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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Early Week 9 Ownership

The Week 9 ownership data is in from the Thursday night contests. From consensus plays to low-owned options, here are a few highlights at FanDuel:

Tom Brady has been close to automatic this season and now gets struggling Washington as two-touchdown favorites in Foxboro. Brady's salary matches the projections at a gaudy $9,500 this week, but he still leads the position in ownership at more than 15%. Drew Brees and Eli Manning, coming off their historic shootout last week, round out the top-3 with optimistic passing matchups against Tennessee (in New Orleans) and Tampa Bay (on the road) respectively.

Big Roethlisberger is surprisingly low at 5% early ownership. He is a prime bounce-back candidate returning home with a game under his belt -- a humbling loss -- since returning from injury. The Steelers have a top-5 team total and Roethlisberger has been pedestrian in his last two games. Jameis Winston at $6,700 against the porous Giants defense in Tampa Bay, especially stacked with Mike Evans, is a quality play in tournaments at 4% ownership.

Benjamin Watson creates his own tier this week at 17% after a career day against the Giants. At $5,700 Watson is cap friendly and the Saints are at home. Rob Gronkowski ($8,500) and Antonio Gates ($6,000) round out the top-3, both over 10% early ownership. Gates is the best combination of ownership and Footballguys projections with Ladarius Green on the mend and Keenan Allen out against Chicago.

Martellus Bennett is on a similar dry spell with the end zone as Demaryius Thomas, Bennett has a single score over his last 32 receptions with San Diego being a positive matchup this week plus 3% ownership. 

To catch the rest of the article, plus example cash and tournament lineups for Week 9, find the full post at Footballguys.com.

Friday Staff Cash Plays

I hope that this week has less injuries than we saw last week - top DFS players went down like flies during the eighth round of regular season games. Knock on wood... Check on the latest status of guys on the borderline of playing/sitting by reading up on Dr. Jene Bramel's injury coverage HERE.

This week the Footballguys.com Staff has selected nine Sunday lineups as of this writing - you can see all of the selections here, which may include other lineups added since this post went live.

The Oakland/Pittsburgh matchup is creating interest on the staff - seven of the nine lineups have at least one wide receiver from that game included for Sunday, with three staffers investing two of their three wide receiver picks in players from that one game. Most selected: Michael Crabtree (five times @ $5,800); Antonio Brown (three times at $8,700). Crabtree and Brown were paired up by two of the staffers.

Despite the wide interest in the receivers playing in the game, only two of the nine lineups have a quarterback from that contest - Derek Carr ($7,000) and Ben Roethlisberger ($8,300) appear once each. 

The Freeman/Ingram axis - the staff loves Devonta Freeman against the shattered Santa Clara 49ers - eight of the nine teams have him in despite Freeman's $8,900 price tag. Mark Ingram appears three times at $7,700, popular now that short-yardage/goal-line vulture Khiry Robinson is out for the season, and is paired with Freeman in each case.

The heavy concentration of Freeman has led to several teams rostering "bargain" receivers who appear under-priced - prominent are Michael Crabtree ($5,800) and Stevie Johnson ($5,400) as my colleague Andrew Garda pointed out in his Thursday Cash Plays blog post, but we also see Martavis Bryant ($6,900) and Mike Evans ($7,500) as some mid-priced plays to balance out the high cost of owning Freeman this week.

Do the Lambo - Josh Lambo is favored as a "bargain" kicker this week, appearing on two Sunday lineups at $4,700, while four teams opted to go "premium" at place kicker and sprang for Stephen Gostkowski at $5,200 when he faces the visitors from Washington at Gillette Stadium. 

Good Luck this weekend, all Y'all! 

Week 9 FanDuel Show on The Audible

Check out the Week 9 FanDuel show on The Audible. Every Friday morning Cecil Lammy, Alex Miglio, and Austin Lee dig into the Vegas lines, cover the key WR/CB matchups, dissect some unique tournament stacks, and make their out-on-a-limb picks of the week.

Listen here or subscribe to The Audible on iTunes and never miss an episode.

FanDuel Week 9 Starting Stacks

I just posted my Week 9 FanDuel stacks, and the article is FREE this week. I cover less common stacks, defensive stacks, and twists on highly-owned stacks. Here's one stack idea. Be sure to check out the full article for tons of other stacks.

Derek Carr ($7,000) + Amari Cooper ($7,300) = $14,300

Carr and Cooper would need 42.9 points to hit 3x tournament value in Pittsburgh this week. They've crossed that mark twice in seven games. I expect the Steelers to get their scoring mojo back this week, creating strong shootout potential.

Twist: Most of Oakland's offense runs through Cooper and Michael Crabtree ($5,800). Either or both are solid options against a week Steelers secondary.

Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 9

We’re about to enter the throes of Week 9 of the NFL and Fantasy Football season, and at this point should have a good sense of where all the various players we have examined sit.

Or we did until about half of them got hurt last weekend. At least, it seemed like half of them got hurt, though the biggest and most immediate player to end up on Injured Reserve was Le’Veon Bell. We also lost Steve Smith, lost Keenan Allen, the Miami Dolphins defense lost Cameron Wake and Colin Kaepernick got benched.

They like to keep us on our toes, the NFL does.

The Footballguys staff shook all that off and got right back to work though. They’ve compiled their Thursday cash picks for you and I’ve pulled out some of the choice bits worthy of discussion. You can find all the lineups here.

Staff Trends

Heavy on the Brady

Normally we’re talking about the lack of top quarterbacks getting use on a Thursday lineup but not today, as Tom Brady was in four out of ten lineups. The matchup is choice of course, as Washington continues to have issues and while the $9500 price is a bit steep, he’s close to a sure thing at this point. We’d also point out that the Interactive Value Chart loves him (link for subscribers) and while there are strong values elsewhere at quarterback, the price/value combo is worth a look.

Alshon Abounds

Eight out of ten staff members added Alshon Jeffery into their lineups. That’s a pretty string statement of support. Jeffery is facing a banged up Chargers defense, potentially without Eric Weddle and it’s vulnerable. $7900 isn’t cheap but for a guy who could put up WR1 numbers, it’s worth it. As Chad Parsons points out in the Value article, “Alshon Jeffery has seen 11, 11, and 15 targets in his three games this season. The Bears have an optimistic matchup against San Diego and Jeffery, outside of Martellus Bennett, is the only weapon of note in Chicago's passing game.”

Crabtree

You know who got as much love as Alshon? Michael Crabtree. He’s had more targets than Amari Cooper so far and with the rookie getting plenty of attention, he’s taking advantage of single coverage and matchup advantages. At $5800 he’s a good bargain and against a poor Steelers defense I can see the appeal. For myself I went with Cooper, as there isn’t anyone to stop him in the Steelers secondary, but Crabtree is equally appealing.

Glaring Omissions

I’m a little surprised at the lack of Todd Gurley, who has high value and a solid matchup, but the $9000 is turning people off. Also, while Brady got some love, everyone is fading Rob Gronkowski. At $8500, he’s $1900 more than the next guy up, Gary Barnidge. Antonio Gates ($6000), Greg Olsen ($6400) and Barnidge are all as appealing for a lot less money.

Diamonds in the Rough

Darren McFadden is getting some love with Joseph Randle released. He seems to be healthy (a rarity) and is proving to be quite the workhorse behind a great offensive line and at $6500 he is a nice value in a solid matchup against the Eagles.

We also liked Steve Johnson as Allen is now on injured reserve. Johnson did leave the Week 8 game with a shoulder injury, but his $5400 salary and the lack of Allen could put Johnson in line for some big production. In the Value article, Danny Tuccitto said that “given his salary and projected points, Johnson has a 55.4% chance of achieving cash game value, which ranks third among wide receivers.”

Week 9 Footballguys + Rotogrinders Show

Be sure to check out the Week 9 episode of The Footballguys Daily Fantasy Hour presented by Rotogrinders. Dan Back, John Lee, and Austin Lee air live every Wednesday at 9:30pm ET. They cover key injuries, discuss matchups, and make their bold picks of the week. Don't miss Austin Lee's lip sync video paying off last week's DubSmash bet. He bet against Drew Brees, and it felt like the end of the world as we know it.

You can watch this week's episode on-demand or download the audio version to listen on the go.