Welcome to Week 10 – The NFL Ambush, a full guide into this weekends NFL DFS Main Slate of action to help you become a better player and find some success. My father passed away two years ago today and I was thinking last night about something that he once said to me.

Son, he said, I need to tell you something. If you ever have any questions, you call 1-877-522-5001 and I told him that I always wish’d he had said that. Okay, that is just a joke to lighten the mood. It’s from the Dos Equis TV Commercial a few years ago. Google it if you never saw it.

But in all seriousness, he did pass away two years ago today and I am sure he is pretty stoked that the Masters is going on right now and is rooting hard for fellow Lefty Phil Mickelson to do well. But there is something he once said to me when I was learning to drive and that was don’t change lanes unless you need too. I don’t know why that stuck with me all these years and I will just attribute it to being a pesky teenager at the time who was more concerned with why Chris Webber couldn’t lead the Bullets to a win over Michael Jordan’s Bulls than actually paying attention to simple life lessons. But that one stuck with me all these years and I apply that simply philosophy to many walks of life — even DFS!

It’s a simple lesson that we can use as a reminder for those who may have ups and downs throughout the course of a season as you want to have a winning week in NFL DFS or even in any DFS sport in general. I had a great start to the season, then some down weeks and have bounced back overall the past few weeks but one simple change of lanes can take you off course. Last week I went to Justin Jackson despite having wrote off the entire Chargers backfield situation weeks ago. Many of you keep going to Jonathan Taylor despite KNOWING that as of week 3 he just was not going to be a real thing this year. If you are playing DFS like Peter Gibbons changed lanes in the opening seen of Office Space then you are likely to end up just as frustrated as he was in that classic opening scene of changing lanes in traffic just because one lane was moving faster. Do you have teams or players which you made a logical assessment of and now are suddenly trying to figure out? Don’t.

Have you had success playing a certain contests or on a certain site? Stick with it. Has fading guys like Patrick Laird and Chase Edmonds over the years consistently worked out because they just aren’t good at football? Yes. So do not get distracted by the urge to want to change for no good reason. If you have a reason or a need to adjust onto something different then do that, but otherwise stay the course and avoid a crash.

SLATE INFORMATION

The first thing we must do each Week is understand the landscape of the slate and any injury or weather or miscellaneous information that we need to monitor from the time this article comes out (Saturday’s) until lock on Sunday at 1PM EST.

This week has a load of games on the 4:05 PM slate because the NFL has opted to avoid conflict with the Masters. So there are a ton of late games including the appetizing Bills-Cardinals, Broncos-Raiders, Chargers-Dolphins, Bengals-Steelers, Seahawks-Rams and the game we won a ton of money on last year — but likely wont this year — 49ers-Saints. What a late afternoon slate which should make for one of the better DFS Sunday’s in a long time.

Injuries and Playing Time Concerns

There really isn’t much I am monitoring with concern as of now but two notable guys returning this week

Miles Sanders is IN and good to go – no concerns if you want to use him.
Nick Chubb is IN and good to go but I suspect he splits with Kareem Hunt.

Weather Status

Jacksonville at Green Bay – Cold, windy and overcast.

Houston at Cleveland – Extremely windy

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh – Windy, a little rain possible

Projected Ownership

After last week when we had a ton of value drive the chalkiest and highest scoring slate of the year, we have a nice balance of player ownership projections in Week 8. Here’s the quick summary of what the projected chalk is as of Saturday morning.

QB: Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Jared Goff

RB: Mike Davis, Aaron Jones, Duke Johnson, Nick Chubb

Davis and Johnson are more DK chalk. Everyone pushing them around the industry is doing it thinking DraftKings where you get a full PPR and a quicker path to hitting the floor. Both do not have to do much there to hit value on a thin RB slate and both are horrific plays on FanDuel.

WR: Keenan Allen, Tyler Lockett, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, Jalen Reagor

WR is kind of spread out, but the games where folks are looking is kind of obvious.

TE: Darren Waller, Dallas Goedert

Extremely low ownership everywhere at TE this week. You can get cute here.

DST: Packers, Washington, Detroit

AARON ‘ACE IN THE HOLE’ JONES

After nursing injuries Aaron Jones came back for the Packers last game against the 49ers and looked fine. He, along with the Packers team, get 10 days off to welcome in the bad Jaguars into cold Lambeau Field this weekend. Not much to sweat here as he’ll get 2 touchdowns and go over 100 yards. Jacksonville held the Colts under 100 yards rushing in their only win back in Week 1 and since then have yielded over 100 yards in every game (all losses) including 180 and 205 yard games in that stretch. Green Bay does not need to air it out and with some wind in the air as well (as opposed to wind on the ground obviously!) we should see a heavy ground game for the Packers this week. There’s no play I feel more comfortable with than Aaron Jones, arguably my favorite play of the season thus far.

Ambush Play #1 – Aaron Jones is about as steady as they come. Lock him in vs Jacksonville.

Expectations: Aaron Jones tops 100 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

BACK IN THE ZONE

When a team with veterans gets blown out and down right humiliated like the Buccaneers did on Sunday night they generally come back and have a good game. Tom Brady could not have received a better bounce back spot than the Carolina Panthers who he’ll be seeing for the second time this season. Carolina plays a ton of zone defense and struggles to get consistent pressure on the Quarterback. These two things are a dream scenario for Brady to do whatever he wants in the passing game and to me whatever he wants is going to be getting Mike Evans and Antonio Brown going. Evans is the guy who has destroyed zone defenses, like what Carolina runs, and is the guy who is coming off another week where Marshon Lattimore of the Saints completely shut him down as all his production came once Lattimore left. I expect Tampa to win this game easily, with Brady having all the time in the world to air it out and two touchdowns are going to Mike Evans. As a bonus, he might even get over 100 yards too!

Ambush Play #2 – Tampa bounces back and Mike Evans shines.

Expectations: Mike Evans, 6 receptions, 93 yards, 2 touchdowns. Brady has 4 passing touchdowns on the day.

AFC WEST SHOOTOUT

The AFC West is quickly becoming the best division in football for fantasy. We know about Kansas City and now Justin Herbert is really bringing the Chargers back. But the two teams who are on our radar every single week right now are the Raiders and Broncos. What do you know, they’re meeting up for the first time in the new Las Vegas stadium. Jerry Jeudy vs Henry Ruggs has all the makings of a minimum of five years for these former Alabama teammates to rival against each other to see who can have the bigger games. But with the whole world looking at Jerry Jeudy off his big game last week I am going to the guy who still leads the Broncos in targets when all are healthy and remains Lock’s red zone target. Tim Patrick. Patrick was limited early in the week but was cleared on Friday and his bigger frame should prove to be the difference in key situations for Lock in the red zone. This is a game we have to look at just as much as the marque Rams-Seahawks game and it’s going to be Tim Patrick who battles with Henry Ruggs this week.

Ambush Play #3 – Tim Patrick finishes as a top 5 WR

Expectations: When NFL Sunday Ticket does their top WR of the day thing, you will see Tim Patrick’s name up there.

EARLY THANKSGIVING FEAST

Since every Governor in America thinks they should cancel the greatest holiday of them all this year, I here by declare that this Sunday we should eat a feast. Now, if anyone knows what Russell Wilson is cooking up this weekend then that can help decide the D.K. Metcalf vs Tyler Lockett debate. My money is on one of these guys despite Jalen Ramsey saying he wont shadow only one of them this week, but the money platter in this game like that first plate of Thanksgiving food with the Turkey, the stuffing, the sweet potatoes, the regular mashed potatoes, the gravy, the green beans, okay, maybe not the green beans but something that you grab while waiting in by the food dishes and pretending to not look at your in-law who is trying to talk to you about politics. The main dish is Cooper Kupp. Jared Goff will be a popular play as he should be going up against the Seahawks off a BYE week and when Goff has huge games they come with his long time buddy Cooper Kupp going off. Seattle cannot cover and Kupp has the big play upside down the field.

Ambush Play #4 – Cooper Kupp walks away as the highest scoring player in Rams/Seahawks Main dish

Expectations: Kupp over 100 yards receiving.

MR. JAMES CONNER

You might not want to stomach using Conner coming off his lowest rush attempt total of the season and at a price tag thats still up there. I get all of that, but with cooler and possibly rainy weather in Pittsburgh this week there’s no love at all in my mind for Big Ben on a knee that got banged up last week and against a Bengals defense in the bottom 5 against the run and giving up over 150 on the road this year. Conner will get the #1 role this week and even with others getting involved, he’s in a great spot to get right.

Ambush Play #5 – James Conner plugs in as the RB2 on DraftKings

Expectations: Conner gets the majority of the rushing attempts and leads the Steelers in an easy win over Cincinnati.

AMBUSH FADES

Ambush Fades of the Week — The Week 10 Fades

Bills at Cardinals — Should have points but too many other solid options for me this week. QB the only guys I would slightly consider.
Eagles at Giants — Good game to watch early, but no DFS plays
Detroit Lions — They’re running out of weapons
Texans at Browns — Browns D dominates

RECAP OF AMBUSH PLAYS

Lock in Aaron Jones, the most certain play at RB in a long time.
Mike Evans gets right along with Tom Brady as Tampa rolls
The better shootout in the afternoon is in Vegas as Tim Patrick and the Broncos square off against Henry Ruggs and the Raiders
Cooper Kupp, a side of Cooper Kupp and more Cooper Kupp
James Conner finishes things off

It’s hard for me to stomach not having either rushing QB but their path to failure is that both defenses play better than public perception. So it’s either go up top for the #1 stud outside of the Cards/Bills game in Russell Wilson or search for some value.

RUSSELL WILSON

Here’s how I am going to handle Lockett and Metcalf this week. I’ll go Wilson. Prior to their last meeting last year Wilson had been rolling against the Rams defense and with Goff being so much cheaper there’s a path to where Wilson comes in fairly low owned. Rather than wind up watching Wilson throw touchdowns to the non WR you have, just take the sure thing with Wilson. I do not expect Carson to come back and suddenly get their running game going this week and Wilson will pile up DFS stats even in a loss.

JARED GOFF

Seattle’s giving up yards at a record pace through the air. I’m confident Sean McVey can capitalize his offense on that with Goff being the benefactor.

TOM BRADY

To honor my claim above, I am recommending Brady who I see throwing for 300+ yards and 4 touchdowns.

Just missed my top 3: Drew Brees, Josh Allen

Not touching: Kyler Murray

AARON JONES

JAMES CONNER

ALVIN KAMARA

You have heard me write about how Kamara simply does not go over 100 yards rushing because he’s used so heavily in the passing game and they just don’t ground and pound that often. I don’t see him getting more than 13 carries this weekend but I cannot shake this feeling that we’re going to get a huge run from Kamara and the passing game volume will remain as well. The Saints are as healthy as they have been on offense all season long and with Taysom Hill getting more snaps at QB again this week it’s likely we see Taysom/Kamara in a little read-option where Kamara gets it, the sea opens up in the middle of the line and he blows past the 49ers on the way for a 73 yard touchdown run. And nobody will have him…

DK FREE SQUARE

MIKE DAVIS

Just take it on DraftKings in my mind and don’t sweat it too much. I am not saying you should LOCK him in per say if you have a ton of lineups because his ceiling is around 15 points. But his floor is 10 to me on a full PPR site who loves to miss-price players like DraftKings does.

Just missed the cut, but I don’t mind: J.D. McKissic (DK)

Not touching: Giovani Bernard

Try to stay in the mid range at WR on FanDuel and find guys with the most upside on DraftKings. If you aren’t playing a 100 yard type player to get the bonus on DraftKings then you’ll be behind the 8 ball quickly.

TOP TWO GUYS THIS WEEK FOR ME

TIM PATRICK

Broke him down above, he’s my #1 WR point per $ on the slate to be paired with Josh Allen. He fits better on FanDuel lineups compared to Cole Beasley who many will be on at DraftKings lining up in the slot, but don’t assume Diggs flops this week.

COOPER KUPP

First lineup on DraftKings this week? Plug in Patrick and Kupp at WR and then build off that. Kupp’s easily in play to finish as WR1 this weekend.

CONTRARIAN ONE OFFS

MIKE EVANS

Evans is the low owned sneaky WR this week that can be used to pivot off guys like Lockett and Metcalf.

HENRY RUGGS

Denver is quietly banged up in the secondary and has struggled defending outside WR of late. Ruggs had a breakout play against the Chiefs a few weeks back but has gone ice quiet due to a wind game in Cleveland and a tough draw against the Chargers last weekend. The talent is too good for Carr to not get him going this week.

GUY TO PAY UP FOR

TYLER LOCKETT

Rams stud CB Jalen Ramsey was expected by everyone to be on D.K. Metcalf but Ramsey came out this week and said he would not shadow Metcalf. I don’t care. If you want to use a WR with Wilson it should be Lockett as the Rams will force Seattle to work underneath and the volume always leans on Lockett in those scenarios.

MICHAEL THOMAS

This is merely a spot where Thomas is going to wind up with 7 catches, 95 yards and a touchdown because the Saints should be able to do what they want offensively. San Francisco’s decline in their pass rush opens up more chances for the Saints to take chances in the passing game. The problem is that I see a ground game for New Orleans as the game moves along and the ceiling game Thomas had last year is NOT going to happen this year. But if you want a steady, less than 10% owned, one off WR then Thomas will serve you well.

VALUE WR

Josh Reynolds: Would roll him along with Kupp in a full Rams stack.
Greg Ward: All the attention is going to Alshon and Reagor but it’s Ward who I think moves the chains for the Eagles and scores.
Steven Sims

Like, but won’t have because of too many other options: Antonio Brown

Not touching: Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs

HUNTER HENRY

This is a week where Tight End is extremely spread out as both Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews are not on the slate. The Dolphins have two very good CB that will control Keenan Allen and Mike Williams and do you really trust the Chargers ground game? No, I did not think so. Henry does not have a great match-up statistically as the Dolphins have yielded only 300 yards on the season to opposing tight ends, but they also have not faced a ton of healthy TE like Henry this year. Nice contrarian spot for a funnel game to Henry.

MIKE GISECKI

Sticking with this game down in South Beach for my TE’s. The Chargers were attacked by us with Waller last week and once again they are a good team to look at for opposing TE’s due to their solid CB’s. 60 of opposing teams targets this year in 8 games have gone to their TE’s and with Tua at QB we should continue to see him develop a nice connection with Gisecki. If he can haul in 4 catches for 50 yards this week that’s a good start for only $4,300 on DraftKings.

TE Darts: Taysom Hill on FanDuel (He’s getting more and more QB rushing snaps as the season moves on. He’s got 30 rushing yards, 30 receiving yards, 30 passing yards potential for near min price on a crappy TE week.

Not touching: Darren Waller — at his price I would rather allocate that $ to the better WR on the slate.

CLEVELAND

This is my sleeper defense of the week. The Browns are coming off their BYE week and draw the sack friendly DeShaun Watson in extremely windy conditions at home. Cleveland’s got a ton of talent on their defensive side they just needed the right spot to unleash it. This is it.

NEW ORLEANS

No Deeboo Samuel, no Tevin Coleman, no George Kittle, no Jimmy G. There’s limited options on the San Francisco team for them to sustain drives all game long. My assumption is that they will try to run the ball with the zone scheme which has always given the Saints fits but there comes a point in time when Dennis Allen is finally going to get the better of Shannahan’s system and there’s no better time for it than this week. We have a solid floor for them to get a few sacks and likely a turnover too.

WASHINGTON

Whenever we can get a solid d-line against a weak o-line who will be passing it’s a spot we look at. Washington hasn’t proven to turn the ball over a ton but the sacks are there and a strip sack/fumble TD of Stafford is coming.

GREEN BAY

Someone’s gonna have to sell me real hard on how Jake Luton leads Jacksonville into Green Bay and puts up points this weekend in crappy weather. It. Aint. Happenin!

Questions and Answers

QUESTION: Who is getting overlooked this week and why is it Tom Brady?

Because he looked like absolute trash on Sunday Night against a legit front four and a secondary who played lights out and knew how to cover those WR. Carolina cannot get pressure and the second meeting advantage is going to go to Brady in a get right game for him.

QUESTION: Random off the wall prediction?

We have some blowout potential games this weekend. Green Bay over Jacksonville. Pittsburgh over Cincinnati. Tampa Bay over Carolina. And if they can stop Shannahan for once, New Orleans over San Francisco. But your sneaky blowout games? Washington romps the Lions and Cleveland obliterates the Houston Texans with two defensive touchdowns.

QUESTION: Favorite 1PM and 4PM only stacks and plays?

1PM: Tampa vs Carolina is the best game to stack for offense.

4PM Only: Do not overlook the Saints as a stack because if the 49ers have a bunch of 3 and outs we’ll see New Orleans move the ball, but I’ll be going to the Vegas/Broncos game for sure.

QUESTION: What’s the game you do not have a lot of players in which scares you to go off?

San Francisco / New Orleans

QUESTION: Favorite Bets of the week?

Washington -3.5

Cleveland -3.5

Rams -2

Bears +3 (MNF)

Good luck!

← More DAILY-AMBUSH articles