DraftKings NFL GPP pivots: Week 3 – truth hurts

DraftKings NFL GPP pivots: Week 3

Welcome back, FanSiders, to the DraftKings NFL week 3 edition of GPP Pivots. I’m “Thunder Dan” and I’ll be writing this column every week this season with the goal of giving you some of the best NFL DFS plays each week at low ownership.

This article will always come out on Friday, as I have to wait all week and gather as much information as I can to feel confident about who the chalk is going to be and then determine where I want to pivot.

Something that makes that process easier for me is using projected ownership percentages at FanShare Sports. While I can’t give you those specific ownership’s (They charge for that info!), I can still give you an idea of which players are becoming trendy this week and which lower owned players I like just as much if not more for GPP’s on DraftKings.

Let’s do a quick review of last week’s picks, starting with the good ones!

Dak Prescott – 28.66 DK points

Andy Dalton – 22.64 DK points

Mark Andrews – 28.2 DK points (#1 TE last week!)

Tyler Boyd – 25.2 DK points

These guys didn’t kill you but also didn’t quite hit their ceilings.

Michael Gallup – 12.8 DK points (left with injury)

Devin Singletary – 11.7 DK points (left with injury)

Sony Michel – 13.3 DK points

Michael Thomas – 18.9 DK points

And of course, there were some duds…

Mark Ingram – 9.7 DK points

Delanie Walker – 7.9 DK points

"My goal in this column every week is to try to help you find those pivots. My process is always to identify the chalk first, evaluate if these plays are worthy of being as popular as they will be on Sunday, and then identifying pivots at similar price points at the same position.  You can pivot off one player in a popular offense to another teammate at a different position, too. Pivoting is all about thinking outside the box. If the DFS community is engaged in a massive groupthink all week about a certain player or game, then a good contrarian GPP player is going to go against the grain in spots that they feel strongly about."

Chalky plays are usually optimal plays and if you’re building cash lineups you should be stuffing a lot of them in those lineups. But for GPPs we are looking for some leverage by either fading “bad chalk” or pivoting to some lower owned plays that can outscore the chalkier plays.

You don’t need a lineup full of players who are 10% or lower to win a GPP. What you do need to do is mix and match the more popular plays with some of your favorite pivots in order to create some unique rosters!

This week’s theme is the “Truth Hurts” which also happens to be the name of a popular song by Lizzo (shout out to the high school kids who let me know what’s cool these days). In week three, I expect we find out what’s actually true about certain teams and players.

Are the Ravens really this good? Are the Steelers really this bad? And which big fantasy performances from the first two weeks were fluky and which of those were signs of more production to come?