As the week progressed, I found myself loving the Denver – Atlanta game more and more. My best GPP lineup actually featured a game stack that included a few of the plays that I wrote up here and I wanted to start with a review of that lineup to show you how I build in correlations to my teams.
I wanted to see if I could reasonably include Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, and Derrick Henry into a lineup. The salary savings that Christian Blake and Jerry Jeudy provided made that possible. Blake didn’t quite get there and Henry put up a dud, but you can see how using a cheaper game stack unlocks plenty of flexibility in your lineups. We’ll start there this week with my favorite game stack and then work our way through some other correlation plays that are worthy of consideration.
Houston – Cleveland Game Stack
The tendencies of these two teams in close games on first through third downs set up exactly how we’d like – assuming this game stays close.
Houston is third in the league in pass rate. Deshaun Watson ($6,900) has scored 24+ points in each of his last five games and hit the passing bonus in four of those contests. He’s also on a streak of a half dozen multi-touchdown games. Watson is just below Russell Wilson and Josh Allen who both project for much higher exposure, so while Watson will be somewhat popular, he’s likely to go under-owned relative to his ceiling.
Assuming David Johnson ($5,400) doesn’t play, Duke Johnson ($5,000) is a cash lock and is a stacking option with Watson. He’s coming off of a week where he saw 20 opportunities after David Johnson left early.
The Texans also feature a very concentrated target tree with Will Fuller ($6,700) and Brandin Cooks ($5,600) seeing well over 40% of the team’s targets. Playing a stack with Watson, Johnson, and at least one of the receivers is a good start for the Houston side. We’ve seen both of these receivers break slates in the past.
On the Cleveland side, they want to establish the run. They’re in the bottom five of pass rate in the situations that I referenced earlier. Cue the Nick Chubb ($6,800) return. He’s had over a month to recover and should slide right into his regular workload when he takes the field this week.
Does Cincinnati Have a Secondary?
Over the past month of the season, Cincinnati has been putrid against the pass. They have allowed explosive plays on 17% of their opponents’ pass attempts. Pittsburgh has been right around league average in situation neutral pass rate. Even without going too pass-heavy, the Steelers should be able to take advantage of the Bengals pass defense.
In the games that he hasn’t pulled up lame with injury, Diontae Johnson ($5,200) has been a target hog. He has seen double-digit targets in each game that he starts and finishes.
The Bengals don’t have many spots on the field where they’re strong against the pass but Johnson fits in where they are at their worst. You can play the other Steelers’ wideouts as well, but I’m prioritizing Diontae this weekend. The correlation play on the Bengals offense is Tyler Boyd ($6,400), in my opinion.
Boyd is the lead target for Joe Burrow ($5,700). You might be seeing A.J. Green ($4,400) up there and thinking to yourself “why not take a flier on Green?”. Well, he’s seen the 16th most targets among wide receivers and his best performance is a WR2 effort where he scored 17.6 DK Points. Long story short, don’t buy the volume with Green. He’s been the most inefficient wide receiver in the league so far in 2020.
Late Game Hammer
The good ol’ days of DFS used to feature the Sunday Night Football game. Exposure for that SNF game would be higher than it should be because of the psychological impact of having zero potential minutes remaining while a game was still going on. This Seattle – Los Angeles game has the making of a game people don’t want to miss out on and it happens to be in the latest window of start times. It features the second-highest total on the week with just a two-point spread which is definitely the type of game we like to target.
The debate between DK Metcalf ($7,600) and Tyler Lockett ($6,500) should be put to bed. Metcalf will continue to be higher priced and lower owned each week. He continues to be the play, regardless of matchup, over Lockett. You’re banking on the moonballs connecting for Lockett whereas Metcalf is more likely to make things happen on his own.
Slightly deep targets to the left and short targets to the right have been where Metcalf has made his money this year and that’s where the Rams have been at their worst. If you’re going to play either of the Seattle wide receivers and are looking for some salary relief, Josh Reynolds ($3,500) makes some sense. He’s seen 17 targets over the past two weeks. Cooper Kupp ($) and Robert Woods ($) are obviously in play also, but the flexibility that Reynolds affords you makes him an enticing option in GPPs.