Kevin Walsh | October 12th, 2019
All my plays are based on DraftKings pricing. Its also important to note that when I list a player as a fade, I do not mean I will have 0% of them, but I will be way under the field as far as exposure goes, and likely will not play them on single entry lineups.
TOURNAMENT STACKS
Kansas City Chiefs – Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Byron Pringle, Demarcus Robinson
Mahomes is a play every week, and after dropping a dud in prime-time, he may want to cover some lost ground on his stat sheet. Tyreek is slated to play for the first time since week one, and even on limited snaps, I would still want some exposure. If Hill is out, we get a cheap option in Pringle. Kelce is due for a touchdown explosion, and it could happen any week.
Houston Texans – Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins, Will Fuller, Kenny Stills, Keke Coutee
Watson looked excellent last week, and now they will have to keep up with the Chiefs. Fuller got a sizeable price increase, but he is still a great play. Hopkins may be a little overlooked since he didn’t score any touchdowns last week, but still had a respectable stat line. If the Texans fall behind early, Watson will be slinging it.
Arizona Cardinals – Kyler Murray, Larry Fitzgerald, Christian Kirk, David Johnson, Chase Edmonds
Kyler should be on everyone’s radar now, and he gets a juicy matchup at home against a pitiful Falcons defense. The situation the monitor is the status of Johnson. If he is ruled out early enough, Edmonds is a slam dunk on this stack. This could end up being the shoot-out of the week instead of Chiefs-Texans, so grab a piece of both sides.
Honorable Mentions: ATL, SF/LAR, PHI/MIN
POSITION BY POSITION
I will refrain from continuing to mention the same players across sections, so these will be more about other players I am interested in outside of big game stacks. I will try to pick a player or two in each pricing tier (High, Middle, Low).
Quarterback
Matt Ryan ($6,400)
Despite the Kansas City game looking like a firestorm for fantasy production, Ryan is my favorite quarterback on the slate. He has passed for over 300 yards every week and the Falcons fly to Arizona to play a struggling defense. Arizona also employs the fast-paced offense, so that should give Ryan more time to get us some valuable fantasy points. Ryan has been spreading it around, so picking the right hookup is going to be the hardest thing to hit.
Jared Goff ($6,100)
Todd Gurley is listed as doubtful and everyone is going to be on Malcolm Brown. Unfortunately, the 49ers defense is for real, so Goff is going to have to go to the air to beat this surprisingly undefeated team. With Brandin Cooks out, his targets should be condensed to two or three guys, and it will be great leverage on the Brown chalk.
Kirk Cousins ($5,200)
Speaking of leveraging ownership, if we can manage to get a game script that doesn’t include Dalvin Cook running 35 times, Cousins should be in play here. He still needs to get his receivers targets and make them happy, and the Eagles will not make it easy to run on them. Their secondary is fairly pitiful to top it off, so I will have a little exposure to the Vikings passing game.
Honorable Mentions – Kyler Murray, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson
Running Back
Dalvin Cook ($8,400)
Despite what I just wrote about Cousins, Cook is still a great play on this slate. Cook has been killing teams every week and the Eagles have yet to be truly tested by a great running game. Their dreadful secondary has made their run defense look good by accident, so you can still fire up Cook with confidence.
Chris Carson ($6,000)
I won’t lie, I am worried about Rashaad Penny cutting into his carries now that he is back, but the Browns have been getting chewed up hard on the ground, and Russell Wilson and company will likely want to ground this game out and try to pick up a win on the road.
Le’Veon Bell ($6,400)
The pricing on this slate and the projected ownership for players is heavily slanted on the idea that the Jets are terrible at everything and that the Cowboys are going to steamroll them. The Cowboys have not performed well against any good teams yet. Aaron Jones just owned this defense pretty hard. Add that Bell has plenty of reception upside, especially now that Darnold is back, and we could have some great leverage as well as getting Bell at the cheapest he will be the rest of the season. This is a potential slate-breaker if we get a vintage Bell performance.
Cheap – Chase Edmonds ($4,600)
This is only if we get word that Johnson is out. D.J. is having some back issues, and we may not get the news until very close to kickoff. Edmonds is in such a better spot than Brown at very close to the same price.
Fade – Malcolm Brown ($4,300)
I’m sure I will have some Brown, but if he goes to mega-chalk come Sunday, I will be way under the field. I just don’t think the Rams will be able to get the running game going, and I think Darrell Henderson starts eating into Brown’s snaps in the passing game.
Honorable Mentions – Carlos Hyde, Alvin Kamara, Ezekiel Elliott, Leonard Fournette, Mark Ingram, Damien Williams, Kenyan Drake, Derrick Henry (Lots of good options this week)
Wide Receiver
Cooper Kupp ($7,100) and Robert Woods ($5,600)
This should be no surprise considering my love of Goff this week. With Cooks out, these are the 1A/1B options in the passing game. If the 49ers can keep a lead, we could end up getting a ton of late garbage points just like last week.
Julio Jones ($8,000)
After two relatively quiet weeks, Julio is going to explode again and remind everyone that he is still here. He will always be my main target for Ryan stacks, just finding that second pass-catcher is the hard part. It’s a Julio week, so don’t miss the boat.
DJ Chark ($5,500)
The legend of Gardner Minshew continues to grow, and Chark is reaping the benefits. Chark will be popular and if Marshon Lattimore is covering him all day, it’s going to be tough to return value. Game flow should help his cause though, and I imagine he still gets there this week. I also like his teammate, Dede Westbrook, who should avoid Lattimore entirely.
Courtland Sutton ($5,000)
I thought this was going to be a more popular play but ownership projections seem to tell a different story. I know I am repeating this from my value article, but Malcolm Butler has not been good in coverage this season. Joe Flacco isn’t the best, but he has been able to get the ball to his receivers, and Sutton may be my favorite play from this game.
Honorable Mentions – Amari Cooper, Adam Thielen, Terry McLaurin, Preston Williams, Byron Pringle (if Tyreek Hill is out especially)
Tight End
Austin Hooper ($5,000)
Last week, the “play tight ends against Arizona” narrative finally failed with Tyler Eifert, but this is not going to fail this week. Ryan is going to be slinging it, and Hooper is a hell of a lot better than Eifert. Nothing to think about here.
George Kittle ($5,200)
We know the 49ers are going to run the ball but Kittle should still be a large part of their offense this week if they intend to keep up and compete. His price is low for his talent level and we have yet to see that Kittle explosion. Rams linebackers are not great in coverage, so this could be the week.
Gerald Everett ($3,600)
Hard to talk up the Rams offense without talking about Everett, as weird as that is to say. Goff is hitting him hard with targets, so if you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for a tight end, this is probably your guy.
Honorable Mentions – Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz, Jared Cook, Will Dissly, Mark Andrews
Defense/Special Teams
Ravens ($4,100)
Playing at home against Andy Dalton is usually something we want to target. He has already been sacked 20 times and all that pressure tends to lead to picks and defensive touchdowns.
Broncos ($3,100)
Speaking of guys that get sacked a lot, Marcus Mariota has been sacked a whopping 22 times already. If Von Miller can jumpstart this pass-rush, it could be a big day for the Broncos defense.
Jets ($1,500)
Initially, I had the Chiefs here as my cheap defense (again, because Watson takes sacks like Dalton and Mariota), but I did some digging in on this Jets team after seeing this inexplicable price tag. They won’t get C.J. Mosely back, but it looks like they will get Quinnen Williams. The rest is going to need a bit of a perfect storm of things, but Dallas has been struggling at times so far, and the Jets are just the type of team they would lose to. They come in cocky, thinking they will win easily because the Jets are bad. They get shocked when they find out that they aren’t actually that bad and lose a close game.
That’s my theory, anyway, and the price tag makes it a slam dunk for me. Maybe I will double down and go put a few bucks on the Jets money-line.
Honorable Mentions – Titans, Redskins, Jaguars, Cowboys, Saints
Ownership Considerations
In this section, I will list my favorite player at each position that is projected to be less than 5% owned. These will sometimes be dart-throws, and some will be more conviction plays and leverage spots. Don’t go slamming all these guys in one lineup and expecting success. They are low-owned for a reason, folks.
QB – Kirk Cousins
RB – Derrick Henry
I think everyone still thinks of Denver as this stout defense, but really there is space to run against this team. Henry got back Taylor Lewan last week, he just needs to get the carries (which he didn’t get last week).
WR – Courtland Sutton
TE – Gerald Everett
DST – Saints
Minshew took several sacks last week and is bound to make some mistakes at his experience level.
TWO MINUTE WARNING
If you have any questions, hit me up on Twitter @Walsh_Sports. I will answer any questions you have! Let’s make that money this week!
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