Finding Paydirt: Week 9
Touchdowns, while extremely variant, make or break daily fantasy success and swing thousands of dollars every Sunday. Every weekend, players wait anxiously for the players on their roster to find paydirt. The purpose of the contest is to provide an opportunity for the RotoGrinders community to come together and have fun as we spend much of our time during the week stressing over the construction of our weekly lineups. Did I mention there will be prizes? Let’s have some fun!
Happy Friday! Today, we start anew after two winners split the spoils for our second-month contest. Read here to learn how 1010mg and Copper2121 barely held off a surging Drew1up to win some RotoGrinders swag. This week, the bye weeks coupled with another London game form a very thin slate with various new names eliminated from play because of salary. Who will score some touchdowns? Who will stake claim to the top of our third leaderboard? Let’s pick some touchdowns!
First-time reader? Welcome! Read through Finding Paydirt: 2019 Contest Guidelines for information about the contest and prizes. Ready? Let’s play.
Here are the Week 9 cuts.
The Cut List
Simply put, to compete in this contest you must pick a running back, wide receiver, and tight end to score a touchdown on Sunday. The player must be on the DraftKings Main Slate and cannot be any of the players below. These players are the top five at both RB and WR and the top three at TE — I nix them hoping to make the contest more interesting.
| Running Back | Wide Receiver | Tight End |
| Christian McCaffrey | Adam Thielen | Travis Kelce |
| Dalvin Cook | Kenny Golladay | Darren Waller |
| Le’Veon Bell | Stefon Diggs | Hunter Henry |
| James Conner | Tyler Lockett | |
| Nick Chubb | Tyreek Hill |
We lose DeAndre Hopkins and Leonard Fournette this week because of the Sunday morning London game. Additionally, we will be without Saquon Barkley and Ezekiel Elliott because of Monday Night Football. This list of cuts features plenty of new names because of the combination of satellite games and bye weeks. I am leaving James Conner on the list due to the likely high ownership if he ends up playing.
With that said, here are my picks for touchdowns in Week 9.
Aaron Jones – RB – $7,000
The complete paradigm shift in Green Bay began with a commitment to incorporating one of the best weapons in the NFL. Aaron Jones is finally being featured as a big part of the Packers’ offense under head coach Matt LeFleur. Gone are the days where Jones makes a mistake and then sits on the sidelines to watch Jamaal Williams vulture… well… vulture everything. Aaron Jones drops a pass? No more being punished as if Jones were a little kid in timeout. Instead, Jones’ number is being called a lot.
The other Aaron boasts 11 touchdowns on the season with his most recent three being through the air. His highlight performance was his four-touchdown game against — at the time — a legitimate-looking Cowboys team. That said, the best feature of Jones’ game is his weekly volume.
Caveat… Davante Adams appears ready to come back. However, Jones owns 78.57% of the Packer rushing attempts inside the ten-yard line and nine — yes, nine — endzone targets. His 15.7% target-share is outstanding at the running back position. Even with a dip to any of these numbers, Jones must be considered a top touchdown option with the list of players provided this week.
The Chargers’ defense has yet to stifle opposing running games — ceding 26.94 fantasy points per game to opposing backfields. If the Packers backfield approaches that number, a Jones’ touchdown or two will likely be a key reason.
Allen Robinson – WR – $6,800
The Bears of 2019 are quite a different sloth than the Bears of 2018. The last memory of the 2018-2019 campaign was a heartbreaker with Cody Parkey missing what would have been a game-winning field goal in a Wild Card game against the Eagles.
While that memory is likely at the forefront of everyone’s mind, the performance of Allen Robinson in that game was incredible. Robinson continues to be one of the lesser-discussed studs at the wide receiver position — likely receiving less acclaim due to the ability, ahem… the inability of his quarterbacks and not because of his own work. In the game, Robinson converted 10 of his 13 targets for 143 yards and a touchdown. This year, the Eagles’ defense has done little to improve against the passing game.
Despite the woes of Mitch Trubisky, Robinson continues to be featured on a weekly basis. Robinson’s 26.1% target share is light years ahead of the other receiving option with the second-highest share going to a running back — Tarik Cohen (18.5%). Robinson saw 16 targets in Week 7 and 7 in Week 8. The price is not catching up to Robinson’s opportunity fast enough — giving us another opportunity to pick him for a touchdown.
As mentioned before, the Eagles defense is a bit of a sieve to opposing passing games — allowing a second-worst 12 touchdowns to wide receivers to complement a bottom-ten ranking in both receptions and yards. Robinson — representing the only true wide receiver on this team — is a strong play for a touchdown in Week 9.
T.J. Hockenson – TE – $3,700
Last week, I was heavily invested in the Lions passing game — relative to my type of investment. The game stacks were in full effect with Matt Stafford, Kenny Golladay, and another Lion prominently featured in most of my GPP lineups and Saquon Barkley bringing it back for the Giants. Unfortunately, the third wheel on most of my Lions’ teams was T.J. Hockenson. Gross.
That said, the tight end position continues to be a tough place to find touchdowns with the top options stripped from us on a weekly basis. Zach Ertz was once a featured option at the position but he might not even be the most prominent tight end on his own team. Instead, I am going to go back to the well — sort of — with T.J. and hope he atones for last week with a couple of touchdowns in this contest.
The Raiders’ defense springs the occasional leak against the tight end position — already having allowed six touchdowns (2nd worst) and 16.7 DraftKings points per game (3rd worst) to the position. Why no discussion of a flow chart against the Raiders? Darren Fells dunked on Oakland last week with two of his redzone targets leading to scores. I don’t need T.J. to be involved within the 20s, just give him a target or two in the box.
He is going to come through for me this week. I know it.
Thanks very much for taking the time to read through this week’s article. Be sure to tell me who you think will score a touchdown at each position in the comments section below. Also, give me a follow on Twitter to stay updated with the content I contribute to RotoGrinders throughout the football season. I will be back on Tuesday with a recap of Week 9 as well as a leaderboard update. Until then, good luck.
Image Credit: USA Today Sports Images