NFL DFS FanDuel Ownership Projections: Week 2 Preview
In this space, we’ll preview FanDuel ownership projections for the Sunday main slate of Week 2 of the NFL DFS season. We’ll look at chalk. We’ll look at contrarian plays. We’ll look at plays that should be owned that they will be. We’ll look at plays that should be owned less than they should be.
This isn’t a comprehensive look at ownership throughout the slate, but a peek into what stands out. The reasoning behind the analysis can be applied to dozens of other players on the slate.
NFL DFS Week 2 Fanduel Ownership Preview
- Stefon Diggs ($8,000) – 24.73%
- Davante Adams ($7,500) – 24.60%
- Puka Nacua ($5,800) – 11.58%
- Josh Jacobs (7,500) – 18.42%
- Anthony Richardson ($7,500) – 4.77%
Week 2 NFL DFS ownership projections for FanDuel are accurate at the time of publication and subject to change. Sign up for Premium to get updated ownership projections all the way to kickoff.
FanDuel Ownership Notes
Heavy Chalk at Wide Receiver
Stefon Diggs, Davante Adams, Calvin Ridley, and Amon-Ra St. Brown are all projected in the 21-to-25% for ownership with JaMarr Chase closely behind them at 20.42%. Then, there’s a huge drop from the top-five to CeeDee Lamb in sixth at 16.79%. We shouldn’t get too bogged down in the exact numbers on Thursday, but that these five are so far ahead of the pack should make us take caution as to how we play them.
This highly concentrated ownership at the top will most importantly shove everyone else down in ownership, especially in single-entry where chalk is always more amplified than MME contests. Well-projected players like Lamb and DeAndre Hopkins are going under-owned, along with the great value in Puka Nacua, and the sharp pivots off of Chase and Ridley in Tee Higgins and Christian Kirk – even for stacks with Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence.
Play Whoever You Want at Running Back
There’s a big drop in projected ownership from James Conner and Josh Jacobs at the top to the Joe Mixon, James Cook, Christian McCaffrey range. I don’t like it.
As terrible as the Giants were on national television, they can’t be that bad. They’re still favored over the terrible Cardinals. Sure, the Cardinals want to run a ton with Conner and not lean on Joshua Dobbs, but there’s a general ineptitude that always beats the will to run the ball.
Speaking of general ineptitude, the Raiders suck and the Bills are a whole hell of a lot better than they showed themselves to be on national television. Like the Cardinals, sure, the Raiders will want to run a ton with Jacobs, but Vegas has the Raiders as 8.5-point underdogs with a sub-20 implied total. We should love Jacobs’ ability to be a bell-cow and the clear coaches’ intent. But I can’t buy into a chalky back on the road as a massive underdog.
Crossing those two off of my list, I’m gonna play whoever I want without really considering ownership too much at the position. With so much of the field on Ridley, this is a great spot to pivot to Travis Etienne; he’s a great play projected at under 7.0% that still grabs us a lot of exposure to that game.
Spending Up to Be Contrarian… Even at Quarterback
I like ot overspend for raw points at the flex spots here and there because I’m never playing someone for their 10-to-12 median projection in GPPs. In GPPs, I’m looking for ceiling and if Travis Kelce has a 23-plus ceiling, who cares if he’s $8,500. Sure, that’s an expensive 13 median, but if Kelce doesn’t ceiling out, it doesn’t matter is he’s $8,500 or $7,500. I’m gonna lose either way.
My point is that priced more conservatively, Kelce is over 20% owned with those WRs we already discussed. He’s priced pretty adequately, so we’re getting an ownership discount. I’ll take the 40% ownership discount over the 12% salary discount.
What does this have to do with QB?
Anthony Richardson got priced up. Way up to $7,500, and we currently have the field scared down to sub-5% ownership. But priced down just $800, and there’s the possibility that his ownership nearly doubled. Again, I’ll pay a little more in salary on one or two roster spots for massive ownership discounts.
And don’t play like this is cray-cray. I know some of you spent nearly $5,000 on the Washington DST in Week 1. Some of you faded on the DK, where they were $2,800 and played them on FD, applying the very concept I’m discussing.
Richardson isn’t the best raw points play. He doesn’t give us a ton of freedom in terms of roster construction. But he projects alright, and the Texans are garbage, so we should go overweight on him in MME. Stacked with Michael Pittman or straight-naked.