Welcome to Week 10! We are well over halfway into the season and the DFS Army has been crushing!
My name is Josh Thomas, and I write the Chalk Donkey article for the main slate for NFL VIPs as well as focusing on the showdown/single game slates on both sites. In this article I’ll break down the games on the slate, what a Chalk Donkey is, identify who those players are at QB, RB, WR, TE, and DEF using our ownership projections and offer some pivots who are poised for big games at low ownership. I’ll justify those pivots using our one of a kind research station and in the process, hopefully, teach you a bit about how to use that research station to identify solid pivots off the chalk.
Check out my NFL Showdown Article where I break down all the GPP winning lineups her
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As a reminder, this article identifies who the chalk is each week and provides options on how to either differentiate your lineup with it or pivot. Chalk isn’t always bad and I play chalk every week. There are times we have a chalk player and while I provide an option to pivot here, if Geek, CashKeg, or Marley say “All In” on the chalk, guess what? We go “ALL IN” on the chalk
Week Nine Recap:
Week Nine was a pretty solid week for me personally, for the first time in a few weeks I was able to sweep all my ladders and add quite a bit of scrilla to my bankroll. Stacking the NO/LAR game in those ladders ended up being a pretty solid play to say the least. As far as the chalk pivots go we had a couple of really nice calls that hopefully helped you guys do the same.
The first was not paying up for Adam Thielen against the defense of Darius Slay. Thielen struggled to get much going but was also game flowed out a bit by how well the Vikings defense played (more on that later). He had 7 targets, 4 catches for 22 yards and a touchdown to go for 1.4x value. Had he not caught that TD he would have been in big trouble for owners. Thielen also was hindered by Stefon Diggs being out with a rib injury. That made it pretty easy for the Lions to go ahead and double team him on a lot of routes.
Some people think that defense doesn’t matter, but if you would have followed along with the Chalk Donkey last week you were likely able to withstand a dud by someone else.
These three crushed everyone else by over 9 points and all three were in the top 25 of scoring for the week of ALL players. Man, I wish I could have played all three of them in my lineups!
The biggest dud last week was Adrian Peterson in a smash spot ending up with 6 freaking DK points. He literally couldn’t have had a better matchup than the Falcons defense and he throttled a lot of my lineups. He was a bit too pricey on FD even given the matchup, but I ate it up anyways and looking back that was a mistake in my process. If you’ve read this article before you know I’m one of the biggest AP doubters in the DFS Army and I let the prospect of the matchup cloud my judgment.
With the Stefon Diggs injury, I came off Kirk Cousins quite a bit in my gpp lineups and he ended up having a pretty mediocre day as well. The Vikings D scoring and crushing the Lions had a bit to do with that but the Vikings were able to establish the run game as well. I saw an interesting stat later in the week about how when Cousins throws for under 300 yards the Vikings win and when he has to throw it over that they end up losing. Only once has he thrown for over 300 yards and won (Philadelphia) the other times were all losses. So what does that tell us? When the Vikings are dogs, we play him!
The TE recommendations of O.J. Howard and Greg Olsen both smashed, particularly Howard who was the third best value on the slate (behind Jeff Heuermann at number one, who was also recommended!) Travis Kelce as the highest priced player also had a great week against the Browns scoring two TDs and basically when we pay up for him, you have to think of it as paying for a cheap WR1.
Overall, a really solid week for the Chalk Donkey article and I’m looking forward to a great week 10, so let’s break it down!
One way that I break down rosters is through our Research Station. We will have a stand-alone research station for the Thursday games this year, which I’m pumped about, check it out here! –> NFL Main Slate Research Station
Week Ten Preview:
In week 10 we get an extra game on the Main Slate since there is no game across the pond this week and we have a lot of really good games to target for fantasy purposes.
The first game that jumps out at me here is the Cincinnati Bengals vs the New Orleans Saints with a game total of 54. That’s the highest total on the board by 3 points, the line has actually moved a bit more towards the Saints here and they are almost a full touchdown favorite here. It’s crazy to think that at home they would be close to a ten point favorite, but this means that we need to load up on the Saints here. Accordingly, they are priced up and likely to be high owned, but it’s going to be key to get pieces of both sides of this game in your lineups.
Cleveland at Atlanta is also an interesting game to get pieces of. Atlanta at home is always a thing and we get Duke Johnson Jr. off a ceiling game against the worst defense against pass catching RB’s in the league. Do we eat the chalk here or move on? Denzel Ward has been good against opposing number ones all year but can he stop Julio Jones? I love the other pieces of this offense this week, especially at their prices. Austin Hooper is mega cheap against a defense that just got torched for 2 TD’s by Travis Kelce. (I’M NOT SAYING HE’S KELCE @DFSNDONUTS)
Hold up, we haven’t even talked about the Rams/Seahawks game yet? Todd Gurley is cheap again (he’s 9.4k, but that legitimately is cheap for his ceiling/floor). The 3 wr’s are all priced within $300 and you have to likely make a few decisions here. Goff is cheap, and if you think the Rams are able to score and the Seahawks have to come back, Tyler Lockett is WAY TO CHEAP given his production this year and big play ability.
Finally, the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills have a game total of under 37 which is insane, but someone is going to score there and if you want to get super contrarian you can pick off a few pieces from there you might find a path to the Milly Maker lineup.
Enough about the games, let’s get into some ownership and how we can pivot or leverage it!
What is a Chalk Donkey?
First, let’s break down what I consider to be ‘chalk’. In golf, I break down the chalk by price range, but for NFL I think it’s important to break it down by position. Note these percentages are for the main slate. On a smaller slate, the chalk ranges become a little bit higher, I have no problem playing a QB at 30% ownership on a 3 game slate, but on a 12 gamer I’d rather pivot.
Quarterback: >20% Any time we have a Quarterback staring down 20% ownership or 1/5 of the field, it’s worth pivoting off of them. Quarterback scoring is often very flat and there isn’t a huge difference in point production most weeks, win or lose. Anytime there’s a chalk QB I almost always pivot.
Running Back: >20% Similar to QB, Any time an RB creeps up towards this 20% range we want to consider a pivot. I’m less likely to fade RB’s in smash spots at high ownership than I am QB’s just because of the ability of RBs to have massive games and outscore their closest competitor by 10-15 points. (See Todd GurleyPP, 2017)
Wide Receiver: 15%-20% With 3 spots for Wide Receiver on all three sites, you have the opportunity for ownership to spread out a little more on WR’s than the rest of the position groups. That being said, ownership almost always pools on 4-5 WR’s with most above 20%. There are very few WR’s that are matchup safe and many tend to be game flow dependent. Many times we see WR’s in smash spots drop single-digit points at high ownership because of the variance of a football game.
Tight End: >10% With only one spot on your roster for a TE unless you roster two with a flex, we don’t usually see players with massive ownership here. Anything over 10% would be considered chalky for me, but for the most part, I’m not really fading TE ownership most weeks unless Gronk looks like a 30% owned play.
Defense: >15% Similar to TE, I’m not often fading a defense as we usually don’t have a chalk donkey here and there isn’t always a huge spread in the top 10 defenses of the week in terms of point production.
One thing to remember as you construct lineups, players are ‘Chalk Donkeys’ for a reason, they are perceived to be good plays. Don’t fade the ‘Chalk Donkeys’ just because they are going to be highly owned. Very rarely does no chalk hit, and often times you find some of these ‘Chalk Donkeys’ in GPP winning lineups. In fact, 83% of Milly Maker winners in NFL rostered a player who was 20% owned or higher and 45% rostered a player that was 30% owned or higher!
Now let’s get to the Chalk Donkeys of the week. In the next section of this article, I will highlight one or two players at each position that are projected to be highly owned and give either a reason to fade or play them. I’ll also provide a pivot or two who are projected to come in with single digit ownership. Note projected ownerships are for Draftkings you can find the other sites on our Domination Station.
Here are this week’s top 5 projected owned players for Draftkings.
We have ownership projections updating all weekend for all sites in our Domination Station! Check it out here!
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Quarterback:
Here are the top 5 QB’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
Phillip Rivers: DK $6000/FD $8200/FD2 $12,400
Projected Ownership: 14.15%
While not the chalkiest player on the list (that would Patrick Mahomes but how do you say anything bad about Mahomey?!) I don’t necessarily think that Rivers is a great option this week.
The game total of 50 is solid and the matchup with the awful Raiders defense looks great on paper, but that’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is Derek Carr’s ability to lead this Raiders defense down the field to score any points. I’d much rather have Melvin Gordon in this matchup. The Chargers love to feed Gordon the rock and there’s a scenario where Gordon runs the ball in a few times, the Chargers go in shut down mode, and Rivers ends up with a really mediocre day (less than 15 DK points)
I just don’t think that Rivers’ ceiling is high enough mostly because the other side of the ball is so bad. This Chargers defense isn’t great but they shouldn’t have any trouble holding these Raiders to a touchdown or two and if that’s the case, Rivers won’t have to do much. Regardless of ownership, I just don’t think that Rivers is that great of a play this week and I’ll be fading him completely.
Baker Mayfield: DK $5400/FD $7400/FD2 $10600
Projected Ownership: 2.52%
Check out this line from our fearless leader @ffootballgeek in his core picks this week.
Seriously! If the Bucs weren’t as awful as they are, we would be scrambling to stack whatever quarterback we could find to play against the Falcons this year. Look at what they are giving up to opposing QB’s this year.
The Falcons are giving up a massive 27 DK points a game to opposing QB’s and at Mayfield’s price he really only needs 15-18 to hit value anything on top of that is gravy. Mayfield has looked like a rookie this year and it’s pretty evident if you look at his game logs but he’s starting to stabilize a little as he gets more comfortable in this offense.
He’s a home quarterback who is a dog in what is projecting to be a high scoring game against one of the worst defenses against the pass in the NFL. Sign me up.
I think that the obvious stack piece here is Landry but Duke Johnson Jr. makes a really interesting partner as well considering how bad the Falcons are against pass catching RB’s. So does David Njoku (they are bad against TE’s too).
You may think that you want to run it back with Julio Jones, but he has a pretty tough matchup with Denzel Ward so I like not the only matchup better, but the price of Calvin Ridley here to run it back.
With a cheap Mayfield/Johnson Jr./Ridley stack can you basically fit whoever else you want, including a chalk expensive D and that’s a hybrid/gpp approach I’ll be utilizing on all sites (but particularly Draftkings with the PPR) this weekend.
Other low owned QB’s I like: Josh McCown, Andy Dalton, Drew Brees
Running Back:
Here are the top 6 RB’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
I included Dion Lewis because I love him this week.
Here’s the deal, you’re playing the chalk RB’s this week. I love all of them. At this point, you can’t fade Todd Gurley on Draftkings where they refuse to price him up. Kareem Hunt has a great matchup at home against the Cardinals. Melvin Gordon should run all over the Raiders. Alvin Kamara barely has to touch the ball to hit value at this point. Duke Johnson Jr. has the best matchup on paper of anyone and he’s MEGA cheap. And Dion Lewis is the clear number one back in a Titans offense that is starting to click and he is game script proof because even if they are passing they need him involved.
All the chalk options are core/hybrid plays this week on Geek’s Picks Sheet and I’m not going to talk you off any of them. I think Kamara/Hunt are my two favorites here but really all of them are great options. If I’m fading any it’s likely Duke since on paper he has a great matchup with the Falcons, last week was the first time all year that he showed himself as a viable option. The coaching staff could easily give Nick Chubb more touches this week and get him more involved in the passing game.
So, if all the chalk options are great plays this week, are there any low owned options that are great plays? Why of course my friends so listen up.
James White: DK $7300/FD $7800/FD2 $15,100
Projected Ownership: 7.93%
White is a must play when Michel is out and still a pretty good play with him in. Even when Michel is playing at full strength, White is still able to rack up the points. If Michel plays this week he likely won’t be 100% and him playing on 1st and 2nd down might even open up more for White.
Check out Whites target% in the red zone. When they get down there Brady is looking his way about 1/4 of the time. Thats incredible in this offense with all of these weapons.
The Titans have a pretty good run defense, but they really haven’t played a pass-catching back as good as White, or an offense as dynamic as the Patriots. (Melvin Gordon was out when they played the Chargers)
White is an integral piece of this offense and regardless of if Michel is back this week or not, he will continue to be. I love the PPR upside he brings and while I don’t love the price, he makes an intriguing play at his ownership. He can contend with the big boys for top 5 DK scorer at 1/3 of the ownership making him a fantastic tournament play. I don’t recommend getting funky in cash or SE GPP with White but he is worth a shot everywhere else.
Paying up for him on FD will be super contrarian and not something that I’m likely to do, but in big tournaments, it could be the route to winning a GPP.
Other low owned RB’s I like: Joe Mixon, David Johnson, Austin Ekeler, Nick Chubb
Wide Receiver:
Here are the top 5 WR’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
Julio Jones: DK $8300/FD $8700/FD2 $15,700
Projected Ownership: 15.19%
While not the highest projected owned wide receiver this week, Julio has clearly the worst matchup of any of the top 5. While it may appear that Julio is in a smash spot here against a defense that gives up 9th most points to opposing WR’s, it is likely that he will draw shadow coverage from one of the best young defensive backs in the game in Denzel Ward. Ward has been nothing short of phenomenal this year and should be in the running for defensive rookie of the year. Here is all he has done this year against opposing number ones.
He’s only given up 100 yards to an opposing WR once this year. ONCE and he’s been playing against some of the best of the best. Julio no doubt is going to give him a tough test this week, especially given the height advantage that he has over Ward. I would be a little less concerned if the Falcons actually used in the Red Zone but they don’t. So essentially Julio needs to get 100 yards and 7-8 catches to hit some sort of value this week at his elevated price tag.
Check out Julio’s red zone usage. BRUTAL. I can’t believe that Steve Sarkisian doesn’t use one of the best wide receivers of this generation more down here, but he continues to look elsewhere. Essentially what this means is that Julio likely has to score on a long touchdown play (like he did last week against the Redskins) or else he’s not finding the end zone.
At his price point and ownership, I’m already willing to fade Julio, then you throw in the matchup with Ward and that he caught his first TD pass of the season in WEEK 9, I have no problem going elsewhere this week.
Note: Ward is dealing with an injury. He has been able to practice and looks likely to play Sunday but it’s worth keeping an eye on. If he’s out I might have a few shares of Julio.
Taylor Gabriel: DK $4900/FD $5400 /FD2 $9800
Projected ownership: 2.41%
While everyone and their mother is going to be playing Marquez Valdez-Scantling (who is a good play no doubt) I think that a great pivot option is Taylor Gabriel. Gabriel was everyone’s favorite new toy a few weeks ago, and now is looking at low single digit ownership in a great matchup. Recency bias is a real thing in DFS and Valdez-Scantling is a great example of that. He had a big week last week and now he is going to be highly owned. Gabriel had a big week, had a down week and is now forgotten about. Well not by us and I think this is a prime week to jump on him in GPP.
My boy @realdanryan or as you know him DabbingPuggle broke down the matchup that Gabriel has this week in his Draw Plays article. If you aren’t reading this thing you should be, he finds a low owned gem or two every week and I think that Gabriel is that gem this week.
A 86% opposing catch rate?! Yes, please. I don’t mind running out Gabriel solo as he gives you a ton of flexibility to roster some of the big-time running backs, but I do like stacking him with Trubisky. I think this game is a sneaky shootout if the offensive line of the Lions can be better than the worst ever like they were last week agains the Vikings.
You do run the risk that this might end up a blowout and Gabriel’s usage isn’t as much as it could be in a high scoring affair, but at his price he doesn’t need to smash and the way Matt Nagy has been using him in this offense has me pretty excited about his prospects for a big day, especially given the matchup.
Other low owned WR’s I like: Tre’Quan Smith, Josh Gordon, Calvin Ridley
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Tight End:
Here are the top 5 TE’s in projected ownership for DK and their projected points
Oh boy oh boy, my favorite TE of the week isn’t in the Top 5 of projected ownership?? Let’s go!
First, I need to note that Rob Gronkowski is likely out again this week. He was able to practice all week albeit limited, but the Patriots are taking the long view here and hoping to get him healthy for the playoffs.
Travis Kelce: DK $7000/FD $8000/FD2 $13,800
Projected Ownership: 19.83%
Kelce once again looks to be the highest owned TE on the slate and as his price continues to climb it becomes more and more difficult to get him into your lineup. What you need to understand when you roster him though is you are essentially rostering a WR1.
We are projecting him for 17.7 DK points this week against the Cardinals who are actually pretty good against TE’s but this is Travis Kelce and the Chiefs against the Cardinals. I’m not too concerned.
For comparison, let’s look at a few of the WR’s priced similarly to Kelce on DK and what we are projecting for points for them.
Keenan Allen, Mike Evans, and Julian Edelman are all WR1’s for their respective teams and in pretty good matchups as well. We are projecting Kelce to outscore two of the three. On a site like Draftkings where PPR is king you an use the TE slot as a WR4 basically and get massive production with a guy like Kelce instead of just hoping that one of your cheap TE’s accidentally catches one. And if you have a cheap TE in a slam spot (like we do this week) you can go double TE and really differentiate yourself from the field.
I have some concerns about this game getting out of hand and Kelce getting game flowed out, but I really shouldn’t. The Chiefs have blown out multiple opponents this year and Kelce has only played less than 90% of the snaps once.
I love Kelce this week and every week and even though his price is going up, I still think he makes a lot of sense and is a safer option than a guy like Mike Evans and has a similar ceiling as well.
Austin Hooper: DK $3800/FD $5800/FD2 $7400
Projected Ownership: 5.56%
I told you guys I had a cheap TE that I really liked this week and here it is, ol ‘Dad Runner’ Austin Hooper!
Hooper has our fourth best ‘sticky hands’ rating as he goes up against the defense ranked 24th in points given up weekly to opposing TE’s. Travis Kelce lit this Browns defense up last week to the tune of two touchdowns and 99 yards. I don’t think Hooper is Kelce but this is a great matchup. The Browns do a good job of taking away the receivers and that leaves the TE’s open quite often, perfect for Mr. Hooper.
His target share has gone down significantly in the last two weeks, but his snap share has stayed the same. He’s the guy in this offense and he continues to run a ton of routes, in fact over the last four weeks he has run 20 more routes than even Kelce. The target dip isn’t that concerning and the fact that his catch rate is over 90% means that any targets he does get he is bringing in.
Hooper has a floor of around 10 points and if he gets a touchdown he can go for 5x value or more making him a prime GPP candidate this week at his price and I think that he is even viable in cash with this matchup.
Other low owned TE’s I like: David Njoku, Trey Burton, O.J. Howard
Defense:
Back to my old “Don’t Get Cute” motto here. Generally, I don’t like to pay up for Defense, especially in cash. In Cash/GPP/Hybrid I’ll be sticking with the following defenses.
New York Jets: Who is playing the Bills? The Jets? Ok lock them in. Really. It’s not worth overthinking this. I hate paying up for defense and the Jets aren’t good by any means but this Bills team is so bad it’s worth it.
Chicago Bears: Ugh, again I hate paying up for defense, but this Lions offensive line gave up 10 sacks last week and the Bears pass rush is significantly better than the Vikings.
Green Bay Packers: Not super cheap but cheap enough that they can be considered a ‘pay down’ defense option this week. They get Brock Lobster and the Dolphins at home. It’s possible that AJ Matthews decapitates him which I think is worth at least 10 DK points.
Final Fade:
Good luck trying to figure out which of the Rams WR’s are in the best spot this week. All three are excellent receivers (Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp) but there is a lot of mouths to feed in this offense and if you pick wrong you could end up with a single digit fantasy score. I’ll stick with Todd Gurley and even Jared Goff. Cooks looks to have the best matchup this week so if you want to stack the Rams he would maybe be the guy I go with in GPP. Otherwise I’m just avoiding this situation.
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Last Play:
Be smart with your bankroll this week. Don’t chase losses, and don’t go crazy if you won last week. It’s important to stick to the process that has worked for you. For me it means that I’m playing the majority of my cash games in H2H’s, the rest in double and triple ups, and my GPP exposure is mostly in single or three entry max. I’ve had a solid first half of the season but the volume I’m going to play will stay the same because it’s a long season. I want to be profitable for the year, not just one week.
NOTE: I’m out of town hunting all weekend and will barely have cell service. Hopefully, I have enough to get into our coaching channels and see any updates and more importantly update all my dummy lineups! If not its going to be a real interesting weekend!
I’m really looking forward to working with you guys throughout the year and can’t wait to see those helmets crushing at the top of the leaderboard! Give me a shout in my coaching channel with any questions you have! #dfsupnorth-nfl-pga
Also, give me a follow on twitter @dfsupnorth as I’ll be posting updates there as well as useful retweets leading up to the games on Sunday.