FantasyDraft NFL DFS Picks - Expert Survey: Week 2
Want to know who Notorious is definitely paying up for in NFL DFS this week? Wondering which value play STLCardinals84 is eyeing most? You’re in luck. Our daily fantasy sports experts will answer a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup building decisions for this week’s main slate contests.
NFL Week 2 (Main Slate)
Who is your favorite player for cash games?
Notorious: Josh Jacobs
STLCardinals84: Travis Kelce
squirrelpatrol: Patrick Mahomes
MrTuttle: Alvin Kamara
meansy53: Josh Jacobs
Stevietpfl: Alvin Kamara
Who is your favorite player for tournaments?
Notorious: Juju Smith-Schuster
STLCardinals84: Alvin Kamara
squirrelpatrol: Austin Ekeler
MrTuttle: JuJu Smith-Schuster
meansy53: Saquon Barkley
Stevietpfl: Brandin Cooks
Who is your favorite salary saver for cash games?
Notorious: Josh Jacobs
STLCardinals84: Josh Jacobs
squirrelpatrol: Josh Jacobs
MrTuttle: Josh Jacobs
meansy53: Josh Jacobs
Stevietpfl: Josh Jacobs
Who is your favorite salary saver for tournaments?
Notorious: Corey Davis
STLCardinals84: Tyrell Williams
squirrelpatrol: Ted Ginn, Jr.
MrTuttle: Devin Singletary
meansy53: Darren Waller
Stevietpfl: Tyrell Williams
Which low-priced chalk player are you most likely to have little to no exposure to?
Notorious: T.J. Hockenson
STLCardinals84: Evan Engram
squirrelpatrol: Sammy Watkins
MrTuttle: Mark Andrews
meansy53: T.J. Hockenson
Stevietpfl: I like a lot of the cheap options this week, I don’t love Leonard Fournette if you consider him low-priced.
Which high-priced player will you have little to no exposure to in tournaments?
Notorious: T.Y. Hilton
STLCardinals84: DeAndre Hopkins
squirrelpatrol: Ezekiel Elliott
MrTuttle: Keenan Allen
meansy53: Ezekiel Elliott
Stevietpfl: Ezekiel Elliott
Which player are you most afraid of being underweight on compared to the field?
Notorious: Amari Cooper
STLCardinals84: Sammy Watkins
squirrelpatrol: Sammy Watkins
MrTuttle: Dalvin Cook
meansy53: George Kittle
Stevietpfl: Dalvin Cook
Which skill position players (if any) are you targeting versus an elite defense?
Notorious: Chris Thompson
STLCardinals84: Marquez Valdes-Scantling
squirrelpatrol: Larry Fitzgerald / Christian Kirk
MrTuttle: Davante Adams
meansy53: Saquon Barkley
Stevietpfl: Larry Fitzgerald
Which NFL team are you targeting players from the most?
Notorious: KC
STLCardinals84: LAR
squirrelpatrol: OAK
MrTuttle: OAK
meansy53: OAK
Stevietpfl: OAK
Which NFL team are you looking to avoid most?
Notorious: ARI
STLCardinals84: MIA
squirrelpatrol: MIA
MrTuttle: MIA
meansy53: MIA
Stevietpfl: MIA
What’s the best position to spend up on this week?
Notorious: RB1
STLCardinals84: TE
squirrelpatrol: QB
MrTuttle: WR
meansy53: WR
Stevietpfl: RB1
What’s the best position to save salary on this week?
Notorious: RB2
STLCardinals84: RB
squirrelpatrol: WR
MrTuttle: RB
meansy53: RB
Stevietpfl: RB2
Which game has sneaky shootout potential this week?
Notorious: ARI/BAL
STLCardinals84: SEA/PIT
squirrelpatrol: SF/CIN
MrTuttle: SEA/PIT
meansy53: SEA/PIT
Stevietpfl: DAL/WAS
Which position will you have the most exposure to in FLEX?
Notorious: RB
STLCardinals84: RB
squirrelpatrol: RB
MrTuttle: RB
meansy53: RB
Stevietpfl: RB
Which useful trend or statistic stuck out most during your research?
Notorious: The Cardinals ran four-wide receiver sets on over 70% of their plays last season. For reference, the highest for any team last season was 12%. Kyler Murray had 570 air yards, which was the 21st most since 2012. It’s safe to say Cliff Kingsbury is putting his fingerprints on this offense. I expect the Cardinals to be in many shootouts moving forward, so don’t be surprised if we see another monster game from Lamar Jackson.
STLCardinals84: Although the results weren’t all that great, it’s noteworthy that Leonard Fournette looked healthy and played on 86% of the team’s offensive snaps in the season opener, and this was in a game the Jaguars were playing from behind throughout. Expect an improvement on his 13 carries this week, though the six passing game targets in the opener were also encouraging.
squirrelpatrol: The Arizona Cardinals threw the ball 57 times – more than any other team – in the debut of Kyler Murray. We’ll see how this hurry-up offense works against an elite defense when the Cardinals travel to Baltimore as 13-point underdogs, but all aspects of this game are viable in GPP formats. Larry Fitzgerald and Christian Kirk could go tremendously under-owned considering their opportunity, while the Baltimore defense could get an even larger-than-usual chance for sacks and turnovers.
MrTuttle: Cincinnati TEs were targeted 11 times in Week 1 against the Seahawks and caught 9 balls for 93-yards. While still not an every-down player, Vance McDonald did run a route on 36-of-55 Ben Roethlisberger dropbacks and saw four targets against the Patriots. Don’t be surprised if that target number spikes this week provided the matchup.
meansy53: In 2018, only the Cincinnati Bengals (10.9) gave up more fantasy points per game to opposing tight ends than the Kansas City Chiefs (10.7) and Oakland Raiders (9.9) according to Pro Football Reference.
Stevietpfl: In Week One, Buffalo played at the sixth-fastest pace while running 63 plays, and the Giants played at the third-fastest pace on 66 plays. The Giants allowed 405 passing yards in the process.
What is your favorite correlation and why?
Notorious: Chiefs/Raiders game stack – Everything sets up beautifully to stack this game. We’ll start with the Raiders. Since salaries were released before Monday night’s game, their fantasy outings from that game aren’t reflected in this week’s salaries. Josh Jacobs, Tyrell Williams, and Darren Waller all had big outings and they are all dirt cheap across the industry. Not only that, but they will be playing from behind against the Chiefs, who put up points quickly. As for the Chiefs, they have an elite offense that is very concentrated. With Tyreek Hill out, the offense becomes even easier to predict. I love the thought of playing Patrick Mahomes against a bad Raiders’ defense that has one less day to prepare for this game. He missed Travis Kelce for a wide-open touchdown in Week 1 and will look to make amends in Week 2. If you want to triple-stack Kansas City, Sammy Watkins has looked explosive and Mecole Hardman should step in as the number two receiver in this offense.
STLCardinals84: Jared Goff to Robert Woods – I definitely want to get some exposure to the Saints/Rams game this week, as it features a Vegas total of 54 points, which is the highest we have seen on the young season. In the regular-season meeting between these teams a year ago, there were 80 total points scored. The playoff game was a bit of a drag but was still an entertaining 26-23 contest. I’d expect plenty of offense here, and the Rams’ passing game should be better than it was in the opener. Robert Woods is my favorite receiver to target, as he saw 13 targets in Week 1 against Carolina. He also led the team in targets in the two head-to-head meetings against the Saints last year. I like the Goff/Woods pairing, and you can make this part of a full game stack, as well.
squirrelpatrol: We have two games with double-digit point spreads, and while there has been a lot of talk about game stacking recently between QBs and multiple pass catchers from the same game, we shouldn’t forget the old RB-DST correlation. This week pairing either Sony Michel with the Patriots defense or Mark Ingram (or Lamar Jackson?) with the Baltimore defense is a correlation to keep in mind when constructing lineups.
MrTuttle: Ben Roethlisberger + Pass Catchers + Tyler Lockett – The Pittsburgh Steelers get a prime bounce-back spot in Week 2 as they’ll host the Seattle Seahawks who were torn apart by Andy Dalton for 418-yards and a couple of scores. Seattle’s poor secondary play isn’t getting as much attention as it should but we knew it was an area the Seahawks would struggle with leading up to the season and Week 1 wasn’t a disappointment. Now the Seahawks will be tasked with stopping the pass-heaviest offense in the league who got trounced on National TV in Week 1 and will be looking to come out of the gates firing. As always, due to how involved James Conner is in the passing game you can consider going full onslaught with a QB/RB/WR stack. Tyler Lockett is the best candidate to bring the stack back with.
meansy53: Chiefs/Raiders game stack – Both of these teams saw extremely condensed usage in Week 1. For example, Travis Kelce, Sammy Watkins, and Damien Williams accounted for almost 75% of the market share of targets for the Chiefs. While Darren Waller and Tyrell Williams only accounted for about 57%, they also come with drastically cheaper price tags. And Josh Jacobs saw 80%+ of the running back carries, including all (eight!) of the carries in the redzone. There are numerous ways to stack these two teams up, and you’ll of course want to spread a wider net (e.g. Mecole Hardman, Hunter Renfrow, etc.) the larger the field you are playing in.
Stevietpfl: Dak Prescott, DAL WRs, WAS Skill Players – I think there are a lot of ways to stack this game, and it’s one of my favorite game stacks in week two. Both Cooper and Gallup are very interesting, and even Randall Cobb if you want to play two of the three. Prescott lit up the Giants in week one, and Wentz lit up this Washington secondary. I like the idea of running it back with Quinn or even McLaurin, or Thompson on DraftKings. Quinn played 97% of the snaps, McLaurin had seven targets, and Thompson had ten targets in week one. All three of these plays are interesting options to me.
Who’s your top contrarian play on the board and why?
Notorious: Dede Westbrook – Anyone that rostered Westbrook last week was a little lucky that he was able to catch a late touchdown. He finished the game with five catches for 30 yards and had a ridiculously low ADOT of 0.8 yards. That’s in the same territory as running backs. With all of that said, I still view him as the number one receiver in this offense, ahead of both DJ Chark and Chris Conley. The Texans’ slot corner (Aaron Colvin) struggled so badly in Week 1 that they decided to release him, even though he had a bunch of guaranteed money still on his contract. I can’t imagine his backup is going to play much better. The Jaguars will likely be playing from behind once again, so Gardner Minshew will be forced to air it out. If these two can establish a connection early, Westbrook could have a monster fantasy performance at relatively low ownership.
STLCardinals84: Sony Michel – Running back usage for the Patriots is always tough to peg, and Michel will almost certainly get ignored by most players this week after his abysmal 15 carry, 14-yard performance in the opener. However, this is the perfect spot for a bounce-back in a game where the Patriots are almost 20 point favorites against a Dolphins team that gave up 59 points to the Ravens in Week 1. Michel should push for 20 touches in this game, and it would shock me if he didn’t find the end zone at least once. This is a game where he should be heavily involved — moreso than the likes of Rex Burkhead or James White.
squirrelpatrol: Larry Fitzgerald and Christian Kirk – people may not have adjusted to the style of offense that the Cardinals are running. While there is definitely a chance that the Ravens defense dominates Kyler Murray as a rookie QB, there is also the chance that the Cardinals are able to put up some points along with their turnovers, making Fitzgerald and Kirk ideal contrarian plays.
MrTuttle: Marlon Mack – With Andrew Luck out of town and Jacoby Brissett left in charge, Frank Reich took an extremely conservative approach offensively in Week 1, letting Marlon Mack run 25 times behind the Colts strong offensive line. Mack parlayed those 25 carries into 174-yards and a touchdown and will likely continue to see heavy usage in Week 2 as the Colts are just 3-point road underdogs to the Tennessee Titans. Notably, Mack was on the field for 48-of-63 offensive plays and did run 19-routes which gives him some receiving upside despite not being targeted in Week 1.
meansy53: Saquon Barkley – The mid-tier looks to be another strong group of running backs for Week 2, which should lead to Saquon falling down the list of priorities at this position a bit. The usage from Week 1 looks tame, but Saquon gave way to a lot of Wayne Gallman in the 4th quarter when the Giants were well out of it. That shouldn’t be the case this week against the Bills. I think Saquon has the highest ceiling on the slate, and ownership isn’t going to come close to reflecting that. I think we can find the requisite cheap values on this slate to make him work in plenty of tournament lineups.
Stevietpfl: Larry Fitzgerald – I know this is a really tough matchup, but I think we see Arizona throw the ball a lot in this game. They played really fast last week, and it was so different watching Fitz go downfield. I like his price across the industry, and I hope he goes low owned like he’s projected to right now. This is a great spot to take shots on him and Kirk against this tough Baltimore defense.
Who’s your top overall play on the board and why?
Notorious: Travis Kelce – We have a nice mix of talent, matchup, increased opportunity, and narrative this week with Kelce. He’s likely the best tight end in all of football and he plays with the league’s best quarterback. He’s going to be viable each and every week. He gets to face the Raiders, who have long struggled against tight ends and whom he torched last season. He should see a bigger target share in this elite offense with Tyreek Hill ruled out. And finally, Mahomes missed him for a wide-open touchdown in Week 1 and later apologized saying he owed Kelce dinner or something to make up for it. I say the best way to make amends is to target him early and often in a cupcake matchup in Week 2. I know there are a lot of viable tight ends this week, but I can’t get away from Kelce in my lineup builds.
STLCardinals84: Travis Kelce – There is a ton of value available on this slate, and I will prioritize getting Travis Kelce into a lot of my DFS lineups. He is going to be staring at a massive target share for as long as Tyreek Hill is sidelined, and Sammy Watkins is not going to go nuclear every week. Let’s also not forget that Kelce had a 12/168/2 line against these Raiders last year. His ability to produce massive numbers at a premium position makes him an elite spend in Week 2, especially because of how the salary builds work out.
squirrelpatrol: Patrick Mahomes – Sometimes it’s easy to overthink things. I only see two ways this game can play out – the Chiefs score a lot of points in a blowout with Mahomes putting up a big score, or the Chiefs score a lot of points in a close game with Mahomes putting up an even bigger score. Either way, I don’t think there is enough differentiation in price between Mahomes and the other QBs.
MrTuttle: Josh Jacobs – Josh Jacobs saw monster Week 1 usage as he converted 24 touches into 113-yards and two touchdowns. Jacobs carried the ball 23 times for 85-yards and added another 28 through the air catching his sole target for 28-yards. Yes, I fully understand that game script worked in the rookie RB’s favor in Week 1 with the Raiders playing with the lead but the fact remains Jacobs should remain heavily involved in the game plan for as long as Oakland is able to keep pace with the Chiefs who are currently listed as 7.5 point favorites. Speculation is that Jalen Richard will steal snaps as the pass-catching RB if the Raiders find themselves in a negative game script early, and while that’s possible, there’s still very little downside to Jacobs’ cheap price tag which was released before his impressive Monday Night performance.
meansy53: Josh Jacobs – Plain and simple, the price tag just did not adjust properly since the Raiders played on Monday night. Of the 26 carries by Oakland running backs in Week 1, 23 of them went to Jacobs. How much they involve him in the passing game is a little up in the air (only saw one target last week), but that is just going to be the icing on the cake if he is going to be seeing 20+ carries. Add in a matchup against a Chiefs defense that gave up the third-most fantasy points to opposing running backs in 2018, and Jacobs is just a tremendous play in all formats.
Stevietpfl: Alvin Kamara – We know Drew Brees has struggled on the road throughout his career, which could lead to more work in the passing game for Kamara this week. He’s a legit 100/100 upside guy each week, and even with the slow start in week one, he put up a really good game without any touchdowns. Murray is still going to get 20-30% of the snaps, but Kamara does so much with his snaps, he’s the top play almost every week for me. With no CMC on this slate, and all the value we have, Kamara is the clear-cut pay up option for me.
What is your hot take for the week?
Notorious: The winning roster in large-field tournaments will feature TWO tight ends and they will both come from the Chiefs/Raiders game.
STLCardinals84: Winning GPP rosters have five players from the Saints/Rams game.
squirrelpatrol: A millionaire winning lineup will have at least two players from the Arizona / Baltimore game – but one of them will be a defense.
MrTuttle: Donte Moncrief totally redeems himself with a two-touchdown performance.
meansy53: Baltimore and Arizona combine for at least 60 total points.
Stevietpfl: The DAL/WAS game combines for seven passing touchdowns.
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