Hello all and welcome to my NFL GPP breakdown for Week 8 of the NFL season. For those of you who were here last year, we had a ton of success with this article throughout the year and saw a plethora of screenshots throughout the season of MAJOR wins from in cooperating this article into your weekly research and lineup construction. For those of you who are new, welcome, my name is Bob Viafora and I am one of the lead DFS analysts at DFS Karma. I’ve been with DFS Karma for 2+ years now and looking forward to what our team (and you – the reader) is able to accomplish this season. As a staple of your weekly reading/research, please reach out to me on twitter @DF_Advantage (throw me that follow if you don’t already) each week and let me know how your rosters did as well as sharing any #screenshots you may have. Football is back! Let’s GO!
QUARTERBACK :
High Tier: Mitch Trubisky ($6100 – DK / $7700 – FD) – I am back on Mr. Six Touchdowns for the second time this year. Those of you who religiously read this article every week are aware of the last time we rostered the UNC product. Although the Jets have been above average from a DVOA standpoint against the pass this year they are also towards the top of the league in pace of play as they allow the 6th most offensive plays to be run on them in addition to the 5th most amount of passing plays thrown on them. In a game where the game script shouldn’t be leaning to the pass too much towards the end with the Bears implied to lead this gives me a ton of confidence that the Bears will follow this positive correlation against the Jets and continue to give Trubisky shots to throw the ball. In addition, the Bears defense has been picked apart the past two weeks so it would not be surprising if Sam Darnold and the Jets were able to keep this one close.
Another note after looking at Trbuisky’s passer rating compared to league average this year last week was his extremely proficient throws towards the sideline. As a QB these are usually the “tougher” throws to make as crossing routes through the middle lead to a higher completion percentage for the most part. Encouraging sign that Trubisky is the real deal.
Mid Tier: Cam Newton ($5800 – DK / $8100 – FD) – I get that the Ravens have been one of the best defensive teams this year but Cam Newton is quietly having a huge season and I can not believe he is projected under 5% ownership on Draftkings tonight. 5.8k for Newton is criminal considering he has paid off every one of his salaries so far this season, exceeding value in each game. Not only has Newton dominated the passing game where he has been passing over 30 times per game but he essentially adds a 4 point floor with his rushing ability with a major ceiling if he is able to dive into the end zone. The Ravens HAVE been susceptible against running QB’s this year allowing a below average 20 yards per game. While Newton may have his work cut out for him through the air the volume and game script WILL be there while his rushing ability truly makes him a break-the-slate candidate against one of the NFL’s best defenses.
If for some reason you are nervous about targeting a QB against a defense considered “elite” in today’s NFL, think of Tom Brady putting up 38 on the Bears “elite” defense in Week 7 or Brock Osweiler picking apart the same Bears defense that at the time was considered the best in the league. No one is on Cam in this spot, and while I consider him a MUCH better play on Draftkings I will be exposed to him everywhere across this slate.
Low Tier: Eli Manning ($4900 – DK / 6700 – FD) – I get that the Giants suck and Eli Manning should retire. But 4.9k for a guy surrounded by a healthy receiving corp of Odell Beckham, Saquon Barkley, Sterling Shepard, and Evan Engram should not be 4.9k. The first positive sign I saw when studying the Vegas lines this week was the flip from Redskins (-1) to now Redskins (+1) on the road against what seems to me like a motivated Giants offense, hungry for their next win. The main issue with this Giants offense over the first few weeks of the season is converting in the red zone where they are bottom three in the league. While this Redskins 13th ranked DVOA defense is pretty good they have been extremely weak in the red zone allowing the 6th most touchdowns per red zone trips this season. While recency bias would have you told that Eli is “washed” he is averaging over 335 passing yards in his last three games against two tough defenses in the Panthers and Eagles while also picking apart a softer defense in the Falcons.
While Twitter would have you believe Eli Manning is garbage and washed without able to do anything this year he has been well above the league average when passing within the line of scrimmage and the 20-yard mark. Obviously a spike on the deep balls which is nice to see as well. Eli is my top quarterback this week in terms of point per dollar for GPP.
PERSONAL FAVORITE PLAY (FP/$): Eli Manning
RUNNING BACK:
High: Saquon Barkley ($8,800 – DK / $8,900 – FD) – I am a huge Saquon Barkley fan as a huge Penn State guy but I haven’t let my bias get in the way when I probably should as Saquon has literally been the human cheat code this season. He essentially is a WR2 with the type of volume he receives while adding 15-20 rushing attempts per game. Barkley has only failed to hit 100 yards from scrimmage ONCE this entire season and is leading the league in 20+ and 40+ yard runs. Saquon has dominated ELITE run defenses all year so I am pretty confident that he is going to gash this 26th ranked DVOA Redskins defense. Everyone when paying up at running back will lock in Todd Gurley or James Conner who both project over 30% ownership this week. Barkley is sub 10% and has just as much upside as Gurley and a higher ceiling than Conner in my opinion. He is a great play to pair up with Eli as you can expect 6-8 “checkdowns” whenever Eli is pressured in the pocket.
Mid-Tier: Adrian Peterson ($4,900 – DK / $7,000 – FD) – I personally watched the Redskins game last week and just from the “eye” test Adrian Peterson looked extremely good. Obviously, it didn’t help my bias that the commentators were constantly praising how good he is for his age, blah blah blah. So I muted the TV so I could just watch and interpret plays myself. Peterson is not the receiver type of back that Barkley is but has been putting up huge games on the ground with rushing totals consistently near 100 yards. With the Giants 6th in the league in rushing touchdowns allowed I am confident we can get AP to punch one OR two into the end zone here as he should be heavily used in this game. With Damon Harrison (Snacks) gone these Giants run defense takes a MAJOR hit as Harrison was ranked 89.9 and considered an ELITE defensive lineman by Pro Football Focus (Giants got robbed in that trade).
Low Tier: Duke Johnson ($3,900 – DK / $5,300 FD)- I do have to say that I am not extremely comfortable with this play and definitely won’t be exposed on Fanduel where we only get 1/2 a point per reception but on Draftkings I think the Duke has a ton of upside to crush a sub 4k price tag. The Steelers are heavily favored here and the game script should constantly encourage the pass for the Browns eliminating that much Nick Chubb usage from the equation. With the Browns worst in the league in adjusted sack rate, we can imagine that Mayfield will constantly be under-pressure forcing him to dump off to his talented “receiving back” early and often. Really the only time the Browns were trailing that much this season was the blowout loss against the Chargers where Duke hit 4 receptions (off 5 targets) for 75 yards. A game similar to that would easily allow Duke to crush value with the upside he breaks off a big play for the end zone considering his talent. I’m going to be exposed to Duke in my deeper teams this Sunday.
PERSONAL FAVORITE PLAY (PT/$): Adrian Peterson
WIDE RECEIVER:
High Tier: Davante Adams ($7,900 – DK / $8,600 FD) – Adams has pretty much lived up to the preseason hype and his ADP by consistently posting good games and spiking off for two huge games the previous two weeks. This is an awesome matchup for Adams against Marcus Peters who has looked terrible this season. Check out this rating of the WR/CB matchup as provided by Pro Football Focus.
It won’t take a math genius to tell you that this is a HUGE spot for Adams that he should be able to dominate as this game features an insane 56.5 over/under with game flow heavily encouraging the Packers passing offense.
Adams receiving proficiency has been taken to a whole other level this year as he is, for the most part, dominating the league in above average catch efficiency (RACR). With Adams soaking up a huge chunk of the team’s air yards at 31.3% I feel very confident we’re going to see another easy 20-25+ fantasy point performance from Adams this week
Mid-Tier: Golden Tate ($6,000 DK / $7,100 FD) – I want to include the below analysis from last week as nothing has changed for Tate in terms of yards after the catch. That is still his bread and butter and still where he will do the most damage. Tate was in a position to crush value last week but literally dropped a walk in 10-15 yard touchdown pass. As someone who was all in on Golden Tate last week it was hard to stomach which should tell you something about me going back to him this week against a broken Seahawks secondary. Similar to the Dolphins, the Seahawks cannot cover receivers who take underneath routes for yards after the catch ranking in the bottom 20% of the league. With Tate priced down after his letdown spot last week, I think he bounces back in a big way in a similar matchup with the Seahawks at home.
It was also an encouraging sign to see Tate grade out so well in the DFS Karma projections while projecting for under 5% ownership. Amazing GPP play this week.
Week 7 take on Golden Tate:
As I touched upon in my Matt Stafford analysis the Dolphins get TORCHED after the catch.
Check out his insane numbers after the catch in the graph above and compare that to the Dolphins defense. Obviously, target share will be crucial here, as the Lions have shown to be volatile in their distribution but I’m confident they have studied this Dolphins defense and know what will work effectively. This is why I am not concerned by a 7.4 aDOT as his pass catching efficiency (RACR) is actually higher than Adam Thielen’s (the chalk this week) on the year. At only 6.4k on Draftkings, I think he offers a similair floor/upside as Jarvis Landry at half the ownership (or less). Another amazing GPP play this week.
Low Tier: Courtland Sutton ($3,800 – DK / $5,300 – FD)- My boy the mini Megatron has not been on the main slate in two weeks. In those two weeks, we missed a nice 50+ yard receiving game in addition to his second touchdown of the season. Although Sutton and Keenum have not shown great chemistry with Keenum constantly making horrible throws in his direction and forcing Sutton to make crazy catches, I am confident the volume comes back a bit here after some down weeks in terms of volume for Sutton. Although some may argue his floor is essentially zero, he has put up at least 8 DK points in the last four weeks, which is a huge sigh of relief for those looking to get exposure to this man’s 20 point ceiling while staying more on the safe side in a higher dollar tournament. Sutton is still ahead of D. Thomas on the season in reception snaps at 235 compared to Thomas’s 234. I love taking a shot on Sutton this week where even Sutton truthers will be down on him.
PERSONAL FAVORITE PLAY (PT/$): Courtland Sutton
TIGHT END:
Travis Kelce ($6,800 DK / $7,300 FD) – I would love not to be extremely basic with this tight-end play this week but Travis Kelce is absolutely going to crush value and I feel like, similair to Zack Ertz last week, he won’t be as popular as he should be as people love to pay down at tight end. With the Broncos in the bottom third of the league in receiving yards allowed to the tight end and the fact he saw 12 targets last time the Chiefs beat the Broncos (Week 4) I think we see a similar involvement from Kelce again which is huge given the fact his target share has been fairly volatile with so many options on this Chiefs offense. I don’t think tight-end is the position to get cute this week and I’ll be LOCKING in Travis Kelce into most of my tournament teams.
I will be giving out more of my low-owned GPP’s plays on Sunday morning where I will be hosting an Instagram live show you can find @DFS_Karma on Instagram around 11am. Make sure to stay tuned and thanks for reading! I better see ALLLL the screenshots Monday morning with all of you RAKING in the cash! LET’S GOOOOO! #MONEYTEAM
WRITTEN BY: @ DF_ADVANTAGE – Follow me on Twitter 
*THIS ARTICLE IS DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR GPP ENTRY CONTESTS ON DRAFTKINGS AND FANDUEL. MY GOAL WHEN SHARING MY THOUGHTS/INFORMATION WITH YOU ALL IS THAT THESE PLAYERS COME IN UNDER 10-15% OWNED IN GPP’S. TO FIND PLAYERS THIS LOW OWNED, WE ARE TAKING ON A “BUST RISK”. THIS IS THE TYPE OF RISK AS A GPP PLAYER YOU NEED TO TAKE DOWN A TOURNAMENT. *
