Week 9 of the NFL season is here, and there are NFL DFS picks and daily fantasy football DraftKings, FanDuel and Yahoo contests to get right into. Greg Ehrenberg breaks down some of the key news in his Slant and Go article for your Sunday lineups.
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Daily Fantasy Football: Week 9 DraftKings + FanDuel NFL DFS Picks
Running Backs Matter Again
Following a number of weeks of star backs out and cheaper plays determining GPPs, Dalvin Cook broke last week’s slate. Coming back from a groin injury, Cook roasted the Packers’ run defense. He rushed for 163 yards and found the end zone four times at minimal ownership. This likely makes Cook one of the chalkier options for NFL DFS in Week 9. This is hard to argue against because of an easy matchup against the Lions. Detroit is 21st in run defense DVOA. As a pivot, it makes sense to stack Kirk Cousins with Adam Thielen. This is the best way to get leverage in GPP off of Cook.
There is another running back in an extremely similar situation to Cook’s from a week ago. Christian McCaffrey is expected to play for the first time since getting injured in Week 2. Like Cook, McCaffrey is picking up much less ownership than he normally gets. While still expensive on FanDuel, McCaffrey is much cheaper on DraftKings than we normally see him. The upside of McCaffrey is apparent, and he went first overall in nearly every yearly league prior to the season. As long as he isn’t restricted, he has slightly more upside than Cook at a similar price and a fraction of the ownership.
Myles Gaskin Out Multiple Weeks With A Strained MCL
The Dolphins’ backfield is one of the trickier situations to project early in the week. Gaskins was playing the majority of the snaps, so we have a big void to fill. I will pay close attention to beat reporters during the week to get a read on how this backfield will play out. For now, I think Matt Breida makes for the best play. In Week 8, Breida and Myles Gaskin were the only running backs to log snaps on offense. Patrick Laird played 13 snaps, but all of them came on special teams. Even though Jordan Howard and Lynn Bowden are candidates to get playing time, it’s tough for me to invest money it guys who aren’t currently getting snaps. All of this leads to me believe that Breida is the top value play here for now.
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Matthew Stafford Lands On The COVID List
It is unclear who will start in place of Matthew Stafford for the Lions, but it doesn’t matter. The backup quarterbacks on the roster are Chase Daniel and David Blough. Detroit is going to struggle to score regardless of who they pick to go as the starter. There is also probably a good chance that the starter will struggle and we saw a quarterback change in game. This is going to keep me away from rostering any of the skill position players on the Lions. It is hard for me to envision this offense finding much success. At a cheap price, the Vikings DST now stands out as a great option to save salary with.
D.K. Metcalf Or Tyler Lockett?
Predicting the success of the Seahawks’ receivers this season has become a chore. Both Tyler Lockett and D.K. Metcalf are great, but we rarely see both of them go off in the same game. They are arguably the most negatively correlated duo of wideouts in the NFL, and it’s creating headaches in NFL DFS. From what we have seen in recent weeks, the field is typically higher on whichever player performed better the week before. In turn, the better performer of the two has ended up as the lower owned more often than not. This isn’t to say that we should expect whoever carries less ownership between Lockett and Metcalf to score more fantasy points. The point is that there is leverage in the Seahawks’ passing game. Since both players have upside and variance, I lean towards slanting my exposure to whoever the field isn’t as high on.
Making A Case For Hunter Henry
I have not had much success rostering Henry this season. It isn’t hard to figure out why. I have rostered him at a much higher percentage than the field and he hasn’t had many good games. With this said, I still see reason for optimism. Henry is cheap this week, only projected for around 10% ownership and draws a great matchup against the Raiders. Las Vegas ranked 27th in the league in pass defense DVOA. Henry is also getting a lot of work in the passing game with consistency. He has at least seven targets in five of seven games this season. Tight end is once again a tough position to fill going forward because George Kittle is injured again. I am looking to hitch my wagon to Hunter Henry as the tight end I want the most exposure to.
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