What’s up everyone and welcome to Ben’s Building Blocks! If you’ve never read my content before, welcome. To those that have, welcome back. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports during NFL season. This article is designed for me to highlight the top plays of the week, and my overall player pool for the main slate. Obviously, things can change rapidly in the NFL with injury news on the weekends, so I would be sure to subscribe to our premium package for access to my Final Thoughts cheat sheet, our premium discord channel and my core plays. Our Core Plays product gives you the ability to tail all of our analysts in your contests each week. We do the work for you, and you simply plug and play with our premium Core Plays. With that being said, let’s hop into the Week 10 slate…

Quarterback

This is one of the weirder slates that I can remember. Once again we have pretty much no value to work with, and that’s going to push some higher-ownership onto some mediocre plays. It also will make roster construction pretty similar across small-field contests and that makes it a really fun week for tournaments. Weeks ago, nobody wanted anything to do with Justin Fields but now he’s trending towards chalk status at home against the Lions. I played him last week, and he won me some tournaments as well, so I’m sure I’ll be going back to the well here. It comes down to him vs Patrick Mahomes as the top-overall plays for me and I want to be exposed to both of them. Outside of the obvious plays, Case Keenum is actually projecting very well in our Projections Portal despite being…well, Case Keenum. Buffalo’s team total has held around 23 points and I do think he can be used in all formats and stacked with Stefon Diggs in tournaments. If Justin Fields doesn’t go crazy with his legs, and Mahomes/Tua don’t throw for 4+ TD’s there’s a very good chance an average QB game can get you there especially in small-field GPPs.

Tua is obviously in play weekly, but I’m interested in Dak Prescott in that range as well. Our projections have him around 2% owned this week despite the Cowboys team total jumping up a few points since opening. It’s over 24 points now, making it one of the higher numbers on this slate. Coming off their bye week, his thumb should be as healthy as it’s going to be the rest of the season — I think he’s a great low-owned play. Kenny Pickett is strong for GPPs as well, against a banged up Saints secondary. Pittsburgh is always good off their bye week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a the best game of his young career on Sunday (throwing the ball).

Core: Patrick Mahomes, Justin Fields, Case Keenum

Pivots: Tua Tagovailoa, Dak Prescott, Kenny Pickett, Trevor Lawrence

Running Back

This feels like the first week in a while where I’m not confident in the chalk running backs at all. For cash games, I think we are going to be focused the trio of Dameon Pierce, Alvin Kamara and Travis Etienne. In a vacuum, these are all really good plays but two of them are road underdogs. while Kamara is in just an average match-up. All of their roles are so strong that I don’t think you need to overthink things for cash games, the volume wins out, but this isn’t like past weeks where we should be just jamming in the chalk running backs in tournaments. I won’t have any Pierce in GPPs, and Kamara/Etienne are lower on my list outside of game-stack scenarios.

Saquon Barkley is someone I want to be well overweight on this week. He draws our favorite match-up against the Houston Texans, but won’t be overly owned due to his price tag. Houston has allowed the most fantasy points to running backs, and Barkley is a home favorite ranking second in the league in carries. He’s going to get fed this week, and I think spending up for RB is way more in play this week than the last month or so. The last few slates, the $6K tier at RB was so strong that it made little sense to spend over $8K on a running back when multiple $6K options could drop 30+ fantasy points. Those prices have come up to the $7K tier this week, closing the gap a little bit and making Barkley arguably my favorite plays on the slate.

Josh Jacobs looks really interesting to me in tournaments, as well, listed as a home favorite. One guy that I really like is Jeff Wilson Jr and he’s cheap across the industry. He out-snapped and out-touched Raheem Mostert having been on the team for less than a week, and I think he’s going to be the lead back moving forward. This is one of the better games on the slate, and Cleveland has really struggled against the run at times this season. This could be a game where Miami’s zone blocking scheme eats them alive and it’s more of a Wilson/running game than the pass catchers.

Core: Saquon Barkley, Travis Etienne, Alvin Kamara, Dameon Pierce

Pivots: Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Jeff Wilson, Jamaal Williams, Jaylen Warren

Wide Receiver

Once again we have 0 value to work with, so we are going to end up having to play some guys we aren’t really comfortable with. Tyreek Hill is breaking fantasy football, in a way that I didn’t really think was possible after what we saw Cooper Kupp do last season. He’s averaging 12+ targets in games that Tua has played this season and has several monster games. I’m not sure if the Browns defense is equipped to stop him and Jaylen Waddle and I think both are very strong plays. Hill is so expensive, I’m not sure if I can comfortably get there in tournaments so just jamming him in my cash game roster might be the move — even if it forces me onto some guys that aren’t usually cash playable. Outside of Hill/Waddle, both Amon-Ra St. Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster are strong options in the mid-tier. It’s a decent price gap, but I’m siding with ARSB if choosing one of them. There are several $4K options in play, including Donovan Peoples-Jones, Zay Jones, Mack Hollins and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. MVS is very interesting, despite the extremely low floor we know the ceiling is there. Mahomes is dropping back at an insane rate, including over 70 times last week. They’ve completely abandoned the run game, and MVS runs the second-most routes on the team. He could do nothing, but you won’t convince me that his floor is any lower than the other guys around him and the ceiling is much higher in that offense.

For tournaments, I’ll be focusing on my stacks and I really like Amari Cooper. Cooper shreds man-coverage — he ranks top-three in target-rate against man-coverage as well as top-ten in yards per route run. He has struggled on the road in the past, but this is a homecoming game for him in his hometown Miami. He also has absolutely owned Xavien Howard in the past, and it only makes sense for me to be in on Cooper this week. I love the Chris Olave/George Pickens correlation play this week — and I still am fine stacking Mooney with Fields after he won me the Q in Week 9.

Core: Tyreek Hill, Amon-Ra St. Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Zay Jones, Mack Hollins, Marquez Valdes-Scantling

Pivots: Davante Adams, Jaylen Waddle, Chris Olave, Amari Cooper, Darnell Mooney, George Pickens

Tight End

Tight End is fairly easy for cash games this week, with multiple strong value plays in Foster Moreau and Greg Dulcich. Moreau has commanded nearly 20% of Derek Carr’s targets in Darren Waller’s absence, and now Hunter Renfrow will miss as well. He’s played over 95% of the snaps in all of Waller’s misses this season, and he’s my top-overall play at this position when factoring in price this week. Dulcich certainly has upside against a bad pass-defense, but I feel better about the Raiders offense in a vacuum so he’s my choice if choosing just one. I do think there are some multi-TE builds to look at, but if doing that I think it would be to fit in Travis Kelce as one of them. This is the nut spot for Kelce, who benefits from Mecole Hardman’s absence more than people think. A lot of Hardman’s gadget-type plays come in the red-zone, so this opens up more looks for Kelce around the goal-line. At home, in this huge team total, we can look at him as a WR and he’s a strong tournament play where I think he comes in low-owned.

For tournaments, I think Bob Tonyan is interesting as a one-off or on a Dak team. Green Bay is throwing a ton, especially in the red-zone and eventually Rodgers is going to hit for a few touchdowns. Tonyan is his most trusted target right-now, and he’s still cheap enough that he can be a tournament winner if he finds the end zone. 11 of Tonyan’s 16 career touchdowns have come at home in Lambeau Field.

Core: Foster Moreau, Greg Dulcich, Travis Kelce

Pivot: Bob Tonyan, Dalton Schultz

Bold Call of the Week

Amari Cooper goes for 100+ and 2 TD’s in his homecoming game!

Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)