Week 3 Injuries, Research, Props, Rankings
+ DK Ownership & Bonus Money
Week 3 Props
Prize Picks is basically begging you play at this point and are just GIVING AWAY money.
NEW Depositors to PrizePicks.com can use code “MMNNFL” to unlock an exclusive Dak Prescott fantasy prop for Week 3 MNF. Deposit using code “”MMNNFL” and you’ll get a match deposit up to $100 AND is you make a MNF entry, if Dak completes one pass or more you’ll be credited $25. SO, the move is, Deposit $25 at PrizePicks.com. Use code “MMNNFL” to get your match bonus, then play a $25 MNF entry. If you lose, you’ll still have $50, if you win, you’ll get at least 3x your money depending on how many fantasy props are in your entry. It’s free money, so you may as well do it.
Also, you can still get into the MMN props contest by simply making a 5-pick entry (NO MNF PLAYERS) for $7.11. That amount qualifies it for the contest. Even if you don’t think you can’t catch up (you definitely can), take advantage of the bonus $50 given to anyone who plays an entry for $7.11 and gets all five picks correct. You’d get paid 10x for winning anyway, then another $50 bonus because you played an entry of $7.11. Seems like a good way to get 17x your money for a low investment. Perfect for anyone trying to build a bank roll.
MMN Props Contest Leaderboard: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16G_dcgKRkbEhkqP162gna9ThxPrJbez75b8XngP2c8Y/edit#gid=0
Here are a few of the props I’m playing for Week 3, broke it all down here.
DRAKE o2.5 REC
Ty’Son o 54.5 Rush Yards
Stafford o40.5 Pass attempts
Hooper o2.5 REC
Michael Carter o1.5 REC
I’ll probably jump on Christian Kirk over receiving yards and Braxton Berrios over receptions once they get released too. Can’t find numbers for them yet however.
Honestly, if you want to actually win cash, just follow Cody and Paul and the UFC show. Cody SWEPT the card Saturday night. 224/1 will do, I suspect.
Week 3 Injuries (SUNDAY MORNING)
Here’s a cheatsheet of the skill injuries entering Week 3. I provided full Fantasy Spin here. But, as it’s Sunday morning, I have AN UPDATE!!!1
Since my kids woke me up at 5am, I decided to be helpful and write an entire thing about Dalvin Cook and the different scenarios. Talk about a waste of time.
I took Cook out of the ranks and put Mattison at No. 19. That’s a spot ahead of James Robinson and one behind Damien Harris. Will he get a BIG LOAD????? That would be expected, even if Peter North is no where to be found in Minneapolis. I dunno. I just don’t trust him. Which is definitely not how you should make Fantasy decisions, but we all do anyway. While my rankings aren’t good, I do rank the players in the order of who I’d play over who instead of just projections.
If you want projections just fiddle around on Run The Sims and make life easy on yourself.
I manually adjusted Mattison’s rush share and TD share UP, along with the Vikings rush rate and rushing TD rate as you can see here
And that still left him at RB11 for the week after simulating the slate 10,000 times.
So, if your expectation is that Mattison is a mid-tier RB2 then you likely won’t be disappointed. In that range on DK, I still like Ty’Son Williams and Chris Carson better.
You have Start/Sit Qs? We’re LIVE at 1130am ET on MMN. Go there.
Carson Wentz is apparently walking around like my 1-year-old. Walking may be a stretch, it’s waddling. Two sprained ankle will present a mobility challenge along with a pivot and power challenge. Not that he was throwing it more than 5 yards at a time anyway. You have to think, fast, short routes this week for the WRs and a HEAVYYYYYY dose for Jonathan Taylor. Remember, the Titans defense is fucking brutal, and despite being 4.5 dogs, running, regardless of score, may be their best move. Taylor is generating very little DFS buzz and actually appears in the optimal weekly DraftKings Lineup around 10% of the time based on my projections. (Run The Sims simulates the entire slate 10,000 times to generate these results FYI)
If you can get 2x optimal rate to projected ownership, that’s usually where you want to live.
Kenny Golladay and Evan Engram may play. Just don’t play them. Easy game.
Looks like Darrell Henderson is OUT now too.
The rankings are UPDATED as of NOWWWWW
RB https://bit.ly/21W3RBs
WR https://bit.ly/21W3WRranks
QB https://bit.ly/21W3QBs
TE/DST https://bit.ly/21W3TEDST
INJURY CHEATSHEET
BEST BETS
Not only will Cam kill someone, as we learned in the Best Bets show, (Probably the best show of the year. Many people are saying this), but Cam’s also killing bets right now too. A HOT 6-0 start to the year, making me and Pizzola look like trash.
There’s also a HUGE Cam rant in the middle which really shouldn’t be missed.
If it’s all games you crave, the Spread Picks show has that covered. Here’s the cheatsheet.
Week 3 Player Notes + Research
Galaxy Brain Time: Game Stack
Below are some tables. They help break up the words of this newsletter, but they also help make you a smarter DFS player. Summary: RBs score more as the projected point total increases. No surprise there. Both underdogs and favorites see their backs score more in projected shootouts. What is interesting is that the odds of hitting DK bonuses slant the way of the ‘dog, in a significant way, as you move extend the point expectation. These charts have been brought to you by ADE (for those unaware: Analysts Defending Ekeler):
What you may have overlooked from above is that the gap between the favored RB and underdog RB in those top two tables doesn’t change a ton (favorite +1.8 to favorite +1.4) despite the major difference in bonus rate. What does this mean? That the favored backs are hyper efficient in these spots: it’s tough to grow production (20 PPG to 20.6 PPG) despite getting those free 3 points on a fair less regular basis. With Clyde Edwards-Helaire getting basically 81% of the backfield touches in KC through two weeks, he’s in a quality and quantity spot … at $4,800.
During the “oh my God the Chiefs are amazing and we know it era” (2019-today, don’t lie, you didn’t expect 12-4 in 2018 in Mahomes’ first year as the full-time starter and neither did anyone else), here are the KC defensive ranks on perimeter passes …
- Lowest CMP%
- 4th lowest TD rate
- 8th highest INT rate
Now, they do give up some big plays out wide, but those numbers are tough to fake. They haven’t allowed a perimeter TD this season (something only four other teams can say) and my thought here is simple: Patrick Mahomes. They’ll rather take their chances with paper cuts via the passes between the hashes than potential game-breaking plays on the outside. And the numbers back that up. Over that same stretch, here are the KC defensive ranks on passes thrown between the hashes
- 11th highest CMP%
- Highest TD rate
- 16th in INT rate
During Mike Williams’ career, he has scored on 1 of the 187 routes he’s run between the hashes. On those routes, he’s been targeted 17.1% of the time while Keenan Allen sees a target on 30.1% of such routes and Austin Ekeler checks in at 28.4%. Per RunTheSims, there may be a prop bet to exploit here:
Out wide, Big Mike has been great this season (12 catches on 16 targets for 138 yards and 2 TDs, all of which are greater totals than all other Chargers combined on such passes this season), but is he the numbers play here? Nope. And that means a VERY condensed script to combine with the running back numbers from above. So you can choose between Dalvin Cook and DeAndre Hopkins for the flex spot (Hopkins’ case presented in the Tuesday newsletter, Cook being another volume back in that high-total underdog role), but here is where I landed for the dart throw MMN GPP of the week:
Now, while I love the numbers, I actually think Williams’ usage this year indicates a different role for him in this offense, and his TD upside over Allen, would have me going Williams over Keenan. But I lose a lot, of take that for what its worth.
Full fade on Rams/Bucs, what could go wrong? At the very least, this lineup should look good after the 1pm games (put in Hopkins over Cook and you have an interesting early slate GPP option) … so just go out for the afternoon games and hope it sticks! A few other notes if you’re still reading …
- Latavius Murray has scored in both games this season and plays a Lions team that allowed running backs to score on 4.7% of carries last season (3rd highest)
- Cordarrelle Patterson has touched the ball on 21 of 45 offensive snaps this season and faces a Giants defense that allowed the 6th most RB receptions a year ago (opponents are 11/12 when throwing to RBs vs them this season)
- James Conner has more touches this season when the Cardinals are up by at least a field goal than Chase Edmonds.
- AJ Brown’s aDOT is up 32% from last season and he faces a Colts defense that has allowed the 3rd most deep TD passes since the beginning of last season
- Tyler Higbee is the only TE in the league to run a route on 80% of his team’s drop backs in each of the first two weeks this season
If you missed me and BIG T breaking down the full Week 3 DraftKings slate, why???????, no worries, you can get it right here. Here’s what we came up with for the “shitter lineup” this week.
Week 3 DraftKings Ownership
Based on my projections and how salaries slot together here’s what I’m thinking for the top owned players at each position. I’d wager a healthy amount that Kupp will be the most owned by a lot of any player on the main slate.
Updated for Sunday
QB
Lamar
Kyler
Fields
Herbert
RB
Derrick Henry
CEH
Saquon
Ekeler
WR
Kupp
Keenan
Tyreek
Marvin Jones
Godwin
TE
Kelce
Higbee
Waller
Hockenson
DST
Cards
Broncos
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— PM
800 words on Dalvin Cook have been removed. I even scanned it for typos (which, as most of you know) I never do. This is what happens when you put in an extra effort. Never try.