Playing on Rosters: Week 13

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Are you obsessed with Daily Fantasy? You are not alone. I read an article this week that Adam Schefter has apparently parlayed his love for DFS into a sideline reporter gig. On Sundays mornings I’ve often noticed ESPN will cut to Adam Schefter for a scoop and he’s looking down at his phone. Most people think he’s texting with team officials to get last minute injury updates. While that’s entirely possible, I like to imagine he’s actually making last adjustments to his DFS lineups.

I think the article backs up my assumption. You see, Adam Schefter is just like you and I. Read this paragraph and tell me that the author isn’t also talking about me and I:

I didn’t know a single player, but then you start studying the statistics like a stock chart almost, and you start programming your life. I did it the first night — it was right after the Super Bowl a couple years ago — my wife walked into our bedroom and I had an NBA game on. She looked at me kind of funny. The second night, she walks in the bedroom and looks at me kind of funny, an NBA game on. The third night, she walked in and looked at me like I had started smoking cigarettes. She said, ‘Since when do you watch basketball games?’ And I started watching when I started playing some of these daily fantasy games, and I love it. I kid around with some of our producers, there’s one guy at ESPN we make out lineups every day together. I say: ‘This is my cigarette break. I take a five-minute break and I fill out my NBA DFS $3 lineup.” It’s literally become one of my biggest hobbies. . . . I love it.

How cool is that? Adam Schefter is just as obsessed with NBA (and, I assume, NFL) DFS as you and I. Hopefully, Adam has tried out Rosters. If he hasn’t, someone should let him know that he can use the RotoGrinders link to sign up for an account. Not only would he receive an additional $20 when making a $10 deposit, he would also get RotoGrinders incentive content for free. That would surely help with his NBA DFS obsession. Oh by the way, that deal isn’t just available for Adam, you can do it as well if you don’t already have a Rosters account.

Anyways, Playing DFS is more fun when you win and I assume you came here for some help with your Rosters NFL lineup this week. I’m going to try something a little different this week. I’m not going to mention the expensive plays that are obvious to everyone. I love playing Antonio Brown as much as anyone. I can easily make the case for you to use him. The same goes for David Johnson, Le’Veon Bell and Drew Brees. You don’t need me to recommend those options. Instead, I’m going to offer up some lower-priced options that will let you fit the expensive options that you already know about.

Quarterback

Matthew Stafford ($12,600) – As I mentioned above, I’m not telling you Stafford is a better pick than Drew Brees. What I will say is that Stafford is $3,000 cheaper than Brees and could end up being a better pick. If you are a game log chaser, Stafford isn’t for you. He’s faced a Murderer’s Row of matchups the last seven weeks. He played Minnesota (x2), Jacksonville, Houston, Washington, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Stafford has topped 20 Rosters points just once during that stretch. Using Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric the Saints pass defense is 25th in the league. They are also 28th in the league in yards per attempt. The Vegas over/under for this game is 53.5 with the Saints being a six-point favorite. Vegas projects the exact game script we would want to see in order to fire up Matthew Stafford.

Colin Kaepernick ($11,100) – What If I told you that since Week 7 Colin Kaepernick has more rushing yards than Todd Gurley? Go ahead and click on Kaepernick’s game log. He doesn’t have a single start under 16.12 Rosters points. The great thing about using Kaepernick is that you know he’s going to get you 60 rushing yards so you pretty much start with the equivalent of a rushing TD. This week Kaepernick will take on a Chicago defense that is missing both Danny Trevathan and Jerrell Freeman at linebacker. You shouldn’t go into this expecting Kaepernick to score 34.14 like he did last week but something close to 20 is a reasonable expectation.

Running Back

Doug Martin ($11,800) – If you need a RB in this range, I like Carlos Hyde and Jordan Howard as well. I think Howard and Hyde are obvious enough that I’ll use this space to make the case for Doug Martin instead. Martin returned from injury in Week 10. He’s finally seeing a full workload with 25 and 27 touches in his past two games. The Chargers run defense ranks 13th in DVOA and 10th in yards per carry. They do allow the third-most points to RBs on the season. I’ll caution that number is inflated by touchdowns though. They only allow 78.82 rushing yards per game but have given up 12 rushing TDs in 11 games. Martin isn’t going to be highly-owned but he’s a sneaky bet for a TD in this spot and he’s certainly seeing enough volume to rack up the yardage you need.

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Theo Riddick ($8,100) – I’m not quite sure when it happened but at some point the DFS community must have collectively agreed to ignore Theo Riddick. I wasn’t part of that agreement though and I won’t stand for Theo Riddick being priced lower than Terrance West, James Starks, and Mike Gillislee. Rosters is a site that awards one point-per-reception. Theo Riddick averages 6.78 targets per game (he catches 77% of them) and the Saints are 32nd in the leagues covering RBs out of the backfield. If enough people use Riddick this week we can get his price back up to a respectable level. Please help me right this wrong!

Wide Receiver

Brandin Cooks ($13,300), Michael Thomas ($11,200), Willie Snead ($10,200) – Is it lazy to just group the Saints WRs together as one recommendation? Yep! Am I doing it anyway? Yep! Let me be clear, I’m not saying that you should play all three of these guys in the same lineup. I’m saying that I think you’ll want one of these guys. The Saints have the highest implied team total on the slate. 92.6% of all touchdowns scored against Detroit are passing touchdowns.

Cooks is the most-expensive option here and also the highest risk. He’s unhappy with his role in the offense after seeing zero targets last week. I do think Brees will look to get Cooks a few extra targets this week but those are likely to come against Darius Slay who is line Lions best corner. Willie Snead has the best individual matchup against Lions’ Slot CB Quandre Diggs. I don’t mind Snead at all in this spot but I think I’ll end up going with Michael Thomas as the guy I like best. Thomas leads the Saints with 11 Red Zone targets on the season. The Saints WRs have also combined for just five double-digit target games this season and three of those belong to Thomas. He’s the best that offers the most bankable volume while still providing touchdown upside.

Golden Tate ($10,400) – Ever since his 30.8-point outburst against the Rams Golden Tate has been consistently involved in the Lions offense. His lowest target total in the six games since is four. His lowest Rosters score was 4.1 against Jacksonville. Other than that, he’s consistently scored in double-digits. Most importantly, Tate will be matched up with B.W. Webb which means he’ll avoid Delvin Breaux.

Tight End

Vance McDonald ($4,900) – Since Week 7, Vance McDonald leads all 49ers pass-catchers with an 18% targets share. That number includes at least six targets in five straight games now. The Bears rank 24th in DVOA versus TE. If you are using several cheap picks above, you can probably afford Jimmy Graham at TE. If you want extra money for other positions though McDonald is practically a cheat code at $4,900.

Eric Ebron ($5,500) – For just a few dollars more than McDonald you can also have Eric Ebron. Somehow Ebron only saw one target on Thanksgiving day but it was pretty obvious the Vikings sold out to stop him. I expect things to return to the 8-10 targets Ebron was seeing prior to that game. New Orleans is 21st in DOVA versus TE this season.

Kicker

In his Week 13 Kicker Study Sportsgrinder recommends Matt Bryant, Steven Hauschka, and Stephen Gostkowski among others. I agree with all those recommendations. Give his article a click if you’d like to dive deeper into the logic.

Defense

Denver Broncos ($5,500) – I don’t usually recommend Defenses or Kickers in this space as it has never been my specialty. That said, I live by the motto that if I know something you’ll know it too. No team in the NFL pressures opposing QBs more than the Denver Broncos. They get pressure on 42% of their snaps. Blake Bortles is terrible under pressure. In his career, Bortles has a 44% completion percentage and 21 interceptions when pressured. The Denver Broncos defense is obvious but sometimes obvious is the way to go.

About the Author

sethayates
Seth Yates (sethayates)

Seth Yates hails from Dayton, Ohio. Seth started playing DFS during the NBA Playoffs in 2012. Seth rose to stardom in 2014 when he won the NFL Preseason Bomb using picks he blogged about. When he isn’t playing DFS, Seth is a Financial Analyst for the Air Force. Even though paying taxes on DFS isn’t fun, Seth re-invests your taxes back into DFS for you.