Photo: USA Today Sports

For the uninitiated, playing daily games on DraftKings can be an enjoyable experience, but equally sobering is the fact that season-long knowledge does not always translate to success in the daily space. Footballguys will bring you a series of value- and strategic-based selections from a number of seasoned daily veterans throughout the NFL season. Herein is another edition of “Tipandpick’s Tips and Picks,” where we will examine the salaries of players at each position on DraftKings and make value-based recommendations for both your cash games and tournaments.

Below you will find a list of recommended players for both formats. GPP players generally have high-upside, but are too risky for cash games; cash game players are consistent with high fantasy floors. In some instances, the value for a player is so strong, he may fall into both categories…let’s have a look.

UPDATED AT 8 AM (EST) on Sunday, October 13th

TIPS...

In order to help you build winning rosters, let's walk through some of the observations that I have made while doing my research for DraftKings this week. As you build out your lineups on DraftKings, try to consider the following commentary, which revolves around game strategy and how we will want to take advantage of what the masses are doing when they construct their own lineups.

PENDING VALUE AT RUNNING BACK: While recording The PowerGrid on Thursday night, the panel remarked that there was not (at that time) a lot of obvious value across the main DFS slate, which meant that ownership of players across the industry was relatively flat. And then Friday happened. Alvin Kamara missed practice with an ankle injury sustained at practice the day prior...Todd Gurley was announced as doubtful against the 49ers with a thigh contusion...and we learned that David Johnson was dealing with a back issue that caused him to yield snaps to Chase Edmonds in the Cards' Week #5 game against the Bengals. Of the three scenarios, we can conclude with a fair degree of certainty that Gurley will watch his game against the Niners, meaning that Malcolm Brown will absorb the RB1 role in that matchup. Brown may get plenty of opportunity at only $4.3K, but we would be remiss if we ignored the fact that the 49ers have yet to allow a rushing touchdown on their 2019 season; add in the fact that Brown might be owned on 30% of GPP rosters and it might make sense to go under that number in your own tournament portfolio.

The other scenarios are a bit harder to read as of the writing of this column. My current suspicions are as follows: 1) Alvin Kamara is announced as inactive on Sunday morning, and 2) David Johnson plays, albeit limitedly, against the Falcons--the remainder of the article is written under those assumptions. If Kamara is inactive, look for Latavius Murray to get all the action he can handle against the Jaguars last-ranked DVOA rush defense at a sub-$4K price point; he would become my de facto number-one player on the entire slate, if that were to occur. Regarding Johnson, he will be out of my player pool altogether unless we get a report that he is 100% all-systems-go on Sunday, which is close to an impossibility. That puts Chase Edmonds, who is averaging 6+ yards per carry in limited action this season, squarely on my tournament radar. Edmonds is not the bargain that Murray or Brown would be, but his resultant ownership will likely reflect that reality, which keeps him in play for GPP contests. The matchup against Atlanta is average (7th DVOA rush defense; 8th in FPs allowed to RBs), but Edmonds needs only to find the endzone to get close to paying off his salary; if he gets the lion's share of work on Sunday, I suspect that he will easily collect 16-20 touches and a score. If either of these scenarios does not play out as described here, check below my Twitter feed on Sunday morning to see how I plan to adjust the above strategy.

You know what they say about the best-laid plans...Adam Schefter tweeted overnight that both Alvin Kamara and David Johnson will be active today. This announcement completely scratches any recommendations I made on Latavius Murray--he should be OUT of your player pool with this news. Regarding David Johnson and Chase Edmonds, I will be following the guidance I provided the preceding paragraph with the expectation that Edmonds gets increased snaps at the expense of Johnson and his tweaked back.

2019 FORMAT:

A new year brings a new format. In an effort to condense and enhance the value of the article, the text of Tips and Picks will be less than in years' past, but the upside is that you will now gain access to my full GPP player pool for DraftKings each and every week! For each position, I will provide Footballguys' subscribers with every player that I consider to be viable for cash games, while providing a ranking for every player that I will be drafting in my tournament lineups. The above table is an example of what you will see in the "Picks" section of this article. See below for some important bullet points regarding the new format:

• The "CROWD EXPOSURE" column is based on Steve Buzzard's Ownership Projections each week.
• The "CASH VIABLE?" column reveals to the reader which players can be considered for cash games (50/50's, double-ups, and head-to-head contests).
• The "GPP STARS" column rates players according to how I rank them in my large-field GPP contests each week:
  • 4 stars: The players in which I will be most overweight on the public (indicated in the 'Crowd Exposure' column); these are my most confident plays.
  • 3 stars: The players in which I like more than the public (indicated in the 'Crowd Exposure' column); these are plays that I feel strongly could deliver.
  • 2 stars: The players in which I will be close to the public (indicated in the 'Crowd Exposure' column); these players reflect those that I think the public percentages are most accurate.
  • 1 star: The players in which I will be exposed at rates lower than the public (indicated in the 'Crowd Exposure' column) OR at rates generally lower than 5% overall; these are players who merit consideration in your overall approach, but will be limited in my player pool due to game strategy reasons.
• If you have any questions on the new format, please email me at john.lee@footballguys.com.

...AND PICKS

Let's take a deeper look into some of the players who I will be targeting for my cash game and tournament rosters this weekend. A short summary follows each respective table to fill in the gaps that led to the respective recommendations; that text represents only an overview of the methodology and rationale that goes into each recommendation.

QUARTERBACKS

QUARTERBACK QUICK TAKES:

CASH: Ordinarily, you will find a series of low-priced quarterback options in this section, but there just is not anything that we can trust at the lower end of the pricing tier for cash games this week at quarterback. Our site projections offer up Gardner Minshew against the Saints at $5.0K, but I remain hesitant to recommend a rookie quarterback on a run-first team in a game that Vegas only projects to score a total of 44 points. That leaves us with one of three choices: Photos provided by USA TODAY Sports