The NFL DFS prime time slates have only two games but massive guaranteed prize pools. Also, they’re just plain fun. This week, here are the games offered in the slate:
That snippet is from our free NFL Vegas dashboard and is current as of 11am ET Saturday. Keep tabs on the dashboard for updates on the lines.
Quarterback
Projected Ceiling (DK): 38.0, Carson Palmer
Yes, in a slate with Andrew Luck quarterbacking, it is actually a guy $1,100 and $900 cheaper on DK and FD with the much higher projected ceiling. The reason, of course, is that Palmer is facing a Jets team that is dead last in pass defense, per Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). In the last three weeks, the Jets have allowed point totals of 31, 27, 24, and 31. The Cardinals’ implied total of 27 might be too low, given how bad the Jets are at defending the pass. Further, the Jets are the true definition of a funnel defense: Not only are they awful against the pass, but they are also quite stout against the run, ranking third in the league, per DVOA. That suggests that the way to beat them is relentlessly through the air. That bodes well for Palmer.
Completion Percentage: 60 percent, Brock Osweiler
Osweiler is very intriguing in this slate. Most people will likely elect to go with the incredible matchup (Palmer) or incredible talent/name (Luck). However, Osweiler is in almost as good of a spot this week: He’s facing a Colts team that ranks 30th against the pass in 2016. The issue is that the Colts, unlike the Jets, are also awful against the run: They rank 31st so far. It makes a lot of sense to go with Palmer or Luck and then get exposure to this offense through Lamar Miller or one of the pass-catchers. And while that may be the optimal play, two-game slates aren’t about optimization. They’re about finding a way to be unique in the field. Osweiler could help to differentiate lineups in Week 6.
Running Back
Projected Plus/Minus (FD): +4.1, Lamar Miller
Speaking of Miller: He’s likely the best point-per-dollar RB play in the entire slate. He’s coming off an awful week in which he finished with only 20 rushing yards on eight attempts against the stout Minnesota defense. Don’t be worried, though; Miller still dominates this Houston backfield:
Against the 31st-ranked rush defense in the league, Miller will have plenty of opportunity and is a solid bet to have some touchdown regression. It’s a running gag at this point, as everyone knows that Miller has now carried the ball 101 times on the year and hasn’t scored a touchdown. It’s kind of impressive, actually. Look for that to regress to the mean this week, possibly in a big way.
Pro Trends (FD): 12, David Johnson
I get it: The Jets are third against the run and dead last against the pass. The Cardinals are smart and will almost assuredly decide to attack the Jets through the air instead of on the ground. Further, DJ comes with a hefty price tag: He’s $1,200 more than any other FD RB in this slate. But hear me out. First, it’s not as if DJ isn’t a part of the Cardinals’ passing game. Per the Market Share Report, he has owned 13.38 percent of their targets over the last month, and he got 22.22 percent just last week — second-most on the team. Also, the Cardinals are 7.5-point favorites. DJ may have a game that is different than usual, but it could still be a good one. Can’t you see a scenario in which they target him frequently through the air to get up big and then ride him to run out the clock? Maybe?
Wide Receiver
Target Market Share, Brandon Marshall (29.3 percent) and T.Y. Hilton (28.5 percent)
I’m grouping these players together because they’re similar plays this week: They’re elite WRs who are facing tough defenses and seeing an incredibly high volume of targets due to injuries on their team. Marshall got 15 targets last week and has 37 combined in the last three games. Hilton is the only player in the league to have seen double-digit targets in all five of his games this year. Last week he put up a line of 10-171-1 against the Chicago Bears. There are certainly great talents in great spots this week — John Brown, Larry Fitzgerald, and DeAndre Hopkins, to name a few — and they will be highly-owned. For that reason, Marshall and Hilton are perhaps some of the best GPP leverage plays in this slate.
Projected Points per $1,000 of Salary (DK): 3.2, John Brown
Prior to last week’s game with Drew Stanton as the Cardinals QB, JoBro was clearly on the rise in this offense:
Even still, Brown owns the highest percentage of Air Yards on the team at 28.37 percent over the last four games. With Palmer at QB, Brown’s been targeted frequently and has seen incredibly fantasy-friendly opportunities. He’s very cheap at $4,500 on DK. He’s probably the best point-per-dollar play among WRs on the entire week — not just including the prime time slate. He’s the chalk and for very good reason: The Cardinals should dominate the Jets through the air and Brown is likely to see a lot of that production. Perhaps find another player to fade.
Tight End
Bargain Rating (DK): 99 percent, Dwayne Allen
Whereas this slate is loaded at the QB, RB, and WR positions, TE . . . not so much. Fellow TE Jack Doyle was a pain in Allen’s side in terms of targets and touchdowns in the first couple of weeks, but that has since normalized: Doyle has only four targets in the past two games. Allen, meanwhile, got six in last week’s game, caught all of them for 50 yards, and got into the end zone. This could be a slate in which finding the one TE who gets a touchdown is necessary to win a GPP. Allen is perhaps the best bet of the group to do that. He has three targets inside the 10-yard line in the last four games.
Yards per Target: 7.5, Ryan Griffin
Griff had a poor game last week: He caught only two balls for eight yards. However, that’s a bit unrepresentative of his role in the Houston offense. He saw six targets last week — and, honestly, everyone on the Texans struggled against the Vikings — and he had 15 targets combined in his two prior games. In Week 3, he actually led all Texans pass-catchers with a 25 percent target share. He hasn’t gone over 54 yards or scored a touchdown this season, and C.J. Fiedorowicz won’t be uninvolved in the offense, but Griffin is a solid bet to see a sneaky number of targets. And if one of those gets into the end zone, he could help someone take down a GPP.
Good luck!
