FanDuel GPP Guide: Week 4

Before diving into the slate overview and my favorite plays at each position, let's start with a quick look at the injury news that is heavily impacting GPP strategy this week. One way to gauge how the field is reacting is to compare our percent rostered projections from Thursday to the Saturday morning update.

With Justin Jefferson officially ruled out, Jordan Addison jumped from 3.8 to 15.7 percent rostered, T.J. Hockenson from 5.1 to 15.8 percent, and Aaron Jones Sr. from 9.9 to 22.1 percent. All three look like bargains with more opportunity in store, so Minnesota went from an offense the field was underweight on to one it is now slightly overplaying.

The Jets will be without Breece Hall, Adonai Mitchell and Mason Taylor, which makes Braelon Allen their lead back and should mean more targets for Garrett Wilson and Kenyon Sadiq for a second straight week (Wilson drew 13 targets and Sadiq drew eight in Week 3 with Mitchell and Taylor out). The Eagles will be without DeVonta Smith, Hollywood Brown, and Dallas Goedert. With all three out, I am projecting Philadelphia to lean on Saquon Barkley more than usual, which is part of why I do not want to get too far ahead of myself on Makai Lemon, Dontayvion Wicks, and the other Eagles pass catchers, even though they look cheap for their bigger roles. The field is not showing the same caution with Wicks, who jumped from 3.8 to 10.1 percent rostered in the Saturday update.

On the other end of the injury spectrum, several key players are back this week. Nico Collins is set to return for Houston after missing two games; Puka Nacua does not carry an injury designation (though Sean McVay said the Rams are still working through his snap count); Zay Flowers could be back in more of a full-time role after playing only a third of the snaps in Week 3; and Mike Evans is expected to play even though he did not practice this week. The key here is figuring out how close to 100 percent each of these stars is and how that will affect their usage and effectiveness. It's scary to play guys shrouded in this much uncertainty, given the wide range of outcomes. However, the fear you are feeling is the same fear your competition is feeling, which is why Nacua (9.2 percent) and Flowers (9.9 percent) are both projected under 10 percent rostered despite their massive upside, and Collins is only a little more popular at 13.3 percent.

My fantasy point projections are built on a simulation of every game on the slate run ten thousand times. The simulation also solves the best possible FanDuel lineup in each of those ten thousand worlds, and how often a player lands in that best lineup is his optimal percentage. For tournaments, what matters is how that number compares to our percent rostered projections, which Devin Knotts assembles each week. When the field is on a player far more often than he shows up in the optimal lineups, he is over-rostered relative to what the numbers say, and when the reverse is true, he is a leverage play.

At each position, I will show you which players are expected to be the most popular (the chalk), with the ones I think are worth going heavy on at that elevated percent rostered marked as good chalk, and then a list of other targets who are flying a little further under the radar and whom my process likes more than the field does.

Slate Overview

Before diving into the individual plays, let's get a big-picture view of the slate. The table below shows each team's implied total and how it compares to my season projection for that offense, along with two numbers that frame everything that follows. The first is how often that team's players show up in the optimal lineups across the ten thousand simulations, and the second is how often we project them to show up on the field's rosters. When a team's players fill more optimal lineups than the field is projected to roster them, our competition is probably overlooking that offense; when the reverse is true, the field is probably overplaying it.

This week's main slate has 12 games. Buffalo has the highest implied total at 28.25, with Cincinnati and Baltimore next at 27. The Bengals and Jaguars meet in the highest-total game on the slate at 51.5, while Miami has the lowest implied total at 14 against Minnesota.

Chicago Bears, 23.5

Chicago is the offense the field is most heavily invested in, and it is not close. Bears players fill about 69 percent of the field's projected roster spots against 40 percent of the optimal lineups, a 29-point gap that is more than double any other team's. The defense (23.6 percent rostered against 7 percent optimal), D'Andre Swift and Luther Burden III account for most of it, and the uncertainty at quarterback, with Caleb Williams out and Ben Johnson declining to name a starter between Tyson Bagent and Case Keenum, is a big part of why the simulation is so much lower than the field. Chicago's implied total is also 6 percent below my season number for the Bears, which makes this the clearest spot on the slate to be underweight.

Denver Broncos, 22.25

Denver is now the offense the field is most underweight on. Broncos players fill about 30 percent of the optimal lineups against 15 percent of the field's projected roster spots, a 16-point gap that is the widest on the slate in that direction. Bo Nix is projected for under 1 percent rostered but lands in 5 percent of the optimal lineups, and Courtland Sutton (4.5 percent optimal against 1.8 percent rostered) and J.K. Dobbins (3.9 against 1.2) are being overlooked as well. Jaylen Waddle is priced about right at 8.5 percent rostered and 9.1 percent optimal, and he showed his ceiling with eight catches for 138 yards in Week 2. Denver is a 3-point road underdog in San Francisco in a game with a 47.5 total, but this beat-up 49ers defense went from looking potentially elite over the first two weeks, when it allowed 20 points combined, to giving up 30 points to the Cardinals last week.

Philadelphia Eagles, 19.5

The field is staying away from the Eagles after the injuries to Smith, Brown, and Goedert, and the simulation thinks that is a mistake. Philadelphia players fill about 31 percent of the optimal lineups against 19 percent of the field's projected roster spots. Barkley (12.8 percent optimal against 5.7 percent rostered) and Lemon (8.4 against 2.9) account for most of the gap, while Dontayvion Wicks is the one Eagle the field likes more than the simulation at 10.1 percent rostered against 3.4 percent optimal.

Cincinnati Bengals, 27.0, and Jacksonville Jaguars, 24.5

The Bengals and Jaguars meet in the highest-total game on the slate, and this is the game I most want to stack. The field is about 7 points lighter on the Bengals than the simulation, with Ja'Marr Chase (19 percent optimal against 13.5 percent rostered), Joe Burrow (8.9 against 6.5), and Tee Higgins (12.8 against 10.3) all under-rostered. The Jaguars defense allowed the fewest rushing yards in the league last season, so it should still profile as a pass funnel, even if that has not fully played out yet against the offenses it has faced this season. Jacksonville's Parker Washington keeps climbing in our percent rostered projections and is up to 19.8 percent in the Saturday update, so he is now a little over-rostered against 13.4 percent optimal, though he is still the most common bring-back in Burrow's optimal lineups. I'm also intrigued by Bhayshul Tuten, who lands in 7.9 percent of the optimal lineups but is projected for only 2.5 percent rostered.

Buffalo Bills, 28.25

Buffalo has the highest implied total on the slate as a 7-point home favorite against New England, and the field has the Bills about right overall. Josh Allen jumped to 16.9 percent rostered in the Saturday update and is now over-rostered against 11.3 percent optimal, while James Cook III (16.8 percent optimal against 12.9 percent rostered) and DJ Moore (9.4 against 6.4) are both still under-rostered.

Quarterbacks