Market Exploitation: Week 8
It’s good to be greedy when others are fearful, as we’ve so often stressed in this space, though it might be wise to understand exactly why fear abounds.
That would’ve served me well in Week 7, when I highlighted Kirk Cousins as an exploitative play whose FanDuel salary had plummeted just before he was slated for a tasty matchup against a vulnerable Titans’ secondary.
Cousins’ fantasy floor, it turns out, was the Washington bench. It was a legitimate fear heading into Week 8, as rumors of Washington coaches benching their starter had spread far and wide after Cousins’ epic struggles since taking over for Robert Griffin III.
Perhaps it was too greedy to go in on Cousins despite the pervasive fear that brought down his price tag and made him a largely unpopular play. Fear, it turns out, is sometimes justified. Greed has its price.
Dwayne Allen, meanwhile, proved very much worth buying in the wake of a FanDuel salary drop. He posted 12.7 fantasy points against a Bengals team that doesn’t even pretend to defend tight ends.
Pierre Garcon, who was available for $1,000 less than teammate DeSean Jackson, was a big win for those who were greedy in the face of fear and trepidation, as he roasted the Tennessee secondary for 17.2 fantasy points.
We’ll continue looking for value among players whose daily fantasy salaries have dropped the most from one week to the next, hoping to capitalize on market inefficiencies along the way.
The Market Watch Tool on RotoGrinders — an incredibly useful feature that will be key to market exploitations –- is going to be the centerpiece of our approach from here on out. Market Watch tells us which players have seen their salary dip and which guys have had their asking price skyrocket.
Remember, these plays are mostly for large-field tournaments, not head-to-heads and 50/50s.
We’re going to be right alone or wrong alone on many of the guys listed below. (If you’re interested in 50/50 strategy, check out this lesson from RotoGrinders’ GrindersU course on winning daily fantasy strategies. Otherwise, read on!)
Now let’s continue to be greedy while our competitors are fearful.
Market Exploitation: FanDuel
Quarterback
Cam Newton ($8,100) vs. Seattle Seahawks
Starting a struggling quarterback against the Legion of Boom seems awfully enticing, doesn’t it?
But what if the Legion of Boom is a shell of its former self? Seattle has given up the 10th-most fantasy points to quarterbacks through seven weeks, thanks to five straight games of two or more touchdown tosses from opposing passers.
The Seahawks are only allowing 238.5 passing yards per contest, but signal callers are completing a sky-high 68.8 percent of passes against Seattle’s secondary. Only three defenses give up a higher completion percentage.
Newton is FanDuel’s 14th-most expensive quarterback for Week 8 after a $300 price tag drop. While he’s certainly not a steal at $8,100, I see Newton as an against-the-grain option with decently high upside. Newton, quarterbacking a team with no semblance of a running game, could have volume on his side. Seattle is facing 34.8 pass attempts per game this season.
Running Back
Ben Tate ($7,000) vs. Oakland Raiders
Tate is coming off a game in which he tanked in a favorable matchup against the Jaguars – and in Week 8, he comes complete with a $300 reduction in FanDuel price.
Tate is the primary running back on a team that wishes to keep the ball on the ground as much as possible, and this week goes against an Oakland defense that sees the most rushing attempts (36.2) of any defense in the NFL this year. Tate, barring disastrous game flow, could be in for an enormous workload against the Raiders. Only one team – the Patriots – have failed to gain 100 yards on the ground against Oakland.
Tate is notching a decent .59 fantasy points per touch in four games this season, and with the Raiders allowing 145.3 rushing yards, Tate could be an arbitrage play on FanDuel’s top-tier Week 8 runners.
Wide Receivers
Jordan Matthews ($6,000) at Arizona Cardinals
Matthews’ FanDuel price tag continues its fall as the Eagles return from their bye week. He’s now $300 cheaper than he was two weeks ago following three straight pedestrian stat lines. This week, of course, Matthews plays a Cardinals’ defense giving up more fantasy production to receivers than all but three teams.
Matthews, now cheaper than Robert Woods and Louis Murphy (to name a couple), has caught at least four passes over his past four games. The Cardinals, meanwhile, had allowed an average of 20 receptions to opposing receivers before they shut down a lifeless Oakland passing attack in Week 7.
Here’s the equation: Philadelphia’s run game is stuck in the proverbial mud + Arizona’s run defense is stout = considerable passing volume for Nick Foles and company. Matthews, who is running a respectable 28.5 pass routes per game, makes for a slightly risky if not sensible tournament play in Week 8.
Cecil Shorts ($6,200) vs. Miami Dolphins
Shorts is nothing less than a target hog in the Blake Bortles-led Jacksonville offense. He’s averaged 8.9 targets with the rookie at the helm, and that won’t change just because the Jags had success on the ground last week against Cleveland. Bortles will still have to throw quite a bit.
Miami’s secondary looked to have shut down Chicago’s big pass catchers in Week 7, though I think there’s a fair argument that Jay Cutler effectively shut down the Bears’ aerial attack. The Dolphins’ cornerbacks haven’t been all that impressive through seven weeks. Pro Football Focus grades Brent Grimes and Cortland Finnegan as the league’s 40th and 27th best cover corners.
A $200 hit to Shorts’ FanDuel price tag brings him down to the site’s 42nd-priciest wide receiver. I’m greedy on Shorts this week.
Tight End
Martellus Bennett ($5,900) at New England Patriots
Featuring the Unicorn in this space so often in 2014 probably isn’t a great sign of recent production, though it’s worth noting that a disappointing outing for Bennett constitutes five grabs for 58 yards, or 8.3 FanDuel points (as he posted in Week 7 against Miami).
Bennett has fizzled after a white-hot start to the season. After a $100 FanDuel price tag reduction, he faces off against a New England defense that, in the midst of linebacker injury woes, has allowed 28 fantasy points to tight ends over the past couple weeks.
Bennett, the second-most targeted tight end in football, could very well be set to reap the benefits of the Pats’ tight end coverage struggles. He’ll be an understandably unpopular Week 8 option at a price that has consistently dropped since Week 5. Be greedy with the Unicorn.
Market Exploitation: DraftKings
Quarterback
Jay Cutler ($7,000) at New England Patriots
Would I like ole’ Cutty to be cheaper here? Sure. The general daily gaming public couldn’t be more down on the DGAF metric all-star, however, and I think this matchup presents a prime opportunity for market exploitation.
Cutler, fantasy’s No. 3 quarterback headed into Week 7’s debacle against Miami, saw his DraftKings price tag drop by $900 – enough to grab my attention in Week 8. New England, when adjusted for strength of schedule, is giving up 17 fantasy points per game to opposing passers.
The Patriots are giving up a paltry 6.4 yards per pass attempt – eighth best in the NFL – but have faced a string of less-than-stellar quarterbacks. Even after last week’s meltdown, Cutler has a .48 fantasy points per attempt (FPAT). Throw out Week 7 and that jumps to a healthy .51 FPAT. Daily fantasy fear abounds this week with the Chicago offense. Jump in.
Running Back
LeSean McCoy ($5,800) at Arizona Cardinals
Shady is no longer priced as a top-10 option on DraftKings. He’s 12th in pricing after a horrifically disappointing stretch that saw the Eagles’ offense struggle mightily with a banged-up offensive line.
McCoy’s price dropped by an incredible $2,000 as we head into Week 8. He faces off against a stout Arizona front seven that allows the third fewest schedule-adjusted fantasy points to opposing running backs. Here’s the rub: Philly’s offensive line is slowly but surely getting healthy, and even without an intact set of blockers, McCoy most recently ripped off 149 yards in three quarters against the Giants.
We don’t often get a monstrous discount on a runner like Shady. Plug him in.
Wide Receivers
Brandin Cooks ($4,700) vs. Green Bay Packers
Cooks in Week 8 represents a (very) cheap investment in what could be one of the highest scoring affairs of 2014. The rookie, after a hot start to the season, has faded of late, but still plays the vast majority of the Saints’ offensive snaps and runs a decent number of weekly pass routes. That’s important.
Cooks’ DraftKings price tag fell by $1,100 after Week 7’s 4.3-point performance against Detroit’s crushingly tough pass defense. Cooks is still averaging 12.4 DraftKings points per week and sees 5.6 weekly targets from Drew Brees.
Think of Cooks as a bottom-barrel investment in a game that has a bunch of top-dollar DFS options. He’ll be in quite a few of my tourney lineups. More than 50 receivers are priced ahead of Cooks this week.
Vincent Jackson ($5,100) vs. Minnesota Vikings
VJax, as injury talk and trade rumors swirl amidst a statistical dry spell for the hulking pass catcher, saw his DraftKings salary drop by $800. I’m so greedy on Jackson, I can hardly see straight. It’s a medical condition. Look it up.
Twenty-one receivers are now priced ahead of Jackson, who takes on a Vikings’ secondary that appears to be solid. A little context, however, tells a different story. In at least four games this season, Minnesota opponents have more or less called off the offensive dogs after mounting big leads against the Vikings. Receivers, in other words, haven’t had to do a whole lot against Minnesota.
The Bills last week offered a glimpse of how vulnerable the Minnesota secondary might be, as Buffalo receivers sliced through Vikings cover guys for 19 catches and 195 yards. Barring game flow disaster – always a threat with teams as awful as Minnesota and Tampa – I think Jackson has a crazy-high fantasy floor in this one.
Tight End
Zach Ertz ($3,200) at Arizona Cardinals
Ertz, after a $600 reduction in DraftKings price, is essentially free. And now he gets his crack at a Cardinals defense allowing 5.9 receptions and 69.9 yards to tight ends.
Ertz is running 26.1 pass routes per game – not a terribly low number, though we’d like to see that increase a bit going forward. I think it’s plenty of usage to take advantage of an Arizona coverage unit that has proven exploitable when teams decide to use the tight end as a weapon. It surprised me to see Ertz is notching 10.1 fantasy points per game this year.
Probably Ertz comes with a downside that makes him nothing more than a tournament option. His low salary frees up a ton of cash for elite backs and receivers too.