DFS Building Blocks – Week 10

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE:

Kamara is out, Ingram is in. Ingram has been playing a nice role even with Kamara starting, so he becomes a pretty good value play. I still prefer the combo of Johnson and Conner, so I’m likely to use Ingram in the flex. I can easily drop McLaurin for Ingram and then can spend up elsewhere, moving up at QB or TE. I don’t love Ingram playing with an uncertain QB situation and against a tough Tennessee D, but he’s got a clearer path to 3x than anyone else we can put in the flex. I don’t hate the idea of fading him and just sticking to our original lineup, but I’ll probably swap to him in the flex.

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Wow. How terrible was last week? It was probably the worst NFL week in terms of upsets and general disappointments that I can remember and it was probably the worst my main lineup has ever performed.

On to Week 10!

Going to be a bit shorter this week; going to try to take you through the article as if you were following along with me building my lineup.

Our starting point this week is D’Ernest Johnson. Nick Chubb has been ruled out and Kareem Hunt is still out. We saw what Johnson did in his other starting opportunity and no reason to think he can’t do it again. And at his salary, he’s as close to a lock to get 3x as there is in today’s NFL.

James Conner is also a pretty decent value. He’ll be popular, but may not be as popular as he should be with so much ownership going to Johnson. He would be in play to get 3x even if Edmonds were playing this week. That may leave people paying up for Najee Harris, Jonathan Taylor, Dalvin Cook, or even taking a flier on McCaffrey. So our choice is lock in Conner, pay up for Harris or Cook, or go all the way down to McKissic. We’re also monitoring Zach Moss. If he misses, Devin Singletary becomes a really nice value and would probably get locked in, changing our lineup completely. We may not know until closer to game time tomorrow so it’s not a bad idea to have a lineup with Singletary pre-built that you can swap to if needed. We’ll return to our second RB position, let’s look at WR.

These are the WRs I’m targeting, in order that I like them.

Mike Evans. Brown out, good chance Godwin will be out as well. Gronk out. Evans should get all the work he can handle.

Mike Williams. Looking for this game to shootout and for Williams to cash in on a couple big plays.

Justin Jefferson. If Williams has a big day, we can also expect a Vikings WR to have a big day. Last week was a better matchup for Thielen, this week is better for Jefferson. We’re paying more for Jefferson than Thielen, so hopefully the crowd goes down to Thielen.

Emmanuel Sanders. I also like Diggs (still waiting for that big game) but Sanders is cheaper and has a big-play role, which is what we’re targeting. Diggs could certainly go for his big game finally (especially if I don’t play him!) so feel free to go there if you prefer.

Jerry Jeudy. Priced near Sanders and is safer but has more of a volume role. Tiebreaker goes to the player with the better chance for big plays.

Diontae Johnson (more on DK). Gets a ton of volume and Claypool is out. We’ll see what happens. Detroit is scrappy and plays harder than people realize. Does Pittsburgh struggle without Claypool? Does Diontae get a ton of volume, but no big plays? That’s a fairly likely outcome, making him better for DK. The other part of is this if we pay up for Najee Harris in a dream matchup against Detroit, we don’t really need to jam in two Steelers.

Terry McLaurin. Perhaps I should like him more. He’s priced down some now, but this Bucs defense is still relatively scary, even though they’ll be forced to the air. But he does have the two-TD upside we like and he’s the clear top option in the passing game. Part of this depends on what we can fit with our salary and what we do with McKissic.

Let’s build some more.

Let’s assume the public goes to Najee Harris. He’s priced way up though and needs his best game of the year just to hit value. He actually needs to score about 6 more points than his best game of the year. With Claypool out, do the Lions try to stop the run more? Perhaps. I really want to play Najee in this matchup, but there is just too much downside at his price. So let’s add Conner and see what our lineup looks like.

I can pretty easily lock in Evans, Williams, and Jefferson leaving me an average of $6,450 (on FD) per position. I know I can fit a top DEF in and probably any QB I want, then can see what I have left for TE and Flex.

This is a week to lock in a top DEF. Either Buffalo or Arizona. Because we’re playing Conner, we’ll take the correlation with Arizona D, playing against a guy who really shouldn’t be the NFL. Now, the Bills have just as good a matchup against the Jets, but somehow, their QB is actually better and more NFL ready than the Panthers RB.

If not going to one of those, Colts are okay, Bucs, Cowboys, and maybe Broncos.

Let’s see what we can add at Flex. I like to start by seeing how high a player I can fit. Even though I have Sanders higher on my wish list, let’s see what happens with McLaurin. We need to see what QB and TE look like now.

I want a QB from the same team as one of my WRs. Best option, because I’m already counting on a shootout, is either Herbert or Cousins. If I add Herbert, I’m left choosing between Goedert, Knox, Fant, Henry, Seals-Jones, Conklin, Ertz, and so on. None of those are terrible options. Can even go down a bit to Arnold or Freirmuth. But if I’m passing on Sanders in the Flex, then I want to target Knox at TE, who was on a quite a TD roll before getting hurt. With Moss potentially missing or even a bit shaky still, they may pass even more in the red zone.

I like that lineup quite a bit, but we can also explore other QBs. We can go down to Cousins, but it doesn’t really gain us anything at TE. We can go up to Brady, especially since we have a similar mini-stack with Evans + McLaurin already. If doing that, we lose Knox at TE, but plenty of feasible options, we just lose the correlation, which is okay. We don’t want to force correlations in everywhere, but it’s a great tie-breaker on these last decisions. I like Dan Arnold in a matchup that pushes teams to the TE anyway.

We also need to explore going down to Heinicke, since we’re banking on points in that game. Although, we’re much more confident in a shootout in LAC/MIN, where we’d be banking on volume and garbage time with Heinicke. That opens up any TE we want, going all the way up to Pitts or Hockenson. I like both, but actually prefer Hockenson. Should be lower owned and he plays in the range that Goff needs to target. Pitts has more upside though, just a bit scarier playing against Dallas. But, for what it’s worth, it’s far more likey that DAL/ATL sees points than DET/PIT.

When I’m going through these scenarios, I’m entering each one in the $5 Sunday Million. This ends up giving me a good number of entries in that tourney and naturally diversifies my lineups as I build. I usually then pick my favorite to put into my bigger, main tourney. If you just play the $5 tourney, you could follow this same approach with 25-cent lineups.

So I have one with Heinicke and Pitts, and will build one with Heinicke and Hockenson.

Now, back to our original decision point in the Flex. Let’s see what it looks like with Sanders instead of McLaurin.

With Sanders and Herbert, I can go up to Hockenson, but not to Pitts. I like that option and this looks like a pretty good lineup as well. I lose the Washington player on the other side of Evans, but that’s not really a priority mini-stack for me. And I still get a piece of the Bills with Sanders.

I can then do the same thing I did above with other QBs. Up to Brady, but then down at TE. Or go with any of the other QB options and go all the way up to Pitts.

So after all that, I expected to be on Sanders in the Flex, but that was with the thought that McKissic would be in my lineup instead of D’Ernest Johnson. So with McKissic now out, I actually like the lineup that puts McLaurin in the Flex and Knox at TE. This gives me a highly correlated lineup with lots of individual pieces that I liked.

That’s the process we should follow each week. Identify what pieces of each game we like (can use this article or the player grids), identify what core game stack or stacks we want to target (LAC/MIN, TB/WAS), then go through the above building process to make sure you’ve covered all the bases, picking your favorite lineup.

When I give you my favorite lineup each week, you can see that there are several other lineups I like as well, so make sure you pick one that YOU like. There is enough variance in the NFL that these lineups at the top of my list aren’t necessarily more right or wrong – yes, some are built more technically sound, but they’re all usually pretty good options, with equal chance of performing well. I will say, probably 80% of the time, my favorite lineup ends up being my top-performing lineup, but sometimes a second or third lineup really does well and outperforms all the others.  

Don’t forget to monitor the news around Zach Moss. Follow this same process with Singletary instead of Conner and see what you like so you’re ready to move to Singletary if you want. Conner still an okay option, even if Singletary gets the Bills work.