NFL FanDuel Picks and Pivots – Week 5 Fantasy Football

Welcome to the Week 5 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 4 is in the books which will forever be known as Deshaun Watson GPP week as the rookie quarterback exploded for 4 passing touchdowns and 35 FanDuel points at single digit ownership in tournaments. With the savings at QB it was possible to load up at the skill positions and players like Le’Veon Bell, Todd Gurley, A.J. Green and DeAndre Hopkins were utilized to build around the rookie signal caller for GPP scores that hit 180+ on FanDuel!

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 four 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.

Through Week 4 – the winning roster build looks as follows:

• QB: Average Salary ($8,375) and Average FD Points (32.3)
• RB: Average Salary ($7,538) and Average FD Points (23.8)
• WR: Average Salary ($6,892) and Average FD Points (19.5)
• TE: Average Salary ($6,675) and Average FD Points (16.2)
• K: Average Salary ($4,675) and Average FD Points (16.3)
• DEF: Average Salary ($4,475) and Average FD Points (15.5)

Looking back at winning roster builds and identifying trends is one of the most useful exercises I do each week and it helps guide me into my initial builds each and every week of the DFS season. The one constant through this point in the NFL season is that you simply need to hit it big at QB with 31 or more FanDuel points being scored by the winning QB in each of the last three weeks. Interestingly enough we are starting to see the high dollar running backs trend up while paying down at WR seems to be the top strategy. So how does all of this play into our Week 5 plays?

NFL FanDuel – Top Stack Spot:

Each and every week of the NFL season, I harp on the premise of keeping it simple and letting Vegas guide us and this week is no different. The Packers-Cowboys game has a 52.5 Vegas total, 5.5 points higher than the next closest game on the Main Slate and with a 2 point spread, these are the kind of 4 quarter shootouts we want to target in DFS!

Aaron Rodgers ($9,500) is by far the highest priced QB on the slate, $1.5K higher than Russell Wilson, and frankly the fact that he stands alone in this price tier makes me love him even more as the sticker shock may lead folks to drop down to cheaper QB’s especially after they saw what Deshaun Watson did last week. As we mentioned earlier, getting a big day from your QB (30+ FD points) is the backbone of a winning GPP roster so I am fine with locking in the best QB in the highest total game on the slate and moving on from there. The Cowboys pass defense gave up 4 TD’s to Trevor Siemian in Week 2 and gave up 2 TD’s to Jared Goff and Carson Palmer in Weeks 3 and 4 so the upside is very real for Rodgers in this spot especially with the health of RB Ty Montgomery in question!

With Davante Adams still in the concussion protocol, Jordy Nelson ($8,600) and Randall Cobb ($6,600) figure to soak up the majority of the Cowboys targets with both being elite plays but I will opt to take the $2k salary savings and utilize Cobb against a Cowboys secondary ranked 20th in DVOA to opposing WR2’s.

If you are stacking the Packers passing game you will want to correlate it with the Cowboys passing attack to maximize your shoot-out potential so starting with Dez Bryant ($7,800) against a Packers secondary that has struggled with opposing WR1’s (21st in DVOA) is my preferred correlation play. So far this season, Green Bay has given up 100+ receiving yard days to both AJ Green and Julio Jones and with 13+ targets in two of his four games, I expect the Cowboys to feed him early and often as the top offensive option for the highest projected scoring team on the main slate!

NFL FanDuel: Pay Up for both Running Backs?

Let’s be clear here – stacking the Packers-Cowboys game is not even remotely a hot take, it will be popular and for good reason. Let’s also say this – Le’Veon Bell ($9,500) and Kareem Hunt ($9,000) are clearly not sneaky plays so why bother wasting time telling you to play the two best backs in football?

I mentioned in our early season trends that paying up for RB has been a steadily more profitable trend so I expect Bell OR Hunt to be targeted in a high percentage of line-ups but how many line-ups with the highest priced QB in Aaron Rodgers will also pay up for BOTH of the top priced running backs?

Jacksonville is ranked dead last in DVOA to opposing RB’s and Bell is coming off a 35 carry, 144 yard 2 TD performance last week which makes him the running back in perhaps the best possible situation this week. Hunt meanwhile has 120+ yards from scrimmage in each of his first four games and is averaging 26.6 FanDuel points per game.

My fellow FantasyCPR football expert, Matt Rogers, pointed to Hunt as one of his Week 5 fades due to the perceived tough match-up against the Texans and although the stats would back him up, I would argue that the Texans rushing rankings are a result of the match-ups so far this year. In Week 1, the Texans gave up 100 yards to Leonard Fournette and another 42 to Chris Ivory but since then have held opposing RB1’s to less than 42 yards per game but let’s step back here – Kareem Hunt is not in the same class as Joe Mixon, Mike Gillislee and Demarco Murray, so if people want to hang their hats that the Texans run defense is for real then I am happy to let them I am will load up on the two best backs in the NFL in the same DFS line-up!

NFL FanDuel – Value Plays

If you build your roster with the plays we have outlined so far including Aaron Rodgers, Randall Cobb, Dez Bryant, Le’Veon Bell and Kareem Hunt you will be left with $4.4k left to fill out the last four roster spots which at first glance may seem like a route that is impossible considering the minimium price for players is $4.5K but there is a path to this roster build that actually gives you some sneaky upside.

Miami Dolphins Defense ($4,100): The lowest priced defense on the slate has not scored more than 5 FanDuel points in any game this season and at first glance a match-up with the Titans may not be one we want to attack but keep in mind that Marcus Mariota is questionable to play which would lead to Matt Cassell or Brandon Weeden starting for the Titans! If Mariota is indeed out, this is a sneaky spot to target against what would likely be a conservative Titans offense with limited playmakers on offense!

Jaron Brown ($4,500): With all the injuries to the Arizona WR group, Jaron Brown has stepped up in a big way with 11+ targets in two of his last three games while playing nearly 94% of the offensive snaps over the last two games for the Cardinals. With J.J. Nelson and John Brown both questionable, Jaron Brown could see another expanded role and any time we can get double-digit targets from a minimum priced player we simply cannoy overlook that kind of value!

Ryan Griffin ($4,500): As the Texans starting Tight End, Griffin has seen 11 targets come his way over the last two weeks and with the emergence of Deshaun Watson gives you exposure to an offense on the upswing against a Chiefs defense that has surrendered 90+ recieving yards to two of the four TE’s they have faced this season.

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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QB: Aaron Rodgers ($9,500)

RB: Kareem Hunt ($9,000)

RB: Le’Veon Bell ($9,500)

WR: Randall Cobb ($6,600)

WR: Dez Bryant ($7,800)

WR: Jaron Brown ($4,500)

TE: Ryan Griffin ($4,500)

K: Harrison Butker ($4,500)

DEF: Miami ($4,100)

Slate Overview: Maybe it is the return of NBA DFS to my life but this NFL DFS line-up has a Stars and Scrubs feel you typically don’t land on in NFL FanDuel. However the more I dig into it, building a core of five stars and taking some GPP shots at my third WR and TE doesn’t feel overly crazy! I will keep this initial roster build as we approach Sunday and watch for line-up news to see if any other value plays open up to complete this build!

Next: FanDuel NFL Top Plays for Week 5

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