Photo: Mitchell Layton, USA Today Sports

Introduction

Monkey Knife Fight is one of the fastest-growing daily fantasy sites and offers a unique product that is a lot of fun. There are no salary caps and you do not have to compete against DFS pros. Instead, you simply find the combination of player props you are most confident in and pick more or less. Since each combination (two or more players) are playing in the same game, we can use correlation to our advantage. For example, if we know that one starting quarterback throws for more yards than projected, the opposing quarterback is more likely to throw for more yards also.

In this weekly article, we will count down the five best props of the week, saving the best for last.

Looking back at last week

Last Week: +3 units

Full Season: +37 units

We closed out the regular season with another winning week that included a pair of comfortable wins.

Hits

-We had over 12.5 fantasy points for Chris Godwin. He had 30.3. On the other side, we took the over of 10.5 fantasy points for Russell Gage. He had 25.2.

-We figured the Washington-Philadelphia game might be ugly. We had under 223.5 passing yards for Jalen Hurts. He had 72. We had under 242.5 passing yards for Alex Smith. He had 162.

Misses

-Noah Fant missed his receiving yardage over by 2.5 yards. On the other side, Nelson Agholor came up 7.5 yards short.

-David Montgomery and Davante Adams came up short of their rushing and receiving yardage props, respectively.

-Taking the Baltimore and Cincinnati passing overs was a bit of a disaster. The game got out of control more quickly than expected and both quarterbacks came in well under their passing props.

Number 5: Bucs Stack

Tom Brady (-6.5) more fantasy points than Terry McLaurin
Mike Evans (-0.5) more fantasy points than Alex Smith

• This is a correlation play on the Tampa Bay passing offense over the Washington passing offense. It is built differently than what we typically see (QB versus QB and WR versus WR), but that actually makes it slightly more attractive because the WR-WR matchups tend to have more variability.
• Tom Brady threw for multiple touchdowns in each of his final seven games. In five of those seven, he also passed for 340+ yards.
• He averaging 24.3 fantasy points per game over those seven and the consensus of our Footballguys projectors has Brady scoring 22.5 fantasy points this weekend.
• If we project Brady for 22.5, there is value on his side of the prop as long as we do not project Terry McLaurin for 16+ fantasy points. We project him for 15.1, so we are getting a bit of value.
• We also have recent history on our side. McLaurin has not scored 16+ fantasy points since Week 12 (when he had 16.2).
• Due in part to nagging injuries and in part due to poor quarterback play, McLaurin really struggled in the second half of the season. Over the final eight games he scored just one touchdown and had zero 100-yard receiving games. McLaurin was the fantasy WR38 in the second-half of the season.
• We do want to keep an eye on Mike Evans’ injury status before locking in this prop. He is dealing with a knee injury and we will want to see him get in at least a limited practice on Thursday or Friday before submitting here.

#GoBucs believe WR Mike Evans will play Sat. but this morning’s practice will be huge to see if his hyperextended knee has responded well enough to treatment.

— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) January 7, 2021

• We are getting some “might be replaced mid-game” value on Alex Smith. While his comeback has been a great story, Smith’s play has been spotty and he is dealing with an injury of his own. If he struggles early in the game, there is a good chance he could be replaced by Taylor Heinecke.

We are reacting to Ron Rivera telling reporters he is considering rotating Alex Smith and Taylor Heineke. Wow.

Listen live: https://t.co/WqJ1XNO6zY. pic.twitter.com/2khFjTRTw7

— Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) January 5, 2021

Number 4: Focus on the WR1s