Welcome in to a new year of Ben’s NFL DFS Building Blocks for DraftKings and FanDuel! In this article, I will highlight my favorite NFL DFS plays at each position for small-field tournament formats. If you’re interested in signing up for premium access, which grants you Core Plays for every slate, projections, Final Thoughts player pool + expert picks and our premium Discord click HERE. You can also sign up for our plethora of AI-driven sports betting tools and access to my weekly betting card by clicking HERE. Let’s get into the plays…
Quarterback
Highest pOWN% QB’s: Anthony Richardson, Jayden Daniels, Josh Allen, Caleb Williams
My Conviction Plays: Anthony Richardson, CJ Stroud, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Geno Smith
I can’t believe football is BACK! Per usual, I will use this article weekly to identify the chalk plays, and highlight my player pool for both cash games + small-field and three-max tournaments.
Week 1 is always pretty straightforward from a cash game perspective in my opinion, given that the salaries get released so early. There’s definitive ways to go with your team, and it will likely come down to several 2v2’s to decide your cash game roster on Sunday. For it being Week 1, however, with the extra island game on Friday night, the QB pool isn’t overly enticing. I have a pretty small group of guys I’m considering.
Anthony Richardson is the top-overall option for me when factoring in price and floor/ceiling combo. Indy is at home in a dome, in one of the highest totaled games of the weekend at 48.5. We barely saw Richardson last season, but when we did he ranked first-overall in fantasy points/drop-back. He was basically the most efficient fantasy QB when he was on the field and we can expect massive play volume for them in this game. I don’t expect him to slow down running the football, and he will likely anchor my main team on Sunday.
Jayden Daniels is the other popular option as of now in our own% projections, but I’m not as enthused. I typically don’t like to roster QB’s on bad teams and the Commanders project for a bottom of the barrel offensive line this season. Daniels could be electric, but a rookie making his first ever start behind a bad offensive line feels too trappy for me to make him my cash game QB on the first main slate of the season.
For tournaments, I want to buy into the few games with high totals (obviously). I have a hard time imagining how CJ Stroud isn’t in the MVP conversation this season. He took the league by storm in 2023 and now has a full compliment of weapons at his disposal. As I noted above, this should be arguably the fastest-paced game on the slate and Stroud shredded Gus Bradley’s defense twice last season. He doesn’t have the rushing upside as other guys, so he will have to get there in the TD department, but I think he can. Stroud undeniably ran cold with TD’s a year ago. Despite being one of the best QB’s in football his TD% of 4.6 ranked behind the likes of Jake Browning and Russell Wilson. We can expect more TD passes from Stroud this year and I expect that to start in Week 1. A 300-3 stat-line is firmly in play in this expected shootout.
Both sides of the BUF/ARI game are going to draw heavy interest as well. Arizona has one of the most high-powered offenses in football now with a healthy Kyler Murray, Marv Harrison Jr, Trey McBride, Greg Dortch and Michael Wilson. They also have the worst graded secondary heading into the season and should be thrust into shootouts weekly. Murray should have rushing upside once again now that he’s fully healthy and I’m very high on him this season. Josh Allen needs no introduction and I’m not worried about the departure of Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis. Neither of those guys were good last season for the Bills, and in this match-up it shouldn’t matter. Allen is expensive, but if he posts a classic Allen-like game his price won’t matter on a slate like this.
Geno Smith is the final guy in my player pool at QB. I’m expecting a huge offensive leap for the Seahawks under new OC Ryan Grubb and I want to be early to that in DFS.
Running Back
Highest pOWN% RB’s: Rachaad White, Alvin Kamara, Kenneth Walker, De’Von Achane, Bijan Robinson, Chuba Hubbard
My Conviction Plays: De’Von Achane, Kenneth Walker, James Conner, Chuba Hubbard, Chase Brown, JK Dobbins/Gus Edwards, Bijan Robinson
In today’s NFL, spending down to the mid-tier at RB is my preferred method of roster building but that gets heightened this week with CMC not even on the slate. As of now Rachaad White and Alvin Kamara are projecting to be the two highest-owned RB’s and I’ll be honest, I don’t want to play either of them. White was extremely inefficient last season and I’m personally expecting a step-back for the Bucs offense with scheme-wizard Dave Canales gone. As for Kamara, he’s another year older and seems to only provide PPR-centric value. There’s a very real chance he loses RZ touches to both Taysom Hill and Jamaal Williams, and I just don’t want to buy into that at high-ownership. They’re fine cash options, but I’ll be underweight to both as a whole.
De’Von Achane is my favorite play, and I will be playing him firmly over both White and Kamara in tournaments. Achane was essentially the most efficient RB of all time last season, and I think there’s room for his touch count to grow a bit heading into his sophomore campaign. He doesn’t need to be a 20 touch guy to crush, and I think that’s where people are mistaken in their lack of confidence in him. Miami is extremely thin at pass catcher right now, with basically nothing after Hill and Waddle — note Waddle missed a ton of time this cap due to lingering injuries. There’s a very real chance Achane is their de-facto WR3 in this game with the opportunity for carries as well. Mike McDaniel has spent all off-season ripping his vape and figuring out ways to get the ball into Achane’s hands. $6,800 is too cheap, and I’ll be overweight on Sunday.
Kenneth Walker is projecting as chalkier than I initially thought, but I love him here as well. His homerun hitter style of play fits perfectly with their new offensive scheme and as a sizable home favorite I think we could see a huge game to start the season from K9. Stacking him with SEA DST is my preferred way to deploy him in small field contests.
I don’t love James Conner’s season long outlook, but I’m expecting him to handle a huge workload in Week 1. As noted above, this is one of the best games on the slate and Conner could be a way to get unique in a mini-stack or as a run-back in a Josh Allen stack.
Chase Brown was the darling of season-long touts this off-season. I expect Zack Moss to firmly run ahead of him on early downs to begin the season, but we can’t ignore Brown’s prowess as a pass catcher out of the backfield. I wasn’t interested here to begin the week, but with Chase just coming back and Tee Higgins unlikely to play I think Brown could play a bigger role and originally thought in Week 1. He can be direct leverage off the cheap CIN pass catchers in GPPs.
Bijan is expensive, but also not really. I doubt his own% gets too crazy and if he we are expecting this massive season from him I’m fine having exposure in tournaments as a one-off.
Wide Receiver
Highest pOWN% WR’s: Andrei Iosivas, Tyreek Hill, Christian Kirk, Malik Nabers, Drake London, Chris Godwin, Michael Pittman, Jaylen Waddle
My Conviction Plays: Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, Malik Nabers, Nico Collins, Tank Dell, Mike Evans, Terry McLaurin, Christian Kirk, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Khalil Shakir, Greg Dortch, Andrei Iosivas
Week 1 got entirely flipped on its head on Friday when news broke that Tee Higgins was doubtful. I talked briefly about Andrei Iosivas on this weeks video, and thought he was a fine value play regardless. Now with Higgins looking out, he will be the highest-owned play on the slate. The problem with this is I think he is a good football player. So, I’m more apt to take these savings. Even in GPPs, I think it’s hard to avoid him in my builds.
I’m not going to dive into the top-end of WR too much because we know the situation. The top-end coaches have the upper-hand when they have extra time to prepare for games. There’s a reason Andy Reid has that epic record coming off bye weeks and there’s a reason that the Miami Dolphins have scored almost 40 points in their Week 1 game last season. Hill has monster home splits during his time in MIA and he is the best overall WR play on the slate. I’ll be jamming him into my main lineup, and I think playing him and Achane together even without Tua is fine in small or medium-field contests.
The guy at the top that’s going completely overlooked is Justin Jefferson. Jefferson had multiple big games with Nick Mullens at QB last year, so I see no reason why he doesn’t have that same Jettas ceiling with Sam Darnold. I obviously prefer Hill, but Jefferson paired with Malik Nabers on the opposite side is one of my favorite correlation plays on the Week 1 slate.
Speaking of Malik Nabers, my bags are packed and the sky is the limit. When I say the sky is the limit, I mean that. I’m talking like he is going to set the rookie record for targets sky is the limit. I haven’t been this high on a rookie player in some time and I’m so happy that Brian Daboll took over the play-calling duties. This further tells me that the offense is going to run through him and the Vikings are going to have one of the worst secondary’s in football. They lost multiple key DB’s to injury this summer, and that was with them already projecting for a bottom-five unit. This is one of the best on-paper match-ups that Nabers will see this season and he has the opportunity to start his NFL career fast on Sunday. I have the feeling we will all be saying LEEEEK on Sunday afternoon…
When using Stroud, I think both Nico Collins and Tank Dell are amazing plays. Stef Diggs is there too, but I prefer both Collins and Dell to him personally for Week 1. The hot button tweets on X this week are how good Collins’ splits are vs Cover 3 defenses, but I don’t even think that matters. Collins and Dell are two of the top options in tournaments and 100% can be double-stacked on Sunday.
I’m a big fan of Brian Thomas JR but I’ve come around on Christian Kirk this week. He’s a bit chalkier than I’d like but he is viable in all formats and my preferred Jags pass catcher. I also prefer him to Drake London in a game that should feature much more play volume.
Both Chris Godwin and Terry McLaurin are strong plays in the mid-tier. It’s worth noting, however, the more that I’ve thought about it how good the match-up is for Mike Evans. Washington is small in the secondary with multiple DB’s coming in at or below 200 pounds. That’s a problem vs the 225 pound Evans, especially if we see 180 pound Emmanuel Forbes on him at all throughout the game. Washington has routinely struggled with another big WR, AJ Brown, who went for 8-130 and 13-175 against them in two games last season. I wasn’t on Evans to start the week, but the size differential is too much for me to overlook and I’m upgrading him in my pool as we head to the weekend.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is one of my favorite GPP value plays, I think there’s a path for him to have a huge PPR-role in this offense and lead the team in catches. I want to be early on him this season, and if that’s the case we won’t see him this cheap for much longer.
Tight End
Highest pOWN% TE’s: Kyle Pitts, Evan Engram, Mike Gesicki, Dalton Kincaid, Trey McBride
My Conviction Plays: Evan Engram, Taysom Hill, Kylen Granson, Brock Bowers
Tight end opened up a ton on Friday once Tee Higgins was ruled out, with Mike Gesicki now popping as a top value play. Gesicki was once an exciting NFL prospect, but has produced a pretty middling career in the grand scheme of things. I’m always fine to punt at TE in cash games, but I don’t think I want to play him and Iosivas together. He’s fine in all formats, but lower on my list personally.
There are several strong mid-tier options this week including Dalton Kincaid, Trey McBride and Evan Engram. All three of those guys are expected to have big statistical seasons, and all are in strong match-ups. They fit into game or mini-stacks, or can be used as one-offs on any build.
I’m expecting Kincaid to be the Bills “WR1” this season, and expect him to lead the team in targets weekly. McBride has more target competition this season, but got a severe match-up upgrade when star LB Matt Milano went down for the Bills. Engram is a guy I’m particularly high on this season. He quietly ranked top-15 overall in targets last season, while the Jags are top-five in vacated targets from a season ago. Only Gabe Davis and Rookie Brian Thomas Jr came in to fill, so we could see his target total rise even further. He scored two touchdowns from Lawrence in the preseason, and I’m expecting a monster red zone role for him with Calvin Ridley out of town.
For GPPs, anyone that has read my content before knows that Taysom Hill was going to find his way here. I think there’s a realistic chance that Hill is the Saints GL back under new OC Klint Kubiak and he provides direct leverage off a chalky Alvin Kamara in small-field tournaments. He’s cheap, but not cheap enough he will see ownership.
The good news about Gesicki picking up ownership, is any cheap TE I was interested in is now seeing way less pOWN%. Kylen Granson is an above-average athlete that logged pretty much all the first-team reps at TE with Richardson in their last preseason game. We can’t expect any sort of volume, but that this price we don’t need it and he provides a cheap stacking partner with my top QB on the slate.
Bowers has no injury designation, and can be used as a one-off or in a mini-stack with a Chargers RB.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
