NFL Prime Time – Week 7 Sunday Night Football (FREE)

Week 7 Sunday Night Football

Cincinnati Bengals at Kansas City Chiefs -6.0 / 58.5

This is a departure from the early Sunday London Game, checking in with two more touchdowns expected from these squads doing battle on Sunday Night Football.

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Cincinnati Bengals 26.5 implied point total

Quarterback – Even including the absolute DUD posted by Case Keenum in Denver against Kansas City where he failed to throw a touchdown, top 250 passing yards or even reach double digit fantasy points – opposing quarterbacks are averaging 24.5 completions on 45.0 attempts for 357 passing yards, 1.7 aerial strikes and 1.0 interceptions.  While that touchdown number feels a little low, in the span of those six games, KC has allowed rushing touchdowns from Tom Brady, Blake Bortles and Ben Roethlisberger not exactly a crew of sprinters and if we moved those scores over to the passing column, the average would jump to a very healthy 2.3 per game.  Long story short, play The Red Rifle (aka Andy Dalton) in all formats!

Running Back – Joe Mixon has been everything we hoped for in the absence of Giovani Bernard after returning from his own injury.  Over the last two games he has rushed 33 times for 157 yards and a score and turned 11 targets into 7 receptions for 42 yards and another score – this jives with his Week 1 & 2 performance totals of 38 rushes for 179/1 and 8 targets for 6/57 and those games were with the specter of Bernard.

While Kansas City has had a reasonable run defense and they are ranked 6th according to Football Outsiders DVOA metrics, they have allowed production – here are the selective highlights:

Week 1: Melvin Gordon 15/64/0 rushing and 9/102/0 receiving with Austin Ekeler chipping in for 126 combined yards and a receiving TD

Week 3: Matt Brieda 10/90/0 rushing and 3/27/0 receiving with Alfred Morris adding 14/67 on the ground

Week 4: Phillip Lindsay 12/69/1 rushing and 2/10/0 receiving with Royce Freeman boosting the total with 8/67/1 rushing

Week 6: Sony Michel 24/106/2 rushing and James White 6/39/0 rushing and 5/52/0 through the air

The point is we can find some SERIOUS OPPORTUNITY with Joe Mixon as the only other running back projected for any touches is Mark Walton. Enjoy in all formats!

Wide Receiver – A.J. Green and Tyler Boyd have combined for 107 targets 70/949/9 with the 48 non-RB targets spread among the tertiary wide receivers and tight ends.  Salt to taste in this one or play both as we have to wonder just how many gamers will be considering the Bengals Onslaught even in the single game contests as they will be fearing the #FOMO (fear of missing out) if they are not playing more Kansas City players.  Just to put things in perspective in the full-PPR world of DraftKings single game contests A.J. Green and Tyler Boyd both check in as top ten options and it is a coinflip to see which will potentially be Top Five.

Former University of Washington star John Ross is said to be practicing in full after dealing with a groin injury and he is cheap enough that you can consider him as a dart throw option as your Captain on DraftKings to work in more of the spendy options and he is fine as a regular play on both FanDuel and DraftKings as well for a GPP upside differentiation play (full disclosure, I am a proud U-Dub alumni).

Tight End – Sadly we are without Tyler Eifert for the remainder of the season (R.I.P. BestBall teams), however, that gives unfettered access at the position to C.J. Uzomah and the fourth year veteran from Auburn has played at least 50 snaps in each of the last three games with 10 combined targets for 9/93/0 and while that is a little meh, we need to acknowledge that Kansas City is allowing the third most fantasy points to opposing tight ends who are averaging 8.5 targets for 6 receptions and 91.7 yards per game albeit with one lonely touchdown.

Defense/Special Teams – If you need some salary relief on DraftKings in the single game contests, then the Bengals are in play at just $2,600 and while Patrick Mahomes rolled through his first four games with nary an intereception, he has allowed a pair in each of his last two games against Jacksonville and New England, plus there will likely be ample kickoff return opportunities and it should be noted that Alex Erickson (8 returns) and Giovoni Bernard (2 returns) have combined for 10 attempts with a long of 51 and an average of 30.2 yards per return. Which is the third best averaging in the league and they are the only team in the top three yet to take one to THE HOUSE!

EARLY Final thought, yeah we know that The Wizard (aka Pat Mahomes) and Company are going to put points on the board, just realize that we will only receive a maximum of -4 fantasy points for actual points allowed on DraftKings.  One turnover and two sacks gets us back to even then anything else is upside – just saying, this is a viable play in the single game contests.

Kansas City Chiefs 32.0 implied point total

Quarterback – Patrick Mahomes is SERIOUSLY A WIZARD! If you have been reading my Prime Time content, the you know that I have anointed him as such for a couple articles now because it certainly seems that the Kansas City Chiefs are on Prime Time every week – HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!

Essentially every projection system is going to have Patrick Mahomes as the top ranked quarterback, so there is really very little for me to say other than four of the six quarterbacks that have squared off against the Bengals have topped 319+ yards and one of the two that DID NOT was Cam Newton who only threw for two scores, but also RUSHED FOR 10/36/2 – yeah TWO rushing TDs… that leaves the turd from Ryan Tannehill who has been replaced by Brocktober Darling Brock Osweiler so YMMV.

Just sit back and enjoy a big game from The Wizard aka Patrick Mahomes in whatever format you are playing – be it season long matchups or DFS.

Running Back – According to Football Outsiders, the Bengals have a bottom five rushing defense via the DVOA metric, though they have only allowed two RBs to rush form more than 100 yards – James Conner last week with 111 yards and two touchdowns and back in Week 3 Christian McCaffrey got them for 28/184/0…

In this space I have been more than worried about the passing game opportunities for Kareem Hunt however, these fears have been put to… well not rest, however, in the last three games it does seem that coach Andy Reid remembered that some offense does not have to come to fruition 20+ yards down the field and in the last three tilts, Hunt has 12 targets for a glorious 9/166/1 and for me, my fears of his action in the passing game have been addressed and then some.  Roll with Hunt as an RB8-12 in all formats this week.

Wide Receiver – Tyreek Hill is no stranger to the DFS World as we have been enticed by his talent for some time… it does seem like a Fool’s Errand to attempt to quantify and describe his skill set and we all know how dynamic he is… do as you will.  Our differentiation plays of course will be Sammy Watkins and/or  Chris Conley who are our next best options at getting a taste of the glorious Kansas City offense… surface stats are a pitfall as if we look at the game logs then we can see that the tertiary receivers have been left out in the cold.

Tight End – this one is easy as Travis Kelce is essentially a top three option at the tight end position by any metric be it season long, DFS, his own team or being measured against anyone in the NFL.

Defense/Special Teams – This is an intriguing play as most gamers on DraftKings are not going to want to consider D/ST in this format, which is a shame – even in a high scoring game as I have mentioned in many previous articles, the D/ST can only lose four points for the points scored against and on average the Bengals are allowing nearly three sacks per game and about a turnover and a half… yes, on anything other than the single game slate, we would be running far, Far, FAR AWAY… but single game slates do encourage strange bedfellows…

Awesemo’s Showdown Rankings provide an additional look at how to value the player pool – from Alex himself and he is in the middle of quite a Showdown heater on Draftkings >>> premium members click here

Summary – With all of the potential fantasy goodness available in this battle royale, it would seem that the best strategy is to do some mixing and matching because there are easily seven different players that could have a multi-touchdown game.

Single Game Ranking (taking into account projected production, pricing and popularity)

1. Joe Mixon (with the lack of any other options and his price, plus the juicy matchup as detailed above, he is my favorite for the Captain/MVP spot)
2. Andy Dalton (it is worth repeating, opposing quarterbacks are averaging 357 passing yards and 2.3 combined touchdowns per game this season against Kansas City)
3. Patrick Mahomes (it will be hard to leave him off our lineups, but it is a viable strategy to do so in order to gain some differentiation from The Masses)
4. Kareem Hunt (it is nice to see him getting more action in the passing game and we know he can score from anywhere on the field)
5. Tyreek Hill (so can this guy, but he will be a wildly popular play and if you want to plant your flag to go elsewhere if you are only constructing a couple of lineups, by all means do so – don’t forget he also returns punts, if the defense actually manages to stop the Bengals)
6. Tyler Boyd (gamers are going to be reticent to pay his increasing price tag, but the opportunity and production has been there all season as defenses are still focusing on…)
7. A.J. Green (has been relatively quiet since his three touchdown game during Week 2’s Thursday Night Football matchup)
8. Travis Kelce (wow, crazy to see him at #8 in this game considering he was my Week 4 cover photo – he leads the team in targets along with red zone opportunities and is second in receptions, yards and touchdowns – all to Tyreek Hill of course)
9. Harrison Butker (gets the nod since he is at home, multiple field goal attempts in each of the last three games, he is 11 for 11 on the season and 26 for 26 on PATs)
10. Randy Bullock (similarly priced next to Butker and a much less flashy game log which will keep his popularity suppressed)
11. Sammy Watkins (a fine differentiation play, he has 7 red zone targets over the last four games and has been relatively quiet which means he has seen a dip in his price and he may actually be hiding in plain sight as other gamers look to the many flashier players)
12. C.J. Uzomah (the only tight end to see targets last week and he got seven of them)
13. Chiefs D/ST (at home in Arrowhead Stadium against a team allowing multiple sacks and turnovers, don’t worry about losing points for points allowed)
14. Bengals D/ST (we are hoping for a pick-6 or a return touchdown as Mahomes has only been sacked six times on the season with four interceptions)
15. Spencer Ware (seeing about a quarter of the snaps at running back, but well down the pecking order for opportunities – $1,600 on DraftKings does provide salary cap relief)
16. Chris Conley (on the field for two thirds of the snaps, but only 18 targets through the first six games)
17. John Ross (personally I would rather roll with Chris Conley for less on DraftKings, I give Ross the slightest of edges on FanDuel)
18. Demetrius Harris (extreme DraftKings punt to enable us to load up everywhere else)
19. Mark Walton (would need a Mixon in-game injury or an opportune goal line carry)
20. Alex Erickson (betting on him taking one to the house on a kickoff – which just seems crazy)

As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions.

Good Luck Gamers! ~ EMac