We’re back for Week 4 and we have one game missing from the slate thanks to our first COVID postponement. That’s going to concentrate ownership to a certain extent and if Twitter is any indication, people are becoming a bit overconfident in the trends we’ve been seeing so far this year. At this point, we should still be relying somewhat on our priors coming into the year and not overreacting to just three individual data points.
Some Chalk is Good Chalk
The New Orleans Saints have made no secret of the fact that they’re prioritizing Alvin Kamara ($8,000) in 2020.
The fact that DraftKings priced him at $8,000 as the most expensive running back on the slate is…something? I don’t really get it. In DFS, we like when the field has to make tough decisions and a running back with Kamara’s workload at this price isn’t a tough decision. You lock him in and move on with your builds. So far in 2020, the Detroit Lions are 29th in explosive run rate allowed and 24th in explosive pass rate allowed.
You can play the correlation game by bringing Kenny Golladay ($6,000) back on the other side of this contest. Through the first three weeks of the season, Detroit is above league average in the share of targets that go towards wide receivers. I think that increases even more with Golladay returning.
Striking While The Beard is Hot
Ryan Fitzpatrick ($5,400) has been quite good over the past two weeks. He’s scored more than 25 DK Points in each contest and now he faces the Legion of Meh in Seattle. It’s hard to wrap your head around it, but the Seattle pass defense has been awful so far this year.
They’ve allowed the third-highest rate of explosive plays. Something that DeVante Parker ($5,700) does quite well.
That’s the explosive play locations for Parker’s 2019 season. He’s dangerous all over the field.
Parker has seen the third-most targets on the team and Fitz has posted his highest passer rating on targets that go his way. He’s been slowed a bit by a hamstring issue and hadn’t played his full complement of snaps until last week, so he’s been trending in the right direction. You could even double-stack Fitz with Mike Gesicki ($5,100) who has also been heavily involved this season.
Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper
Dak Prescott’s ($7,200) connection with Amari Cooper ($6,700) is undeniable. There are plenty of values on the slate this week, so paying up for an expensive stack isn’t impossible this week.
You can basically be targeted anywhere against Cleveland and find success if you have a pulse. Cooper is, in my opinion, a special talent and he’s seeing an incredibly valuable workload. He’s averaging four more targets per game than any of his teammates.
Cooper will be owned but as long as you go a little off the board when filling out the rest of your lineup you should be fine. There’s even an argument to be made for including Michael Gallup ($6,200) or CeeDee Lamb ($5,400) in the stack to get even more unique.
Let’s Pick Up the Pace
We already touched on a few of the pace-up spots that we should attack this week. Let’s see if we are missing any of the league leaders in pace.
Cincinnati is running at the fifth-highest pace across all situations. Through the first three weeks of the year, they have thrown the ball 155 times. For context, there are only two other teams above 140. They’ve run about 56% of their plays while trailing on the scoreboard and in those situations, they’ve sported about a 75-25 pass-run split.
Many of those targets have gone to the corpse of A.J. Green ($5,500) but Tyler Boyd ($6,100) has also seen a ton of looks. If you’re looking for even more leverage, Tee Higgins ($4,500) is interesting in a stack with Joe Burrow ($6,300). This game could stay close but the Bengals have shown no signs that they’re going to go away from passing.
Let’s Get Weird
When the Patriots have trailed this year, they’ve been very pass heavy. New England has passed nearly 70% of the time when trailing by a point or more.
Damiere Byrd ($3,000) is the literal stone minimum price. While playing from ahead last week, Byrd didn’t see a ton of work. A week prior, in a losing effort, Byrd saw nine targets. This isn’t a cash lock play in any sense of the word but if you’re building 20+ lineups it’s easy enough to get some exposure to Byrd. When he’s been targeted, he’s paid off handsomely. As a play to include in a Kansas City run-back, you could do a lot worse.
