Photo: USA Today Sports

Know Your Opposition

If you want to finish at the top of the standings in a mid-to-large field GPP, your roster has to stand out from the crowd. Studying a list of projected roster percentages is a helpful first step, but it lacks the context of how the most popular players fit together under the salary cap.

To gain some insight into how the majority of entrants will allocate their cap space, so you can spend yours differently, let’s think about how the public is most likely to attack roster construction at each position.

Key Injuries for Week 13

This season is unique in that we are dealing with so many backups, injuries, and rookie quarterbacks that it is becoming a bit unprecedented.

• Jonathan Taylor is out this week with a thumb injury. This is going to push Zack Moss to be a must-start this week.
• The Patriots wide receiver room is going to be limited this week as Demario Douglas has been ruled out with a concussion, while Kayshon Boutte will miss with a shoulder injury. This will leave DeVante Parker and JuJu Smith-Schuster as the only Patriots receivers who have over 50 yards receiving this week. It likely means that we will see a heavy dosage of the rushing attack from Rhamondre Stevenson and maybe the tight ends in Hunter Henry.
• Chris Olave is interesting this week as he seems to be the lone guy left in New Orleans. With Michael Thomas still on IR, and Rashid Shaheed out with a thigh injury, look for Olave to have significant upside this week.
• Joe Flacco will start for the Browns this week as Dorian Thompson-Robinson is still dealing with a concussion. This is interesting more in tournaments as Flacco threw for 285 yards or more in four of his last five starts and may be the best passer that the Browns have had start for them this season.

Slate Overview- Week 13 Thoughts- Very High Roster Percentages

Zack Moss is trending to be the highest-rostered player of the season. At $4,600, he is seemingly a no-brainer given the lack of value on this slate combined with some high-end options that are intriguing. Currently, Moss is trending to be 50-60% rostered. With this savings of having a primary running back at $4,60-

Should you fade Zack Moss?

The easy answer from other sites or content creators is you should always fade someone this highly rostered. However, this is a unique situation that happens less than once per year. It is a complete mispricing of a player who should realistically have 20-25 touches.

The argument that many make is that if Zack Moss fails, you get an advantage over 50-60% of the field. However, there are several flaws in this situation. Most of the time, the saying of getting an advantage against that roster percentage if that player fails applies to situations where there are comparable players at a similar price point who may be projected for 1-2 fewer points, but their roster percentage may be less than half. Moss has no comparable players at his price. At $4,600, he’s priced with running backs who are backups that would need an injury early on in the game to get anywhere close to Moss.

The other issue in fading Zack Moss is opportunity cost. By going with Moss, you can more easily build out a roster that has Tyreek Hill and Tua Tagovailoa, or you could go with Christian McCaffrey. There are several elite players at the top this week while not a lot in the middle ground, so if you fade him, you’re likely going to have to dodge two bullets, one that Moss does not pan out, but also that the top end elite guys also do not have big days as with so many people taking Moss, it will drive up the roster percentage of players such as McCaffrey and Hill.

There are a lot of incentives when it comes to writing, but the prize pools so vastly exceed the amount that people make in creating content that there are certain writers or projections from other sites (especially free ones) whose goal is to bring down the roster percentage of Moss or other players to give themselves an advantage. As the person who leads our content team, that would never fly at Footballguys, and any writer who is giving out anything less than their best advice would no longer be a part of our team.

I would play Zack Moss in 100% of your lineups and just treat it as a free square this week.

Stacks

Top Stacks

Sam Howell, Tyreek Hill, Terry McLaurin

This is a pivot off of what almost certainly will be the most popular stack of the week which is Tua Tagovailoa and Tyreek Hill. With Sam Howell, we know we are getting pass attempts throughout the entire game as he leads the NFL in pass attempts and yards. Last week, even in a 45-10 loss, Howell reached the 300-yard mark against the Cowboys and has now topped 300 yards in four of his last five games.

The theory behind not having both Tagovailoa and Hill stacked together is Hill makes up such a large percentage of their production as it is, that he can still pay off his salary even if Tua is not necessarily the top quarterback. Hill accounts for 42% of the Dolphins passing production.

Under-the-Radar Stacks

Joe Flacco, Elijah Moore, Cooper Kupp (optional)

This is as under-the-radar as we get. However, Elijah Moore is my favorite value play on this slate by a wide margin. At just $3,500, this is a player who has caught 40 or more yards in all but one of his games in his career. This includes a game where Moore had 141 yards and a touchdown. Moore was a big reason that the Browns brought in Flacco, and Flacco has been specifically calling out Elijah in his post-practice interviews. For Flacco, he gets a lot of hate, but in his time in New York last season, he has thrown for 285 yards or more in four of his last five games. At age 38, he’s a guy who has never been mobile and should have some arm strength left given what we saw last season.

For Kupp, it’s the theory that his ankle may be back as this was the first week that we’ve seen him be a full participant in practice in a long time. Kupp has struggled mightily which is going to lead to him being about 3% rostered this week, but are we all of a sudden going to write off a guy who has been one of the game’s elite receivers this season? For Kupp, he should see a lot of backup corner Mike Ford who was elevated due to the injury to Denzel Ward.

Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown Chris Olave (If Olave is active, if not Alvin Kamara)