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 14 slate…
Quarterback
QB is pretty simple for me in Week 14, with one clear game to target — DET/MIN featuring an O/U of 51.5 — that’s where my focus will be in cash games. Goff has averaged over 20 fantasy points per game at home this season, and the Lions offense in general has been very, very good when fully healthy. Stacking up either side of that game is the optimal move this week in my opinion, and I’m just going to be overweight on Goff — who I played last week.
For tourneys, you can definitely spend up for the ceilings of Josh Allen or Jalen Hurts any week. Geno Smith is a very strong GPP option once again, the only concerns being if Carolina zaps any pace completely out of that game. Seattle has been one of the pass-heaviest teams in football, and with seemingly all of their running backs hurt we should see another pass-heavy script on Sunday.
Mike White is someone I’ve written up the last two weeks and he should be airing it out again as a 10 point underdog. New York has actually averaged over 300 passing yards per game this season in games that Zach Wilson doesn’t start, and Buffalo’s defense has been a bit more leaky over the past month. My best tourney team last week was a White to Wilson stack, and I’ll be running that back this week with a particular Bills running back highlighted below…
Core: Jared Goff, Kirk Cousins
Pivots: Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Geno Smith, Mike White
Running Back
There’s some pretty clear chalk at RB this week — starting with Joe Mixon on DraftKings who they priced like he isn’t playing. He will likely be the highest-owned RB on the slate and is a must play in cash games.
We also have some strong spend-up options in Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry. if choosing one, I’m leaning CMC who is a virtual lock for me on this slate. Kyle Shanahan clearly has an Elijah Mitchell bias, and CMC has been the workhorse back we expected whenever Mitchell has been out. He averages just south of 150 all-purpose yards per game with no Mitchell, and the 49ers are installed as home favorites here.
Both Cowboys backs are in play as well against Houston, but there’s no way I’m clicking Zeke Elliott over Tony Pollard…
Outside of the cash game pool, there are some strong mid-tier plays like Miles Sanders — who we have projected for under 8% ownership. There is also a ton of injury news we are waiting on. Leonard Fournette looks likely to miss this week, which would give Rachaad White a huge bump. It’s maybe the hardest match-up in the NFL against the 49ers run-defense, but White’s receiving role sans Fournette elevates him into play. We also have both Deejay Dallas and Kenny Walker looking likely to miss for the Seahawks. Most, I’m assuming, will flock to Travis Homer but I’m actually not sure if he can really be the workhorse here. We could see Tony Jones dominate some early down work for Seattle, and pivoting to him off Homer would be a smart move in tournaments.
My favorite tournament play on the slate — and the cover boy of this article — is none other than James Cook. I feel like if Cook did what he did on last weeks main slate he would be getting steamed here, but since it was all the way back to last Thursday people have forgotten. Cook was featured early and often in that game, and looks so much more explosive than Devin Singletary. It seemed like the game-plan was to get him the ball early and now the Bills have had a long lay-off to work him in even more. Even if the snaps revert back to what we saw earlier in the season, the Bills are 10 point favorites here and Cook would be likely to get the blowout run. It’s clear Josh Allen isn’t fully healthy — because Buffalo has been running the ball more than we’ve ever seen the last month. New York is pretty much a run-funnel defense and Cook is sub-$5K coming off a game where he led the Bills in carries and targets…
Core: Christian McCaffrey, Derrick Henry, Joe Mixon, Tony Pollard, D’Andre Swift
Pivots: Nick Chubb, Miles Sanders, Rachaad White, Travis Homer, James Cook, Tony Jones
Wide Receiver
A lot of the same receivers from Week 13 will be cash game staples this week — including Amon-Ra St. Brown and Garrett Wilson. Brown has been one of the best receivers for fantasy when healthy once again this season and should be priced closer to the top-priced receivers in my opinion. Wilson has a tough on-paper match-up against the Bills, but they’ve actually been fairly bad the last month against outside receivers. Wilson is averaging over 20 fantasy points per game without Zach Wilson this season, and should be way higher priced. I’ll be taking advantage of these savings and moving on this Sunday.
There’s some strong punt plays as well this weekend, with Phillip Dorsett sticking out as my favorite. He should be the Texans WR1 with both Brandin Cooks and Nico Collins out, and Davis Mills back at QB is an upgrade over Kyle Allen.
For GPPs, I’ll be filling in my stacks or looking to set up mini correlations. One that I really like this week is Chris Godwin paired with Christian McCaffrey. Tom Brady came out and said that Godwin is the best WR on the team right now, and he’s been getting fed. He’s averaging over 20 fantasy points per game over the last month — and looks to be healthy for the first time all season. San Francisco has arguably the best defense in football right now, but they’ve been horrible against slot receivers. Godwin is still the primary slot-man for Brady — and I think he’s set up for a potential ceiling game on Sunday.
Core: Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Ja’Marr Chase, Garrett Wilson, DJ Moore, Phillip Dorsett, Kendall Hinton
Pivots: DK Metcalf, Chris Godwin, Amari Cooper, Donovan Peoples-Jones, JuJu Smith-Schuster
Tight End
Everyone that reads my content weekly knows that I love when there’s a cheap tight end available, and we have that this week with Chig Okonkwo. Okonkwo is far from a household name, but he’s actually been one of the best tight ends in football this season per the metrics. PFF has graded him out as the fifth-best TE in football, and he has more catches of 40+ yards than both Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews. Typically, the punt tight end of the week gains steam by the weekend and ends up pretty high owned, but I don’t think that will happen with Okonkwo. He’s my favorite point per dollar play on the slate and I will be overweight on both sites.
TJ Hockenson is an obvious tournament play, given how much we will be targeting that game. I also love spending up for Mark Andrews. Andrews was fed with Tyler Huntley at QB last season, averaging over 100 yards per game in his starts. We have him projected for around 5% ownership on Sunday.
Core: Chig Okonkwo
Pivot: Travis Kelce, TJ Hockenson, George Kittle, Mark Andrews
Bold Call of the Week
James Cook tops 150+ all-purpose yards!
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
