s Contrarian Angles
Overlooked Stacks / Games
This is a much different slate from the first few in that we don’t have a clearly chalk game in tournaments like Cowboys-Chargers in Week 2 or Bucs-Rams last week. Eagles-Chiefs / Cardinals-Rams / Panthers-Cowboys will likely be the four most popular game stacks, but won’t draw the high ownership of the other massive chalk games we’ve seen this year.
Mahomes-Kelce is the best projected stack on the slate, but it will draw 12-18% ownership on FanDuel.
This might be the week to get on an under-owned Kyler Murray in a tougher matchup. He projects for 6-8% ownership on FD and DraftKings. I’m not going there, but no one is going to play Nuk either.
Stafford / Woods / Kupp all project in the 8-15% range on both sites.
Dak Prescott is currently the QB3 in our ownership projections on both sites (6-10%).
D.J. Moore is projecting as the WR2 in ownership projections on DK and WR1 on FD. Sam Darnold is trending towards the 3-6% ownership range… I’ve really warmed up to Darnold this week. Darnold has 279, 305, and 304 passing yards in his first three starts while Dallas has allowed 379 (Brady), 338 (Herbert), and 326 (Hurts).
That said, there is one game and a stack that is going a bit under the radar for their scoring potential…
- Browns at Vikings
We have a large sample size that shows the Vikings are a shootout team as 16 of their last 19 games dating back to the start of 2019 have combined for over 47 points with 15 of those contests going over 50 points. This should be a very competitive game throughout. Odell Beckham is my favorite play on this slate and you can short stack this game with OBJ + Thielen or Jefferson. OBJ is definitely going to draw ownership, but Vikings WRs all year long and are projecting for 5-6% ownership again. Nick Chubb is also a phenomenal tournament play for the second-straight week (more below).
- Russell Wilson + D.K. Metcalf (under 10% ownership on both sites).
This has been my favorite stack for tournaments all week and I’m thrilled to see it going way under-owned. Metcalf is going to run routes against Emmanuel Moseley (who missed the last two games with a knee injury), Josh Norman (who is also hurt), and Deommodore Lenoir (who has seen the third-most air yards in his coverage). Meanwhile, Tyler Lockett might be limited with a hip injury.
Contrarian Plays With Slate-Breaking Upside
(Projected ownership in parenthesis).
RB
– Nick Chubb (under 5% on FD) is my favorite GPP running back again on FanDuel. If you would have told me Chubb would get 22 carries last week, I would have expected 105 yards and a score. Instead, he flopped. He’ll be lower-owned than he should be because of his sluggish Week 3 and Chubb is priced in no man’s land on FanDuel with Derrick (22%) Henry and Alvin Kamara (19%) projecting as the two highest-owned, high priced backs this week. He has a huge ceiling here with Minnesota’s run defense giving up 4.82 YPC (sixth-highest) for a 53% success rate (third-highest).
– D’Andre Swift’s (3% FD) role is being undervalued along with this spot. He’s going to go off in the 10-15% range on DK, but just like with Chubb, Swift is priced in no man’s land on FanDuel. Swift’s 23 targets ranks second among RBs and would be 25th among WRs. And, Swift is running 26 routes per game, which is fifth-most among RBs just slightly behind Austin Ekeler (26.3).
– Chase Edmonds’ (under 8% on DK and FD) price is a bit odd on FanDuel, but I’m leaving the light on for a slightly underrated ceiling on DraftKings. Edmonds is fourth among all RBs in routes run per dropback (67%) and has seen 4, 5, and 8 targets despite the fact that Arizona really hasn’t been in a bad game-script yet.
WR
– Brandin Cooks (3% DK | 3% FD) has been targeted 20 times on just 46 attempts from Davis Mills which works out to a 44% target share. Seems kinda good? The volume should be amazing once again as three score dogs in Buffalo.
– Both Vikings WRs are phenomenal tournament plays once again. Jefferson is pricey on both sites and people will stay away because of it.
TE
– Kyle Pitts (3% DK | 7% FD) is off to a slow start, which wasn’t totally unexpected, but gets his best matchup of the season against this Washington secondary that is allowing 32.5 FPG to slot WRs (second-most). Pitts has lined up inside on 45% of his routes. Russell Gage is out again.
Chalk Plays (Ownership Projections)
DraftKings
1. Davante Adams, WR (23.9%)
2. Alvin Kamara, RB (22.0%)
3. D.J. Moore, WR (21.4%)
4. Derrick Henry, RB (20.4%)
5. Lions DST (19.5%)
6. Cooper Kupp, WR (17.5%)
7. Najee Harris, RB (16.5%)
8. Amari Cooper, WR (15.5%)
9. Josh Allen, QB (13.9%)
10. Deebo Samuel, WR (13.0%)
FanDuel
1. Travis Kelce, TE (23.4%)
2. D.J. Moore, WR (23.4%)
3. Davante Adams, WR (21.7%)
4. Derrick Henry, RB (21.5%)
5. Chuba Hubbard, RB (19.5%)
6. Alvin Kamara, RB (19.0%)
7. Tyreek Hill, WR (16.9%)
8. Bills DST (14.7%)
9. Stefon Diggs, WR (14.5%)
10. David Montgomery, RB (14.5%)
Cash Core (DK/FD)
QB: Patrick Mahomes (FD), Matthew Stafford (DK) / Dak Prescott (DK), Taylor Heinicke (DK) / Justin Fields (FD)
RB: Derrick Henry, Chuba Hubbard, D’Andre Swift (DK), Mike Davis, Aaron Jones (FD), David Montgomery (DK), Antonio Gibson, Jonathan Taylor (FD)
WR: Davante Adams, Odell Beckham Jr., Robert Woods (DK), Corey Davis, Amari Cooper (DK) / CeeDee Lamb (FD), Terrace Marshall / Nick Westbrook-Ikhine / Anthony Miller / Curtis Samuel (DK), Jaylen Waddle (FD), Terry McLaurin (FD)
TE: Evan Engram / Will Dissly (DK), Travis Kelce (FD), Tyler Higbee
DEF: DET (DK), WAS (FD), BUF (FD), NYJ
