Championship Thoughts: Are We Underestimating the Broncos?

First and foremost, to those of you in the path of Jonas, stay safe and warm. Travel only as necessary and take care of your neighbor. If you’re stuck in an airport, I’ve been there and I feel for you. Just remember to be kind to those around you, especially the employees.

Back to football…

Welcome to the Final Four of the 2015 NFL season! We’re blessed to have the number one seed facing the number two seed in both conferences this coming Sunday. That hasn’t happened since the 2004 season. Only nine times in NFL history has the number one seed from each conference faced each other in the Super Bowl, suggesting that fate is against both the Panthers and the Broncos winning.

I’ve broken down both games through the lens of tournament plays here. I also want to add some additional thoughts, particularly from a contrarian perspective, i.e., a Broncos’ perspective.

The more narrative that surrounds Peyton Manning and Co., the more I’m starting to think the Broncos offense provides a bounty of fantasy points, and everyone is fading them. Everything from the game temperature falling few degrees below Manning’s apparent threshold as a quarterback:

Peyton Manning has never won a playoff game (0-4) when kickoff temperature is under 40 degrees. Forecast for Denver is 41 degrees at kick

— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) January 17, 2016

 to the line moving a half point more in favor of the Patriots:

Offshore money trending in that direction as well, with 80% of spread money currently on the #Patriots. https://t.co/6oIQOfdJ7L

— Sports Insights (@SportsInsights) January 22, 2016

has folks are blindly ignoring the Broncos skill position players and loading up on Patriots and Panthers. But something about the crowd all piling up on the same game script leads me to think the sharp move is to build rosters around Manning and a few his receivers. Let’s, in fact, inject more narratives to this game:

This could be Manning’s last game. Win or lose, I just don’t think it’s realistic to expect him to come back next season. And the last thing he or the Broncos want, obviously, is to end his career with another loss in the playoffs, especially at home, and especially against Tom Brady. Talk about motivation.

He has a financial incentive to win. Hey, it’s a narrative, so we’re going to bring it up. I’m fairly confident Manning’s bank account is in good shape. I mean, his 21 Papa John’s seem to be flourishing. Regardless, an AFC Championship win awards him an extra $2 million, as long as he plays 70 percent of offensive snaps.

The game script favors Broncos receivers. Getting back to a more logical approach to DFS, one that ignores narratives, it makes sense to expect Manning’s receivers to catch lots of passes. If you’re buying into the Vegas lines and jumping onto the bandwagon, then you’re expecting the Broncos to be playing from behind, which would lead us to believe they’ll abandon the run. It also suggests more passing. Both of those beliefs filter to the weakest part of the Patriots’ defense: their secondary. During the regular season, only the Steelers allowed more yards to wide receivers than the Patriots. And while they were stingy in the end zone, their 12 interceptions were below the league average.

Now, for all you Patriots fans, I’m not saying their defense is bad. I’m saying it’s more exploitable via the pass than the run, and the game script might force it that direction anyway. But given what we saw last week from the Broncos offense, it’s likely the Patriots defense will press receivers and attempt to shut down all those short throws Manning makes. Here is a great write up of his pass attempts against the Steelers from Adam Bogdan. I think it’s logical to expect a similar approach this Sunday given Manning’s inability to throw deep. Or…

We should ignore last week’s game completely. The Broncos offense, frankly, looked like shit. They dropped seven passes and struggled to move the ball against a terrible secondary. If not for a forced fumble late in the game, we’re writing about the Steelers here instead. But with a little thought, it’s not hard to explain why the Broncos’ offense was so bad.

First of all, it was Manning’s first full game since Week 9. That’s two months of missed time. Naturally there is going to be some rust. And if his receivers play a little better, he might be a lot more popular this week. I expect things to look and flow a little smoother this Sunday.

Manning’s health, another concern, isn’t an issue. He has practiced in full all week and looked fine last week. He’s not going to be rolling out on bootlegs and scrambling when the protection breaks down, but his ability to read the defense and execute the offense is not something to worry about. He made some great throws in tight windows last week. If the Patriots are going to play man coverage, without fear of a deep ball, one little mistake will lead to ton of yards-after-the-catch. And I would expect a decent amount of bubble screens—something both Emmanuel Sanders and Demaryius Thomas can turn into huge plays.

Putting this altogether, the crowd is off Manning and Co. because Manning is old and not playing well. But if you zoom out and consider all of the matchups for the weekend, the Broncos offense has the best one on the board. The Cardinals, Panthers and Broncos defenses are all elite. The Patriots defense, though above average, is soft compared to the other three. Then, when you consider the home team, a huge advantage for the playoffs, especially in Denver, is a 3.5-point underdog (and growing), stacking up on a pass-friendly game script seems logical.

It’s especially advantageous in big tournaments when everyone else is loading their rosters sans Broncos. So we get a twofold contrarian play: the Broncos offense, and the Patriots/Broncos game. Manning is the cheapest quarterback on the board, which gives us the flexibility of stacking him with one of his receivers and still plugging in Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman. On the other side, we can plug in the Panthers defense and Graham Gano, essentially doubling down on our expected game script, and fading the crowd entirely.

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Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 16

Merry Christmas Eve! Our present to you is…well exactly the same thing we give you every Thursday—our insight into FanDuel’s Thursday Night Cash games.

You can check the full lineups here, while we break down a few interesting things we’ve noticed.

Staff Trends

David Johnson…again

Once again the staff is all in on Arizona rookie David Johnson. Well, all but Mark Wimer. Still, it’s impressive that we mostly are on board with him despite a rising price tag. The Packers still have issues stopping the run, so Johnson is a good bet to match value.

Lower Tier Quarterbacks

While we have Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton sightings, Blake Bortles, Alex Smith, Teddy Bridgewater and Derek Carr also got nods. Interestingly, Carr, tight end Antonio Gates and Danny Woodhead are the only players from Thursday night who are getting starts, including Amari Cooper.

Carr should be a good play against a weak San Diego defense, and Blake Bortles gets the start in the hopes that the New Orleans Saints defense continues to be solid for opposing fantasy quarterbacks. 

With Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson catching balls for Bortles, we think it will be. Alex Smith sees a weak Cleveland defense and is generally underrated by fantasy GMs this year. Finally, Teddy Bridgewater faces a bad Giants defense, but is my least favorite of the starts as his value can depend on what Norv Turner does with the gameplan. I don’t expect four passing touchdowns like last week and no more than perhaps 250 yards at most. The price is OK though, and he has upside.

What can (Antonio) Brown do for you?

Brown is in all the lineups but mine. For me it wasn’t so much about avoiding him as it was chasing value elsewhere. And I really like DeAndre Hopkins this week. It’s hard to do both players.

The Steelers offense is on fire, and if Brown’s $9300 price tag seems high, consider that he has been over 30 points in four of the last six games on FanDuel, as pointed out by Chad Parsons in the FanDuel Value article.

Diamonds in the Rough

Aside from the quarternack values, we have a few interesting other plays to look at. Danny Woodhead ($5900) is coming off a huge game and should be a big factor Thursday night, though prior to last week he hadn’t been doing much lately.

Christine Michael ($5500) had a great game last week against the Cleveland Browns, but faces a tougher match against the St. Louis Rams. He’s a long shot play but he might be owned by a very low percentage of people as well.

Mike Gillislee ($5300) could share Karlos Williams’ carries if Williams is still banged up Sunday. The problem is how uninspiring Gillislee has been since he hit the NFL. He has had two touchdowns in the last two weeks and broke a super-long run last week, but there’s risk if he can’t find the end zone.

A couple of staff members are chasing Rueben Randle ($5700) as Odell Beckham Jr is suspended for the game against Minnesota. Randle is underwhelming though he has had two straight games where he scored a touchdown. You’re dependent on that though as he has just five games over 54 yards and none over 70, plus just six touchdowns. He’ll have chances this weekend, but he may do his usual thing and drop them.

Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 15

Once again we had a week where the loss of players—Andy Dalton, Greg Olsen, LeGarrette Blount, Thomas Rawls and Jonathan Stewart in particular—sank some lineups. Week 15 is here, so there is no time for the wicked to rest—the staff is back at work and has entered some lineups for your Thursday night perusal.

You can see all the staff picks here but I’ve cherry picked some of the selections I thought were interesting to discuss.

Staff Trends

Three Weeks with David Johnson

Johnson is in the majority of Thursday lineups again this week, even with the price up to $6500. The matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles is a good one with the Eagles giving fantasy running backs an average of 29.3 points per week during the last three games. As Chad Parsons points out in this week’s Value Article: “Johnson's price looks like a misprint for Week 15, a clear starting running back - with plenty of pass-catching upside - on a quality offense for cheap RB2 prices. 15 touches or more is his floor with multiple touchdown potential. Plugging Johnson into lineups this week is the easiest decision out there.” Until the price goes up, expect the staff to keep riding him.

Maximum Maclin

All six staff members have Jeremy Maclin in their lineups, and at $6700 against the woeful Baltimore Ravens pass defense, it’s no surprise. Alex Smith may not be Drew Brees when it comes to passing yards, but he does enough and Maclin should easily beat his somewhat disappointing numbers from last week. 80-100 yards and a touchdown on half a dozen or so catches would not be out of the question—solid production for a bargain price.

Megatron!

We know the Saints (normally) give up a lot of points and yards, while also scoring them. It’s a self-fulfilling circle of life—score a lot, get scored on a lot. Which means that the Lions are in a good place to score a ton of points this week and if they are scoring, Calvin Johnson is catching. The $8000 is a little steep, coming off two below-average games but that might also mean people will pass him by. It could be a good way to get points others will not be looking at. Deep threats get over on this defense—Calvin Johnson should add to that this week.

Diamonds in the Rough

Brandon Bolden ($5500) should get most of the work between the tackles against the Titans and while it’s actually not an easy matchup on the ground, he did well in limited snaps last week against Houston. 

At $7800, Matt Stafford might not seem a value until you remember how bad the Saints defense is. I love guys like Cam Newton, Russell Wilson and Tom Brady but you save yourself a thousand or so going with Stafford or Ryan Fitzpatrick ($7800). Stafford has the prime matchup, but Fitz has been on a tear and is a worthy player with two weapons (Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker) who could be over 1,000 yards by the end of the year. Both Stafford and Fitzpatrick are quality starters who could be top fantasy quarterbacks this week.

Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 14

Week 15 is here and the Footballguys staff has put together some Thursday cash play lineups for FanDuel and we’ve picked out a few things that jumped out at us which we thought might be helpful.

You can see all the staff picks here to get the full view of who did what.

Staff Trends

“The Other Guys” at Quarterback

So far Thursday lineups feature all lower tier guys. Jameis Winston ($7800) leads the way with a couple of Ryan Fitzpatrick ($7800) starts and one Tyrod Taylor ($7500). All three are good value plays, where you get plenty of bang for your buck. Yes, you can spend more, but when you can spend less at quarterback and still get solid production, you should as it gives you the flexibility to go big elsewhere.

David Johnson again

He got some run last week and while his price went up, three staff members added him to their lineup. He’s almost the only player from Thursday night to get any nods, which is interesting given how consistent Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald have been, as well as a matchup against a defense missing up to four starters. Johnson should get plenty of carries and have plenty of success against this depleted defensive front.

A Week for Top WRs

Alshon Jeffery, Odell Beckham Jr, Antonio Brown, A.J. Green and DeAndre Hopkins all got starts in this grouping (sometimes more than one of them in the same lineup), as the staff took the money they saved at quarterback and plugged it in at receiver. While the price tags are higher, so is the production and all those players consistently put up big points. They are also probably all significantly owned and that’s fine—in cash games you don’t have to hit a home run—you just need to keep up with the crowd.

Sammy Watkins and Brandon Marshall are pretty strong plays as well.

Diamonds in the Rough

All the quarterbacks mentioned are values, as is Patriots tight end Scott Chandler ($5800) if Rob Gronkowski doesn’t play. As it stands, Gronkowski is practicing with a brace. As bad as the offense looked against the Eagles last week, it’s hard to imagine the Patriots are not pushing for him to play. The problem here is at Fanduel you cannot do late switches. So if Gronkowski plays, you’re hosed and have to pray Chandler gets a lot of run anyway.

Delanie Walker ($6100) should, as most tight ends do, find a lot of room to work against the Jets. At that price, it’s a pretty good bargain for what should likely be solid production.

Contrarian Plays: Week 9

As you already know, finding a contrarian option doesn't mean drilling to the bottom of a depth chart and rostering a low-cost player on the off chance that they luck into a touchdown or see more playing time thanks to an in-game injury. Contrarianism is more about under-owned players and less about being unique for the sake of uniqueness.

Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. were under-owned last week. The matchup should have begged us to roll that stack in a lot of tournament rosters. Everything looks obvious in hindsight, of course. But we can chalk it up as lessons learned: starting elite players when the crowd is shy makes for a better contrarian play than a deep roster Hail Mary.

So remember that on Sunday morning when you're clicking submit for the final time. Consider that, maybe, Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb are this week's Manning and Beckham Jr. Or maybe this is the week for a Broncos power stack of Peyton Manning, Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders. Remember that Vegas isn't interested in being right; they're interested in being equal, as in, equal amounts of money on both sides of a bet. So fading Vegas, as in, ignoring an over/under (like the Colts/Broncos 45.5 points) is a great way to be contrarian.

With that in mind, here is an excerpt from this week's contrarian plays:

Player	Salary	Game	Own %	Player	Salary	Game	Own %
Alshon Jeffery	$7900	CHI@SD	20.3	Brandon LaFell	$5200	WAS@NE	4.3
Odell Beckham Jr.	$9000	NYG@TB	19.7	Rishard Matthews	$6500	MIA@BUF	3.7
Malcom Floyd	$6100	CHI@SD	18.1	James Jones	$6000	GB@CAR	3.3
Julian Edelman	$8000	WAS@NE	16.8	Randall Cobb	$7400	GB@CAR	3.3
Julio Jones	$9200	ATL@SF	15.4	Ted Ginn Jr.	$5300	GB@CAR	2.9
Antonio Brown	$8700	OAK@PIT	13.2	Allen Hurns	$6800	JAC@NYJ	2.2
Michael Crabtree	$5800	OAK@PIT	13.2	Jordan Matthews	$6300	PHI@DAL	1.5
Amari Cooper	$7300	OAK@PIT	12.7	Robert Woods	$4900	MIA@BUF	1.5
Tavon Austin	$5700	STL@MIN	10.9	Dez Bryant	$7900	PHI@DAL	1.2
T.Y. Hilton	$7700	DEN@IND	9.7	Donte Moncrief	$6400	DEN@IND	1
Mike Evans	$7500	NYG@TB	9.6	Pierre Garcon	$6300	WAS@NE	1
Steve Johnson	$5400	CHI@SD	9.3	Brandon Marshall	$8100	JAC@NYJ	0.7
Brandin Cooks	$7100	TEN@NO	9	Dwayne Harris	$5300	NYG@TB	0.7
Demaryius Thomas	$8400	DEN@IND	8.6	Davante Adams	$5100	GB@CAR	0.7
Jarvis Landry	$7000	MIA@BUF	8.6	Dorial Green-Beckham	$4900	TEN@NO	0.6
Willie Snead	$6100	TEN@NO	8.6	Sammy Watkins	$6200	MIA@BUF	0.5
Eric Decker	$6300	JAC@NYJ	7.1	Terrance Williams	$5600	PHI@DAL	0.4
Martavis Bryant	$6900	OAK@PIT	6.9	Roddy White	$5300	ATL@SF	0.4
Stefon Diggs	$7400	STL@MIN	5.6	Marquess Wilson	$4800	CHI@SD	0.3
Emmanuel Sanders	$7600	DEN@IND	5.3	Rueben Randle	$5500	NYG@TB	0.2
Allen Robinson	$7200	JAC@NYJ	4.6	Riley Cooper	$5300	PHI@DAL	0.1

We expect Steve Johnson’s ownership to be higher come Sunday, but not so high that we shouldn’t take advantage of his $5,400 salary in what will be a Monday night shootout. Only the Ravens have allowed more touchdowns to wide receivers. Johnson should see plenty of targets in the Eddie Royal role.

Speaking of Royal, he’s unlikely to play in this contest so that means more snaps for Marquess Wilson. We’ve seen what he can do when featured in the Bears offense. In Week 4 and Week 5, he caught 12 of 16 targets for 165 yards and a touchdown. This week he’ll benefit from single coverage as the Chargers focus on Alshon Jeffery. You won’t find a better option for less than $5,000.

Unless, of course, you think Dorial Green-Beckham will finally make use of his size and opportunity. The report from Nashville is that the Titans want him to block better. We just want him to receive better. He’ll have his opportunities against the Saints—who were just thrashed by the other Beckham last week—with Kendall Wright injured. The return of more accurate, more mobile Marcus Mariota should help, though we’ll miss out on the gun-slinging ways of Zach Mettenberger. In any case, if the Titans can get their offense going in the wake of firing their head coach, Green-Beckham might find the endzone once or twice. His $4,900 salary does a lot for the rest of our roster.

In his first game since Week 1, Dez Bryant caught only two passes for 12 yards. But he was anything but quiet. Matt Cassel targeted him six times, more than any other receiver including Jason Witten. Unfortunately, Richard Sherman was all over Bryant, who may not be full speed just yet. He’ll have an easier time against the Eagles, who look a lot better on the stat sheet (they lead the league in takeaways) than they do on the field. They’re allowing only 31.5 FanDuel points per game to receivers, but when they’ve faced a true No. 1 they’ve been burned. Julio Jones, Odell Beckham Jr., Brandon Marshall, and even Brandin Cooks/Willie Snead have had their way against this secondary. Bryant’s $7,900 salary is the lowest it has been since 2011—long before Bradley C. won his $349. Fire Bryant up as a contrarian play and pray Cassel gets things turned around.

Now might be the time to take advantage of Brandon LaFell. His $5,200 price tag is a steal considering the Patriots are projected to score 33 points and are favored by two touchdowns. He has been targeted 15 times over the last two games and played on 87 percent of snaps last week. The Washington secondary has been getting pushed around lately, having allowed 400 yards and four touchdowns in their last two games. This a great week for LaFell to get back. His salary makes it possible to roster Touchdown Tom and still build a quality lineup.

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Fades and Loss Leaders: Week 9

Week 8 was a disaster for a lot of season-long rosters. Injuries are about the only thing that can ruin the NLF's product. But in DFS, those injuries create value opportunities. The Next Man Up, especially for a running back, gets an immediate boost in playing time, but his salary generally remains low. This week we have DeAngelo Williams and Jeremy Langford filling those roles. Their salaries were bumped up $1,500 and $1,700 respectively, but both are still great values at $6,500 and $6,400.

The issue we run into when we lose players to injuries is clustered ownership percentages. We are now down Jamaal Charles, Arian Foster, Matt Forte and Le'Veon Bell. Not every single one of those situations provides us with an automatic Next Man Up. Without these players to help spread out ownership percentages, we see top-heavy exposure to chalk plays.

Bye weeks and London games don't help. Thankfully, we're done with London games for the season, and we have just a few more weeks of Byes. In the meantime, we'll stick to the process of identifying fades and loss leaders. Here's an excerpt from this week's edition:

Player	Salary	Game	Own %	Player	Salary	Game	Own %
Devonta Freeman	$8900	ATL@SF	25.2	Lamar Miller	$6900	MIA@BUF	3.2
DeAngelo Williams	$6500	OAK@PIT	24	Adrian Peterson	$8400	STL@MIN	2.8
Todd Gurley	$9000	STL@MIN	14.4	LeSean McCoy	$7800	MIA@BUF	2.6
Christopher Ivory	$7500	JAC@NYJ	12.4	C.J. Anderson	$6000	DEN@IND	1.8
Mark Ingram	$7700	TEN@NO	12.2	Shane Vereen	$5700	NYG@TB	1.5
Dion Lewis	$7400	WAS@NE	11.3	T.J. Yeldon	$6400	JAC@NYJ	1.4
Doug Martin	$7100	NYG@TB	11.2	Melvin Gordon	$6100	CHI@SD	1.2
Darren McFadden	$6500	PHI@DAL	9.7	Antonio Andrews	$5700	TEN@NO	1.2
Jeremy Langford	$6400	CHI@SD	7.5	C.J. Spiller	$5500	TEN@NO	1.2
Ronnie Hillman	$6400	DEN@IND	6.2	Eddie Lacy	$6700	GB@CAR	1.1
Danny Woodhead	$6000	CHI@SD	5.7	Frank Gore	$6700	DEN@IND	0.5
LeGarrette Blount	$6400	WAS@NE	4	Ryan Mathews	$5600	PHI@DAL	0.4
Jonathan Stewart	$6600	GB@CAR	3.7	Darren Sproles	$5500	PHI@DAL	0.4
DeMarco Murray	$7500	PHI@DAL	3.5	Matt Jones	$5800	WAS@NE	0.2
Latavius Murray	$7000	OAK@PIT	3.2	Alfred Morris	$5400	WAS@NE	0.1

After averaging 26 points per game through the first six weeks of the season, Devonta Freeman has scored 14 and 16.1 points over his last two. The Falcons offense as a whole has slowed down, which would explain why Freeman hasn’t found the endzone recently. That should change against the 49ers, who are allowing 22 fantasy points per game to running backs over the last three weeks. This contest doesn’t promise much in the way of a shootout, so volume and pace overall will be low. But that means more Freeman and less Julio Jones. His salary is tough to build around and his ownership is nearly prohibitive for tournaments, but a multi-touchdown game looks to be in order.

It feels like a long time ago but during the first two weeks of the season, with Le’Veon Bell serving suspension, DeAngelo Williams was our No. 1 scoring running back. An unfortunate injury to Bell has once again pushed Williams to the top of the depth chart. His salary and opportunity has pushed him to the top of the exposure chart as well, making him our second most popular option of all players as of Thursday night. As much as we’d like to take advantage of his salary while it’s low, the Raiders run defense has been quite good. They’ve yet to allow a 100-yard rusher and have allowed a total of five touchdowns to running backs all season. The Steelers offense is capable of changing that, but it’s more likely that they’re forced into a high volume passing attack in what could be a shootout.

Todd Gurley is justifying the Rams gambling a top-10 pick on him. Since getting a full workload in Week 4, he is averaging 141.5 yards per game on the ground and has contributed another 68 yards as a receiver. There were major concerns about this offensive line, and this offense in general, but he has quelled those concerns in true Adrian Peterson style. This week he’ll face a team that knows all about having their entire offense go through a game-changing running back. The Vikings, after being gashed by Carlos Hyde in Week 1, have allowed only 485 yards on the ground and one rushing touchdown. So this will be an interesting test for Gurley as they are sure to load the box and dare the Rams to throw. We’ll let the crowd swallow his $9,000 salary and chase surer game scripts.

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Medical Check

This week there are some key injuries to watch including to Antonio Gates, John Brown, and Jordan Reed. Should you be plugging these guys into your lineups or are their some great pivots due to these injuries? Find out here.

FanDuel Contrarian Plays: Week 7

Matthew Stafford ruined everything. For the first six weeks of the season, FanDuel was awarding $1 million to first place in their featured GPP. Then, someone went and won that million dollars with Stafford as their quarterback. Now the first place prize has been cut in half. This is why we can't have nice things, Stafford. Thanks.

In seriousness, we were all over Calvin Johnson last week as a contrarian play. So it's not surprising that Stafford would also have a solid game. Having the best game by quarterback, from a fantasy points perspective, wasn't necessarily expected, but his $6,900 salary last week was the lowest it has been since 2010--long before any of you played DFS. In short, he was the perfect contrarian play: a veteran quarterback that sometimes has huge games, with one of the best receivers of this generation, against one of the worst passing defenses. Those are the situations we need to find every week (even it only wins us $500k).

Below is an excerpt from this week's contrarian write up. You can read the rest here.

Player	Salary	Game	Own %	Player	Salary	Game	Own %
Carson Palmer	$8200	BAL@ARI	17.2	Andrew Luck	$8900	NO@IND	4.1
Philip Rivers	$8000	OAK@SD	16.7	Landry Jones	$6000	PIT@KC	3.9
Cam Newton	$8100	PHI@CAR	6.7	Drew Brees	$8400	NO@IND	2.7
Matthew Stafford	$7400	MIN@DET	6	Ryan Fitzpatrick	$7100	NYJ@NE	2.1
Tom Brady	$9000	NYJ@NE	5.2	Eli Manning	$7800	DAL@NYG	1.7
Brian Hoyer	$6900	HOU@MIA	4.7	Ryan Tannehill	$7700	HOU@MIA	1.4
Matt Ryan	$8100	ATL@TEN	4.4	Matt Cassel	$6400	DAL@NYG	1

With the majority of the crowd gathering around Carson Palmer and Philip Rivers, we can move to Matt Ryan for the same price and less exposure. Ryan is hardly a model for consistency but still ranks 11^th overall among quarterbacks. This week he travels to Nashville to face a defense that looks better in the stat column than they do on the field. They’ve allowed an average of 17.9 points to quarterbacks, which ranks 16^th, but are allowing the most fantasy points per attempt. Even if you remove rushing points, the Titans still rank third in points per attempt. For the first time in weeks, Julio Jones isn’t listed on the injury report. We like that the over/under in this contest is a healthy 47 points, third highest of the week, and we’ll take a Ryan/Jones stack.

Only four teams have allowed more passing yards than the Colts, who rank sixth in fantasy points surrendered to quarterbacks. Drew Brees is showing his age but still capable of putting up big numbers when the game script calls for it. He has now thrown for over 300 yards in three consecutive games. We’d like to see a few more touchdowns to go along with those yards. The Colts have allowed 11 on the season, sixth most, and are favored in our highest over/under of the week at 58 points. Even though he’ll set us back $8,400, Brees looks like a nice tournament play.

As does his opponent Andrew Luck. It’s sort of confusing that the crowd is still shy with only 4.1 percent of Thursday rosters acquiring his services. His price tag of $8,900 is a discount, relatively speaking. Last week, in his first game back from injury, he dumped 312 yards and three touchdowns on the Patriots, threw the ball 50 times and rushed four times for 35 yards. It’s possible that Frank Gore sneaks in a touchdown, but we’ll fire up Luck with confidence against a Saints team that is allowing the third most fantasy points per attempt to quarterbacks.

In the bargain bin, we have a high-risk play with Landry Jones. He was excellent in relief of Michael Vick last week, in which he completed 67 percent of his passes for 168 yards and two scores. Be warned, however, that 88 of those yards and one of those touchdowns came on one big play. That aside, he couldn’t have a better defense to face in his first NFL start. The Chiefs’ secondary is awful, having allowed 14 touchdowns to four interceptions, and the third most fantasy points per game to quarterbacks. Of course, there is a reason the Steelers acquired Vick and pushed Jones down the depth chart. So there's a lot of implied risk here. But $6,000 gives us a world of roster flexibility. Asking Jones for 18 points isn’t exactly a longshot, considering he scored 16.3 last week in 1.5 quarters of football.

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FanDuel Fades and Loss Leaders: Week 7

The danger in fading a crowd favorite is missing out on someone like Devonta Freeman while he posts another multi-touchdown day. What an incredible seven weeks he has put together. I wanted to know how incredible so I dug into the Data Dominator over at Footballguys.com and asked it to show me the best running back seasons through seven weeks (since 2002). Here are the results:



Sorted by PPR points, since that's the world we now live in, Freeman ranks eighth all time. That's a pretty damn good showing and some rare company. The top five can't be messed with. Priest Holmes opened the 2002 season with four touchdowns. He missed two games that year and still put together the fourth best fantasy performance by a running back in history.

What's interesting is Freeman is barely beating out what DeMarco Murray and Matt Forte did last year, and not as good as Jamaal Charles in 2013. So this isn't uncharted territory. It's just completely unexpected from a guy whose workout metrics are pretty gross. If he keeps up his impossible pace, there will be thousands of articles next year about why he shouldn't be the No. 1 overall pick (he is only 23).

The question for this week is should you fade him? He'll be nearly 50% owned in large tournaments--an unprecedented number. GPP logic tells us we absolutely must fade him. He is now priced as an elite running back and exposed as such. Maybe I'll be mad at myself when the dust settles and he has three touchdowns against the Titans, but I'm fading his $8,700 salary while the crowd chases historical performances.

To read who else we're fading and whose ownership percentages we're ignoring click here. Below is a short excerpt.

Player	Salary	Game	Own %	Player	Salary	Game	Own %
Martavis Bryant	$6900	PIT@KC	28.8	Tavon Austin	$5800	CLE@STL	3.3
Larry Fitzgerald	$7800	BAL@ARI	28.2	Danny Amendola	$5400	NYJ@NE	3.1
DeAndre Hopkins	$9200	HOU@MIA	24.8	Odell Beckham Jr.	$9000	DAL@NYG	3
John Brown	$6700	BAL@ARI	17.9	Rishard Matthews	$6400	HOU@MIA	2.9
Stefon Diggs	$5800	MIN@DET	14.5	Vincent Jackson	$6800	TB@WAS	2.8
Donte Moncrief	$6500	NO@IND	11.7	Mike Evans	$7500	TB@WAS	2.7
Travis Benjamin	$6600	CLE@STL	11.2	Michael Crabtree	$5900	OAK@SD	2.7
Julio Jones	$9100	ATL@TEN	9.7	Brandin Cooks	$6700	NO@IND	2.6
Julian Edelman	$8000	NYJ@NE	9.4	Ted Ginn Jr.	$5300	PHI@CAR	2.5
Calvin Johnson	$8400	MIN@DET	9	Michael Floyd	$4900	BAL@ARI	2.2
T.Y. Hilton	$7700	NO@IND	8.8	Golden Tate	$6700	MIN@DET	1.8
Jarvis Landry	$7100	HOU@MIA	8.6	Terrance Williams	$5900	DAL@NYG	1.5
Amari Cooper	$7300	OAK@SD	8.3	Kendall Wright	$5700	ATL@TEN	1.4
Steve Smith	$6900	BAL@ARI	8.2	Jordan Matthews	$6600	PHI@CAR	1.1
Brandon Marshall	$8200	NYJ@NE	8	Mike Wallace	$5400	MIN@DET	1
Eric Decker	$6200	NYJ@NE	7.6	Leonard Hankerson	$5700	ATL@TEN	0.8
Antonio Brown	$8300	PIT@KC	5.5	Jamison Crowder	$5800	TB@WAS	0.6
Willie Snead	$6500	NO@IND	4.7	Jeremy Maclin	$6900	PIT@KC	0.5
Pierre Garcon	$6100	TB@WAS	4.2	Rueben Randle	$5700	DAL@NYG	0.5
Keenan Allen	$8100	OAK@SD	3.9	Kamar Aiken	$5600	BAL@ARI	0.5

DeAndre Hopkins is the most expensive player on the board in Week 7, and our sixth most popular overall. No receiver has scored more fantasy points this season, with Julio Jones a distant second. Hopkins ranks high in about every category we treasure: targets, receptions, yards, touchdowns. All this despite inferior quarterback play. The Texans’ offensive line has done a good job in pass protection, which allows Hopkins to complete his routes or improvise where necessary. Those familiar with “Madden NFL” know his spectacular catch rating is one of the best; he has made some amazing grabs this season. He travels to Miami this week, who haven’t allowed a lot of touchdowns, but have struggled against No. 1 receivers, ranking 30^th in that category with 85.4 yards per game allowed according to FootballOutsiders. Despite his salary and exposure, fading Hopkins is not advised (though, if you’re looking for a pivot play, Jones should have a similar box score).

Don’t. Get. Cute. We get it. Recency bias and all. Stefon Diggs, for $5,800 doesn’t need to do much to hit tournament value. But with the crowd all over him, he’s just not worth it. His salary increase of $1,300 is more than any other player. Yes, he has worked his way into a WR2 role in the Vikings offense, who matchup well against the Lions as road favorites. But we think Adrian Peterson does all the damage with Teddy Bridgewater and Co. serving as complements. For better or for worse, Diggs is this week’s Julian Edelman: he may rack up a fair number of receptions and yards, but touchdowns win tournaments, and his chances of scoring are low.

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