DraftKings GPP Domination: Week 13

Photo: USA Today Sports

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

Russell Wilson ($7,700) has the highest salary at the position but his play has tailed off the last three weeks, which leaves Deshaun Watson ($7,500) and Aaron Rodgers ($6,800) as the likeliest crowd-favorite luxury purchases. But unless we see a repeat of Week 12 (where an obscene amount of value-plays opened up late in the week), common roster builds are more likely to include a mid-priced quarterback.

Pivot Points: While there is merit to targeting Wilson, Kyler Murray ($7,600), and Justin Herbert ($6,900) at reduced roster percentages, punting is also an option. Mitchell Trubisky ($5,400) stinks, but the Bears’ 24-point team total puts him in play for three touchdowns against Detroit’s awful defense. Baker Mayfield ($5,300) rarely throws enough to warrant GPP consideration, but the Tennessee defense invites shootouts. Eventually, touchdown variance will swing in Mayfield’s favor again, as it did in Week 5 against the Bengals (30.78 DraftKings points).

Saturday AM Update: Tua Tagovailoa appears to be on the wrong side of questionable, making Ryan Fitzpatrick ($6,000) a high-floor quarterback option, as well as a fine tournament play.

Running Back

DraftKings did a nice job of pricing up Dalvin Cook ($9,500) and Derrick Henry ($9,200), the top running backs on the slate in terms of raw projections. Despite their high salaries (and mild health concerns in Cook’s case), we can safely expect our opponents to build around one of these two studs. As of this writing, the middle and low salary tiers both lack glaring value, which should push entrants towards Austin Ekeler ($7,100) at RB2 after he returned last week to a 25-touch workload. Other popular RB2 options will include David Montgomery ($5,500), who faces the Lions after a career-best performance in Week 12, and either Nyheim Hines ($5,300) or Jonathan Taylor ($5,700) in a matchup against Houston’s 27th-ranked rush defense (DVOA).

Pivot Points: The $6.5-$7K range at running back looks to be the road less traveled for our opponents. Chris Carson ($6,300), DAndre Swift ($6,500), Miles Sanders ($6,500), and Alvin Kamara ($7,000) each possess theoretical slate-breaking upside but also come with major question marks that expand their range of possible outcomes.

Saturday AM Update: Josh Jacobs’ ankle injury will keep him out this week which will propel Devontae Booker's ($5,500) roster percentage towards the top of the charts. Booker is a better play than David Montgomery at the same salary, and similar roster rate, in a matchup against the Jets. We're still awaiting word on Myles Gaskin ($5,900), but he is trending towards playing while Matt Breida, DeAndre Washington, and Salvon Ahmed are out for Miami. Assuming Gaskin is cleared, he'll become popular, which could reduce the roster percentages of Ryan Fitzpatrick and DeVante Parker, making them more appealing tournament plays. David Johnson ($5,400) appears likely to return and makes for a fine leverage play against Houston's passing game. Swift (see below) will be limited if he plays, making the Lions backfield one to avoid in all formats. Pete Carroll stated Chris Carson will receive a heavier workload this week, which is significant because Carlos Hyde may not play.

Wide Receiver

If we assume significant running back spending will be the norm, wide receiver is where our opponents will look for value. Brandin Cooks ($5,600) fits chalky builds nicely, as the presumed beneficiary of Will Fuller’s PED suspension. DeVante Parker ($6,400), Robert Woods ($5,900), Corey Davis ($5,100), and Michael Pittman ($4,900) are candidates for heavy crowd exposure as well. There won’t be much salary left to spend at WR3/Flex, where Denzel Mims ($4,100), Keke Coutee ($3,500), and Darnell Mooney ($3,400) are potentially underpriced.

Pivot Points: Studs like Davante Adams ($9,000), DK Metcalf ($8,200), and Allen Robinson ($6,700) will be popular one-off plays, but an easy way to differentiate your lineups is with a
receiver-heavy build.

Saturday AM Update: Fitzpatrick starting raises Parker’s ceiling and popularity, but Myles Gaskin becoming active should drop it back down a bit. Parker should be one of your heavier exposures if Fitzpatrick is in the lineup. Julio Jones appears on track to play, which makes Matt Ryan an interestng contrarian option at quarterback.

Tight End

The tight end position isn’t quite as gross as it’s been in recent weeks, despite Travis Kelce’s absence from the slate. Darren Waller ($6,100), T.J. Hockenson ($5,000), Dallas Goedert ($4,300), Mike Gesicki ($4,200), Robert Tonyan Jr ($3,700), and Jordan Akins ($2,900) give us viable options at every price-point.

Pivot Points: The crowd will gravitate towards Akins’ low salary and perceived increased target volume. Consider playing Jacob Hollister ($3,000) as a price pivot. Hollister led all Seahawks tight ends in routes run in the team’s first game without Greg Olsen.

Saturday AM Update: Kyle Rudolph (8-7-68-0 last week) becomes a strong start for a second-straight game with Irv Smith out again (see below). Fitzpatrick presumably starting raises the ceiling and floor of Gesicki. Jonnu Smith was announced out, making Anthony Firkser ($2,500) a min-priced punt play in a great matchup and game environment.

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:

Austin Ekeler (vs. NE, $7,100, 22% rostered)
Ekeler’s season-high $7,100 salary is justified within the context of this slate. After missing two months with a severe hamstring injury, Ekeler was immediately inserted back into the role that made him the cumulative RB7 on DraftKings in Weeks 1-3. He was on the field for 72% of the snaps in last week’s loss to Buffalo and handled 74% of the team’s backfield touches, including 11 high-value receptions on 16 targets. Ekeler projects as a fine play, but his Week 12 receiving numbers were inflated by an early deficit. This week, the Chargers are at home (as opposed to traveling cross-country for a 1 pm start) and Vegas has the spread as a pick ‘em against New England. The odds Ekeler will be called on for heavier-than-usual pass-game volume are lower than his projected roster percentage, making him a relative fade in tournaments.

Brandin Cooks (vs. IND, $5,600, 32% rostered)
With Randall Cobb hitting injured reserve and Will Fuller suspended, 37% of Houston’s season-to-date targets have suddenly been vacated. Cooks is now the unquestioned WR1 for the Texans and is a solid bet to command 9-12 targets -- a range he consistently reached in Weeks 5-10. While he is underpriced relative to his projected target volume, as of this writing, Cooks projects as the highest-rostered player on the slate. Houston’s 24.25-point implied team total isn’t very enticing and losing Fuller, a player who makes things easier for every other player in the offense, isn’t necessarily a good thing. Getting off Cooks (and the Texans in general) is an easy way to differentiate your lineups. Is he really almost 10 times as likely to help you win a tournament as someone like Jarvis Landry at a similar salary, as the percent-rostered projections imply?

Dalvin Cook (vs. JAX, $9,500, 27% rostered)
Cook says he’s ready to roll for Sunday’s enticing matchup vs. the Jaguars and took exception to the notion he’s wearing down under a heavy workload. We’ll want to monitor the practice reports to make sure there are no lingering effects from last week’s scary-looking ankle injury, but otherwise, Cook and the Vikings are in a terrific on-paper spot. Minnesota is at home and favored by double-digits against the hapless Jaguars, whose only interest at this point in the season is out-losing the Jets in an effort to secure Trevor Lawrence in next year’s draft. The Vikings also have the highest implied team total on the slate (30.75), which suggests Cook is in play for multiple touchdowns against a defense that ranks bottom-5 in normalized fantasy points allowed to enemy running backs. Hopefully, Cook’s injury scare and disappointing Week 12 performance push a portion of the crowd towards Henry in the top salary tier. But even if Cook reaches his usual 30% roster rate, you’ll want to be at least even with the field on your exposure.

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.

Tyler Lockett (vs. NYG, $7,400, 8% rostered)
DraftKings overpriced every relevant Seahawks player for a home matchup against the Giants. It probably wasn’t justified since the improved play of Seattle’s defense and Daniel Jones’ absence for New York sets this up as a game Peter Carroll and company can win without opening up the offense. But if we believe Vegas set an accurate line (SEA -10, 28.5-point team total), at least one of their offensive players is positioned to appear in a first-place GPP lineup. Lockett shouldn’t exceed a 10% roster percentage but has broken the slate with 40+ fantasy points in two-out-of-eleven games this season (19%). His probability of a big game increases against the Giants, and their fourth-round rookie slot corner, Darnay Holmes. Per PFF, Holmes has allowed over 1.5 yards per route covered this season.

DAndre Swift (@CHI, $6,500, 7% rostered)
Swift’s breakout party was interrupted by an untimely concussion that sidelined him for the last two games. The Lions were optimistic on Swift’s return headed into Wednesday’s practice but held him out on Thursday. Adrian Peterson sounded the panic alarm with ominous quotes about the rookie’s progression through the league’s protocol, but it appears Swift has been cleared and is dealing with an illness. We’ll need assurances on Swift’s health before Sunday, but this week’s pricing makes it likely people are going to use a fair amount of Chicago players in lineups. There will be far less concentration on the Detroit side, and if we trust Swift’s Week 10 snap-rate (73%) and his share of the Lions’ backfield touches (78%), he is explosive enough to be the ideal run-back play in Trubisky-Robinson stacks, as well as a low-to-moderately rostered standalone play. As an added bonus, interim had coach Darrell Bevel is talking about playing up-tempo in the team’s first game without Matt Patricia.

Saturday AM Update: The latest on Swift is that he'll be limited to specific packages, if he's active. His roster percentage will drop based on this news, along with his projections. Swift becomes a thin play, but if he's active, he's the only Detroit running back you should consider (max 5% exposure).

Kyle Rudolph (vs. JAX, $3,400, 6% rostered)
Dalvin Cook is chalk, Justin Jefferson is close, and both Adam Thielen and Kirk Cousins should near double-digit roster percentages. Rudolph will get glossed over relative to the other Vikings, but with Irv Smith looking unlikely to play, there might not be a tight end who provides better value or more leverage on the field. Thielen’s return will likely limit him to less than last week’s eight targets, but Rudolph’s route participation will remain high and we know he possesses the red zone chops to score at least once in an ideal game environment for tight end touchdowns.

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