This piece focuses on five players projected to have less than five percent ownership in large-field guaranteed prize pools on DraftKings and FanDuel. Be sure to check out our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after contests lock to track ownership rates across all buy-in levels as well as our new DFS Contests Dashboard to track stack percentages and to look at ownership breakdowns of sharp players.
QB: Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions
Projected Ownership: 2-4 percent on DraftKings and FanDuel
Stafford is at home against the Cardinals, who finished the 2016 season third in defense and against the pass per Football Outsiders’ Defensed-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). That said, Stafford has one of the highest Opponent Plus/Minus values among all quarterbacks in Models. What gives? The reason for his high +4.6 mark on DraftKings is that our metric measures the last two months of data. Over the last two months of last year, the Cardinals were pretty bad against quarterbacks (per the NFL Trends tool):
It is unlikely that the Cardinals pass defense will be one of the worst in 2017, but they could see some regression, especially given the turnover in their secondary. Matthew Freedman wrote this about them in his Cardinals preview:
This year the only proven members of the secondary are Peterson and Mathieu. Coordinator James Bettcher could have a deceptively risky defense.
The likely result is that they’ll be somewhere in the middle, but that’s just fine for a guy with a 28.2-point DraftKings ceiling projection and low 2-4 percent ownership projection. Stafford is tied with Russell Wilson for the most DraftKings Pro Trends (six) and started out last year strong, posting an average of 25.37 fantasy points and a +5.17 Plus/Minus on 3.3 percent ownership in his three September games. There is risk here, but there’s also upside, and Stafford won’t stop slinging it at any point; he ranked first in the league last season with eight comebacks.
For more on Stafford, see the Week 1 quarterback breakdown.
RB: Lamar Miller, Houston Texans
Projected Ownership: 2-4 percent on DraftKings and FanDuel
Miller takes on the Jaguars, who were defensively solid last season, ranking 12th in DVOA and against the run. However, this season they could have some production funneled toward the run game if their secondary is as good as projected; 2016 fifth-overall pick Jalen Ramsey is coming off an impressive rookie season, and the Jags went out and got a nice guy to pair him with: A.J. Bouye, who was one of the best cornerbacks in the league last year, finishing the year as PFF’s second-highest rated corner. With Tom Savage — a guy with exactly zero career touchdowns — behind center, the Texans could elect to give Miller a healthy workload, keep the pace slow, and rely on their elite J.J. Watt-led defense to win the game.
If that’s the case, Miller will see the volume needed to hit value, and that’s important considering he struggled running the ball last year, posting a poor 44.8 percent success rate. Still, he had nice market share rates, owning 57.7 percent of the yards and 62.5 percent of the rushing touchdowns. He is especially cheap at $5,100 on DraftKings, where he comes with a 96 percent Bargain Rating.
For more on Miller, see the Week 1 running back breakdown.
WR: T.Y. Hilton, Indianapolis Colts
Projected Ownership: 2-4 percent on DraftKings and FanDuel
Before you ask: Yes, I am aware that Andrew Luck is out for Week 1 and Scott Tolzien is the starter for the Colts. Still, this is the 2016 leader in receiving yards playing against a Rams team that allowed 1.8 DraftKings points over salary-based expectations in 2016. Tolzien was not good in his lone start last year, throwing two interceptions and completing 61.1 percent of his passes. But he did throw 36 of them, and last year Hilton owned 27.1 percent of the Colts’ targets and a whopping 32.2 percent of their receiving yards. There’s a reason Hilton is projected for the lowest ownership by far of any receiver priced $6,500 or higher, but there’s also a reason he owns a top-three ceiling projection. All it takes is a busted play and Hilton is off to the races. He’s a premier pivot play.
For more on Hilton, see the Week 1 wide receiver breakdown.
TE: Eric Ebron, Detroit Lions
Projected Ownership: 2-4 percent on DraftKings and FanDuel
Ebron is one of the hardest tight ends to peg this weekend. On one hand, he should have more of a role on this team, especially in the red zone, with the retirement of Anquan Boldin. On the other hand, he’s facing Tyrann Mathieu and a Cardinals squad that allowed the fewest fantasy points per game to tight ends last season. On the positive side, Ebron has to see positive regression from his silly 4.2 percent receiving touchdown market share in the Lions offense. On the negative side, Ebron has never broken 20 fantasy points in his career. He’s a complicated play, but his solid +4.84 DraftKings Projected Plus/Minus on just 2-4 percent projected ownership is worth a couple darts in tournaments.
To see the correlation value between Stafford and Ebron, along with all quarterbacks and tight ends, use our new Correlations page.
Defense: Cincinnati Bengals
Projected Ownership: 0-1 percent on DraftKings and FanDuel
Per the Trends tool, the two most predictive metrics of defensive value in our Models are our proprietary Vegas Score metric and Pro Trends. Of the main slate defensive options, only five have at least three DraftKings Pro Trends and an opponent implied point total under 20.0: Buffalo, Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and the Los Angeles Rams. Of those five, all are projected for at least 9-12 percent ownership except the Bengals, who are currently projected for 0-1 percent ownership on both sites.
Per Matthew Freedman’s Bengals preview, their defense has been top-12 in scoring over each of the last six seasons. Opposing QB Joe Flacco threw 15 interceptions last season and took a sack on 4.68 percent of plays — both top-eight marks. Cincy last season averaged a 2.87 percent interception rate and a 1.69 percent takeaway rate — both top-five marks. At essentially no ownership in GPPs, those are marks worth targeting.
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
