NFL DFS Slate Breakdown: Week 3 Wide Receivers

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Week 3: Wide Receivers

For the last three weeks, the same three receivers have had the three highest salaries on DraftKings and FanDuel. The order usually differs week to week and site to site, but the group is always the same: The Big Three — which is what I call my . . . never mind.

• Antonio Brown: $9,600 DK, $9,500 FD
• Julio Jones: $9,500 DK, $9,300 FD
• Odell Beckham Jr.: $9,100 DK, $8,900 FD

This week I want to approach the WR Breakdown a little bit differently. Normally, I just single out some WRs and give you the best picks ever. I mean, let’s quickly review all of last week’s highlighted DK WRs:

• Willie Snead: Eight targets, 5-54-1, 16.40 points, +4.00 Plus/Minus
• Larry Fitzgerald: 11 targets, 6-81-1, 20.10 points, +6.32 Plus/Minus
• Kelvin Benjamin: Nine targets, 7-108-2, 32.80 points, +18.8 Plus/Minus
• Will Fuller: Seven targets, 4-104-0, 17.40 points, +8.67 Plus/Minus
• Tajae Sharpe: Seven targets, 4-33-0, 7.30 points, -1.20 Plus/Minus

And, for the record, I don’t like Sharpe that much. He was more of a ‘sure, he’s still really cheap’ player to highlight. And I also pointed out some other receivers, like Stefon Diggs and Mike Wallace.

Anyway, as I’m unlikely to replicate my success last week, I figure that I may as well mix up the format of the piece.

For most of this article, I want to take a look at the NFL Lineup Optimizer, which resides within our Player Models. I want to use that tool in order to examine roster construction as it relates to the Big Three WRs. My belief is that, in playing around with the optimizer, we will see something akin to the butterfly effect: Once we change the initial conditions of the lineup (i.e., the top WR we decide to roster), then the way we construct the lineup after that (I suspect) will likely change.

Basically, we can think of this article as an experiment in making and thinking about lineups. And on the way I’ll be sure to talk about wide receivers.

Which of the Big Three to Use?

Let’s say that I’m in the Bales Model and want to create a tournament lineup on FanDuel. Let’s also say that I want to lock into the lineup one of the Big Three WRs as the first piece around which we’ll construct the rest of the lineup.

Which one of these guys should we select?

The MNF Issue

Julio is in an elite yet bizarrely suboptimal spot. In Week 3, he’s playing against the Saints in the Superdome — the Coors Field of NFL DFS — but he’s playing on Monday Night Football, which makes him ineligible for all of the Sunday main slate guaranteed prize pools. We could play him in the 16-game Thursday slate — and he’s tempting because in that slate he has the position’s highest projected ceiling — but, per the FantasyLabs news feed (available at the bottom of this article), Julio is dealing with a rolled ankle that turned into a calf strain.

Julio is likely to play on Monday, but he could be playing at significantly less than 100 percent, and if his injury is somehow exacerbated over the weekend then we’ll be in a precarious situation because of FD’s Thursday lineup lock.

It’s probably the prudent action on FD to leave Julio for the prime time slate, which could be a lot of fun with the Bears playing the Cowboys in Dallas on Sunday night.

Josh Norman + Reduced Targets = Thank You, But No

It’s official. Redskins cornerback Josh Norman will shadow OBJ whenever he’s lined up on the outside — and he doesn’t line up in the slot all that often, since rookie WR Sterling Shepard usually is there — which means that Norman is going to be on Beckham for most of the game. As John Proctor noted in his Week 3 WR/CB Matchups column, OBJ tends to run most of his routes on Norman’s traditional side of the field anyway, so this was always going to be a game in which OBJ should be downgraded (even if just slightly), but if Norman is on OBJ for the vast majority of his routes that might make OBJ a player to avoid.

Beckham is the cheapest of the Big Three this week, but he probably deserves to be. With Shepard and a healthy Victor Cruz collectively soaking up 12 targets per game this season, OBJ is no longer the target monster that he once was and the Giants no longer have the need to force the ball to him.

OBJ is rated highly in the Bales Model and a good bet to see at least seven targets, but he has a -5.18 Plus/Minus across the first two games of the season (per our Trends tool), and there’s no reason to expect his performance to improve drastically in Week 3.

Maybe OBJ will find his way into our GPP lineup, but he won’t be the first guy locked into it.

The Antonio Lineup

So I guess that I’m paying up to go with Antonio, which could be considered something of a contrarian move, especially since the Steelers offense tends not to be amazing on the road. Anyway . . .

Let’s say that I want to play in a single-entry GPP: FD’s $1 Sunday NFL Squib, which pays $100,000 in total prizes and $6,000 to first place. The contest pays out 24.9 percent of the 117,647 entries.

And of course since I’m playing in the Sunday main slate, that means no Texans, Patriots, Falcons, and Saints can be in the lineup. No DeAndre Hopkins, no Fuller, no Julian Edelman, no LeGarrette Blount, no Julio, no Snead, no Brandin Cooks, and no Mark Ingram: The sacrifices we make in the name of trying to turn a buck into $6,000 while competing against more than 100,000 people.

Why Antonio?

Regardless of Julio and OBJ, what does Antonio have that would make me want to make him the first player I lock into the lineup? He has a top-five rating in the Bales Model, the position’s highest ceiling projection, a consistent diet of double-digit targets, and an opponent (the Eagles) that last year allowed a +2.3 Opponent Plus/Minus and this year may not deserve the No. 1 rank in pass defense that Football Outsiders has bestowed upon it based on two games.

At any rate, he’s projected to be matched up most of the time against cornerback Nolan Carroll, currently the No. 93 coverage corner in 2016 per Pro Football Focus.

Look, it’s not hard to come up with reasons to put Antonio into a GPP lineup. He does have a FantasyLabs ownership projection of 21 to 25 percent, but that just means that we’ll need to be contrarian elsewhere.

So AB is locked into the lineup.

The Big Question

Now, here’s a big question: With Antonio in the lineup, what needs to happen in the PIT-PHI game for Brown to have a performance big enough 1) to give me a chance to win the GPP and 2) to warrant rostering his chalkiness?

The Steelers need to score lots of points — touchdowns, in particular — enough touchdowns so that a couple of them (and a big chunk of yardage) can’t help but fall into Antonio’s hands.

Stacking Ben?

OK, so the Steelers need to score touchdowns. Should I stack Ben Roethlisberger with Brown? If I don’t, then I need to come up with another quarterback I like. For the sake of simplicity, let’s stack with Big Ben.

Alright, what I’ve got here is straight-up chalk. Almost any lineup in this GPP with Roethlisberger will also have Antonio. Let’s get some differentiation in here. And I know just the player for that.

The Player For That

Tavon Austin. Oops, I’m sorry; that’s incorrect. What I meant to say was “Tavon F*cking Austin.” His production has sucked this year, but that’s fine because 1) #Contrarianism and 2) he’s always been a guy who goes games without TDs before scoring two when people don’t expect it. In other words, he’s an absolute GPP dreamboat.

What’s particularly wonderful about him is that . . .

1. He’s been targeted like a WR1, with 21 targets in two games.
2. He can score in so many different ways, so his upside resides in his peripheral versatility as a runner and kick returner.
3. He has a FantasyLabs ownership projection of zero to one percent, and there’s no inherent reason why people stacking Ben-Antonio would also be likely to roster him.

Plus, the Rams are playing against the Buccaneers, who last year were 26th in pass defense and this year are 27th (per FO). Tavon might actually be able to do something as a receiver in this game, especially if his target volume holds.

The Thing

But here’s the thing: Tavon’s not especially likely to score two TDs as a receiver. The odds are that one of them might come as a runner — or even a return man. So maybe I should stack Tavon with the Rams defense?

The Rams D/ST is actually pretty good — good enough for the team to have a 1-1 record even though it hasn’t scored a TD yet. It’s currently a top-four defense and last year it was a top-eight unit against both the run and the pass.

So let’s stack Tavon and the Rams D/ST and hope that Tavon gets a return score and the Rams shut down a Bucs team that is without its starting running back and whose quarterback continues to look like a guy who just threw four interceptions last week.

Here’s the Kicker

And if I’m looking for a game in which the Rams keep the Bucs from scoring, that automatically feels like a game in which — after Tavon scores — the Rams won’t be motivated to do much on offense, which means that Rams head coach Jeff Fisher could trot out upside kicker Greg Zuerlein to attempt maybe five field goals — because nothing breeds mediocrity like a good defense and a small lead.

At least Zuerlein should be a source of differentiation: His FantasyLabs ownership projection is only zero to one percent.

So let’s lock in Greg the Leg. Here’s what we have now:

I daresay that’s probably already pretty close to a unique lineup.

Optimization 1

From here, let’s optimize, just to see what we get:

David Johnson is intriguing: He definitely has multi-TD upside, and he’s playing against the Bills, whose offense is in shambles and whose defense just gave up three touchdowns last week to Matt Forte, who has spent most of his career not being a goal-line back.

Randall Cobb could also work: The Packers are eight-point home favorites with an implied Vegas total of 28 points. Going against a Detroit defense that currently ranks 24th against the pass (per FO), Cobb has a 99 percent Bargain Rating and a high rating in the Bales Model. It would be nice if he had more than 15 targets on the season, but we shouldn’t eliminate him for now.

Antonio Gates is also a possibility: The Bales Model likes him a lot, he has the slate’s third-highest ceiling projection, and the Chargers need to throw the ball to someone near the end zone. He exhibited the capacity last year to put together multi-TD games. He can stay in the lineup for now. I do, though, wish that he had more than nine targets on the season.

Frank Gore is probably a no-go: The Bales Model likes him, and he could be a good cheap play in cash games, with the Colts 2.5-point road favorites implied to score 27 points against a flaccid Chargers unit that was 31st in run defense last year (per FO). I just don’t trust his upside.

Optimization 2

Let’s lock in Johnson, eliminate Gore, insert Melvin Gordon III — who has the position’s third-highest ceiling projection and is likely to be San Diego’s three-down workhorse — and then let’s re-optimize to see what we get.

Vincent Jackson does have the benefit of being dirt cheap at $5,300, which gives him a respectable +3.3 Projected Plus/Minus, but he’s going against a defense that allows to WRs the slate’s fourth-lowest Opponent Plus/Minus — and it just happens to be my defense.

Optimization 3

Let’s exclude V-Jax and optimize again.

That might do it.

Jesse James works in the lineup: He goes with the Ben-AB stack, and he has 12 targets on the season. He actually is tied with DeAngelo Williams for the team lead with three opportunities (targets) inside the 10-yard line. The Bales Model likes him and he has the highest Bargain Rating at his position.

Let’s lock him in.

Optimization 4

But what about Cobb? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a guy who gets more targets? Let’s exclude him just to see what happens.

Yep.

Jordan Matthews is ideal for this lineup: He creates a game stack with BB-AB-JJ, and he is tied for second in the NFL with 23 targets. He’s the No. 1 WR on a team that is eighth in scoring. Plus, in pivoting to J-Matt, I leave $200 more on the table, which most likely will increase the odds that this lineup will be unique.

Some Modesty

I hope that you enjoy that $6,000 for first place.

I’m joking.

You’ll have to split it with the 20 other people who also entered this lineup because they read this article.

In All Seriousness

I’m never going to create a lineup and think, “Yes, that‘s the one that’s going to win a GPP!” I’m not recommending that you play this lineup. I created this lineup purely as a way 1) to model the thought process that goes into creating a GPP lineup and 2) to demonstrate the functionality of our Lineup Optimizer.

Streaking Down the Field

Nine pattern, go!

• DeAndre Hopkins: A 100 percent FD Bargain Rating

• Willie Snead: The most expensive he’s ever been on DK and still too cheap

• Marvin Jones Jr: A legitimate yardage accumulator with 21 targets on the season

• Travis Benjamin: Undervalued but won’t catch 92.9 percent of his targets moving forward

• Will Fuller: The discounted Brandin Cooks

• Phillip Dorsett: Without Donte Moncrief, with Jason Verrett probably on T.Y. Hilton

• Davante Adams: More targets than Julio, Alshon Jeffery, and Demaryius Thomas

• Sammie Coates: Four targets per game for a 2-76.5-0 stat line and a few yards away from two long Martavis Bryant-esque TDs

• Terrelle Pryor: The same number of targets as Snead, Brandon Marshall, Doug Baldwin, and Dez Bryant — and now his team’s No. 1 WR

. . . which reminds me: R.I.P., Corey Coleman — and Jonathan Bales’ dreams.

Positional Breakdowns

Be sure to read the other Week 3 positional breakdowns:

• Quarterbacks
• Running Backs
• Tight Ends

Good luck this week!

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: