All roster percentages cited below are based on Devin Knotts’ projections which are refined and updated throughout the week. Click here or use our Lineup Optimizer to make sure you are using the latest projections before setting your lineups.
Know Your Enemies
To place near the top of a large-field GPP, your roster has to stand out from the crowd in some way. Studying a list of projected roster percentages is a helpful first step, but without the context of how those players fit together under the salary cap, you’re left guessing what type of lineups you’ll be up against most frequently.
To gain some insight into how the majority of entrants will allocate their cap space, with the goal of building your lineups differently, let’s think about how the crowd will attack each position:
Quarterback
There is a distinct lack of star power at quarterback, where crowd favorites Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes II, and Josh Allen are unavailable on the main slate. As a result, roster percentages will be extremely flat at the position, and dialing in on a singular common lineup construction may not be possible. Those who spend up are most likely to opt for Justin Herbert ($6,800) or Ben Roethlisberger ($6,700). Cam Newton ($6,200) will draw some interest as a mid-priced option thanks to his matchup against Houston’s hapless defense, and there is no shortage of punt options to choose from, including Joe Burrow ($5,500), Alex Smith ($5,300), and the uber-intriguing Taysom Hill ($4,800).
Pivot Points: With roster-rates spread out evenly over such a wide range of price points, there isn’t an obvious salary range we can attack that our opponents are ignoring. In the top tier, you can consider Lamar Jackson ($7,300) as a solid point-per-dollar value who shouldn’t appear in more than 5% of lineups. Matt Ryan ($6,300) is a mid-range option seemingly flying below the radar in a potential shootout vs. New Orleans. The crowd isn’t missing much in the sub-$6K range, but maybe we can give Carson Wentz ($5,700) one last shot (assuming a game can ever be played in Cleveland again without 25+ mph winds).
Running Back
Most of our opponents will want to anchor their lineups with either Dalvin Cook ($9,000) or Alvin Kamara ($9,200) at RB1, which is especially easy for those who spend under $6K at quarterback. DAndre Swift ($6,400) broke into the top tier of fantasy running backs last week, but his salary has yet to catch up, which will likely make him one of the highest-rostered players on the slate (if he's able to clear the league's concussion protocol). It wouldn’t be surprising if a sub-$6K running back is featured in the majority of Flex spots. Antonio Gibson ($5,800), Kalen Ballage ($5,600), and Duke Johnson Jr ($5,400) are the usual suspects.
Pivot Points: If our opponents are eye-balling running backs in the mid-$5K range, we can look for leverage in the $6K-$7K salary tier. In one of the more surprising plot twists of an exceedingly strange year, Ezekiel Elliott ($6,500) is now a mid-priced contrarian option. Other low-to-moderately rostered backs whose talent can outweigh defensive matchups in any given week include Nick Chubb ($7,000) and Miles Sanders ($6,900).
Wide Receiver
Keenan Allen ($7,400) looks like the chalk against a burnable Jets secondary, but plenty will also look to Julio Jones ($7,500) and Terry McLaurin ($6,900) at similar price points, especially if people get scared off by Davante Adams’ ($8,600) ankle injury. WR2 options in chalky roster-builds will vary widely, but it’s a safe bet they’ll be plucked from the $5K-$6K range, where Jakobi Myers ($4,900), Amari Cooper ($5,400), Diontae Johnson ($5,900), and Justin Jefferson ($6,000) stand out as crowd-favorites, among others. It won’t leave much cap space left over for WR3, where the most popular punt-play will likely be Denzel Mims ($3,300).
Pivot Points: Balanced spending across all three wide receiver positions will cut against the grain. As an example, Adam Thielen ($6,300), Brandin Cooks ($5,200), and Mike Williams ($5,100) have significant upside as a trio and their combined roster percentage might end up lower than Allen’s.
Tight End
Yuck. No Travis Kelce, no Darren Waller, nothing to see here. Logan Thomas ($3,300) appears mispriced relative to his production since Alex Smith took over at quarterback for the Football Team and has a great matchup against the Bengals. Either Thomas or Hunter Henry ($4,200) will be used in common lineups to save salary on a slate devoid of attractive options at the position.
Pivot Points: There is no such thing as spending up, and there isn’t much below Thomas to make punting worth it (maybe Kyle Rudolph if Irv Smith is out again). Choose tight ends from teams who are playing at home, favored to win, and implied to score at least 24 points. They traditionally have the highest potential for touchdowns, which is all you can really hope for on this slate. Rudolph ($3,200), Austin Hooper ($3,900), and Mark Andrews ($4,900) fit the bill.
Can You Trust The Chalk?
The term chalk in sports betting simply means the heavily-favored side of a bet. In DFS tournaments, these are the most popular players on the slate. Identifying and taking a stance on the chalk is a crucial part of tournament strategy. If you fade a chalky player, and he fails to deliver on his scoring projection, your lineup will be positioned to pass a large chunk of the field in the standings. But when a popular player lives up to expectations and you choose not to roster him, your lineups can quickly get buried in the standings.
Some suggestions on how to treat this week’s most popular players:
Keenan Allen (vs. NYJ, $7,400, 25% rostered)
The crowd will be quick to forgive Allen’s mediocre 7-3-39-1 receiving line against the Dolphins with the winless Jets visiting LA this week. New York has allowed the fifth-most normalized fantasy points to enemy wide receivers over the last five weeks, and are now without two starting cornerbacks, Brain Poole (IR-shoulder) and Pierre Desir (waived). In fairness, whichever rookie or street free-agent the Jets use to replace Desir can’t play much worse, but Poole, who would have been responsible for covering Allen on the majority of his routes, is a legitimate loss for a defensive backfield that could ill-afford it. Despite the great setup, a big part of Allen’s appeal all season has been his middling salary, which usually hovered around $6-$6.5K. Now that he’s priced in the same range as Julio Jones, the odds Allen delivers the 30-point game we’re after are lower than his projected percent-rostered. Don’t exceed 10% exposure and fade Allen if you’re only entering a single lineup.
Dalvin Cook (vs. DAL, $9,000, 36% rostered)
Alvin Kamara is the overall RB1 on a per-game basis this season, but Cook has demonstrated a higher ceiling (51.6 DraftKings points in Week 8) and is routinely commanding 30+ touches. He’s the preferred RB1 option this week in all formats due to the implied game script in a home matchup against Dallas. Minnesota is favored by more than a touchdown and projected to score about 28 points. If there is a possibility of four offensive touchdowns in this game for the Vikings, it’s easy to envision two going to Cook, along with 100+ rushing yards. Dallas has allowed nine rushing plays of 20+ yards this season, which trails only the Bengals, Texans, and Eagles. Make Cook one of your top exposures.
DAndre Swift (@CAR, $6,400, 21% rostered)
Rational coaching finally won out as Swift enjoyed season-high shares in both snap-rate (73%) and backfield touches (78%) in Week 10. The predictable result was 149 yards from scrimmage and 25.9 DraftKings points against Washington. Swift brings his newfound bell-cow role on the road to Carolina this week. The Panthers had stiffened up against the run in recent games, but Ronald Jones II (23-192-1) just reminded us Carolina remains an ideal matchup for opposing running backs. Swift’s three-down-plus-goal-line role and moderate salary make him hard to resist, but the game environment is a possible concern. At best, both Matthew Stafford and Teddy Bridgewater will be playing injured this week. And at worst, we’re looking at a Chase Daniel vs. P.J. Walker showdown, which could limit scoring opportunities for both teams. But Stafford and Bridgewater’s absences could also work in Swift’s favor. The Lions figure to take a run-heavy approach without Stafford and the inexperienced Walker might gift the Lions with short-field scoring chances. You’ll want to come in even with the field on Swift regardless of whether Stafford and/or Bridgewater are active.
Editor’s note: It was revealed late Thursday afternoon Swift entered the league’s concussion protocol after practicing fully on Wednesday. He was declared out on Friday, leaving Adrian Peterson ($4,000) and Kerryon Johnson ($4,000) to split backfield duties for the Lions.
| Player | Pos | Opponent | Salary | Proj. Own % | Comment |
| Justin Herbert | QB | NYJ | $6,800 | 9% | Jets defense is awful but priced Herbert is priced up. Get exposure via cheap LA WRs. |
| Taysom Hill | QB | ATL | $4,800 | 15% | Should get quite chaky, but sub-$5K running QB vs. ATL w/ Saints weapons = must play. |
| Ben Roethlisberger | QB | @JAX | $6,700 | 8% | Can't argue with running out PIT stacks vs. Jaguars. |
| Alvin Kamara | RB | ATL | $9,200 | 16% | Overshadowed by Cook in top salary tier but how much does running QB hurt him? |
| Antonio Gibson | RB | CIN | $5,800 | 18% | Play him if you like WAS to lead the whole way. |
| Kalen Ballage | RB | NYJ | $5,600 | 15% | Don't do this to your lineups with Gibson $200 more and Duke $200 less. |
| Jakobi Meyers | WR | @HOU | $4,900 | 23% | DK pricing algorithm slow to adjust for Meyer's insane target share. |
| Terry McLaurin | WR | CIN | $6,900 | 20% | Salary starting to creep but has slate-breaking potential vs. CIN DEF. |
| Justin Jefferson | WR | DAL | $6,000 | 16% | At least $500 too cheap after blowing up (again) on Monday night. |
| Mark Andrews | TE | DEN | $4,900 | 15% | DraftKings' bad price on Andrews is the only good thing about TEs this week. |
| Logan Thomas | TE | CIN | $3,300 | 13% | CIN allowing 72.6% more PPR points than league average over last five. |
Leverage Plays
You won’t necessarily be sneaking the players in this section past your opponents. But their percent rostered projection is lower than the probability they can appear in a first-place lineup. If you are multi-entering tournaments, raise your exposure higher than their projected roster percentage.
Mike Williams (vs. NYJ, $5,100, 6% rostered)
Early percent-rostered projections imply Allen is four times as likely to reach GPP value as Williams, which doesn’t add up. Williams has finished with at least 20 DraftKings points twice in Justin Herbert’s seven starts (28%) and benefits from the same matchup that makes Allen so popular. For GPPs, Williams has everything we’re looking for in a wide receiver -- a curiously low roster percentage, prominent red zone role, and big-play potential. It might not be surprising he leads the Chargers in air yards (731) over Keenan Allen (711), but the fact Williams has done so on half the number of targets speaks to his upside as a downfield threat. Over the last five weeks, Williams ranks inside the top-15 in unrealized air yards, which suggests a correction is coming soon, and there is no better get-right spot than at home against the Jets.
Miles Sanders (@CLE, $6,900, 10% rostered)
Sanders was the victim of bad luck in his first game back from a knee injury last week. He was immediately reinstalled as a bell-cow, playing on 72% of Philadelphia’s offensive snaps and handling 77% of the team’s touches out of the backfield. Random touchdowns from Boston Scott and Corey Clement will throw box-score watchers off his scent, creating a buying opportunity on Sanders in GPPs. Cleveland’s rush defense represents a neutral matchup, and the opposition didn’t matter for Sanders before he got hurt. In Weeks 5 and 6, he had long runs of 74 yards in back-to-back games against the top-5 rush defenses (DVOA) of the Steelers and Ravens, respectively. Assuming Cleveland can finally play a home game where heavy wind conditions don’t sabotage offensive production, Eagles at Browns could surprise as one of the highest-scoring games on the slate. Get Sanders in at least 20% of your tournament lineups.
Lamar Jackson (vs. TEN, $7,300, 7% rostered)
The crowd has fallen out of love with Jackson, who hasn’t flashed a high enough ceiling to justify his salary this season. But he continues to bring a rushing floor that can only be eclipsed by Kyler Murray (who isn’t available on this slate), and Jackson has looked better as a passer over the last two games against a pair of solid defenses (Indianapolis and New England). Look for him to keep it going against the Titans, who have allowed consecutive 300+ yard passing days to the uninspiring duo of Philip Rivers (308-1-0) and Nick Foles (335-2-0). Vegas has Baltimore implied to score the third-most points on the slate and the offense runs through Jackson. If we’re ever going to see him get back to the heights he reached in 2019, this is one of the best chances he’ll get for the rest of the season.
| Player | Pos | Opponent | Salary | Proj. Own % | Comment |
| Cam Newton | QB | @HOU | $6,200 | 7% | Passing upside in question but could get there as a rusher vs. HOU DEF. |
| James Conner | RB | @JAX | $6,600 | 9% | Leverage on popular PIT passing game. |
| Derrick Henry | RB | @BAL | $8,000 | 5% | Knocked BAL out of last year's playoffs with 195 rushing yards. |
| Aaron Jones | RB | @IND | $7,200 | 8% | Has his best games without Davante Adams. Go heavy if Adams sits. |
| Brandin Cooks | WR | NE | $5,200 | 14% | 8 targets in Week 10 was lowest total in his last five games. |
| Tee Higgins | WR | @WAS | $5,900 | 7% | This guy's a baller. Priority stacking partner for Burrow. |
| Diontae Johnson | WR | @JAX | $5,900 | 15% | Double-digit targets in every game he finished. |
| Adam Thielen | WR | DAL | $6,300 | 11% | TD equity makes him a leverage play on Cook & Jefferson. |
| Eric Ebron | TE | @JAX | $4,000 | 5% | Johnson, JuJu, Claypool will be popular. What if Ebron gets the TDs? |
Contrarian Plays
As stated in the introduction, you don’t stand a chance of winning a large-field tournament with a lineup that looks like everyone else’s. Typically, two players with roster projections below 5% are enough to separate your lineups from the crowd. If you’re multi-entering, however, be careful not to ratchet your exposure to contrarian players up too high. Keep in mind using a 5%-rostered player in only two out of 10 lineups gains you four times more exposure than the field when you multi-enter a tournament.
Jalen Guyton (vs. NYJ, $3,500, 2% rostered)
Running a Justin Herbert-Mike Williams-Jalen Guyton stack will be a unique way to roster one of the slate’s chalkiest quarterbacks, while also creating leverage on Keenan Allen’s popularity. Last week’s career-high six targets were likely a mirage for Guyton, but we’re not rostering him for volume. Guyton has an exceptional athletic profile, and it has translated to the field on long receptions of 72, 49, and 70 yards this season. We can count on Guyton playing at least 70% of the snaps, putting him in as good a position as any Chargers receiver of slipping behind the Jets’ beleaguered secondary for a long gain. If he catches a bomb for a touchdown, he can pay off his salary on a single reception.
D.J. Chark (vs. PIT, $5,600, 4% rostered)
Chark has appeared in this space more than any other player this season, and it will continue for as long as his roster percentage remains too low. He’s exactly the kind of splash-play wide receiver you want to come in overweight on each week, regardless of opponent. The Steelers have a reputation as one of the league’s top defenses, which isn’t off-base, but their secondary is vulnerable when the pass-rush fails to get home. For the season, Pittsburgh has allowed the tenth-most PPR fantasy points to enemy wide receivers. Jake Luton has his faults, but he throws a pretty deep ball and would have hit Chark for a long touchdown in a second consecutive game if not for the high winds in Green Bay last week. Look for Chark to post something comparable to Tee Higgins’ Week 10 receiving line against the Steelers (9-7-115-1), with the upside for more.
Cam Sims (vs. CIN, $3,300, 1% rostered)
Sims is an admittedly thin play, but he appears locked in as Alex Smith’s top possession receiver. Since Week 7, Sims has played on at least 74% of Washington’s offensive snaps, topping out at 94% in last week’s surprising shootout against Detroit. In Smith’s two starts, Sims has combined for a 9-7-164-1 receiving line and topped nine DraftKings points in each game. Many will look at Alex Smith’s 55 pass attempts from a week ago and assume it’s an outlier, but this game will be played up in pace between two teams that rank inside the top-10 in situation neutral seconds per play. Use Sims as a direct price pivot off Denzel Mims, who appears to be the crowd-favorite punt option at wide receiver.
| Player | Pos | Opponent | Salary | Proj. Own % | Comment |
| Carson Wentz | QB | @CLE | $5,700 | 2% | Sneaky shootout and/or garbage time points both possible vs. CLE. |
| Matt Ryan | QB | @NO | $6,300 | 4% | Weekly threat for 300-yard bonus and multiple TDs. |
| Ezekiel Elliott | RB | @MIN | $6,500 | 4% | Have to play him over the field with salary and roster percentage this low. |
| Nick Chubb | RB | PHI | $7,000 | 2% | >2% chance he leads the slate in rushing and scores twice. |
| Amari Cooper | WR | @MIN | $5,400 | 7% | Same as Elliott. Too cheap for talent-level and gets a pro QB back. |
| K.J. Hamler | WR | MIA | $3,600 | 3% | 10 targets in back-to-back games. Lock scratching might actually help him. |
| A.J. Brown | WR | @BAL | $7,200 | 1% | Terrible point-per-dollar projection but upside correlates well with BAL stacks. |
| Calvin Ridley | WR | @NO | $7,000 | 4% | Forgotten man in winnable matchup. |
| Austin Hooper | TE | PHI | $3,900 | 4% | Matchup plays at TE are risky unless PHI is the opponent. |
