NFL / fantasy sports

Last Week's Picks Dak Prescott 7.24 David Johnson 19.10 Tevin Coleman 23.50 Allen Robinson 8.40 Dante Pettis 13.30 Taylor Gabriel 6.30 Cameron Brate 1.90 Washington 12.00 On to the week 16 slate QB - Dak Prescott $5700 vs Tampa Bay Dak let a lot of DFS and season long players down last week. In my opinion he was a lock of the week considering Dallas was most likely going to be down most of the game and their run defense has played very well. Those factors were in play but unfortunately the results just weren't there. It's football and shit happens. I wouldn't let this weeks result cloud your judgement too much. Dak was still able to complete 62% of his passes with decent volume and exceed 200 yards. What hurt the most was his lack of rushing attempts. It was his first goose egg in that area this year and his first game since week 1 without a TD at all. For a lot of the reasons I listed last week I'd consider Dak a great start facing one of the leagues worst defenses at home. RB - Saquon Barkley $7900 @ Indianapolis Not exactly a super cheap bargain but a bargain nonetheless. I'm not trying to be lazy listing a guy that has only gone under 20 points 2 times all season including last week. With his bad week and what appears to be a bad matchup this week, Draftkings has graciously reduced his price. He should be in all cash and gpp lineups this week. RB - Tevin Coleman $4800 @ Carolina After smashing last week Coleman gets a slight bump in price. I wouldn't consider playing him 2 weeks in a row based on his lack of consistent strong play, but with Ito Smith going to IR I think it's reasonable to expect his opportunities to increase and possibly out play his price range again. He's still fairly risky given that he hasn't seen a huge workload all season and even when he has he's rarely been able to take advantage. On the plus side he hadn't had the worst floor all year either though. If you aren't comfortable playing Coleman you could pivot to Brian Hill at 3k. Both are gpp plays though. WR - Jarvis Landry $6200 vs Cincinnati Personally I'm not a huge Jarvis Landry fan. His entire career thus far has been pretty lackluster considering the amount of volume he's seen and if not for his flukey 9 TDs last year he would've had a pretty embarrassing season with 112 catches but unable to eclipse 1000 yards or 10 yards per reception. He's a volume driven compiler who is starting to show his true colors consistently doing the least with the most. While he has improved in some areas he is nowhere near a WR 1 caliber talent for any team. He currently is in the top 10 in targets (8th), target share (7th) , and red zone targets (3rd) at the position and only has 72 receptions (15th), 827 yards (20th), 191 yards after catch (48th), and 4 touchdowns (45th). While you could try to contribute some of this to QB Baker Mayfield I'd consider that a stretch. Baker has shown some inconsistent play but he's already better than half the QBs in the NFL. Enough ranting about Landry and his real football production. He's still a decent fantasy asset based his target share alone. He's been seeing a Nukish (Hopkins) like amount of targets which keeps his floor great for cash games and facing a beat up Bengals team he may be worth considering in gpp too but for me I'd go for a higher upside cheaper play for that. Perhaps like a Dante Pettis who should have low ownership based on his matchup vs the Bears. WR - Alshon Jeffery $5300 vs Houston There isn't a large sample size this season of a Foles and Jeffery connection but if you consider last year's playoff run with last week's game @ LA, Foles seems to have some decent chemistry with Jeffery. From the start of last year's playoffs to last week, Jeffery saw 5, 5, 8 and 8 targets with Foles. In those 26 targets Jeffery was able to haul in 20 of them for an 80% catch rate. Although the End of offense has been terrible as of late I still view Alshon as an elite receiver. We've also seen that if Foles can get hot he's able to elevate his play to an elite type level. There's certainly some risk though since we've also seen Foles go through extreme cold streaks where he can be gun shy and extra conservative. But based on their past rapport Id be willing to take the risk in cash games and with some chance of high volatility I'd consider him a lock for gpp. WR - Dede Westbrook $4900 @ Miami Dede is a strong gpp option. I'm not going to lie though. I'm not crazy about his price especially given the bad play of Cody Kessler. He does have a lot going for him though. He has yet to see less than 4 targets in any game this year and no less than 2 receptions so we have a floor that isn't 0. And going back to targets, since Kessler took over in week 13 Westbrook has had 20 in the last 3 games. Now the bad part. All season the Jags have not been able to push the ball down field so unless their skill positions bust off big plays or get a red zone look which seems to rarely happen in this offense, then you could see a stat line like 3 receptions for 20 yards. And with that also comes low completion rates. Westbrook could get 8 targets but there's a chance he could only bring in 3 to 5 of them for 20 total yards. He's probably the most capable WR on the team to be able to break one off to the house or creating other big plays like a punt return for a TD like last week, and with a floor of non zero all season it's definitely worth it to have him in some tournament lineups. If you wanted to go a few hundred cheaper, Robbie Anderson shares a lot of the same qualities as Dede and is at $4500. His price and recent success may drive his ownership up though. TE - David Njoku $3800 vs Cincinnati Njoku is a very young and highly talented player still trying to make his mark in the league. This year has been a huge growing year for him but with his doubled snap share he should be gaining the experience he needs to be a true breakout for next season. He's had his ups and downs all year in the box score but he's been consistently worked into their game plans and has been able to put up decent production vs teams that aren't great vs the tight end. I personally would have loved to see stronger outings in the past 2 weeks but considering the landscape of the position in fantasy his 6.5, and 6 point games won't kill you in a matchup. Over the last 4 weeks he's had no less than 4 targets and 3 receptions with 1 touchdown. He's also facing one of the NFL's worst defenses against the position and the last time both teams met Njoku had 5 receptions on 5 targets for 63 yards and a touchdown. While Njoku hasn't been lighting up the stat sheet he also hasn't been terrible outside of 2 games this entire year. With the Bengals being beat up with injuries on both sides of the ball there could be a chance Cleveland jumps out to an early big lead and pounds Chubb down the middle but even if that happens I expect Njoku to be a very safe play. May not have a super high ceiling but the floor is definitely good for cash games. Defense - New England $2500 vs Buffalo Buffalo has been a decent matchup for most fantasy defenses all year. And while Josh Allen has been a real threat as a rusher I don't think he's as great of an asset as a passer. The bills also give up a ton of sacks and have a hard time scoring generally. Lock in New England