NFL DRAFT DFS: 2018 Week 8 Auction Analysis (DRAFT.com)

Why do you need another DFS site? Because DRAFT combines the excitement of a season-long draft into one set of games!  This article has some targets and pre-draft rankings all set for you to jump into some NFL DRAFT DFS action!

Welcome to the 2018 NFL week eight edition of NFL DRAFT DFS, now covering auction style drafts on DRAFT.com from FantasyCPR. Every week, the Auction Analysis will cover the main slate on DRAFT, omitting the Thursday game from this article. If you draft before Thursday night, there may be a few players not in the rankings to add to your rankings. If you are new to DRAFT or if you are wondering what I am even talking about, check it out here.

If you have read my DRAFT articles for PGA and MLB in the past, this set-up is nearly identical in terms of breaking it down. I will first go over my targets at each position, and follow that up with rankings. Each target will be followed with their current auction value, which I will refer to as CAV in the future. Auction values change over the course of the week, so I will make them a $5.00 window.

Rosters on DRAFT are 1-QB, 2-RB’s, and 2 WR/TE’s, so just five spots. New to the article this week, will be the fact that we will be geared more towards auction style drafts. Therefore, each targets write-up may talk about how to approach that certain player in an auction. We will still have our normal rankings after the targets, but instead of DRAFT’s projections following the players name, the CAV will follow instead. Auctions are six man contests, but I will still rank my top 50 players for those that are still here for the 10-man drafts. These will consist of my top 10 QB’s, and my top 20 RB’s and WR/TE’s.

NFL DRAFT DFS: QB Targets:

Patrick Mahomes – Kansas City Chiefs – ($15-20)

When you look at the QB position as a whole, it is amazing what Mahomes does to these drafts and auctions. On average, in a 10-man draft, he is taken late in the first round, somewhere around eighth overall. In a 6-man auction, he gets the same sort of attention, going for somewhere around $16. My point is, in those 10-man’s as he goes in the first round and another QB is not drafted until the fourth, and as he is usually the only QB that goes for more than $1 in auctions, it seems the world has finally caught on to the talent that Mahomes is. He had a bad fantasy week against Jacksonville and my Twitter timeline was promptly filled with “regression” tweets. Hey Haters! He responded with almost 800 yards and 8 TD’s in his last two games. Keep fading him everyone, and keep letting me get him $16 in my auctions. I’ll see you in the money.

Kirk Cousins – Minnesota Vikings – ($1)

On the rare occasion I have missed on Mahomes this week, I have fallen back on Cousins plenty. I am getting my fair shares of Adam Thielen this week as well. In what is an extreme opposite for me as far as drafts go, I am actually leaning on drafting my WR early this week, and grabbing the value running backs in the third and fourth round. If you end up at say 1.06 in a 10-man draft, Thielen is going right there on average, which says the top-tier of running backs this week is nowhere near what we are used to.

The Vikings get the Saints at home on Sunday Night Football, and the Saints will no doubt be seeking revenge from last years Stefon Diggs last second touchdown catch and run to knock them out of the playoffs, otherwise known as “The Minneapolis Miracle.”  I think the Saints will get ahead early, and the Vikings will abandon the running game at some point playing catch-up. Same old, same old here in this column, I like Cousins, Diggs, and Thielen once again.

NFL DRAFT DFS: RB Targets:

Todd Gurley – Los Angeles Rams – ($60-65)

I was going to skip the obvious because of all of the value this week, but never, ever, ever, forget about, or overlook the ToddFather. Gurley gets the volume week in and week out, and he is producing against everybody. He lit up the 49ers last weekend, scoring three touchdowns on just 19 touches. There is no doubt you should be targeting him as your top play. With value running backs aplenty, and solid wide receivers going late in auctions for minimum price, I am maxing at $68 on Gurley this week. I have gotten him for $66, and $63 at times, but have also missed on him when he goes for $70+ which has happened about 25% of the time. I personally have gotten him at a 60% clip, consistently bidding in the mid to high sixties.

Kerryon Johnson – Detroit Lions – ($5-10)

I want to talk about one auction I had here, but first Mr. Johnson. The rookie Kerryon Johnson had his first crack at a lead role last week when Theo Riddick was ruled out. He responded with 158 yards on 19 carries, against a decent defense in the Miami Dolphins. This week, things are not looking good to this point again for Riddick, so I look for Johnson to have a similar workload as last week. The 3-3 Lions will host the 3-3 Seahawks, in a game that could have playoff implications for these two teams later down the road. Seattle is coming off of a bye, and they do have a stout run defense so curb your expectations a bit here. However, I expect Johnson to find the end zone at least once in this one, and he should be able to find 70-80 yards or so on the ground.

Marlon Mack – Indianapolis Colts – ($1)

This one isn’t for the auctions, but in the 10-man drafts, Mack could end up quite the steal this week. The Indy backfield was awful the first five weeks of the season, while rookies Jordan Wilkins and Nyheim Hynes both got some run and neither did anything with it. Mack returned from injury week six and proceeded to lead the Colts backfield with 12 carries and turned it into 89 yards for 7.4 YPC. He then followed that by running all over the Buffalo defense for 126 yards on 19 carries, solidifying himself as the lead dog in this backfield. It should be a close game with Oakland on the road for the Colts, so I look for Mack to get plenty of run, and find the end zone at least once.

Besides Mack and Johnson, there are a group of running backs I like that are all third round targets for those 10-man drafts. You should be able to decipher them through the rankings, which will always follow the wide receiver targets in this article, but go ahead and target Latavius Murray and Nick Chubb as well.

NFL DRAFT DFS: WR/TE Targets:

A.J. Green – Cincinnati Bengals – ($5-10)

Auctions are pretty fun this week. Wide receiver is certainly interesting and very different each and every auction. these CAV’s are actually too tough to predict here, because they are simply all over the place, but I went low with most of them, just to show that there is some serious value in auctions. On the flip side, all three targets here in the wide receivers this week will go in your second round of your 10-man drafts, mostly because of the value at the running back spot in the third round.

Green and the Bengals get the 3-3 Buccaneers at home, and are only four point favorites. I think Mixon will have a tough time getting it going again this week, and the Bengals end up taking advantage of this weak secondary, and pass all day. I have Green locked as a top-5 receiver this week, and he can be had in auctions for $1 in surprisingly more often than not. If he gets brought up early he will likely go for $20 or so, but I am willing to pay that, depending on whether or not I get Thielen, or which running backs I have, or still may be able to get.

Tyreek Hill – Kansas City Chiefs – ($5-10)

Early in the week when I started doing auctions, I was consistently getting Mahomes for $16, and either Thielen or Hill for $31. Some of those I actually got Gurley as well. I am telling you these auctions are where it’s at. The match-up with the Broncos is tough no doubt, and most are focused on Kareem Hunt having the massive game here, but I am going the other way this week. It only takes one pass for Hill to get you 15 or so DP’s, and that makes him worth a pick every week. If he breaks two long TD’s, you are likely over 30 DP’s right there.

This is the second meeting between these two teams already. The Chiefs squeaked out a 27-23 road victory, and Vegas now seems to think they are going to whoop Denver at home by more than 10 points. I think we see something similar to that score again here, but I think Hill breaks one this time. He had a weird game for his standards in that first one, as he was used in possessional situations, catching 9 balls for just 54 yards. Promising aspect here however was that he did lead the team in targets with 13. I want this offense every week, until someone slows them down again. That possibly could have been all I had to write, but this would be a very short article if I did that.

Davante Adams – Green Bay Packers – ($5-10)

Another steal in these auctions this week when we think about what kind of ceiling a wide receiver can produce. Green, Hill and Adams here, all have the ability to drop 150 and 2 this week given their ability and their match-up’s, and all are pretty much afterthoughts compared to Antonio Brown and Adam Thielen, and the top five or so running backs. The Pack will travel to LA to face the Rams, and will likely be playing catch-up in the second half of this one. The Rams are 10.5 point favorites, as the thought is that this Rams defense can contain Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense, but the same cannot be said about the Packers defense stopping the unlimited weapons the Rams have on offense. The Rams should have a big lead late, and we saw what Adams and Rodgers can do in garbage time over the last couple of weeks. I’ll throw out a prediction here and say I expect Adams to have a similar line here in this one. 9-143-2 book it.

For those still here for the rankings, click one more link below!!

NFL DRAFT DFS: Week 7 Rankings: Top 50

My rankings are pretty easy to follow. I have ranked the top 50 overall. Following each player is their DRAFT CAV, which is generated by me, in parenthesis. Again, we will have the top ten QB’s, 20 RB’s and 20 WR/TE’s, and here they are!

***The CAV is the Current Auction Value. These are not my projections or what I am spending on these players. This dollar amount is to be used as a guide to get a feel for what these players are currently going for in my auctions. When the CAV’s are absent that means I have not (or maybe once) seen them drafted in a 6-man auction*** 

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1. RB – Todd Gurley – Los Angeles Rams – ($60-65)

2. RB – Saquon Barkley – New York Giants – ($55-60)

3. RB – Kareem Hunt – Kansas City Chiefs – ($50-55)

4. RB – James Conner – Pittsburgh Steelers – ($35-40)

5. WR – Adam Thielen – Minnesota Vikings – ($30-35)

6. RB – James White – New England Patriots – ($20-25)

7. QB – Patrick Mahomes – Kansas City Chiefs – ($15-20)

8. WR – Antonio Brown – Pittsburgh Steelers – ($30-35)

9. RB – Alvin Kamara – New Orleans Saints – ($20-25)

10. WR – AJ Green – Cincinnati Bengals – ($5-10)

11. WR – Tyreek Hill – Kansas City Chiefs – ($5-10)

12. WR – Michael Thomas – New Orleans Saints – ($5-10)

13. WR – Davante Adams – Green Bay Packers – ($5-10)

14. RB – Kerryon Johnson – Detroit Lions – ($5-10)

15. RB – David Johnson – Arizona Cardinals – ($15-20)

16. RB – Christian McCaffrey – Carolina Panthers – ($5-10)

17. WR – JuJu Smith-Schuster – Pittsburgh Steelers – ($1-5)

18. WR – Odell Beckham – New York Giants – ($20-25)

19. WR – Robert Woods – Los Angeles Rams – ($15-20)

20. WR – Julian Edelman – New England Patriots – ($1)

21. RB – Marlon Mack – Indianapolis Colts – ($1)

22. RB – Nick Chubb – Cleveland Browns – ($1)

23. RB – Latavius Murray – Minnesota Vikings – ($1)

24. RB – Joe Mixon – Cincinnati Bengals – ($20-25)

25. RB – TJ Yeldon – Jacksonville Jaguars

26. QB – Ben Roethlisberger – Pittsburgh Steelers – ($1)

27. QB – Drew Brees – New Orleans Saints – ($1)

28. QB – Tom Brady – New England Patriots – ($1)

29. WR – Stefon Diggs – Minnesota Vikings 

30. RB – Tarik Cohen – Chicago Bears – ($1)

31. RB – Phillip Lindsay – Denver Broncos

32. TE – Travis Kelce – Kansas City Chiefs – ($1)

33. QB – Andy Dalton – Cincinnati Bengals – 

34. QB – Kirk Cousins – Minnesota Vikings – ($1)

35. RB – Chris Carson – Seattle Seahawks 

36. WR – Mike Evans – Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

37. TE – Zach Ertz – Philadelphia Eagles 

38. WR – Emmanuel Sanders – Denver Broncos

39. QB – Jared Goff – Los Angeles Rams – ($1)

40. QB – Aaron Rodgers – Green Bay Packers – ($1)

41. QB – Andrew Luck – Indianapolis Colts

42. RB – LeSean McCoy – Buffalo Bills

43. RB – Adrian Peterson – Washington Redskins 

44. WR – Alshon Jeffery – Philadelphia Eagles 

45. WR – Tyler Boyd – Cincinnati Bengals 

46. WR – Golden Tate – Detroit Lions

47. RB – Alex Collins – Baltimore Ravens

48. WR – Will Fuller – Houston Texans

49. WR – Brandin Cooks – Los Angeles Rams

50. QB – Jameis Winston – Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Thanks for giving this a read. Any questions for me you can always find me on Twitter. My handle is at the top of the article. Good luck drafting and may your bids be perfect!