Photo: Junfu Han, USA Today Sports

For the uninitiated, playing daily games on DraftKings can be an enjoyable experience, but equally sobering is the fact that season-long knowledge does not always translate to success in the daily space. Footballguys will bring you a series of value- and strategic-based selections from a number of seasoned daily veterans throughout the NFL season. Herein is another edition of “Tipandpick’s Tips and Picks,” where we will examine the salaries of players at each position on DraftKings and make value-based recommendations for both your cash games and tournaments.

Below you will find a list of recommended players for both formats. GPP players generally have high-upside, but are too risky for cash games; cash game players are consistent with high fantasy floors. In some instances, the value for a player is so strong, he may fall into both categories…let’s have a look.

TIPS AND PICKS

Let's take a deeper look into some of the players who I will be targeting for my cash game and tournament rosters this weekend. A short summary follows each respective table to fill in the gaps that led to the respective recommendations; that text represents only an overview of the methodology and rationale that goes into each recommendation. If you have questions about any of the recommendations or the process that led to them, please email me at john.lee@footballguys.com.

CASH GAMES

Quarterbacks: There is plentiful value on this week's slate, so the right move is to spend up at the quarterback position to take advantage of the game in Arizona with a 57-point Vegas total. Both quarterbacks in this game are in play for all DFS formats (cash and tournament), but appear in this section because of their consistent performance week-in and week-out. Kyler Murray is the most expensive player at the position and, rightfully so, given the fact that he has scored 3x on this week's $8.0K salary every week this season. As has been discussed here previously, his rushing prowess solidifies his fantasy floor every week; he is the NFL's 8th-leading rusher to this point in the season and trails only Dalvin Cook and Todd Gurley in rushing touchdowns. With rushing scores in all-but-one game this season, he is the class of his position for cash games. If you cannot quite get to Murray's salary, look no further than the other side of the field in Phoenix, where Josh Allen will be slinging the ball to keep pace in this likely barnburner. Allen is coming off a 39.0-DK point, 415-passing yard performance against the Seahawks that saw him rush for a touchdown for the second consecutive week. On paper, the matchup against the Cardinals is mediocre, but Arizona has faced one elite quarterback all season when they allowed Russell Wilson to collect 35.9-DK points in Week #8. This matchup against a Bills squad averaging 26.9-points per game will test the full limits of their defense; with the offense flowing through Allen, look for him to easily deliver 3x value on his $7.5K salary.

Running Backs: You probably do not need to go there this week, but Alvin Kamara is certainly in play as a cash game selection at the running back position. With 60 receptions this season, Kamara is ranked 3rd in the league, ahead of Tyler Lockett, Terry McLaurin, and Davante Adams. Add in a gamescript that favors the run and Kamara represents an excellent cash (and GPP) option. In Green Bay, the weather forecast is projected to skew action towards the run, which obviously favors Aaron Jones and his reasonable $7.1K salary against the league's worst-ranked DVOA defense. Get plentiful shares of Aaron Jones, as he is probably the most likely player to score on Sunday's slate. Elsewhere, both Duke Johnson Jr and Mike Davis represent excellent value plays due to injuries ahead of them; Duke benefits from David Johnson's concussion while Davis will inherit an RB1 role after Christian McCaffrey hurt his shoulder in last week's game against the Chiefs. Both options are probably the best value on the slate and will appear in > 70% of rosters (Davis will be > 85% in cash games). For tournaments, the route is slightly less clear due to their respective popularity. Davis is going to be on over half of tournament rosters with Johnson being on approximately 25%; where Johnson is concern, go underweight...but Mike Davis could be the most difficult decision (for tournaments) of the 2020 season. His projections argue that he has > 80% chance of hitting GPP value, but the matchup against the Buccaneers is tough, as they have not allowed > 60-rushing yards to a running back yet this season and the Panthers' implied team total is only 22.5 points; if Robby Anderson and/or D.J. Moore score, there may not be enough meat left on the bone for Davis to hit GPP value despite his crazy-high projections. Because there is justification on both sides of the argument for Davis, you are advised to go with the crowd and get him into 50% of your tournament rosters and beat your opponents with other decisions.

Wide Receivers: With the value that is presenting itself at the running back position, you likely will not need to take too many chances at wide receiver this week. If you do, Chris Conley looks like the sharp cash game play at $3.0K due to Laviska Shenault's "out" designation on Friday's injury report; without 'Viska last week, Conley compiled a 7/52/0 stat line with Jake Luton at quarterback, which represents 4x this week's site-minimum salary. At the higher end, feel free to roll with Stefon Diggs, Keenan Allen, and Tyler Lockett in cash games. Diggs is the premier receiver for the Bills and should see plenty of action in Week #10's most anticipated game (56.5-point total). Allen continues to see double-digit targets each week and has scored in three of the previous four weeks, yet his salary seems perpetually in the sub-$8K range? Take advantage and just keep rostering him until DraftKings adjusts. Lastly, Tyler Lockett is in a bounce-back position after disappointing last week in Buffalo; Jalen Ramsey should contend with DK Metcalf while Lockett gets the easy underneath looks against the Rams.

Tight Ends: A high- and low-end (salary) option at tight end exist for cash games this week. Darren Waller is priced for his role in the Raiders offense at $5.9K, but he also brings a double-digit scoring floor with that hefty salary. Across the entire season, Waller has score > 10-DK points on all-but-two games and has delivered cash game-value on this week's salary in half of his games. As for Austin Hooper, his salary is reasonable for a tight end that caught five passes in three consecutive games before missing a pair of games due to injury. The weather forecast in Cleveland is not going to allow for ample passing opportunities, but those passes that do occur will be of low aDOT, which still supports a solid role for Hooper against the Texans.

Team Defenses: There are no slam dunks at the team defense position this week, so the recommendation is to roster the Saints against Nick Mullens and the battered 49ers or to punt altogether with an excellent Rams defense in a poor matchup. In New Orleans, the Saints are coming off their best defensive performance of the season where they held Tom Brady and the Buccaneers to a measly field goal on Sunday Night Football. Over their previous two games, the Saints have sacked the quarterback eight times and collected another four turnovers, neither of which bodes well for Nick Mullens whose lifetime 18:14 touchdown-to interception ratio could render the Saints defense a top play for the third straight week. Alternatively, rolling with Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, and an overall solid defense for only $2.2K is a risk worth taking against the Seahawks' top-end defense. We saw some chinks in the Seattle armor last week when they traveled to Buffalo, scoring only 20 points through 3 quarters of football. Look for the Rams to study that game film and take advantage of what a lesser Bills defense was able to do against Seattle.

TOURNAMENTS

Quarterbacks: There are plenty of ways to distribute your action with all of the value presenting itself this weekend in DFS. At the high-end, Justin "AirBear" (h/t to Devin Knotts) Herbert stands out as a premier upside play against the Dolphins in a game that has sneaky shootout potential. In Carolina, Tom Brady should not be discounted after laying an egg on Sunday Night Football against the Saints. We have seen "Angry Tom" in the past and he typically delivers on expectations in those situations; with another week of Antonio Brown, look for Brady to return to stardom against Carolina at low crowd exposure. At the Meadowlands, both quarterbacks are firmly in play due to their respective pricing and matchups. Carson Wentz is sub-$6K and will benefit from the return of Dallas Goedert, Miles Sanders, and Jalen Reagor, while Daniel Jones is a value-based selection that can be easily stacked with Sterling Shepard for only 20% of your overall salary distribution. Elsewhere, do not sleep on Tua Tagovailoa against the Chargers--he, and his receivers, are too cheaply priced, which allows for spending up at other positions.

• Sleeper: The entire Carolina Panthers team was mispriced on DraftKings this week. While 60+% of people will be rostering Mike Davis and his $4K salary, the vast majority of people will ignore the remainder of the Panthers offense despite cheap pricing and significant upside. Teddy Bridgewater is going to completely overlooked despite both D.J. Moore and Robby Anderson being bona fide value plays at their respective prices. This may be one of the best opportunities of the season to capitalize on group-think by leveraging the dramatic crowd exposure to Mike Davis and rolling with passing game stacks involving Teddy Bridgewater. As proof of this value, this author will be ~ 10-fold over the field in tournament exposure for Bridgewater.
• Fade: It's a stellar matchup for Jared Goff, but his popularity in tournaments is not justified by his numbers...mainly his salary and percent-rostered. The masses will be chasing the magic that is Seattle's defense, but if Goff goes off in more than 8-10% of tournaments at lineup lock, it will have been too much. There are 11 different quarterbacks with better odds to achieve 4x value on their salary, but Goff is projected to be the 3rd most popular quarterback in DFS contests on Sunday. Fade the masses and get more exposure to other throwers referenced above.

Running Backs: As discussed earlier in the article, the weather forecast in Cleveland is calling for high sustained winds which will favor production on the ground via Nick Chubb in his first game in over a month. The Texans field the league's 28th-ranked DVOA rush defense and Chubb is expected to return to his RB1 role despite Kareem Hunt getting ~ 90% of the snaps over the month of October. In Denver, Josh Jacobs continues to jump to the top of my model and merits consideration for tournaments yet again this week. Jacobs was vultured for a touchdown last week by Devontae Booker, which kept his salary in the $6K range for at least one more week; there are not many backfields in the NFL where a running back consistently gets 80+% of the looks, but Las Vegas is certainly one of those and Jacobs is absolutely going overlooked in tournaments despite that reality. Elsewhere, give some extra looks to Darrell Henderson as a leverage play against the massive attention being afforded to the Rams' passing game; if they do not deliver against Seattle, it might have meant that the Rams focused on the ground-game and dosed Seattle with Henderson, who should be fresh coming off a bye week. Lastly, this week's cover boy is DAndre Swift, who is going unnoticed in tournaments despite having one of the best matchups of the week. The Football Team is a "reverse-funnel" defense in the sense that they have the league's best DVOA pass defense, but are only 17th against the run. With Kenny Golladay (hip) on the sidelines and T.J. Hockenson looking iffy to play, the Lions are going to lean heavily on Swift, whose $5.1K salary is about $1K too cheap for his likely role in this matchup. Get yourself at least 25% exposure in your GPP portfolio.

• Sleeper: Coming off a 9-touch anomaly game against the Giants where the Football Team threw for nearly 400 yards, Antonio Gibson is going entirely underappreciated in this week's contest against the Detroit Lions. Prior to last week's outlier performance, Gibson had been averaging 16.5 touches per game and was the clear leader on the team on redzone opportunities (17). The Lions rank 25th (DVOA) against the run and allow more fantasy points per game to the position than any other team in the NFL. With Alex Smith now under center, there is reason to believe that Gibson could get even more action in Sunday's pristine matchup against the Lions.
• Fade: It's unclear why Miles Sanders is so popular heading into Sunday's matchup against the Giants, but take advantage of the field and go underweight on your overall tournament exposure. Sanders has approximately an 8% chance to hit 4x value on his $6.4K salary, but he is projected to land on well over double that number of rosters, which makes him a poor decision for GPP contests. The Giants have yielded substantial fantasy production to the position, but have not actually allowed a 100-yard rusher since Week #1 against the Steelers. This is a prime opportunity to fade a highly rostered player and get additional exposure to running backs who are better positioned to deliver tournament value on their respective salaries.

Wide Receivers: There are plenty of ways to go contrarian this week and you will note that none of the recommended plays are slated to be on > 10% of rosters. At the top of the list are DeAndre Hopkins and Robby Anderson, both of whom are in great spots to deliver 4x value on their respective salaries. "Nuk" is without question the best receiver on his offense, yet recency bias (see below) has DFS players scampering to play Christian Kirk against the Bills over Hopkins; pay the premium to get the more talented receiver and ignore the matchup against TreDavious White, who was humbled by DK Metcalf last Sunday. In Carolina, Robby Anderson (and D.J. Moore) is going to go under-rostered because of Mike Davis' popularity in tournaments. Scoreless since Week #1, Anderson is destined for positive touchdown regression in the near future and there would be no better week to get additional exposure to him than one where his teammate is likely to be found on > 50% of rosters. The remainder of this week's recommended selections are in the low-to-mid salary range--DeVante Parker is attractive with Preston Williams' departure to the IR; Sterling Shepard continues to go unnoticed in DFS circles despite 26 targets over the 3 games since his return; A.J. Green is a victim of age discrimination by DFS players, but his salary makes him viable each week (even against the undefeated Steelers); Randall Cobb is unexciting, but his low salary and aDOT (7.2 yards) makes him the most attractive candidate for a big game where deep passing could otherwise be limited.

• Sleeper: It is criminal that Henry Ruggs is going off on less than 2% of rosters this weekend. The days of Denver's shutdown cornerback coverage are over and there is not a defensive back in the league who can match Ruggs' speed, yet Ruggs is super-cheap and on nobody's DFS radar? Go overweight on Ruggs in your GPP portfolio with the understanding that he can literally deliver 4x value on his salary in one single play against the league's 26th-ranked DVOA pass defense. Ignore the game logs and recognize that Ruggs was the Raiders' first-round pick for a reason: his upside. Get at least 8-12% exposure and hope that Derek Carr finds Ruggs in space on Sunday.
• Fade: To be fair, there were multiple wide receivers whose name nearly appeared in this space (I'm looking at you Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, and Curtis Samuel), but Christian Kirk gets the nod as this week's best player to avoid in tournaments. Kirk's salary has risen to $5.7K and he is the WR2 on an offense projected to score 29.3 points on Sunday. That said, Kirk still plays second-fiddle to DeAndre Hopkins (see above) who is projected to be on fewer lineups than Kirk, which is criminal. With five touchdowns over his previous three games, the crowd is banking on recency bias rather than skill with the aforementioned popularity--being the sharp player that you are (you're reading this article, right?), fade Kirk's popularity and put your hard-earned dollars on the better talent (Hopkins) at lower overall field exposure.

Tight Ends: In Miami, Mike Gesicki could be the beneficiary of Preston Williams (foot) trip to the IR. With Davante Parker contending with Casey Hayward on the perimeter, it is within reason to think that Gesicki could be heavily targeted against the Chargers as a dump-off option. In that same game, Hunter Henry is destined for some positive touchdown regression in the near future. With only one score across 33 receptions, while averaging a touchdown every 8 receptions coming into 2020, Henry represents excellent GPP value at his $4.1K salary. Elsewhere, give consideration to Tyler Higbee, who will be (confusingly) the least popular option in the passing game against the Seahawks, as well as Robert Tonyan Jr in a game at Lambeau, where deep passing could be restricted due to high-speed winds.

• Sleeper: Only Austin Hooper and Darren Waller have higher odds of hitting GPP value at tight end than Logan Thomas this week. That said, there are 12 tight ends projected to be more popular than Thomas in tournaments. The matchup against the Lions in underrated, as they allowed Irv Smith to score a pair of touchdowns last week and Jack Doyle to hit paydirt a week prior to that. Trailing only Terry McLaurin in redzone looks as a receiver, LT3 is a prime GPP option that could differentiate your rosters in large-field tournaments on Sunday.
• Fade: Likely the most popular player at his position on Sunday, you are advised to fade Dallas Goedert and his attractive $4.2K salary. After missing a month due to injury, Goedert returned to the gridiron last week, played 84% of the team's snaps, and deliver a 1/15/0 stat line...yet he is projected to be the slate's most popular tight end in Week #10? None of this makes sense, particularly considering that Miles Sanders will return from injury and Jalen Reagor will also see increased action a week removed from his return (from injury). Remove Goedert from your GPP player pool and put your exposure towards players referenced elsewhere in this article.

Team Defenses: The weather forecast in Cleveland is downright dreadful, calling for sustained 30 MPH winds with gusts approaching 50 MPH. The result of which is that both defenses should be in play due to pricing and the unlikely event of a shootout (the Vegas total has dropped 9 points since opening on Tuesday). If one team happens to jump ahead of the other, there is a non-zero chance that sloppy football could be played in the second half and defenses typically overdeliver in those conditions. Elsewhere, give consideration to the Lions against Alex Smith, who is making his first start in years, and the 5-3 Raiders, who are quietly positioning themselves for a playoff spot in the wild-card race. In all cases, the recommendation is to spend down at the position, as the more expensive defenses (Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Green Bay) are poorly placed to deliver on their respective salaries.

• Sleeper: Last week, we recommended to fade the Texans and their $3.1K salary against the Jaguars (they yielded only 4 DK points at double-digit percent-rostered numbers). This week, the recommendation is to go overweight on that same defense at a $700 discount against Baker Mayfield and the Browns. The weather forecast is calling for conditions unfavorable to the passing game and we already know that Mayfield is subject to poor performances against most NFL defenses. Look for the J.J. Watt and the Texans to get after Mayfield and deliver solid return on the paltry $2.4K investment on Sunday.
• Fade: With their best player (Zaire Alexander) listed as doubtful, it is unclear why the Packers are so popular heading into Sunday? While at Oregon State, Jake Luton was tremendous in protecting the ball (28 touchdowns versus 3 interceptions in his senior year) and he allowed only 1 turnover in his NFL debut against the Texans last week. The upside for the Packers defense is not there at a hefty salary--fade them (and the Eagles, who nearly appeared here) in your GPP portfolio this weekend.

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