NFL Daily Fantasy Picks and Recap – 12/14/16

Chris Durell

Welcome back to another week in daily fantasy football. Week 14 was a very odd week, especially for stacking strategies, as there were a ton of quarterbacks who just didn’t perform anywhere near expectation. Only four QB’s threw for 300+ yards and only one of those four (Tom Brady) threw for three touchdowns. The key to the Sunday slate was most definitely getting Le’Veon Bell into your lineups as he was much lower owned than he should have been for the ridiculous amount of usage he received against Buffalo.

Just like last week we are going to kick things off by reviewing one of my lineups which featured a stack recommendation from last week. I will once again be focusing on DraftKings as my lineup was very similar to the Millionaire Maker winning lineup. On that note, I would like to give a huge shout out to Andrew Morris for taking down the $1,000,000 prize. Andrew is a DFSR user who used the Optimizer Tools (Powered by LineupLab) to create a single entry that won it all. If you would like to take a peek at how he constructed his lineup check out the lineup review article over at DFSR.

Now let’s take a look at my similar but not so rewarding lineup from the Sunday Main slate.

Now let’s look at the lineup construction:

QB – Kirk Cousins and Desean Jackson were my contrarian stack recommendation last week against a tough Eagles pass defense. I also discussed it being contrarian as it was the second game of the divisional series between the two teams. While the Redskins did manage to put 27 points on the board, they only managed 334 total yards, 234 of which came from Cousins. The good news was that 102 of those yards went to Jackson, most of which came on an 80-yard touchdown pass. While Cousins overall line doesn’t look that great the combination of the two ended up with 39.16 DK points which works out to just below 3.5X value. That is most definitely manageable with the amount of salary relief they provided. Andrew also built his single-entry lineup around this stack.

RB – I really wanted to get David Johnson and Le’Veon Bell into my lineup together but the end result of the lineup looked extremely ineffective. I ended up going with Bell as he was a bit cheaper than DJ and then decided on Lamar Miller as I felt he would be lower owned and had a great matchup vs. the Colts who were without some key pieces to their already weak run defense.

The running back position was by far the strongest part of my lineup. I was actually shocked to see the ownership on both Bell (25.1%) and DJ (28.3%) as both are elite options which had incredible opportunities due to weather and matchups. It is probably safe to say that lineup construction will once again revolve around those two in Week 15 as they both have excellent matchups.

WR – The wide receiver position was the final link to the puzzle. With my average salary remaining sitting at $5,700 with two receivers and FLEX to fill I decided to use that value with three wideouts. Instead of stars and scrubs I ended up with a balanced attack of Golden Tate($6,600), Dontrelle Inman($4,800) and Emmanuel Sanders($5,700) who all were projected for high usage this week. Sanders came through in a big way catching 11 of his 14 targets for 100 yards and a touchdown. Tate wasn’t able to do much with his 11 targets, catching six of them for just 58 yards. It was a little unlucky that his quarterback Matthew Stafford suffered a dislocated middle finger and was mostly limited to short passes. Inman was the biggest value for me costing just $4,800 and catching six of his seven targets for 71 yards and recording a touchdown for the third straight week.

TE – After selecting my quarterback/wide receiver stack and running back combination I turned to the tight end position and decided to go down to the low tier for some salary relief and possible low ownership. This was one spot where I made a crucial mistake in nailing down a top lineup. I debated between Coby Fleener($3,700) and Kyle Rudolph($4,000) and eventually sided with Fleener to gain an extra few hundred savings and what I thought would be lower ownership. FAIL. While Rudolph ended up around 3% owned (only about 2% less than Fleener), he had the much better day catching four of his eight targets for 60 yards and a touchdown. Fleener on the other hand, was a product of Drew Brees and the offenses huge decline over the past two weeks.

Overall, I am satisfied with the results but with a few minor changes and I could have been celebrating like Andrew. It is what it is and we now move on to Week 15, but before we do let’s take a look at the game balls at each position.

Game Balls of the Week

This section will highlight the top three fantasy performers from the previous week at each position.

QB

Tom Brady – Despite the tough matchup Brady was Brady in primetime completing 25 of 38 pass attempts for 406 yards and three touchdowns. Even against a tough Ravens defense, he was able to absolutely pick them apart and looks primed for another deep Super Bowl run.

Matt Ryan – He didn’t rack up the yards this week (237) but didn’t have to as the defense recovered three fumbles and finished with two touchdowns. He did end up with three touchdown passes and the most fantasy points outside of Brady.

Aaron Rodgers – Even with a hobbled calf, Rodgers lead the surging Packers to their third straight win. Much like Ryan, he didn’t need the yardage to come through for fantasy owners as was one of just four QB’s to toss three touchdowns this week and touchdowns are king!

RB

Le’Veon Bell – Easily the #1 play in fantasy this past week with 49.8 FanDuel/54.8 DraftKings points. He rushed the ball a whopping 38 times for 236 yards and three touchdowns and also secured four of his five targets for an additional 62 yards in the pass game. Wow!

Bilal Powell – If you were one of the less than 1% of people that played Powell this past week I would assume you can see into the future or made a mistake. He took full advantage of Matt Forte’s injury early in the game and ran for 145 yards on 29 carries and added two scores.

Carlos Hyde – He was higher owned than I had expected but still came in under 10% last week and more than paid off his salary. On just 17 carries he tallied 193 yards (11.4 average) and absolutely shredded the Jets defense.

WR

Emmanuel Sanders & Demaryius Thomas – Both Broncos top wideouts were more than happy to see Trevor Siemian return to action this past week. Both had big games with Thomas catching 10 balls for 126 yards while Sanders caught 11 balls for 100 yards and also reached the endzone.

T.Y. Hilton – He continues to prove that he is an elite Top 5 wideout in the NFL. He put up his second straight and fifth 100 yard game of the season this past Sunday and sits behind only Julio Jones in total receiving yard this season with 1,203.

Davante Adams & Jordy Nelson – Another team that provided a three-headed stacking monster on Sunday. Rodgers only attempted 23 passes, but that was enough as Nelson finished with six catches for just 41 yards but scored twice while Adams had another big game catching four balls for 104 yards and a touchdown.

TE

Zach Ertz – If you checked out the Milli Maker lineup review you would have seen that Ertz made the winning roster with his huge game. He caught 10 of his game high 13 targets for 112 yards and was less than 5% owned. $$$

Tyler Eiffert – Even with snow and bad weather, the Bengals still managed to put up over 350 yards of offense. Eiffert didn’t get the yardage, which was expected, but he sure cashed in catching both of Andy Dalton’s touchdown passes.

Kyle Rudolph – He was extremely low-owned (<3%) and made his owners happy with another productive game. He caught a long 40+ yard pass in the first half and then sealed the win late in the game with a touchdown catch from Sam Bradford who has put complete trust in Rudolph.

Defense vs. Position Rankings

Target the Tennessee Titans in the Pass Game
This weeks Matchup – Kansas City Chiefs
Defense vs. the Pass – 25th

The Titans have been horrible against the pass lately allowing 300 or more passing yards in three of their last four games. This puts them dead last in fantasy points against the wide receiver position and sixth most to quarterbacks. They also rank 31st overall on the season allowing 274.9 yards through the air per game.

I needed to get through that initial sales pitch to get you feeling warm and fuzzy about rostering Alex Smith this week. It is clearly not as bad as it looks as the Chiefs rank 12th overall in DVOA Passing Offense despite ranking 18th in passing yards per game (236.4). Smith is more of a salary relief cash game option as the upside is limited with just one 300+ yard passing game this season. As we saw last week we can surely succeed in GPP’s with a mediocre performance from a low end quarterback so I feel he is playable in all formats. He has all the options (Kelce, Maclin, Hill, Ware) available to him which I will get into more in the stacks article coming out on Friday.

Target the San Francisco 49ers in the Run Game
This week’s Matchup – Atlanta Falcons
Defense vs. the Run – 32nd

No surprise here as the 49ers defense has been a staple of this section on a weekly basis. Things haven’t improved all season and the 49ers have allowed the second-most fantasy points to running backs over the last four weeks. For the season, they have allowed a whopping 170 yards per game on the ground which is 24 more than the lowly Browns defense. Historically awful!

This week the volume should be extremely high for Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman as the Falcons are huge 13.5 point favorites. Atlanta ranks sixth overall in DVOA Rushing Offense and averages 106 yards per game. Freeman is going to be a low-owned option for those that peak at the box score last week and saw him get just six carries. He should be back to his normal workload this week in a golden matchup. On the value end of things, Coleman makes a viable play on both sites and should see 10+ touches very easily. If you want to go contrarian in a situation that will be fairly chalky roster both running backs.

Thursday Night Football

The strategy I have been employing the last month or so definitely worked again in Week 14. The Top 7 players in ownership in the Thursday to Monday slate were once again from the Thursday night game. Even though Travis Kelce(18.1 DK/12.6 FD), Tyreke Hill(23.8 DK/19.8 FD) and Latavius Murray (19.3 DK/16.3 FD) had good games they all came in over 20% owned. Even Derek Carr came in at 25% owned in a tough matchup on a short week. The big upside with ownership and points was once again the Monday night QB. Tom Brady was less than 3% owned and was the highest scoring QB of the week.

Los Angeles Rams(4-9) vs. Seattle Seahawks (8-4)
Favorite – SEA(-15)
Vegas Total – 39

Offensive Rankings(DVOA/Yards Per Game)
LA – 32nd in Passing(205.1 Yards/Game), 30th in Rushing(81.1 Yards/Game)
SEA – 17th in Passing(253.5 Yards/Game), 18th in Rushing(104.2 Yards/Game)

Defensive Rankings(DVOA/Yards Per Game)
LA – 20th vs. the Pass(230.2 Yards/Game), 11th vs. the Rush(110.3 Yards/Game)
SEA – 10th vs. the Pass(231.5 Yards/Game), 3rd vs. the Rush(98.8 Yards/Game)

Short write up on Thursday Night Football this week. The Rams, days after firing their head coach, will travel to one of the toughest venues in the NFL to face the Seahawks. From a fantasy standpoint there is not one player to consider for the Rams against one of the best defenses “at home” that we have seen in recent years. Even in a tough matchup you will see Gurley, Austin and even Kendricks, most likely, 5% or more owned in the Thurs-Mon slate. Let them take them all day long.

From the Seahawks side of things, there are a few plays to consider this week. Thomas Rawls makes an intriguing RB option despite not having the best matchup against the Rams who rank 12th in Defense vs. the Rush on the Player Lab. Game script should most definitely be in his favor which explains the high 18.25 projected carries. I would not be surprised at all if he got 20-25 this week. The only other play I will consider on the Seahawks will be the defense who thrive at home and face the Rams who have given the ball away (24) the fourth most in the NFL this season. They are a near lock for double-digit fantasy points this week but with high-ownership it might be best to look for similar upside with much lower ownership on Sunday.

Thanks for reading this week’s article and stay tuned later in the week for my favorite stacking options for the main slate this weekend. If you have any questions in the meantime be sure to hit us up on Twitter @jager_bombs9 & @lineuplab