SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: I am moving off the Cleveland Team Stack with all the Browns receivers being out. On a slate where there aren’t a lot of great plays, I think it becomes important to pay up at QB because that is a more reliable Pt/$ position. Justin Herbert, Mike Williams, and Donald Parham are my choice for Chargers players today. Melvin Gordon and Jerry Jeudy on the bring back. I will say if you chose the Gordon path that will include two pretty chalky players (Parham will be as well), so be cognizant of that. I put Nick Chubb in the studs column because I think Cleveland will lean on the run game heavily. I also swapped out Keenan Allen and Allen Robinson who are looking like risky plays due to injury and added in Robert Woods and DK Metcalf. Finally, I swapped out Gio Bernard in the Leverage column for David Johnson. I still think Gio is a great leverage play, however we didn’t need that kind of salary relief anymore.
The Christmas weekend sporting bonanza continues right along with a 10-game NFL main slate on Sunday. Going to just jump right into the Sunday version of the flowchart because as I am writing this, the Saturday games have not yet kicked off so there isn’t much to breakdown from that. I think we have a tough slate to breakdown this week, with not a lot of great game environment options mixed with some chalky plays that don’t feel great when you plug them into your lineup.
The Kansas City Chiefs are once again involved in the game that should have the biggest effect on how lineups do this weekend. The Falcons have been a noted pass-funnel all season, but since Raheem Morris took over as interim head coach they have actually improved quite a bit. Still, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill paired with Patrick Mahomes will be a very popular play this weekend and people will of course be trying to squeeze in a Calvin Ridley bring back now that Julio Jones has been ruled out again. Clyde Edwards-Helaire is also out with an ankle injury, so LeVeon Bell is projecting to be a pretty popular choice on Sunday. This one doesn’t make sense to me because at $5800 DraftKings has him priced right around where CEH was for most of the season and he was never being viewed as a smash play. I would stay away from Bell in your lineups.
Outside of the Kansas City and Atlanta game, there are a bunch of other games that aren’t really looking like standout options to target, which is perfect for us GPP players. I would say that you should get comfortable with playing some uncomfortable stacks this week, because there really aren’t a lot of premium options.
NFL DFS Flowchart Week 16 – DraftKings GPP
Team Stack
Baker Mayfield has been on a hot streak lately and is currently the fourth highest scoring quarterback since Week 12. He comes in at $6100 this week and gets to face a horrible Jets pass defense. To pair with Baker, I think Jarvis Landry and Austin Hooper are the best options. If we expect the Browns to score a lot, then we might as well try and correlate the Tight End position and bank on Hooper sneaking into the end zone. Meanwhile, Rashard Higgins has produced a few high scoring fantasy weeks, but Jarvis Landry has been the most consistent performer this season, and in a lineup contruction where salary won’t make as much of a difference, I am willing to pay up to Landry.
Bring-It-Back Stack
The Jets have been a tough team to bring back all season (and we have tried it a couple of times). On one hand, they are always extremely low-priced and project decently well, but on the other hand they run the risk of playing on a team that could only score 3 points and pass for 100 yards. The Browns defense have been a bit of a pass-funnel this season, so I am willing to take a flier on Breshad Perriman and Denzel Mims and hope they catch a couple of deep bombs. I think this game will be high scoring and Cleveland will eventually run away with it, but I still do think they will concede some points to the Jets.
Low Owned Leverage
With Tyler Boyd being ruled out this week, Tee Higgins is going to be extremely popular. I like pivoting to Giovani Bernard for the Bengals because he saw 25 carries in last week’s matchup against the Steelers and I don’t like playing a chalky receiver from a team who only threw it 13 times last week.
I want to have parts of this ATL/KC game so I am essentially letting you take your pick on what combination you want to make. I would advise picking one of Tyreek Hill or Calvin Ridley in the Studs column and then pairing them with Russell Gage or Sammy Watkins in the leverage column. Both Gage and Watkins should be on the field for a majority of snaps so I think they provide a safer floor than some of the other lower-priced receiving options in that game.
Lastly, I really think that JK Dobbins and Antonio Gibson will run well this week. I think they will both be extremely under-owned compared to their fantasy point expectation and I think both of them have 20 DKPt upside.
Studs and Chalk Players
I don’t think much more has to be said about Hill and Ridley, they are both projecting head and shoulders above the rest of the receiving options this week, and like I said above I would advise on plugging one of them into every lineup. Jonathan Taylor is a guy who really interests me this week. He has found himself in the $7k running back conversation lately, and he will probably be overlooked because of his matchup with the Steelers. However, this is the same Steelers defense that saw Bernard run 25 times for 83 yards and a touchdown last Monday, so maybe the Colts will try and exploit some of the same flaws that Cincinnati was looking for. A lot of people are going to be playing Donald Parham at tight end since Hunter Henry got ruled out, which Is why I like the stud options of Keenan Allen and Austin Ekeler this week. I don’t think people will be playing multiple Chargers, so they should both be good GPP Plays.
That does it for my analysis of the Week 16 Sunday slate! Good luck and I hope to see some screenshots this weekend!
