Week 5 NFL Blueprint – DFS & Drafts

Slate Overview

Blueprint might be a little bitter more brief this week, which as you know is rare for me. But I really think this slate is straightforward from a tournament perspective. That doesn’t mean it’s simple or that we will nail the right pieces together, of course, but there are 3 main elements that we need to nail.

1 – The Lions are going to score as many points as they would like this week, but they’re not popular in DFS. If they get slowed down by this Bengals defense, I am comfortable losing putting my chips on this.

2 – Cowboys games are the “Coors Field” of fantasy football, meaning they are game environments that just breed more points. The Jets have also been bad on defense, and no one is priced appropriately on either side here.

3 – We have to decide which, if any, of the value RBs stepping into bigger roles are priorities. Rachaad White, Rico Dowdle, Demercado/Carter, Woody Mark, and others all have varying levels of appeal.

Certainly there are other options on this slate that are exciting plays, but these are the 3 most valuable situations to target, and getting these right is where we will make our money.

The Chalk

Here are the currently projected highest owned players at each position, c/o RotoGrinders (I expect Ken Walker to make his way into that RB chalk fwiw):

DraftKings/Fanduel

• QB – Justin Herbert, Justin Fields, Daniel Jones
• RB – De’Von Achane, Breece Hall
• WR – Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ladd McConkey, Quentin Johnston
• TE – Tyler Warren, Jake Ferguson, Trey McBride
• DST – Lions, Texans, Saints

QB

I just don’t see much reason to get super galaxy brained at QB this week. I understand Justin Fields will not be contrarian, but if we learned anything from Week 3, it’s that we can still play the really good plays, especially against the Cowboys! Justin Fields is my priority in all formats.

I do think you can pivot off Fields to a different QB, and you can get your Jets exposure through Breece Hall who is also extremely underpriced. The Cowboys have been “ok” against the run, while they’ve been the worst in the league by a country mile against the pass. If you move away from Fields, Daniel Jones and Justin Herbert are also in great matchups. The Raiders and Commanders have been big pass funnels so far this year, and the Chargers have the highest Pass Rate Over Expected in the league, while the Colts have been very solid through the air. My problem with Justin Herbert actually has nothing to do with him, or even his ownership or the ownership of his WRs. But the Commanders do still have a solid pass rush, and the Chargers lost Joe Alt to injury last week and it REALLY showed against the Giants. Herbert was pressured significantly all game, hence the loss to the lowly Giants scoring just 18 points.

So I’m more interested in Daniel Jones as my pivot off Fields against the Raiders. The Colts have been solid on offense, and Jones has the rushing upside and GL rushing role we look for in DFS. He also has some really strong stacking partners, especially with Alec Pierce out again.

After Jones, I don’t see why we can’t just keep going back to the Dak Prescott well. The Cowboys do have their own OL injuries they’re dealing with, and obviously CeeDee Lamb is still out. But Dak has been incredible this year, and even with Sauce Gardner out there, the Jets have the 3rd worst pass defense in the NFL by EPA/play. Sure, the Packers corners were a mess last week, but that’s still a far more difficult matchup than these Jets, and Dak threw for 319 yards, 3 touchdowns and ran for a touchdown.

That’s my tournament QB pool this week, and I don’t see much reason to stray away from this group.

RB

RB is far less simple than QB this week. There are a lot of viable and strongly projected plays, particularly with the emergence of guys like Woody Marks, Rachaad White and Rico Dowdle into bigger roles, either via injury or recent performance. In many weeks, we’d be leading with those guys, and I’m not scoffing at them. But I want to start with the cover boy of this article at RB, David Montgomery.

DMont checks so many boxes this week, and yes, part of it is narrative based. But the spot is also dreamy for a player at basically no ownership. He’s on the lesser side of a timeshare with Jahmyr Gibbs, but both of these guys have the ability to get home against this Bengals defense. It’s right there with the Cowboys on the stinky scale. Without Joe Burrow for the Bengals, the game script should also favor DMont with the Lions playing from ahead. All of that makes him viable as it is, but then we have one of the greater narrative streets of all time. DMont is from Cincy, and despite playing many years in the NFL, this is the first time he has come back to play in his hometown. That would be cool, but it’s also the first game his sister will be able to see him play after she was paralyzed in a tragic car accident. These narratives are usually very silly, but when Dan Campbell is your head coach, and you’re facing the Bengals, it changes the calculus a bit. Speaking of the calculus, the projections, sims, and spreadsheets aren’t going to care about this. He projects for zero ownership across the board, and he’s free in drafts. Sign me up for the unowned guy on the Lions facing the Bengals with all of these factors behind him over the new faces at RB like Dowdle and co.

I do also very much still like Jahmyr Gibbs, and I think you can play both Lions RBs together. I will likely have multiple Lions on every team I make in every format. I believe strongly in hanging my hat on them hanging a huge number here. Which is the problem with the likes of Dowdle, Marks and Rachaad. It’s not that they aren’t good plays, it’s that the Lions might score more than all 3 of those teams combined this week, and it’s not like Nick Chubb, Trevor Etienne and Sean Tucker aren’t going to get their share of the work.

That’s actually a big part of my overall RB strategy for this slate. Yes, those backups are awesome for our season long leagues and best ball rosters. But pricing isn’t that tight this week, and there are cheap options in all these formats taht didn’t just become the shiny new toy due to injury. Ashton Jeanty just went absolutely nuclear and draws a solid spot with a Colts defense that is not scary. Cam Skattebo is still benefitting from an injury to Tyrone Tracy, and even though the Saints run defense isn’t bad, his high value touch role is huge. Saquon Barkley is eventually going to pop a big run, and Javonte Williams and Omarion Hampton also have strangleholds on their backfield in high powered offenses. All of these options are more appealing to me than the shiny new toys, especially given the fact I am light on Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry this week.

WR

When we are playing a much tighter pool of QBs, we naturally have a bit tighter pool of WRs too. That’s part of the reason for the slightly more contrarian stance at RB because I really want to hone in on the likes of Garrett Wilson, George Pickens, JSN types that are definitely not falling through the cracks. We simply have guys like those 3 with monster target shares also in very good spots, and the prices don’t even really reflect who they are as fantasy assets right now.

The Chargers WRs are certainly appealing too, but the OL concerns are still pretty real to me for them, and I don’t love the idea of having to choose between 3 guys given we have these other alpha alternatives in equally great spots. The field is buying the dip on Ladd, so that does make me more excited to keep riding with QJ.

I also think we can keep riding with the Colts WRs sans Alec Pierce. If Adonai Mitchell didn’t pull that boneheaded move last week, I wonder how much more often he’d be drafted on UD/Drafters and how much more popular he’d be on DK/FD. The field doesn’t really love Michael Pittman in this pass funnel spot either, and he’s been legitimately very good this year. Brock Bowers is set to miss this week, so it also does boost Jakobi Meyers as well on the other side of that game.

We also certainly should be considering both sides of the Dolphins/Panthers game. It’s humorous because you couldn’t pay me to play AJB/DeVonta against the Broncos defense, but I quite like Tetairoa McMillan, Jaylen Waddle and even Malik Washington on these two pretty disastrous offenses. But again, we have these projectable alphas in all of these games, including this one. TMac is the clear alpha for Carolina, and the Dolphins pass defense has been the 2nd worst in the NFL through the first month. The Panthers pass defense actually hasn’t been too bad, but we are removing Tyreek Hill from the Dolphins target tree.

I really want to focus in on these spots where we have these target dominators against bad defenses, and my preference is those first few, but we aren’t lacking for alternatives either if you are more interested in the running backs in games like Cowboys/Jets.

I also just want to say this is the perfect Jameson Williams week. Amon-Ra St. Brown is great, and I love the RBs, but this is such a “get him going” spot for Jamo.

TE

It looks like no Brock Bowers, so we have a slightly more condensed group of “spend ups” at the position. They’re all rather strong, led by Trey McBride. Without George Kittle around, McBride is simply the best fantasy TE in the league. I’m not saying he’ll score the most points every week, but his role and talent combination is unmatched. If I can get him this week, I want him, in large part due to the fact that the Cardinals seem more likely to up their pass rate this week with their two lead RBs hurt. And the Titans are definitely a team you can score some points on.

Tyler Warren and Jake Ferguson are next up on our pricier list, and I want to play both of them in stacks or as one offs. Tyler Warren is pretty clearly near the top of fantasy TE value as well, and the Raiders pass funnel should mean some funneling to him. Ferg is a bit of a scam from the Cowboys pass game, but that’s perfectly fine for us. I want access to the Cowboys almost every week, and of course there’s still no CeeDee Lamb. Fergu actually leads all NFL TEs in target on the season.

That big 3 is my priority, similar to QB, but there are some cheap options with their own levels of appeal. Ja’Tavion Sanders is out again, and as gross as it may seem, Tommy Tremble picked up 8 targets last week and scored a TD in his absence. Plus, he draws that strong Dolphins matchup. Bowers out means Michael Mayer has to step into a bigger role, and if the Colts can score on the Raiders like we think, that could mean a lot of 2nd half volume for Mayer.

I don’t love Jayden Daniels this week, but his presence is a big boost for Zach Ertz. Mason Taylor really started to emerge as the 2nd option in the Jets pass game last week, and despite playing the Cowboys, no one cares about him this week at all. And lastly, we have to mention the Lion here. Sam LaPorta hasn’t gotten off to a hot start, but the Bengals have historically been dreadful against TEs, and they are going to give up a ton of points here. We shouldn’t ignore any of these Lions, especially if our opponents are.

Stacks

Reiterating here that we have a pretty tight core this week from a QB perspective, which means we also have a tight core for our stacks.

• Justin Fields + Garrett Wilson (can include Breece or Mason Taylor)
• Daniel Jones + Tyler Warren, and/or Michael Pittman and/or Adonai Mitchell
• Dak Prescott + George Pickens and/or Jake Ferguson

Core Plays

DraftKings & Fanduel

Drafts – Battle Royale (UD) & Drafters