Daily Fantasy Football Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - Week 3  9/25/16

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QUARTERBACKS

Kirk Cousins FD 7200 DK 6400
Opponent NYG
Proj Points FD - 19.59 DK - 20.97
When the hate goes too far: the Kirk Cousins story. Listen - there's a lot of bad things you can say about Kirk Cousins and his NFL resume. He's not an elite "real life" quarterback, and probably won't ever be the QB on a Super Bowl winning team. But for daily fantasy purposes? None of that matters. Cousins is currently priced like a no upside game manager, when the reality is that he leads the NFL in pass attempts, is 3rd in yards, and 11th in completion percentage. He has a dynamic downfield option in Desean Jackson. And... it hasn't all come together yet this season. But the underlying stats with Cousins suggest that much brighter days are ahead. Interceptions are largely correlated with completion percentage, and upside is largely correlated with total yards. While it hasn't played out this way in a small sample in 2016, the Giants allowed the very most passing yards in the NFL in 2015, so I'm not ready to call them world beaters just yet. Cousins has both, and in a bye heavy week, grabbing a QB on a pass heavy offense for $7200 in the game with the 4th highest total can rarely be a bad thing.

Matt Ryan FD 8500 DK 7400
Opponent NO
Proj Points FD - 20.69 DK - 21.7
He could end up on the chalkier side of things considering the matchup. Even though the Saints held the Giants without an offensive touchdown last week, they aren’t exactly any sort of defensive stalwart. In fact, so many things broke right for them last week (still lost) including fumbles, poor Giant play calling and an outright drop for ODB that would have been a touchdown. The Falcons have one of the highest implied totals this week and Ryan isn’t in the upper price tier of signal callers. In what could be a shoot out (we’ve heard that before) Ryan could be looking at close to 40 pass attempts when it’s all said and done. In the first two games this season he’s completing more than 70% of his passes for 730 yards and 5 touchdowns. He’ll be on a lot of radars going into week 3.

Cam Newton FD 9200 DK 7800
Opponent MIN
Proj Points FD - 21.54 DK - 22.16
The clear headlining fantasy QB out of week 2, Newton decided to personally destroy all talks about a resurgent 49ers defense. He's reunited with Kelvin Benjamin in the same way you might reunite with an old lover after a string of crazy exes. "Hey, remember what we had? In retrospect, it wasn't so bad..." Having a legit #1 downfield option has stretched the defense vertically, but it's also opened up room for the Panthers' underneath stuff to Greg Olsen, and even Newton's running game. Jonathan Stewart's absence from this contest with the Vikings likely only solidifies Newton's role as the entire Carolina offense. Vegas sees this as a game where the Panthers are in control but not dominating, which well aligns with them leaving the ball in Newton's hands for the entire contest.

Marcus Mariota FD 7700 DK 5900
Opponent OAK
Proj Points FD - 19.86 DK - 20.75
From our system’s perspective, it sure seems like going cheap at QB is the way to go this week. Mariota is one of the guys who fits the bill. Couple of encouraging things for Marcus heading into this week. He’s had one high-volume passing game already this year, putting up 41 attempts in Week 1 against Minny. Then last week he threw less, but more efficiently, completing 75% of his passes against Detroit in leading them to a come-from-behind victory. Mariota’s coming very cheap on DraftKings and allows for quite a bit of flexibility there. He’s thrown four TDs in the first two weeks and the Titans will thrown in the red zone. One has to also think we’ve seen the floor on his rushing yards in a game and he can definitely get out of the pocket. Oakland’s been torched in the first two weeks of the year and Mariota has the opportunity to well outperform his price.

Also considered: Eli Manning, though the case for him is very similar to Cousins, and I like Cousins better. The Redskins' addition of Josh Norman and the Giants' reliance on Odell Beckham is basically the tie-breaker here, but I don't mind Eli at all, particularly in big tournaments.

RUNNING BACKS

DeAngelo Williams FD 8800 DK 7500
Opponent PHI
Proj Points FD - 24.53 DK - 26.93The Steelers have a clear plan of how they want to use DeAngelo Williams while Bell is out of the picture. They want to force-feed him the ball over and over and over again. On Sunday against the Bengals Williams went 32/94 on the ground and 4/38/1 through the air. That was half (half!) of the Steelers overall offensive snaps. And with Bell set to come back in two weeks, Pittsburgh has no real incentive to manage the workload on DeAngelo. It should be all systems go once again against Philly. The Eagles’ defense isn’t a total pushover but I suspect Williams is the highest owned cash play on the slate.

Lamar Miller FD 7000 DK 7200
Opponent NE
Proj Points FD - 15.69 DK - 16.38
The RB theme for the week: turning up the volume. We mentioned this on Tuesday's podcast, but the difference between the opportunity for the "haves" at running back and the "have-nots" as arguably never been greater. While the aforementioned DeAngelo Williams is leading the pack in terms of opportunity, Lamar Miller isn't far behind. His 59 touches through 2 games are arguably unsustainable, but as Osweiler and the Texans' offense continue to try and find their sea legs, I believe will continue to see a lot of touches thrown his way. It's hard to evaluate what kind of match-up this is for him - Vegas doesn't like either team for more than 20 points here - but I suspect the Texans will be a bit more conservative now that the Pats are on their 3rd string QB. While it's troubling that the Texans' offense hasn't found their giddy-up and go, Miller's prices are just absurd for how frequently he finds the ball in his hands. Love him for safety and upside.

Ezekiel Elliott FD 8100 DK 6900
Opponent CHI
Proj Points FD - 17.34 DK - 18.51
While we were a little bearish on Ezekiel Elliott going into the season, most of that was thanks to the uncertainty built into rookie skill position players. Zeke has 44 touches through 2 weeks, and it seems that the Cowboys would prefer to err on the side of their rookie RB over their rookie QB. The Bears allowed the 5th highest YPC to opposing RBs last season, and the 8th most yards. Chances are good that Elliott's price continues to climb from here, so if you want to play him at something of a value, now's likely the time to do so.

A smattering of pseudo-punts
An interesting development for this daily fantasy football season is the treatment of not-yet-proven or fill-in RBs. In years past you could rely on filling in a handcuff running back at some bargain basement price, allowing you to pay up elsewhere while sacrificing very little in the way of production at the running back position. After a rash of week 2 running back injuries, we were understandably salivating (insert disclaimy stuff about not rooting for injuries, etc etc) at the prospect of firing off a few scrubs at low prices. Then we started combing through prices, and we were pretty underwhelmed. Charles Sims at $6,300 on a lousy Bucs team hardly feels like getting away with anything. Maybe Shane Vereen would look good? Except Rashad Jennings will likely split carries, even with his cast on. Theo Riddick inherits a greater workload with Abdullah off visiting Dr. James Andrews, but the Lions have shown pretty demonstrably that they'd prefer not to use him as an every down back - and he's also $6,400.

Fozzy Whitaker is taking over for Jonathan Stweart, which, fine, but he's also $6,300. Whitaker managed 19 targets against San Francisco, but that was in an all-out boat race of the 49ers. I definitely like him better than the rest of the pack here, but the most intriguing injury replacement, to me, is...

Melvin Gordon FD 7100 DK 5800
Opponent IND
Proj Points FD - 12.93 DK - 13.97
And frankly, the $7,100 isn't exactly a bargain since he was already splitting carries. Would we rather play Gordon for $7,100 on FanDuel, or Matt Forte - a guy with a guaranteed workload, if a worse match-up? It's reassuring to see that Gordon is a pretty definitive goal line back, and the huge workload in week 2 is certainly a welcome sign as well. There is a little uncertainty here, though. The Chargers have demonstrated a clear desire to preserve the somewhat fragile Gordon by not using him on 3rd downs, and while they did out of necessity when Woodhead's knee exploded, it's hardly a sure thing at this point that he'll get 20+ carries. We'll be monitoring this situation as the week progresses, but as of now, I'm not over the moon. Still, Gordon should represent a solid value at these prices against the less than whelming Colts.

Another great Thursday play: LeGarrette Blount. For a lot of the same reasons we like Miller, actually. I'd argue that Blount's situation is a little bit less certain given the Patriots' erratic RB deployment in the past and their weirdness at QB, but Blount should and will be highly earned for Thursday's contest.

WIDE RECEIVERS

Antonio Brown FD 9500 DK 9600
Opponent PHI
Proj Points FD - 22.72 DK - 27.48
It’s easy to look at last game and think there’s something up Antonio Brown and his “superstar” tag. Superstars don’t have 4 catch 31 yard days against really anyone. But there were some mitigating factors here. The rain clearly played an issue early in the game with Big Ben having trouble driving the ball down field. He was still targeted 11 times on the game and just couldn’t convert at the same level. I’m in no way worried about him going forward and love rostering him here against the Eagles. Philly isn’t playing at the same pace as last season for sure, but they are a bit banged up in the secondary. Brown is still an elite target threat and a pretty easy cash game play for me all things considered.

Stefon Diggs FD 6400 DK 5100
Opponent CAR
Proj Points FD - 13.82 DK - 16.71
For as maligned as he was last season with the Eagles, Bradford still completed 65% of his passes, a fine enough number all things considered. He brought even more accuracy on Sunday night against the Packers, completing 71% and delivering some strikes to Diggs who finished with a 9/182/1 line that won the day for many a folk. Diggs is an elite target guy (20 through two games) but he stands to continue improving with Bradford now set behind center. Diggs will likely be a popular play this week though the one word of caution here would be he’s converting 80% of his targets to catches. That isn’t likely to sustain.

Mike Evans FD 8000 DK 7000
Opponent LA
Proj Points FD - 16.88 DK - 19.99
On the one hand, through the first two weeks of the season Mike Evans leads the league in targets with 25. He has two more than the next closest player. So the volume is there for the dude. The bad news is he’s converted only 11 of them into catches. Sure 18 came last week when he was getting looked at like crazy in a blowout loss to the Cardinals. But even at a modest 10 or so targets per game and he’s still in that close to elite class of receiver. He’s coming a tier below the big boys and for good reason. But I like the catches to regress some and to find the sweet spot which will have him reach value especially on DraftKings where I think he's a relative value.

Kenny Britt FD 5400 DK 3900
Opponent TB
Proj Points FD - 11.78 DK - 14.01
It never feels good recommending a guy who has Case Keenum as a quarterback, but Britt is coming so very cheap all around and has 16 targets through two games including a ten target game against the Seahawks last week. Things get much easier this week against a Tampa Bay team that's struggled against the pass this year which follows suit from their 2015 (25th in DVOA v. pass). Britt is a value play plain and simple especially if he can get close to double digit targets again.

Strongly consider T.Y. Hilton, Jordan Matthews and Jeremy Maclin who all fall in that same category as Mike Evans above. They are among the league leaders in targets but haven't gone about converting many. All are coming at pretty good deals on both FanDuel and DraftKings this week.

TIGHT ENDS

Jacob Tamme FD 5500 DK 3200
Opponent NO
Proj Points FD - 11.52 DK - 14.65
We haven't talked too much about the Falcons this week even though they're going against a team in the Saints who struggle mightily with the opponents' passing game. Tamme is a great play on both sites. He's the fourth most targeted tight end this season and coming well below the others (Reed, Olsen, etc) in price. The DraftKings salary is particularly a lock and load situation that allows for a ton of flex with a high floor.

Dennis Pitta FD 5000 DK 3400
Opponent JAX
Proj Points FD - 10.53 DK - 13.29
Tight end can be a volatile position. No tight end (other than maybe fully healthy Gronk with a full-go Brady) is ever a team's number one option in the passing game. Which can lead to spikes in production during the season for these guys. Such is the case with Pitta who had four targets in week one and 12 last week against the Browns. The truth is likely something in between which is why I'm always happing going cheap at TE and getting out alive (hopefully with a touchdown). The Jags are garbage against the pass and he should get at least a few looks here which is fine at his punt prices.

Consider Jesse James for the same reasons as above though he isn't likely to see as many targets at Tamme or Pitta.

DEFENSE/ SPECIAL TEAMS

Miami Dolphins vs. Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are about to trot out their third quarterbacks in the first three weeks of the NFL season. If they weren't a city coming off an NBA championship we'd be lamenting the eternal curse of the city. But alas, it's just another Browns' year and the Dolphins will get to line up a defense against Cody Kessler. That's about all you need to know for a cheap defense facing an opponent with an implied team total 16 total points. Even that seems a bit bullish. Dolphins will be a popular play this week even though they themselves are not a particularly good team.

Seattle Seahawks vs. Denver Broncos
DST is a little dicey this week and paying all the way up for a team like the Seahawks isn't maybe the optimal play if you're looking to save. But for all of their struggles on offense, Seattle is still locking it down on D. They've allowed a total of 19 points in the first two weeks. Granted that was to the Dolphins and Rams (not exactly offensive dynamos) but neither are the 49ers really. If Seattle is incentivized to again slow the game way down because of some of their injuries, this could be a really low scoring affair.
Football's here, baby!

Again, you can grab a free trial of our NFL DFS suite of tools including full projections, optimal NFL lineups and our Player Lab, which includes filters to help you create NFL lineups for FanDuel and DraftKings for any format. It’s a set of tools well beyond anything we’ve ever had, and something we feel will help our users crush it this daily fantasy NFL season.

You can grab a free 2 WEEK trial to test out yourself.