Eating the chalk (especially the good chalk) is often a necessary strategy for winning games in daily fantasy football. That said, when playing in ridiculously large field tournaments like DraftKings’ Millionaire Maker and FanDuel’s Sunday Million, one of the easiest ways to rocket past others on the leaderboard is to pivot from the highest-owned chalk players in favor of other high-upside plays who for whatever reason may be flying under the radar.
Using FantasyLabs’ Leverage score, I’ll dig through the data to identify those contrarian plays.
Loaded Leverage: GPP Targets
Quarterback
The Seahawks’ Russell Wilson ($6,300) has the highest Leverage score (92%) among QBs on DraftKings’ main slate this week. Wilson, taking on Cincinnati’s defense, is projected for less than 5% ownership on DraftKings, where he currently boasts the third-highest ceiling projection (30.3). Per our Trends tool, in Wilson’s last 15 games at home against non-division opponents, he has averaged 24.46 DraftKings points per game (PPG) with a robust +5.88 Plus/Minus at an average ownership of 6.4%. Additionally, the Bengals allowed the fourth-most DraftKings points to QBs (22.9) last season.
Another intriguing option on DraftKings is Kirk Cousins ($5,500), who is at home against 2018’s most fantasy-friendly opponent for QBs: the Falcons. Last season, Atlanta allowed a league-high 23.6 DraftKings PPG to QBs, and Cousins’ 83% Leverage score ranks third on the slate. It’s worth noting that Cousins has both the seventh-highest projected ceiling (28.8) at the position and the 10th-lowest salary.
Over on FanDuel, Philip Rivers ($7,500) leads the way at QB with a massive 96% Leverage score thanks to his projected ownership of 1% and his 27.8 projected ceiling, which ranks sixth at the position. Per the Trends tool, Rivers has averaged 19.6 FanDuel PPG in 30 games playing as a favorite in non-division games.
Running back
