We’re back again this week after an exciting Week 1. We’re going to try and not overreact to a one-week sample but there are definitely some trends that are intriguing as we head into the rest of the season. Finding the balance between jumping on things that pop out in Week 1 and relying on our priors is one of the most important parts of early-season DFS.
If you kept hammering Sammy Watkins last year after his Week 1 blowup game, you were likely punting off money for a few weeks after that. Enough about what not to do, though, let’s find some stacks for Week 2.
Sneaky Shootout
As we mentioned last week, finding the lower-owned game that has high scoring potential is key. One of the candidates this week is the Vikings-Colts Game. Of the top five totals on the slate, they boast the closest spread. Indianapolis passed at the fourth-highest rate of any time in Week 1.
Minnesota wasn’t as pass-happy, obviously, but they did put up 34 points and ran at a high pace.
The Colts spread the ball around a bit in Week 1, but three pass-catchers saw at least eight targets.
Parris Campbell ($4,500) is very affordable this week and led the team in targets last week. They did take a couple of shots to him, but he mostly functioned as a safety valve for Phillip Rivers ($5,900) across the middle. The Vikings were picked apart in the short right area of the field which is where TY Hilton ($5,700) did most of his damage.
Playing Hilton is also going to give you great tournament leverage off of Jonathan Taylor ($5,700) who could push to be rostered in the 30-40% range. You can stack up Rivers with Hilton and/or Campbell for a low-owned, high-leverage stack.
Game Stack
Another intriguing game is the Tampa Bay-Carolina contest. Ronald Jones ($5,200) handled one-third of his team’s opportunities and the Panthers were just exposed by Josh Jacobs on Sunday.
With Taylor and Melvin Gordon ($5,200) right around the same price, Jones will be under-rostered relative to his ceiling. If Jones sees another 20 touches this week, he’ll be in a solid position. They may need to rely on the ground game considering Chris Godwin ($7,000) is in the concussion protocol and Mike Evans ($6,400) is hobbled as well. That would potentially open up an even bigger role for Scotty Miller ($4,100).
He was already heavily targeted last week with a half-dozen targets. Miller boasted the best passer rating of any Buccaneer that saw multiple targets.
On the other side of that game, the Panthers showed off some offensive fireworks in the passing game under Teddy Bridgewater ($5,800). When the game was within a score, the Panthers were slightly above league average in passing rate.
DJ Moore ($6,300) is someone I’m very comfortable going right back to despite his inefficient outing last week. He saw the most targets of anyone in a Panthers uniform and was used all over the field.
The other pass-catchers in Carolina will also be useful as GPP fliers, but Moore has the best ceiling/floor combination of the bunch.
We Love Appropriate Nicknames
DeAndre Hopkins ($7,700) is affectionately known as “Nuk”. And it’s rather fitting considering that he went nuclear on the 49ers secondary.
Every other pass catcher on the team combined for 21 targets while Hopkins saw 16 of his own.
Hopkins did all of his damage in the same areas of the field that the Washington Football Team was at its worst last week. There was a lot of concern because Nuk was switching teams but I think he quieted those critics rather quickly on Sunday. I don’t see much of a reason why it won’t happen again this Sunday.
Go Pack Go
As a noted Aaron Rodgers ($6,900) doubter, last week was tough to watch. Davante Adams ($8,100) turned all of Rodgers’ anger into 44.6 DK Points. He was the only receiver this side of Hopkins that saw over 40% of their team’s targets in the opening week.
The Packers passed at the seventh-highest rate while the game was within one score last week. Adams was used all over the field last week but does most of his damage in the short left portion of the field.
That also happens to be where Detroit was least successful at stopping Mitchell Trubisky so I’m envisioning a big day for the Packers’ passing attack.
