What’s up Karma Nation! Welcome to another edition of my NFL Game Theory Article. In this article, I will be outlining my favorite cash and GPP plays, as well as, my fades for each position. This is more of a first look because it is coming out on a Friday and the weekend can always bring change, especially in the Covid-19 era, we continuously have the slate turned upside down on Saturday morning. You can find all of the Karma staff’s cores and all our prop plays through our NFL Premium Package. If you haven’t signed up for MonkeyKnifeFight or PrizePicks, what are you waiting for? I prefer those sites to DFS. I have moved a lot of my cash volume to that site. I focus more on GPPs lineups on the weekend after locking in my cash props for the weekend. If you have yet to make an account, click on the links are use promo code KARMA for a deposit bonus! Now let’s get right into it!
| QBs: | RBs: | WR: | TE: | Game Stacks: |
| D. Carr | D. Cook | S. Diggs | D. Waller | LAC/Buf |
| J. Herbert | B. Hill | O. Johnson | H. Henry | Car/Min |
| J. Allen | M. Brieda | K. Allen | K. Rudolph | KC/TB |
| K. Murray | D. Harris | J. Meyers | M. Gesicki | NE/Ari |
| T. Hill | A. Kamara | D. Hopkins | T. Kelce | Cin/NYG |
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*If you don’t already play 3 lineups and 3 max entry contests daily, try using the teams provided in the stacks above to maximize upside and correlation in your NFL lineups.
Quarterbacks:
Cash
For my cash games lineups, I am looking at two guys; Derek Carr and Justin Herbert. What I like to do is pick a couple of guys that I love at QB, and use them as my last fill in for the lineup. Normally there isn’t a huge difference in value between these guys, so I am ok picking either of them.
Herbert has one of the highest ceilings and floors on this slate. After shocking the world with his production this year, he is QB8 on the season while being QB5 since getting the start in week 2. Herbert looks to build on that success this weekend, against what also used to be a much better defense. The Bills are allowing the 5th most fantasy points to QBs this year. On top of that, Herbert’s favorite target, Keenan Allen, should be able to avoid White enough that this defense will have even more flaws. This game also has the second-highest game total on the slate. Bills and Chargers are projected to combine for 53 points.
Carr has been playing amazing this season but is still playing under the radar when it comes to hype. He really hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves for leading the Raiders to a 6-4 record. He gets the perfect matchup this weekend going up against the Falcons, who continue to allow 300-yard passer after 300-yard passer. Last week put up Taysom Hill was able to put up 233 passing yards, even with people projecting him way under 200. He also had an extremely positive game script. As long as the Raiders don’t get too big of a lead and he loses his passing game script he should have no problem hitting value.
Safe GPP
The Chargers have just ruled out Casey Hayward and Melvin Ingram for this week. This is on top of trading away Desmond King last week. They are going from one of the best defenses in the league to one of the worst. Josh Allen is back to putting up big numbers after hitting a lull in the middle of the season. The only reason I don’t have him in my cash pool is that John Brown is ruled out. We saw Allen struggle the games Brown was not in the lineup, but that correlated with tough matchups or bad weather.
Low Owned GPP
Kyler Murray is the highest priced QB on the slate, but for a good reason. Murray has had a historically amazing year for the Cardinals, and there seems to be no slowing him down. He would be considered a top 10 RB in fantasy this year if you only counted his rushing stats. Murray is also coming off one of his worst games this season, only putting up 15 rushing yards and no touchdowns.
Fade:
Taysom Hill is coming of a chalk game where he put up 25, but I’m not going back to him at $6,200. They will be in Denver too, where Vic Fangio should be able take away Hills rushing upside and make him sit back and pass. He ended up with zero passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns which is unsustainable in this game.
Running Backs:
Cash
Dalvin Cook is slowly becoming this year’s, Christian McCaffrey. Cook has been amazing this season and now he gets one of the best, if not the best matchups for a running back this season. We have seen running back after running back dominate this matchup. The Vikings will also be without Adam Thielen who was one of the top red-zone targets in the league. This means Cook will have even more opportunities to score. I’m fine fading him in GPPs but in cash, you have to play him.
It’s officially Brian Hill time! The Falcons will be without Todd Gurley this weekend, so we can load up our Hill shares against the Las Vegas Raiders. They are allowing 28.9 fantasy points per game to opposing RBs this season, which ranks 4th worst in the league. This isn’t a play I really want to overthink. He gets plenty of touches even when Gurley is playing and in a matchup this easy, I want to take full advantage of.
Safe GPP
With Ahmed ruled out this weekend, we could see Matt Brieda take the reigns as the main running back in this backfield. This is only if Myles Gaskin doesn’t get activated from the IR. Brieda should soak up a majority of the running back usage as a 7 point favorite. With game script on his side and as the lead back in this offense, he should easily be able to pay off his salary.
Low Owned GPP
Damien Harris is coming in as one of the top running backs in the league over the last couple of weeks. The main issue with Harris is, he can easily get game scripted out of a game because of his lack of pass-catching usage. Since week 6, he only has four targets, which isn’t going to cut it outside of GPPs. Harris’ main appeal comes from 100-yard bonus’ and touchdowns. Which aren’t going to happen very often, giving him such a low floor, but a 20+ point ceiling. Since getting the start in week 6, Harris is currently 5th in the league in rushing, averaging 69 (Nice) yards per game. Harris has a great matchup against the Cardinals who are allowing 2.44 yards before first contact. This ranks 5th worst in the league. The top seven worst teams at yards before first contact are way larger than all the other teams, these are the teams we love to target.
As long as Sony Michel isn’t activated I will throw him in some GPPs. If Michel is active I will be avoiding him in a crowded backfield.
Fade:
With Taysom Hill starting at QB for the Saints, I don’t have faith in the Saints to get Alvin Kamara involved enough in the passing game to play in at that price. With Drew Brees, Kamara was the most targeted RB in the league, while he was leading the league in receptions.
Wide Receivers:
Cash
Stefon Diggs always becomes one of my top plays whenever John Brown gets ruled out. Now he gets a banged-up Chargers defense to take advantage of. The Chargers will be without two of their top 4 defensive players like I mentioned earlier in Josh Allen’s section. Diggs has been dominant in games where Brown was out of limited.
Olabisi Johnson is someone I am willing to take a shot on in cash only because he is min price. Fun fact, he actually started out Justin Jefferson weeks 1 and 2, before Jefferson exploded as the top WR in this class. Johnson should slide into Thielen’s role this week. As a min-priced guy he really only needs a couple of targets/receptions to pay off value.
Safe GPP
I feel like I write up Keenan Allen every week, but he continues to show his dominance in this offense. He has thrived with Herbert as his QB this season. Leading the league in receptions and targets this season, while only being 10th in the league in yards. In full PPR format, he is a monster and continues to soak up a huge target share. Even though White is usually locking up the main WR on the opposing team, he does not travel into the slot. Luckily, Allen runs a majority of his routes in the slot so he won’t see White that much this weekend.
Low Owned GPP
Jakobi Meyers is coming off a dud game last week against the Houston Texans, as a pretty chalky option. I am sure everyone will use recency bias and lean-to Damiere Byrd, but we should see Meyer take back over for the Patriots. He comes in at only $5,300, and has a chance to dominate the usage again for the Pats. I don’t know if people realized how involved he was in this offense, because of how little the Pats were passing the ball. Meyers had three straight games of a 40% target share. Last week he only saw a 7% target share. I am expecting that as variance, which will decrease his ownership a ton, making him one of my favorite GPP plays on the slate. Plus, he has a matchup against the Cardinals, who allow the 29th most fantasy points to opposing WRs. I am expecting the Pats to be down in this game, leading to more passing game script for them.
Fade:
I’m not confident in the fade but DeAndre Hopkins will be going up against a Stephon Gilmore shadow. That means I’ll be fading him since he is the highest priced WR and there are just plenty of better options for us to choose from. Kyler Murray runs enough where he can still have a great game without throwing it to Hopkins. You can easily stack Murray with Kirk or Isabella if you want to get exposure to this game.
