NFL FanDuel Picks and Pivots – Week 2

Welcome to the Week 2 NFL FanDuel edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy football column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for this week’s Main Slate of DFS action!

For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind NFL FanDuel Picks and Pivots is to first identify key building blocks that can be used for any roster construction and then identify pivot points to help differentiate your lineup in hopes of a big payday!

PLAY FANDUEL: New users win first contest or get credited up to $120!

Week 1 is in the books and thanks to FanDuel we have a new millionaire as “Rubes1978” took down the Week 1 Sunday Million GPP on the back of 173 FanDuel points built around Matthew Stafford‘s 4 TD, 28 FanDuel point performance at 2.3% ownership!

From a Picks and Pivots perspective our approach going in was to lean on the Vegas data to isolate our top spots to target and build a core around that! Leading into Sunday I kept my ear to the ground and all I heard was people trying to get cute, simply over-thinking Week 1 and trying to find the off the wall plays right out of the gate. My advice on Sunday morning via Twitter was to keep it simple and not over-think it and that is exactly what I did as I stayed true to a core build around the Raiders passing attack with strong Titans correlation and capped it off with a Bills Defense/LeSean McCoy pairing! Ultimately my line-up landed at 120 FanDuel points which was good enough for 3.5x return on my investment and puts me in position to “re-invest” heading into Week 2!

Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate!

As always, we will look to update our picks and final lineup thought  prior to lock on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.

Without further ado, let’s get into this week’s slate!

NFL FanDuel – Stack City:

Two Shoot-Outs Vegas is Screaming At Us to Play: As I mentioned, early in the season I tend to rely heavily on Vegas totals to give direction when building a core for DFS and this week we have two games with totals of 53 or more points with the Patriots-Saints and the Falcons-Packers squaring off.

Sunday Night Core: Listen, I do not expect the fact I am telling you to stack the Sunday night game to be some sort of hot take but I will continue to re-iterate this point – people LOVE to over-tinker and try to get cute and will overlook the obvious plays because they think they know better (typically they don’t). This game is loaded with great plays and my perspective is that you can build a better all-around core from this game then you can in New England-New Orleans where both QB’s love to spread the ball around and the running games are an unpredictable mess.

Matt Ryan ($8,200) and Julio Jones ($8,800) are the top QB/WR pairing in my eyes and it only takes looking back at last year’s playoffs where Ryan dropped 392 passing yards and Julio racked up 12 catches for 180 yards and 2 TD’s to understand the upside here. Again, this is not some sort of hot take that is going to be 5% owned but it’s the best pure QB/WR stack on the board and if you fade it, have fun watching Sunday Night Football while everyone who did use it passes you!

Austin Hooper ($5,500) was the darling of the DFS world last week as the cheap TE who grabbed 2 catches for 128 yards and a touchdown for 20 FanDuel points. Take a spin around the industry and every article you read will talk about how this is the easiest fade on the board, he only had 2 targets last week and got a fluke TD on a blown coverage play from the Bears. Every DFS talking head out there is going to try to talk people off this pick but if you are stacking Ryan/Julio, this feels to me like the obvious third pairing as Hooper helps you complete a Falcons three-man aerial stack with a player who had a high college pedigree and was drafted 81st overall in the 2016 draft.

One of the reasons I am opting to go with Ryan over Aaron Rodgers in this spot is that I feel as if I can load up on the Packers skill position players which will offset any touchdowns A-Aron throws to his teammates. Ty Montgomgery ($6,500) will possibly be the highest owned running back this weekend but for good reason – this is a player who had 23 touches last week for over 90 totals yards and a touchdown and now faces a Falcons defense that was 28th in DVOA against opposing RB’s last season. I will say it again – no need to get cute, this is an elite play for a reason! Jordy Nelson ($8,100) is the clear top target in the passing game but Randall Cobb ($6,300) is the WR I have the most interest in here (although I will have both), after his 9 catch 85 yard performance last week on 13 targets!

NFL FanDuel – Top Plays Around Our Core:

Oakland Raiders versus the NY Jets: Outside of the two shoot-outs we mentioned the one team that jumps off the page from a Vegas perspective is the Oakland Raiders who have the second highest team total on the board (28.8 points) in a home match-up against the Jets. As much as I would love to load up on the Raiders passing attack here, those spots are spoken for with my Packers-Falcons core so utilizing Marshawn Lynch ($7,200) here to get exposure to what should be a dominating outing for the Silver and Black is my preferred approach.

Last week we targeted LeSean McCoy in this same match-up and he did not disappoint with 22 rushes for 110 yards and another 49 yards through the air for 18.4 FanDuel points. Although Lynch will certainly not be the factor in the air that Shady was, Lynch is coming off 18 carries of his own for 76 yards against the Titans and the game flow here should dictate that the Raiders can pound the Jets with Marshawn in his Oakland home debut!

Defense wins Championships: The most over-looked storyline from the Week 1 DFS winning teams was the role that defenses played as the Jacksonville (Sacksonville) Jaguars went absolutely nuts for 10 sacks, 1 defensive TD and 28 FanDuel points! The focus in NFL DFS is always on the skill players and we tend to “back in” to our defense based off salary left-over but this week I would prioritize finding a defense in a good match-up that can get sacks, cause turnover and score!

Ravens Defense at home versus the Browns: In Week 1 the Ravens defense completely shut down a Bengals offense (that after last night I never want to watch again) with 5 sacks, 4 INT’s and 1 fumble recovery for 25 FanDuel points, not far off the pace the Jaguars set. This week they take on a Browns team led by a rookie QB that allowed 7 sacks, 1 INT and 1 Defensive TD to the Steelers defense in Week 1. Shoot for the upside here with an elite defense that is frankly not priced like one!

NFL FanDuel – Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview

Please Note: This is NOT an optimized line-up, it is simply illustrative to show the type of roster build we can have using the logic previously laid out in Picks and Pivots. My actual line-up may differ from the line-up shown here. 

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• Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing

QB: Matt Ryan ($8,200)

RB: Ty Montgomery ($6,500)

RB: Marshawn Lynch ($7,200)

WR: Jordy Nelson ($8,100)

WR: Randall Cobb ($6,300)

WR: Julio Jones ($8,800)

TE: Austin Hooper ($5,500)

K: Will Lutz ($4,700)

DEF: Baltimore Ravens ($4,700)

Slate Overview: As I said in the opening, I try to keep my NFL DFS roster build simply early in the season and let others make the mistake of getting too cute. We have two games with massive totals in likely shoot-outs we can build around/stack very easily and I see no reason not to simply start there. In large field tournaments I can understand the game theory around the fade but in single entry/small field tournaments I simply see no reason not to build around the best plays and ignore the ownership – Keep it Simple and I will see you above the cash line come Sunday Night!

Next: FanDuel Week 2 NFL Picks and Plays

Best of luck in your NFL FanDuel contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS and fantasy football news and analysis leading up to Week 2!