For the first time this season, I unintentionally left one of my value plays out of every DFS lineup and I certainly regret it. The New York Giants, who I picked up and started in my league of record, scored a defensive touchdown and helped secure a victory against the Washington Football, New York’s first of the year.
Unfortunately, some Sunday morning tinkering freed up some cap room and led to me replacing them with the more expensive Indianapolis Colts defense; bad decision there.
I hit a home run with Ronald Jones and Chase Claypool worked out quite well. Jonnu Smith left the Titans game early with an ankle injury and his replacement, Anthony Firkser, became the top scoring tight end in the Sunday Main slate.
In all, I wound up blowing all of my entry fees for the third week in a row, thanks to some bad decisions at quarterback and my so-called safety net of Alexander Mattison, who was in every single one of my lineups. Matthew Stafford was a terrible value play and where I didn’t use him I exclusively used Aaron Rodgers. Enough said.
I also had a rough Monday on FanDuel. As I’ve done for previous Monday double headers this season, I entered a lineup and I did have some good plays. Kyler Murray had a good game, Kenyan Drake scored 28.4 thanks to his late-game touchdown, and Travis Kelce scored two touchdowns. Unfortunately, Ezekiel Elliott’s fumbles hurt his score and I had two donuts at wide receiver with John Brown and Mecole Hardman both doing absolutely nothing.
I’ll be diversifying my lineups a little more for the next few weeks. I’ve been finding one or two players every week that I absolutely fall in love with and try to have in a lot of lineups. That was working early in the season with guys like Calvin Ridley and DK Metcalf, but I haven’t been finding the right guy(s) these past three weeks.
At this point I’d rather have fewer shares of more players rather than too many shares of one player who can wind up having too much influence on all of my lineups. It’s great when that guy goes off, but it’s destructive when he doesn’t.
Hopefully you’ve been following my good advice and ignoring my bad advice and can learn from my lineup-building mistakes. Likewise, I hope I can learn from them, too.
Before we get to this week’s values, keep in mind that FanDuel (and DraftKings to my understanding) are keeping the Seahawks/Cardinals game in the Sunday Main slate even though it’s been moved to SNF. The Bucs/Raiders game that was moved to 4:05pm will not be included in the main slate, I assume because of the possibility that the game will not be played. I’m not a fan of having to wait until midnight to find out if I win money this week, but it is what it is.
Now, on to my Week 7 value plays.
Matthew Stafford, DET QB - $7,300
I’ve generally been avoiding back-to-back weeks of recommending the same guy. This especially looks bad coming off a week in which he finished as just the QB16 in the Sunday Main slate. But he draws a much better matchup with the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, who are giving up 4.2 more fantasy points per game to opposing quarterbacks than any other defense by FanDuel scoring.
My other consideration this week is Justin Herbert, coming off his bye, but he’s facing the same Jaguars defense that held Stafford to just 13 points last week and has an interception in three straight games.
I like Stafford to bounce back and put in a solid performance at relatively low cost. I wouldn’t have minded if FanDuel had knocked off a couple hundred bucks from his salary, though.
Todd Gurley II, ATL RB - $6,600
If you’re really feeling masochistic, you can try coming back with Antonio Gibson, who had a terrible Week 6 and, as a result, had $100 shaved off his salary by FanDuel going into a plus matchup against Dallas.
I’m not in that mood, so while Gurley is a little higher priced than I like for my value plays, I think he’s the best guy under $6,800 this week. He’s coming off a little bit of a down week as the Falcons went very pass-heavy against the Vikings in Week 6, but the good news is we’re finally seeing Gurley get involved in the pass game over the past two games.
His burst has been inconsistent at best, but the Lions give up 5.24 yards per carry to opposing running backs, the worst mark in the league this season. Gurley should have some room to operate and pick up some speed without having to rely heavily on jump cuts and other agility moves he doesn’t always seem to have in his arsenal these days. He’s scored in four of six games this season and I think he gets one against the Detroit this week.
Tee Higgins, Cin WR - $5,700
The rookie wide receiver has at least seven targets each of his last four games, and he set a new season high for catches this week against Indianapolis, a top 10 defense against fantasy wide receivers entering the week.
Higgins found the end zone twice against the Eagles in Week 3, but it was a fluky performance. He only totaled 40 receiving yards, averaging 8 per reception. Against Indy, he averaged over 20 yards per catch, and I don’t see any reason he can’t repeat that performance against Cleveland this week.
By FanDuel scoring, the Browns are giving up 37.9 points per game to fantasy receivers this season, 10 more than Indy was giving up entering last week and about equal to what the Bengals wide receiver trio scored last week. A.J. Green finally showed up and will demand a lot of Cleveland’s attention now, which may open things up even more for the youngster.
T.J. Hockenson, DET TE - $5,900
I’ve not done a good job of finding value TEs this season, but the last time I recommended Hockenson, he found the end zone. The Falcons rank worse covering tight ends than receivers this season. Don’t get me wrong, they’re abysmal defending both positions, and I have no qualms with starting Golladay in my Stafford lineup(s), but if you need a value tight end, this is your guy.
Dallas Cowboys - $3,700
Last week I recommended the Giants defense and then didn’t use them. I regretted that decision. I will say, though, I’m not married to starting the Cowboys if I don’t need to this week. I said a few weeks back that it wasn’t a good week to go value on defense. I used the Colts and Bucs in every lineup that week and low and behold they were by far the top two scoring defenses that week.
Once again, this week, I’d much prefer to spend up a bit and take the Bills ($5,000 at NYJ), Chiefs ($4,600 at DEN), or Chargers ($4,500 vs JAC). But if I’m in an absolute bind where I like the rest of my lineup and don’t want to cut salary elsewhere, the Cowboys will be my value defense to use this week.
Contrarian Value Pick Chase Claypool, PIT WR - $6,400
Look, I could be wrong in calling him a contrarian play, but I think Claypool will be heavily overlooked this week for a couple of reasons. His price tag jumped by a whopping $900 since I recommended him as my value WR last week. He’s also going up against the Titans, a respected defense.
But don’t be too scared of Tennessee. You know who they rank right behind in fantasy points allowed to wide receivers? Did you guess the Atlanta Falcons? Then you’d be right. That’s not good. Claypool has now established himself as Ben Roethlisberger’s weapon of choice and he’s proven more resilient than Diontae Johnson, who they also tried to get the ball in creative ways but kept getting hurt on every end-around.
Last Week’s Value Plays
Matthew Stafford 13.32 (1.82x $7,300 salary) [QB16 by value, QB16 by points]
Ronald Jones 25.1 (4.32x $5,800 salary) [RB3 by value, RB3 by points]
Chase Claypool 16.1 (2.92x $5,500 salary) [WR11 by value, WR8 by points]
Jonnu Smith 1.8 (0.31x $5,800 salary) [TE30 by value, TE29 by points]
New York Giants 14.0 (3.58x $3,900 salary) [DEF3 by value, DEF4 by points]
Antonio Gibson 7.5 (1.29x $5,800 salary) [RB23 by value, RB23 by points]
Week 6 Sunday Main results: 0-8 (-5.20 units)
Week 6 Monday results: 0-1 (-2.00 units)
2020 results: 14-37 (-13.33 units)
-Cory Puffett (@CoryPuffett)