Week 2 DFS Picks: Tournament Plays

Every week, I will go through the players I am targeting to play in DFS for all games, tournaments, and game stacks.

The idea is that this will paint a clearer picture of framing lineups.

It is not that tournament players cannot be used in cash games.

If a player here works out for your team structure in cash games surrounding your primary core, use them.

These are just the players that come with some element of inherent risk, but are the primary players that I still want to be ahead of the field on, compared to the percentage of rosters they are projected to make this weekend.

I will analyze the player selections and game writeups, but please refer to the Week 2 Worksheet for a detailed breakdown of the players and games.

Quarterback

Drake Maye ($6,800/$5,200)

One of the themes of Week 2 DFS tournament play is giving Week 1 letdowns an added look.

That will be a common theme here.

Often, you will see gamers overreact to the initial reveal when we inherently know the NFL is a small sample.

Maye was the QB9 in expected fantasy points last week but finished the week as QB18.

This Miami defense was a travesty in Week 1.

They allowed a Daniel Jones-led team to score on every possession.

Things were so bad that Bradley Chubb already called out players for not playing team defense and freelancing assignments.

Jones was the QB3 (29.5 points) against Miami last week.

The Dolphins only created pressure on 24.2% of dropbacks (30th) despite blitzing at the highest rate in the league (54.5%).

The Miami secondary was as lackluster as advertised, allowing 9.4 yards per pass attempt (29th) and 12.4 yards per completion (28th).

Trevor Lawrence ($7,000/$5,600)

Lawrence did not get there last week, but there are reasons to give him another look.

It was a weird game that featured a weather delay and the Panthers doing nothing on offense to push Jacksonville.

The Jaguars averaged a league-high 8.2 yards per play in the first half on Sunday but only 3.7 yards per play after the break (26th).

Lawrence was solid in the first half, completing 14 of 19 (73.7%) passes for 128 yards and a touchdown.

He was getting the ball out quickly and near the line of scrimmage as anticipated.

In that first half, Lawrence averaged 4.1 air yards per attempt with 2.43 seconds to throw.

Jacksonville had a 59.4% dropback rate in the first half (16th).

The Jaguars were up 20-3 at the half and threw the ball 41.9% of the time in the second half (30th).

Lawrence turned into a pumpkin in the second half, going 5 of 12 (41.7%) for 50 yards (4.2 Y/A) with an interception.

He averaged 12.1 air yards per attempt in the second half, and the inaccuracy crept back in.

33.3% of his passes in the second half were off target (the highest rate for any quarterback in the second half).

The Bengals can put Jacksonville in catch-up mode, while their pass defense was passive in Week 1, an approach that should aid Liam Coen’s short-throwing offense if we get the first-half version.

The Bengals blitzed at the lowest rate in the league (4.2%) and gave up a bunch of paper cuts over chunk gains.

Their defense allowed the most third-down conversions in the league in Week 1 (9) and then allowed another 2 fourth-down conversions.

Mac Jones ($6,000/$4,000)

I am not going wild with Jones, but he is a min-priced quarterback that you can stack with Christian McCaffrey and Ricky Pearsall and attempt to buy the majority of the 49ers offense in a game against the Saints.

Making seven starts with Jacksonville last year, Jones averaged 12.1 fantasy points per start, but he did post two top 10 scoring weeks.

Getting to play in a schemed-up Kyle Shanahan offense can provide an avenue for better efficiency, although we wish the entirety of this offense were intact to nurture that outcome.

The Saints were 22nd in passing points allowed in Week 1 (14.5).

Running Back