Week 5 First Look

Photo: Kim Klement, USA Today Sports

In our Wednesday morning first look at the Week 5 Main Slate, we want to take a big-picture view as a first step in our preparation process. The goal here is to give you some information-packed visualizations to quickly set the table for the much more in-depth breakdowns and player recommendations that will come later in the week. In addition, we want to start to identify the players who are most likely to be popular so we can narrow our focus and start digging deeper into some of the players who stand out as potential top options.

Our Week 5 First Look will start out with a look at what the lines and totals tell us about teams to target. We are also going to identify the players that are popping out as top values in early-week projections and make note of the news items we will be tracking throughout the week that will have the biggest impact on the slate. Lastly, we will dig into some usage stats.

Implied Team Totals and Spreads

The above visualization shows each team’s implied team total and how much they are favored (negative numbers for underdogs).

• The upper right-hand quadrant shows teams that are favorites and expected to score an above-average amount of points. Players from these teams are prime targets for our DFS lineups this week.
• The bottom right-hand quadrant contains teams that are favored but in what are expected to be low-scoring games.
• The upper left-hand quadrant is teams that are underdogs but still expected to score an above-average number of points in games with shootout potential. The game script should set up well for the passing games of these offenses.
• The bottom left-hand quadrant is teams that are underdogs and not expected to score much. We want to approach rostering players from these teams with caution.

• Miami and Kansas City are going to be popular targets on this slate. The running back usage last week (see below) for both teams was noteworthy.
• If Detroit puts up as many points as expected and jumps out to an early lead, it could be another monster week for David Montgomery.
• The Bengals offense has been atrocious through four weeks. There is still some Vegas confidence that things will get back on track with the Bengals boasting the sixth-highest team total on the slate.