NFL FanDuel Picks and Pivots – Week 3 Fantasy Football

Welcome to the Week 3 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!

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Week 2 is in the books and thanks to FanDuel we have a new millionaire as “cpendolino” took down the Week 2 Sunday Million GPP on the back of 192.18 FanDuel points built around the Patriots passing attack as a stack with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Chris Hogan was the core necessary to bring home a big time DFS outing!

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! The goal of this article is to dig through the slate, highlight our top plays and give you a sample line-up as an example of what our core roster build could look like using the analysis we lay out in the coming pages!

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: What Have We Learned So Far:

With two weeks in the books, one of the things I want to establish in each week’s column is a continual look back at winning tournament rosters so that we can identify roster build trends and let that help us as we build our rosters moving forward.

The one thing I have harped on through the first two weeks of the NFL season when it comes to DFS – 1)Rely on Vegas to help guide us and 2) Don’t over think your plays – let others get cute and try to fade the best spots. Week 2 was literally the perfect example of this where the New England Patriots came in with one of the highest Vegas totals on the board and a QB-WR-TE stack was at the core build of the winning GPP rosters as Brady and Co. torched the Saints defense early and often!

Through Week 2 – the winning roster build (using the FanDuel Millionaire GPP as the baseline) looks as follows:

• QB: Average Salary ($8,400) and Average FD Points (29.43)
• RB: Average Salary ($7,600) and Average FD Points (21.35)
• WR: Average Salary ($7,000) and Average FD Points (19.55)
• TE: Average Salary ($6,400) and Average FD Points (19.85)
• K: Average Salary ($4,550) and Average FD Points (9.50)
• DEF: Average Salary ($4,400) and Average FD Points (22.50)

The biggest takeaway from the first two weeks has been that you simply need to get a monster day from your QB as Matthew Stafford in Week 1 and Tom Brady in Week 2 each put up 28+ FanDuel points in their outings with four and three TD’s respectively. It is also worth noting that RB has largely been dominated by the upper-middle tiers from a price point perspective and each winning roster had one high salary pass catcher (Antonio Brown in Week 1 and Rob Gronkowski in Week 2).

From a roster build perspective the Week 1 winner opted to buck the traditional “stacking” concept where in Week 2 we saw the GPP winning upside that a QB-WR/TE stack can provide. As we go through the year it will be important to continue to track trends in winning roster build which will help us better understand what it takes to improve our own rosters in NFL DFS!

NFL FanDuel: Where to Stack:

When it comes to tournament play in the NFL, I am a firm believer in building stacks around high-powered offenses and as I continue to mention, I rely heavily on Vegas data early in the season to help identify those high-flying spots!

The Oakland Raiders have the highest implied team total on the board with a 28.5 projected total against the Washington Redskins which would actually be a tick down from the 35.5 point average they have sported through the first two weeks in the season. Derek Carr ($8,400) comes into this game with 5 touchdown passes through the first two games against the 24th ranked Titans defense and 30th ranked Jets defense and now will take on a Washington squad ranked 28th in the league in defending the pass this season.

Michael Crabtree ($7,700) was the Week 2 hero catching 3 touchdown passes against the Jets (as an aside, being a Week 2 Marshawn Lynch owner, those two first and goal from inside the 5 where they chose to throw instead of hand to Beast Mode were crushing) but the reality is Crabtree only had 6 total targets in that game so it is unreasonable to expect him to have a repeat performance where 50% of his targets go for TD’s. Amari Cooper ($7,700) sits at the same price and is coming off a 13 target Week 1 performance and has been targeted on 30% of Carr’s passes so far this season which is up considerably from his 22% mark last year! The only concern here is that Josh Norman will likely be shadowing one of these guys which limits the ceiling a bit for each WR!

Jared Cook ($5,200) is the pass catcher I have the most early week interest in however as the Redskins are ranked 29th in DVOA versus tight ends this season after giving up 93 yards to Zach Ertz in Week 1 and 95 yards to the Rams Gerald Everett in Week 2. If Cook can have similar success from a yardage standpoint and manage to convert a touchdown (or two), we could be looking at a GPP difference maker at a tight end position that has been a key differentiator for early season winning line-ups.

Ben Roethlisberger ($8,000) and the Pittsburgh Steelers head to Chicago and although they have only the 6th highest total on the board, I love this spot for Big Ben and the Steelers passing game! The Bears on the season are ranked 26th in DVOA and Roethlisberger has chucked 35 pass attempts in each contest so far this season as the early season running game gets off to a slow start. The Bears are ranked 31st in DVOA against opposing number 1 WRs so a QB/WR stack here with Antonio Brown ($9,000) gives you a high upside combination that may not be as highly owned as the other high projected scoring offenses in sexier match-ups. If you are looking to build out a full on stack here, Martavis Bryant ($6,500) has big play ability and the kind of boom or bust nature we look for in GPP’s as shown by his 91 yard, 1 TD outing last week where he was routinely targeted on deep balls by Big Ben.

NFL FanDuel – Building a Strong Backfield:

Early in the season we are finding that the key to a winning GPP roster, outside of hitting big on your QB, is to build a strong core of mid-tier priced players – especially at running back. With David Johnson on the shelf and Le’Veon Bell scuffling out of the gate, this feels like another week to live in this price point and find some value backs in some sneaky good match-ups.

Lamar Miller ($6,100): With a match-up against a New England team with a DVOA of 31st against the run and 28th against pass catching backs, we have already seen this season backs like Kareem Hunt explode for massive games against the Patriots! The issue with this spot is the fact that the Patriots are 13.5 point favorites against the Texans and a rookie QB so I think people will shy away from the blow-out narrative here.

In my mind however, the Texans best chance to keep this game close is to lean on Miller both on the ground game and in passing situations which could bring about another sneaky RB performance like Hunt had in Week 1. Looking back at last season when the Texans and Patriots played, New England won 27-0 but Miller still had 25 touches for 127 total yards so although there is volatility here, I like the upside at low ownership!

Kareem Hunt ($8,300): It is amazing to think that a few weeks ago, Hunt was just a rookie handcuff to Spencer Ware and now he is the second highest priced back on this NFL FanDuel slate! As much as I am a numbers guy who relies on metrics/statistics, I also watch these NFL games each weekend and I am not sure any player has impressed me as much as Kareem Hunt has. Hunt is averaging an absurd 33 FanDuel points so far this season which is 12 points higher than any other running back and will now take on a Chargers team that has given up 80+ yards to C.J. Anderson and 122 yards to Jay Ajayi.

What I love about Hunt is that he can literally break open any game and deliver fantasy points in bunches as evidenced by his Week 2 performance where he was largely bottled up until a 50+ yard touchdown run busted through and set him up for another big time DFS day!

NFL FanDuel: Finding Value to Fill Out Roster:

If you follow me on Twitter @2LockSports ( and if you don’t – what are you waiting for) then you know I am a huge advocate against DFS line-up selling. I personally despise the idea of buying a canned line-up from someone for one simple reason – building a roster in DFS is the MOST FUN part of playing the game. The research, the analytics, the roster tinkering leading up to lock is the part of DFS I love and it is why I enjoy writing about my roster build in this format.

I recently got into a back and forth with a reader who said that all tout sites/analysts are essentially line-up sellers because they utilize projection tools and optimizers. Let me be clear – I have NO issue with the tools themselves, they are great resources to supplement your research and open your eyes to plays you may have over-looked initially and THAT is how I try to use them.

The reason I bring this up is that during my research process I write down players I am interested in and match-ups I am looking for and then take a spin through some of the projection tools available to see what others in the industry are thinking. Through this process this week there were two names at WR that jumped off the page from a point per dollar perspective that I could not believe were as cheap as they were.

A.J. Green ($7,500) is one of the best WR’s in football and is playing for a Bengals team right now that is completely lost and on the verge of a complete meltdown with a road match-up in Green Bay – yeah, this could get ugly. From a DFS perspective though this could be fantasy gold for Green as if/when the Bengals get down, they will have no choice but to throw and it is worth noting that Packers are ranked 28th in DVOA versus WR1’s so far this season. Considering the talent level, this price point feels entirely too low and he makes for a great one-off play in the mid-tier.

Kelvin Benjamin ($6,600) is another name that the projection models loved and when you dig a bit deeper you can see why. First, the Panthers take on the Saints who have the league worst 32nd DVOA against opposing pass defenses and are ranked 30th against opposing WR1 AND WR2’s so far this year. With the injury to Greg Olsen, the Panthers passing game is going to have no choice but to run through Benjamin., who assuming he can shake off some early week injury issues has the opportunity to shine in this match-up at a bargain price.

Kicker/Defense: One of our newest Fantasy CPR writers, Evan LeBlanc, did a great piece on the Week 3 top Kickers/Defenses to target and it validated my early roster thoughts here. First at kicker, I am always going to look for kickers in high projected scoring match-ups so grabbing Graham Gano ($4,800) against the Saints and coming off back to back games with 3 field goals seems like a lock and load play for me.

Defensively, it is going to be very hard to pass on any team facing the NY Giants right now with their offensive live woes and facing a Philadelphia Eagles ($4,500) defense with 8 sacks already could spell trouble for the Giants offense. As we noted in the open, through the first two weeks of the season, winning GPP’s line-ups have rostered defenses that put up 28 and 17 FanDuel points so do not overlook the importance of this position when shooting for GPP upside!

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. 

More from FanSided

• MLB Rumors: Justin Verlander has a clear suitor, but it comes with a catch
• MLB Rumors: Braves trade grade, Cardinals trade bait, Red Sox selling
• USMNT news: Turner to Forest, Trusty to Sheffield, Reynolds to Westerlo
• Inside the Clubhouse: What I’m hearing as the MLB Trade Deadline nears
• Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing

QB: Ben Roethlisberger ($8,000)

RB: Kareem Hunt ($8,300)

RB: Lamar Miller ($6,100)

WR: Antonio Brown ($9,000)

WR: A.J. Green ($7,500)

WR: Kelvin Benjamin ($6,600)

TE: Jared Cook ($5,200)

K: Graham Gano ($4,800)

DEF: Eagles ($4,500)

Slate Overview: As I have said each week this season, do NOT over complicate NFL DFS early in the season and try to get cute. You will often here “this guy will be chalk” but don’t play into the ownership game this early in the season – simply play the best plays in the match-ups you like stick with that core!

Next: Have You Played the Newest DFS Fantasy Football Game for FREE?

Best of luck in your NFL FanDuel contests this week and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR as we get you set for all the Week 3 DFS and Fantasy Football Action!