Utilizing the team totals and spreads set in place by Vegas is a necessity when constructing your lineups each week. These odds makers are the best at what they do and by using the information they provide us with, we can quickly assess which spots we’d like to either gain exposure to or potentially fade.
While checking for the highest over/under is a great place to start, we’ve gone a step further and identified players (by using Fantasy Labs’ Trends tool) that find themselves in game situations – based upon Vegas trends – that you will be able to exploit this week.
Quarterback
Tom Brady
Vegas Trend: New England as a 10-point or greater favorite.
As if you needed another reason to consider fading Tom Brady in a week that he’ll be playing without Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman and Dion Lewis, he’ll find himself in a situation that he has struggled to be productive in over the past two seasons. As I previously wrote about in this article last month, Brady has historically not been productive when the Patriots find themselves as heavy favorites.
New England is currently sitting as a 10-point favorite against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 13. Over Brady’s past four matchups as a 10-point or greater favorite, he’s averaged a middling 17.13 DraftKings (DK) points per outing. As Belichick has proven in the past, he will game plan for his specific opponent and game situation; if the game script doesn’t call for it, he will not have Brady just chucking the football around the yard for the sake of racking up stats. In a matchup against an Eagles team that has been beaten recently by the running game, there’s no reason to assume Belichick will force the issue in this one, with only a hobbled Danny Amendola and a disappointing Brandon LaFell out there for Brady to throw to.
With the Patriots team total sitting just under 30 points, there’s merit to constructing some GPP lineups around Brady – Scott Chandler is a decent goal line target and Brady is always a candidate for a three or four touchdown day if the Patriots opt to pass when they get into the red zone- but as the highest price quarterback option on the slate, I’d have a tough time using Brady in my cash lineups this week.
Running Back
LeGarrette Blount
Vegas Trend: New England as a 10-point or greater favorite.
As we just discussed above, Tom Brady has not found success when the Patriots find themselves as large favorites. In stark contrast to Brady’s struggles, running back LeGarrette Blount has flourished under such conditions.
In the three matchups he’s been a part of over the past two seasons with New England as a 10-point or greater favorite, Blount is averaging a sublime 23.63 DK points per game. This week’s matchup looks as though we could see much of the same from him. With the Patriots thin everywhere on offense, it would only make sense for Belichick to lean on his starting running back. While the Eagles have managed to limit opposing running backs to only two rushing touchdowns all season, they are surrendering an average of 145.4 rushing yards over the past five games. With few options remaining, we’ve seen Blount average 18 carries over his previous five games. At a reasonably priced $5,100 on DraftKings, he is a great candidate to exceed his implied point total of 10.75 DK points this weekend.
Wide Receiver
Jarvis Landry
Vegas Trend: Miami as a 3.5-point or greater favorite.
The favorite target of quarterback Ryan Tannehill, we saw Landry bust out in a big way last week. Generally viewed as a high floor-low ceiling player, Landry went crazy with 38.90 DK points against the Jets in Week 12. With fellow starter Rishard Matthews already ruled out this week, Landry should once again find himself peppered with targets in a prime matchup with the Baltimore Ravens secondary – a group that has an OpponentPlus/Minus of +2.2 on the season.
Over the past couple of seasons, Landry has had great success in games that the Dolphins find themselves favored by at least 3.5 points, a situation they’ll be in once again this week. With Tannehill’s propensity for hitting Landry on short-chain moving routes, we should once again see him highly involved as the Dolphins may find it tough to run the ball against a Ravens run defense that is eighth in rushing yards allowed this season.
Tight End
Antonio Gates
Vegas Trend: San Diego as a four-point or greater underdog.
San Diego comes into their Week 13 matchup against the Denver Broncos as a four-point home underdog, a situation that has suited Antonio Gates well since the beginning of the 2014-2015 season. Gates is dinged up, but has averaged 18.44 DK points in such matchups in the past and gets to take on a Broncos defense that is average at defending the tight end. Denver is allowing 13.5 DK points to the position this season and with Phillip Rivers low on healthy options, it would figure that Gates would be busy again this week.
While he has been inconsistent of late – largely due to his injury problems – Gates is coming off of a two touchdown showing against the Jaguars last week. In a week without Gronkowski and probably Tyler Eifert, Gates makes for a nice pivot off of the likely to be highly-owned Greg Olsen. You’ll need to monitor his injury status to make sure he doesn’t suffer an injury setback late in the week though.
