The Sharp Report
One of the most proficient gamblers that sportsbooks have ever seen, Haralabos Voulgaris, is on record saying the main reason he retired from professional gambling is that he was gradually losing his edge against the sportsbooks. Voulgaris explains that every time he placed a bet, he gave the sportsbook a metaphoric piece to the puzzle that, once solved, would completely erase his edge to the point where he would no longer be a profitable bettor. The same way sportsbooks learned from Voulgaris' bets and eroded his edge, daily fantasy sports players can learn from their top competitors and eat away at their edge. These top competitors, known as sharps, typically play DFS at a much higher level and for much more money than others. These players normally have very advanced and accurate projection systems that give them their edge over the field. Fortunately, every time they enter a contest the sharp players' lineups are available to the public to be broken down, analyzed and learned from. The Sharp Report will be a weekly article that uses all available and applicable data to draw conclusions regarding how the industry's smartest decision makers and their projections systems come to their final conclusions when building lineups. Over the course of the entire season, The Sharp Report's goal will be to project what the best players in the industry will do in upcoming contests and, in turn, figure out what it is that gives these high-level players their edge over the field.
Throughout each week, more and better information regarding things like player availability, individual matchups, and depth charts will become available. The section of this article projecting which player is likely to be rostered by most of the sharp players next week will be updated by Saturday afternoon each week after all applicable information has become available. If enough data reveals itself that a completely new player is deemed worthy of being mentioned as Next Week's Sharp Play, the original section will appear in red font and the new section will appear in green font. If all available information leads to the same conclusion made earlier in the week, the original section will be changed from black font to green font.
Without any sharp team data to evaluate ahead of Week 1, The Sharp Report this week will feature more in-depth breakdowns of the two Projected Sharp Plays. The second Projected Sharp Play will be added in on Friday afternoon when the initial play is either adjusted (after being put in red font) or confirmed (in green font.)
Before diving into the Projected Sharp Plays for Week 1, it is worth noting that The Sharp Report has consistently succeeded at identifying situations the sharpest NFL DFS players target when building lineups. While the results of strictly cash games are evaluated in the article, Sharp Plays also provide signal regarding what players are worth building around in single-entry tournaments, as well as players worthy of significant exposure in mass-multi-entry tournaments. On the season, the Projected Sharp Plays were rostered by an average of 65.6-percent of players in high-stakes cash games on DraftKings.
Projected Sharp Play: Josh Jacobs
Room for Improvement
To start the 2020 season, the newly relocated Las Vegas Raiders go on the road to take on the Carolina Panthers. Last season, in Jacobs’ rookie campaign, he averaged 16.0 DraftKings points per game, including a handful of games where Jacobs missed a consequential amount of time due to in-game injuries and limited his playing time. On the whole, Jacobs averaged 18.6 carries-per-game and 1.5 receptions-per-game, with the latter being a notably low number for a starting running back playing the lion’s share of the snaps. Jacobs, however, recognized this hole in his game and made it clear that he plans on improving in this regard, as he is quoted saying, “My goal is to catch at least 60 balls this year.” If he reaches this target, assuming he plays all 16-games, that extrapolates out to 3.75 receptions-per-game. If Jacobs matches the point-per-reception efficiency numbers he posted during his rookie season, that would increase his receiving production from a meager 2.745 DraftKings-points-per-game through the air up to approximately 6.92 DraftKings-points-per-game. While he should not be expected to fully reach this lofty target of aerial production, Jacobs' DraftKings-points-per-game tally is primed to climb as he becomes a more well-rounded running back in his second season in the NFL.
The Matchup
The Carolina Panthers’ defense was dead-last in DraftKings points allowed to opposing running backs last year, which was not only a product of rushing volume but also efficiency allowed. The Panthers ranked dead-last in DVOA allowed on the ground last year by a wide margin-- the 6.6% difference between the Panthers’ defense and the next-worse team was larger than the gap between 30th and 23rd in the league. While team defense is exceptionally difficult to project before the season, there is little reason to believe that Carolina’s defense will make any significant improvements this season, as they are poised to field a historically young lineup on that side of the ball. The average age of Carolina’s starting defense will likely land somewhere between 23.45 and 23.81 years old, depending on who emerges in various position battles. This will be the youngest average age of any defense in the NFL in the last 10 years, with the next-youngest team being the 2018 Cleveland Browns (24.8 years old). Unsurprisingly, that Browns defense was one of the worst in the NFL, ranking 30th in total defense, 31st in first downs allowed, and 25th in rushing DVOA allowed. To make matters worse for Carolina, this offseason, or lack thereof, and the chaos associated with it has lessened the amount of time the team has had together for much-needed reps in practice and preseason games. Carolina’s most notable addition to the defense, Derrick Brown, a first-round pick at defensive tackle in the 2020 NFL Draft, said, “I feel like I’m missing the experience (of the offseason and preseason games).” when asked about how he felt as a rookie without the typical offseason work. Expectations for Carolina’s defense against the run are exceptionally low, which plays right into Josh Jacobs’ hands, helping to make him a premier selection at running back during the opening weekend of the 2020 season.
Gameflow
A critical element of sharp decision-making at the running back position is identifying matchups that feature expectedly-strong gameflow. The Raiders open the season as 3.5-point favorites over the Panthers, which typically leads to increased rushing volume. The Raiders’ 2019 season is a perfect example of this dynamic, as Josh Jacobs averaged 22.17 carries-per-game across the 6 victories he played in, as opposed to just 15.57 carries-per-game across the 7 losses he played in. Las Vegas enters this game with approximately a 61-percent chance to win the game, according to the betting market, which should foster a very fantasy-friendly environment for their lead-back.
Summary
Josh Jacobs enters the 2020 season as one of the few running backs that approached bellcow status with obvious room for improvement by adding receiving production to his game. His 2019 numbers through the air were remarkably low, and while he will have competition for playing time on passing downs, he can reasonably be expected to make strides in this regard. The FootballGuys Consensus full-season projections for Jacobs currently predict he doubles his 2019 by going from 20 receptions in his rookie season to 40 receptions in his second season. While Jacobs may fall short of the 60-catch benchmark he hopes to reach, 40 receptions are nothing to sneeze at when added to his considerable rushing production. Additionally, the Carolina Panthers’ exceptionally young defense projects to be one of the softest in the league against running backs once again this year. The matchup for Jacobs gets even better when accounting for the expected increase in rushing volume, as the Raiders are three-point favorites over the Panthers, which typically leads to a run-heavy approach for the favored team. Lastly, Jacobs’ h-value rating in David Dodds’ weekly projections is currently the second-highest of any running back on the main slate (trailing only Christian McCaffrey, who checks in a steep $10,000 price point), and this has consistently been a strong indicator of situations sharp NFL DFS players target when building lineups. At $6,800, Josh Jacobs is an elite running back to build lineups around in all formats in Week 1 DFS contests on DraftKings.
Projected Sharp Play 2: T.Y. Hilton
T.Y. Hilton's 2019 campaign was one to forget, by his standards. His meager 50.7 receiving-yards-per-game was the lowest total of his career to date, and this mark unsurprisingly aligned with the unexpected retirement of quarterback Andrew Luck, which pushed Jacoby Brissett into the starting role. While numerous teams across the NFL were reportedly high on Brissett's potential as a starting-caliber player entering last year, he simply was not ready for the burden of leading a highly-efficient passing attack in 2019, and the Colts' passing game suffered as a result of that. Over the offseason, the Colts signed Philip Rivers in free agency to come in and hopefully revitalize what was once one of the league's stronger aerial attacks. While Rivers' numbers under-center tailed off during the latter stages of his time with the Los Angeles Chargers, much of those struggles can be attributed to a banged-up receiving corps and poor offensive line play. Now, coming to Indianapolis, Rivers will be protected by one of the league's best pass protection units, and he should stay clean in the pocket and significantly improve both the floor and ceiling for the Colts' passing game as a whole. Hilton stands to be the primary beneficiary of this improvement at quarterback, as he is the undeniable number-one receiver on a roster that is loaded with talented, but inexperienced pass-catchers on the outside. At a modest $5,800 price tag on DraftKings, Hilton is priced cheaper than he was for almost the entire 2019 campaign where he struggled to build much-needed chemistry with Indianapolis' young quarterback. Expect him to outperform this price point in the opening week of the 2020 season when the Colts play host to a young and depleted Jacksonville Jaguars defense as eight-point favorites with one of the highest projected team totals on the main slate of games.
As always, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter with any questions or comments ahead of this weekend's slate of games!
