Daily Fantasy, Daily Life: Volume XXX - Another Year, More Week 1 Chalk
Every year, same story.
DraftKings Week 1 NFL pricing is too soft.
I guess this is what happens when the salaries get released like six weeks before kickoff, but really: Soft. Really soft.
Softer than Charmin floating on a marshmallow pillow (side note: Can you believe it’s marshmallow, not marshmellow? It should be marshmellow).
(Also: Butterflies should be immediately renamed “flutterbys.” The logic is airtight. Anyway …)
Anyway, soft, soft, soft, soft.
Christian McCaffrey $8,500 Week 1 on DraftKings? In this economy?
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) July 29, 2022
In the immortal words of Jordan “Blenderhd” Cooper, this is really a “play whoever you want” slate. You want a Chiefs / Cardinals stack? You know, the highest over/under right now at 53? Well, that’s a swell idea. How about a Patrick Mahomes / JuJu Smith-Schuster // Travis Kelce stack, bringing it back with James Connor and Hollywood Brown? Just soak up all those points. Cash your million bucks.
But instead of having to fill in the rest of your lineup with scrubs and question marks, you can slide in the Lions defense at $2K along with DeAndre Swift at $6.8K, throw in a Davonta Smith bring-back at $5.5K, and then plop in soon-to-be preseason darling Wan’dale Robinson for $3K and you’re a millionaire.
Easy.
Of course, the amount of Chiefs / Cardinals stacks are going to be through the roof, along with Chargers / Raiders stacks.
Oh yeah, on that Chargers / Raiders thing: You can go full on Herbert / Ekeler / Allen with a Davante Adams and Hunter Renfrow bringback, and still go Lions with a Gainwell bringback, Robinson, and your choice of $3K+ tight end.
I’ll tell you this much: I’m starting to think that barring disaster, Wan’Dale Robinson is going to be 125% owned. Another $3K wideout that might be even higher owned is the fast-rising Romeo Doubs out of Green Bay, and get this: As of right now – unless my eyes deceived me – the next cheapest wide receivers that anyone will play is all the way up at $3.8K with Skyy Moore and Josh Palmer, who of course are going to be part of the chalky game stacks.
So yeah. Expect a lot of heavy ownership on these wideouts.
After that, I’m guessing things will be pretty spread out, except for the near-guarantee of a few other min-priced players getting chalky due to training camp injuries and the like.
So what to do? Heck if I know.
But it would certainly seem that if you’re planning on firing a few (or 150) entries into the $5 milly maker – you know, the one with almost 1.2 million entries – those lineups above (or variations thereof) are going to be very highly owned, and if those games hit, you’re going to be splitting money.
Basically, if there was ever a week to get off the chalk, Week 1 of the NFL is probably it.
Except … isn’t that what everyone is thinking? Maybe going chalk is the move. Load up on the Chiefs, Chargers, Raiders, and Cards.
Except … probably not, because all the sharp players are going to realize the other sharp players will be moving off the chalk but then coming back to the chalk because they think people won’t be on the chalk.
So the plan should probably be to fade the sharp chalk, but eat the donkey chalk and then play whoever you want – except cheap wideouts and spin around three times and say “booga-booga-booga” and …
Ah screw it, I’m playing 100% Wan’dale. Come at me.