3 Vital DraftKings Trends for Week 10

 

It’s been a weird scoring year on DraftKings so far.

I don’t mean that in the sense that running backs are scarce or tight ends are higher variance than usual, but every week absolutely monster scores are taking down GPPs. Here are the scoring totals of the last four millionaire maker lineups: 263, 283, 266.5, and 271.1.

First of all, the goal in DFS isn’t to score the most points. That may seem counterintuitive, but our lineups really should focus on trying to beat our opponent(s) and maximizing win expectation. There could be other factors contributing to the massive scores on DraftKings, but in general, pricing has been incredibly soft all year long. Quarterback pricing has been relatively flat all year while a running back with three straight games of 20-plus touches has been sub-$5,000 for a month (Darren McFadden).

I’ve read comments, tweets, and complaints about how 150 points in cash games don’t go as far as they once did. That’s true. But I’m not really sure it matters. Pricing is soft for everyone. Smart players that can think for themselves shouldn’t really care that pricing is soft. If anything, it should help make lineup building easier and raise win expectation in the long run.

With all of that said, let’s get to the Week 10 trends.

 

1. Darren McFadden Is (Still) Way Too Cheap

Sometimes lineup building can be easy in certain spots. A running back on the ninth most run-heavy team is $4,900 and had touch totals of 31, 26, and 27 over the last three weeks. Sign me up. This isn’t an amazing spot for McFadden, however. Dallas is road underdogs (-1.5) against a Bucs’ defense that has actually been fairly stout against the run all year. Tampa Bay currently ranks 26^th in fantasy points allowed per rush (0.50) and on a per touch basis (0.74). Still though, when a running back is averaging 76% of team carries over a three week period and is not even $5,000, he has to be in consideration.

 

2. “Oh My God, I’m Considering Blake Bortles In Cash Games”

See that title? I said that aloud at my computer screen on Wednesday afternoon. Not only has Bortles beaten his salary-based expectation every single week since the opener, he’s shown he has a clear floor of passing stats this year. Here are his weekly finishes so far: QB25, QB10, QB16, QB6, QB3, QB6, QB17, bye, and QB10. This all goes without saying the Ravens are getting absolutely demolished via the air this year.

Baltimore is giving up the fourth-most passing yards per game (300.8), the third-highest yards per attempt (8.35), the sixth-highest completion percentage (67%), and the third-most fantasy points per attempt (1.15) to opposing signal callers. Not to mention, the Ravens are allowing quarterbacks to score 6.7 points above expectation, which is the second highest Opponent Plus/Minus in the league. A Blake Bortles-Allen Robinson stack is certainly viable in cash games and large-field tournaments this week.

 

3. Target The Saints Secondary. Every. Single. Week.

Much like Blake Bortles, playing Kirk Cousins in DFS requires a stomach made of steel. But, consider this: the Saints are allowing quarterbacks to perform 8.9 points above their salary-implied expectation after adjusting for opponent quality. Using this trend, quarterbacks have met or exceeded expectation 7-of-10 times including three 30-point outbursts from Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, and Andrew Luck in previous matchups.

Cousins has actually played just slightly below expectation in five of his eight games this year, which leads me to believe Bortles may be the better play in cash games. Still, the Saints probably have the most talent-deficient secondary in the entire league. They’ve allowed this list of quarterback finishes on the year: QB2 (Palmer), QB17 (Winston), QB3 (Newton), QB20 (Weeden), QB12 (Bradford), QB15 (Ryan), QB5 (Luck), QB2 (E. Manning), and QB2 (Mariota).