The Ambush – NFL DFS – Week 2

And just like that, we are rolling along. The second week of the NFL season and more specifically the first quarter of the NFL season is continuing and there is a clear and distinct message that I have for everyone in NFL DFS land this week.

If you believed in something coming into the season and specifically coming into last week then you should continue to believe in that now. The most important thing this time of year is to give things time and to find the right balance between what we are right about and what we are wrong about for this upcoming 2021 season.

I have found that more often than not I am going to be right about teams that I feel are better than people expect than I am about the ones which are going to be worse. A prime example was at the start of last year I had Washington winning the NFC East and everyone else was on the Eagles to win that division and beat up Washington in week 1. That went opposite and I was able to capitalize on that before the public adjusted their way of thinking. This is the time of year when we’re going to see more mistakes made because everyone turns off the strategic and critical thinking from July & August as soon as they see projections and vegas odds for the individual games in weeks 1 and 2.

I couldn’t care less about who is favored by how much right now by Vegas, because the lines are going to be way off in the first 4-5 weeks of the season and everyone who blindly follows someone as a 6 point favorite thinking “oh, well Vegas is always right” is going to be missing out on golden opportunities right now.

I believed coming into the year that second year Quarterbacks Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Tua (nope, still not gonna try to remember how to spell it from memory yet) would take a step forward. I believed coming into the year that this would be a season where Wide Receivers dominated fantasy football over the stud Running Backs and I believed coming into the season that certain teams would shine out in their divisions (Cleveland & Miami specifically). So if I cannot trust these items in weeks 1 through 4 of the season just because it doesn’t align that way, then what good does that really do me in DFS? It doesn’t mean that we blindly just roll forward with our season long predictions in every scenario, but at some point you gotta put your picks out there and let them shine or let them fall and now is that time.

WEATHER AND NOTABLES

We have weather! Actually, this is nothing to be excited about, but I think there’s going to be some over-reaction to both scenarios here with weather impacting two of the three FLorida games. Side note — what is up with the NFL scheduling all these home games in Florida in September? Boo.

Buffalo at Miami – Some scattered storms, chance of rain roughly 40%, no major wind and very warm. I do not think we have a major impact on this game with weather. Historically Miami games usually will have a delay over anything else due to Lightning.

Atlanta at Tampa – 4PM start to this game and it has a similar scenario as Miami but highly more likely that they get some torrential downpours. This could result in the game just coming to a screeching halt and some weird fumble-roosky stuff being the way that Atlanta scores more than 3 points. C’mon Brady. Don’t let us down with a 28-3 screenshot in this one.

Tennessee at Seattle – There will be some light rain in this game early, nothing that should scare us.

INJURIES TO MONITOR

There’s a good number of offensive line and defensive injuries out there this week which where impacted for offensive players in this article is mentioned below. For DFS specific purposes these are spots which are relevant to my radar

• Gabriel Davis (BUF) – Limited with an ankle however he is expected to go
• Darnell Mooney (CHI) – Questionable, and if he is a no go it only adds to the Allen Robinson volume
• Anthony Schwartz (CLE) – Questionable, doesn’t really change much either way for me but if he is OUT then that is one less potential threat to guys like Chubb, Hunt, Landry and DPJ who are all great plays
• Michael Gallup (DAL) – Went on IR earlier this week. Notable for Lamb and Cooper.

Overall nothing major to be monitoring going into tomorrow from the standpoint of removing guys from your lineup if you set it tonight (which you should).

OWNERSHIP INFORMATION

I said last week this would move over to the dashboard and while we DO have the ownership information there, I haven’t built the right view for linking it in the article as of yet — so it’s coming but for now I’ll do the detail information here.

There are generally ownership projections around the industry which are fairly accurate but then there is the Buzz aspect of just generally what you see and hear on TV/Radio/Social Media in terms of free give away content and that does impact who is going to be “popular” as well.

• QB — As I expected this week QB is not a heavy chalk spot and that is the norm because Quarterback chalk is just so rare due to only being able to roster one guy. If a QB is 25% owned that’s generally high, but normally we don’t care about QB chalk below 20 because the difference between a B level QB and a D level QB each week is not the same as other positions. That said, I STRONGLY believe this is a week you cannot miss at QB. The highest owned QB will be Herbert (LAC), Brady (TB) and Kyler (ARI). But it’s really close and should be spread out so don’t assume that guys like Wilson, Prescott and Josh Allen come in very low owned. They will still be up there, just not as high on the buzz aspect.
• RB — This is where the leverage can come into play a little more than normal. Najee Harris, Chubb/Hunt, Ekeler, Drake, Mitchell are all getting popularity buzz. Harris will be the highest owned.
• WR — Cooper Kupp, CeeDee Lamb, DK Metcalf, Mike Williams/Keenan Allen are all popular WR this week
• TE — No Kelce but also no cheap value punt TE gaining ownership where he shouldn’t. Lots of ownership will slide over to Darren Waller and George Kittle instead. I believe those are mistake.
• DEFENSE — Cleveland and Tampa

What are The Ambush plays?  These my top five favorite plays or themes of the week to use as an anchor when building out a lineup.  Can you roll all five Ambush plays together into a single lineup?  Absolutely.  But you shouldn’t just ignore the positional rankings as your CORE build while the Ambush plays tend to be the ones which I feel will provide the most upside for doing more than just kissing your sister by 2x’ing your measly cash games.

SOPHOMORE SHOOTOUTS

The intro for this weeks article was a tease into how I was planning to attack this slate and if you skimmed it you should go back and take your ADD medication and re-read it.

There are four Sophomore Quarterbacks of note on this slate in Joe Burrow (vs Bears), Justin Herbert (vs Cowboys), Tua Tagovailoa (vs Bills) and sure Jalen Hurts (vs 49ers). Three of these guys are going to be involved in shootouts today and it will be their production (Burrow, Herbert, Tua) which drives attention in these games. I am buying into the Cowboys-Chargers game as the best game of the weekend for offense but it’s Dak Prescott who is going to wind up putting up 350+ yards and 3 touchdowns at lower ownership so he is my #1 QB. But none the less things will get started off with both Tua and Burrow shining in prove it spot games and thus those are two of the better under the radar spots in week 1. One of my feelings on QB selection this week is that you’re gonna be sitting there late Sunday feeling like you wish you had the QB who had 380+ yards and 3+ touchdowns and out of those three games it will be Prescott, Burrow and Josh Allen who wind up getting there. But players on the other sides (Chargers, Bears, Dolphins) will be must owns as well in what turns out to be a fantastic game correlation wweekend of football.

Cowboys vs Chargers Stack: Prescott, Lamb, Keenan Allen

Bills vs Dolphins Stack: Allen, Diggs, Parker or Gisecki

Bengals vs Bears Stack: Burrow, Boyd, Chase, Robinson or Montgomery

Ambush Play #1:   Sophomore Quarterbacks Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert are involved in the three highest scoring games.

VALUE BACKS

2021 year of the receiver continues and another week that we are not forcing in multiple high priced running backs like years past. I already see things playing out to where every week there will be some great leverage with buying into the stud running backs as their ownership continues to drop with everyone realizing we have better cheaper alternatives — but that’s for later in this article.

The CORE build this week is to focus on value running backs and mir range guys who are in good spots. Take Kareem Hunt over Nick Chubb (or play them both as that always works too), because Cleveland is gonna boat race the Texans and all signs have shown they will keep these two balanced but Hunt is far cheaper and will produce similar ROI.

Take Javonte Williams for $4,400 on DraftKings and say thank you very much. Take David Montgomery for $6,100 on DraftKings and say thank you very much. Take Najee Harris for $6,100 on FanDuel and say thank you very much. You don’t need to get any cuter with Running Backs who are cheaper or possibly getting a bump in playing time like Ronald Jones, Elijah Mitchell or whoever the Cardinals actually run the ball with. The drones you are looking for are Hunt, Williams, Montgomery and Harris. Thats the CORE for running back depth this week and they’re the right value to buy into in 2021.

There is however one stud RB who has potential to be a no brainer and I’ll cover him in the RB section.

Ambush Play #2:  Continue to take the upside of mid range Running Backs over forcing 3 STUD RB’s in.

CONCEEDEE YOUR LINEUPS TO LAMB and KEENAN

If we are going to the best game of the weekend between Dallas and the Chargers then lets break down which side of the ball is going to have the most reliable pass catching options. IT’s clear for me that it would be Dallas. Both teams have viable TE options, both teams have viable RB options, but with Dallas losing Michael Gallup the target flow to Lamb and Cooper only increases. Add in that I love Dallas coming off the extra rest from the TNF opener where they clearly displayed that Dak is back and I’m trusting Dallas to not only shine in the passing game but go out to L.A. and win.

CeeDee Lamb is showing his emergence that everyone expected and this game features him vs my other WR darling Mike Williams, but it will actually be Keenan Allen for the Chargers who tries to out catch Lamb as both will see 12+ targets against relatively beatable coverages. I don’t know how Dallas has any shot to stop Keenan from having any catch he wants, but I also dont see how the Chargers will prevent Lamb from having multiple big play touchdowns. You gotta have these guys this week and it is another 4 WR weekend.

Ambush Play #3:   CeeDee Lamb and Keenan Allen finish as WR #1/#2.

MEET THE NEW VALUE, SAME AS THE OLD VALUE

Hang on, so you mean to tell me that Marquez Callaway going up $800 in price is enough to change his ownership from chalkiest player of the weekend to sub 3%? Sweet fucking Jesus we are in the second week of the NFL season and our pets heads have already fallen off.

Callaway was in a game last week that was run the ball, play good defense, take shots down field. None of which fits him. He was facing a much better secondary then and now gets to face a Carolina defense which is horrid at line backer and still struggles to get pressure on the QB. In short, Callaway is going to have time to find holes in the middle of the field and catch 7-10 passes from Winston this week and you mean to tell me people aren’t playing the Saints #1 WR for $4,200? Whuuut. You want value, this is your value, it’s the same damn value as last week.

Next question.

Ambush Play #4:   The Callaway hype before week 1 was real. Stick with him for easy value.

AMBUSH FADES OF THE WEEK

This is a tough week to completely rule out some games as there’s one or two guys everywhere that draw attention to me, but ultiimately I found two games which are fairly popular that I won’t be considering at all.

Rams at Colts

I’m still not sure that we are going to see this Rams offense be as explosive as everyone wants it to be with Stafford. To me the real story last Sunday night was that the Bears defense continues a decline as they’re transitioning before our eyes to an offense first team. The Colts have zero ability to throw the ball in this game, so its lots of check downs to the running backs and the Rams probably go balanced as well making this game a kicker battle and a game which ends well under 3 hours with minimal plays being run. Avoid it.

Titans at Seahawks.

The names are sexy in this one. The QB, the RB, the WR. But the Titans gotta do what they did in 2020 and that is lean on Henry on the road. He saw an increase in carries when they played on the road in 2020 which should be the game plan here and for Seattle they are also poised to feed Carson more than just dropping back and letting Russ air it out over and over. I have no problem with Metcalf, Carson, AJ Brown as one offs, but there’s so many other WR in games that I project to be higher scoring that they are not finding their way onto my lineups this week.

So those two games I will have no player recommendations from and there are a few others which I have minimal desire for but cannot ignore 1 or 2 key parts.

Ambush Lesser Tier Games

• 49ers at Eagles – This one is a 0 for me simply because good luck picking the right 49er and with San Francisco staying over on the east coast they will not be jet leagged so they should play well defensively against Philly. Yes, San Francisco was practicing in West Virginia this week.
• Patriots at Jets – Really like Jets defense, that is it.
• Falcons at Bucs – I will pass and bet the Mike Evans touchdown.
• Vikings at Cardinals – Game slows down. Cardinals running game will thrive.
• Texans at Browns – It’s all Browns
• Raiders at Steelers – I don’t like Raiders off that MNF overtime game and without Jacobs. Harris is a logical pick but my gut says the Steelers passing game steals all the would be Harris touchdowns and he finishes with 110 total yards and 0 scores.

Dak Prescott

Something that worked one week last year was stacking Dak and Elliott together. This isn’t quite that, but there’s reason to buy into both Dallas RB as pass catchers which only boosts Dak even more. We are going to see Dak quickly return to his form from a year ago and that includes having to put up touchdown drives every time they have the ball because of a bad and banged up defense. His yardage total could hit 400 on Sunday. No joke, I’m on him that much.

Josh Allen

Please note that I do not think Allen is going to have a game that is pleasing to the eyes all game long. The Dolphins will win this game and Allen will have 2 turnovers, probably one for a Miami defensive touchdown. But the Bills have ZERO commitment to running the ball with anyone else and what winds up happening is Allen finishes with all their offensive production at the end of the game and for fantasy purposes we’ll take that along with the turnovers.

Justin Herbert

Simply put I gotta like Herbert with Dak being so highly rated in projections I ran this week.

Christian McCaffrey

Alright, so here’s the deal. CMC could be playing a game in Sibera with flip flops on and he would still probably wind up with 15+ fantasy points, so the fact that he is facing a top rush defense and really good defense overall doesn’t matter.

But New Orleans is missing potentially 3/4 of critical components for them to prevent CMC from having a big 50+ yard touchdown run. Marcus Davenport (IR) and Kwon Alexandero (IR) are out. CJ Gardner Johnson is highly questionable considering he did not participate in practice all week and that is the final straw that could doom the Saints ability to prevent a big CMC game. It’s the athleticism of those three guys and two of them being at LB/Slot Corner which opens up the middle of the field for CMC on a play where he slips out from opting to block DeMario Davis on a blitz and winds up 1:1 with Malcolm Jenkins in the middle of the field. Good bye CMC to the house right to left for a 56 yard touchdown catch and run and that vaults him from his floor of 15 into the category of breaking the slate.

 

Kareem Hunt

Both Hunt and Chubb will finish strong here but we cannot overlook that Cleveland will be able to pass with all the time in the world and Houston’s got nobody that will cover Hunt. Out of these two Hunt has an equal chance to score twice and is far cheaper. Take the discount here.

David Montgomery

This game will have points and the Bears only have two players I trust to move the ball and get in the box. D-Mont has arrived (he arrived last year) and remains a bargain on both sites considering the solid volume he should receive and facing a Bengals D which might not be bottom 3 against the run, but theyrethey’re still in the bottom third of the league.

Best Value (Sub 5k) running backs

Even though it’s not a pay up at 2RB scenario this week you shouldn’t stray from the three above or Najee Harris on FanDuel. This is strictly in consideration for who can be a FLEX punt 3rd RB on DK for sub 5k tier.

• Javonte Williams – Could he be considered a must start? Its very close in a very favorable match-up and being a talented rookie everyone was on coming into the season. Melvin Gordon likely keeps him from hitting over 15 points, but you wont find better RB value. Don’t get cute, eat this cheese.
• Nyheim Hines – The way to attack the Rams is to go away from Ramsey and Donald — which is out o nthe edge with your running backs. Hines should haul in 4+ catches this week.

AMBUSH TRIPLETS

We will use DraftKings pricing to outline the top WR within three different tiers and call them the triplets. Tier 1 is above 7k, Tier 2 is above 5k and tier 3 is below 5k. No matter what, the AMBUSH Triplets will not give you two Tier 1 players and no more than two Tier 2 players. Basically the rule of thumb for balance here is you can’t have combined more than 2 players in Tier 1 & Tier 2 to have the right balance for a SE lineup.

CeeDee Lamb (Tier 2 – $6,400)

Iti s Lamb or bust right now. Each year there is a handful of skill position players who sustain a lower than it should be price tag for the first 6-7 weeks, Lamb is one of those guys.

Allen Robinson (Tier 2 – $6,200)

I do not care what your WR-CB match-up says because it doesn’t matter. Andy Dalton is going to want to throw the ball to Robinson a ton and every time he drops back to pass he will be looking to hit Robinson for a chance at revenge on his former team.

Marquez Callaway (Tier 3 – $4,200)

Broke it down above, this is just to easy to pass up.

NEXT BEST BY TIERS

Tier 1 – Keenan Allen, Stefon Diggs

Not using DK Metcalf is going to be a long sweat this afternoon, but I’m not fading him for lesser players here. Diggs and the Bills are your classic “Its not a great matchup”, but they find a way to get points scenario. Dont play him naked though.

Tier 2 – Davante Parker, DJ Moore

Two guys that will be 0% owned. DJ Moore doesn’t matter if Lattimore sits because Lattimore dont chase fast dudes, and certainly not now that he has that bag. Sincerely, guy who gave you DJ Moore vs Saints the last two seasons — although those games were in New Orleans. Can’t play the Dolphins without Parker of Gisecki, just cannot.

Tier 3 – J’Marr Chase

Tyler Boyd’s price makes him look very attractive, but having watched lots of Chase in college I can tell you he does more than fuine running on grass and something tells me we see a 2 TD game from Chase as Burrow gets his boy off the “drops” narrative quickly.

Kelce or bust is generally my weak link at Tight End and with Kelce not on the slate it makes it a little easier to just shift straight down to the bottom barrel here.

Mike Gesicki

The great thing about Gesicki being the cover boy all season at TE here is I shouldn’t spell his name wrong right? Phew, for his price on DK today he is the most sure thing and in a game I love? Load up on Mike.

Noah Fant

There is quite a lot to like aout Fant who had 8 targets and 6 catches for 62 yards in week one. If Denver gets enough snaps thanks to their defense limiting Jacksonville then he should find a way to see similar production this week.

Also Considered …

Dalton Schultz, Tyler Higbee, Jonnu Smith

For those who are using the NFL Model (why aren’t you?) I am tweaking the projections/ratings on Defenses tonight so that the optimizer doesn’t just spit out the cheapest defense every time — which can be risky many weeks.

Browns

Poor Houston

Steelers

The Raiders had an EMOTIONAL Monday night overtime game adnd will be without bell cow Josh Jacobs to chew up clock. Pittsburgh will tee off, finish the game with 5 sacks and two take aways.

Jets

Statement game for the Jets and their new head coach against the vaunted Patriots. New England isn’t going to force the Jets into negative points and Mac Jones is likely to turn it over a couple times here too. Like them for value in a Jets win.

It’s back by popular demand!  The Q&A section, where I ask questions to myself and answer them for you thinking that you might actually be wondering the same thing.  In all seriousness though if you have a weekly question get it to me before Friday night and I will include it in here.  This is the final thoughts presented in Q&A style — like a press conference.

Q:  Who is getting overlooked this week and why is it … Marquez Callaway?

New Orleans offense this week is going to be more zone running and intermediate passing. Expect Tony Jones and Alvin Kamara to carry the ball a bnunch with Callaway leading the team in receptions for a major discounted price.

Q:  Which defenses are going to over/under perform expectations this season?

This is a really good question – we have made some predictions everywhere else but not quite into the defense category.  How I’ll answer it is more based on which defenses will drop from last year and which ones are going to jump up from last season. 

In terms of defenses who are going to play better — Cleveland, Philadelphia and San Francisco.  San Francisco is healthier and the Eagles/Browns relying on their offensive lines to control tempo should benefit their defenses.  Cleveland has ability to create take-aways which are great for DFS.   The Rams, Broncos, Saints, Bills and Dolphins round out the top tier long term.  

In terms of defenses who I don’t think are as feared — Washington (they are all up front and teams can scheme against it) and Chicago aren’t as dominant as people think.

Q:  How will Joe Lombardi affect Herbert/Ekeler and Chargers offense?

The Saints offense that Lombardi grew up under has two distinct traits to it.  First, they trust their skill position players, RB, WR, TE to rotate in and lineup in various spots to give them the best chance for miss-matches throughout the game.  They stress a defense by changing personnel packages frequently and this is how you wind up with big WR (Mike Williams) on smaller players and elusive RB (Ekeler) on slower linebackers.  

The other trait though which we saw in week one benefit Mike Williams is a layers concept to the passing game.  All the route concepts within this offense are built such that there are routes going into short, intermediate and deep routes within the defense and any defense that has a bad safety is going to get carved up once the Quarterback gets comfortable in the system.  This has led to Mike Williams having a shorter aDOT and higher rate of consistent catches, but don’t assume Keenan Allen is going to drop off because he’ll carve up that Michael Thomas quick slant role in the right match-up.  Eventually either Guyton or Palmer is going to develop the trust of Lombardi to call plenty of vertical play action bombs to them, but wait for a game when everyone is on the Chargers running game to fire them up.

Fuck Jared Cook.

Q:  Do you expect Saints to be a high powered offense w/ Jameis or Defense led/rushing attack.

The strength of the Saints team is their offensive line and their defense.  They will win with those two units performing well, but do not assume Sean Payton is just going to be conservative with running the ball and trusting his defense.  His play calling and game planning is among the best all time and when the right game calls for it he will air it out.  That game is coming soon, so just wait because for now they are OL and Defense (which is banged up).

Q:  How should you attack early and 4pm only slates?

The 1PM slate in NFL DFS might be the hardest thing each and every week.  This is often where I will buy into a game that I am optimistic for offense but doesn’t make my top 3 builds and a lot of times it winds up being a game where you might feel it’s going to be one sided and it ends up being closer.  

Like Houston vs Cleveland, only uh, that game won’t be close in my mind.   For early slate this week the Bengals-Bears is one but the Bills-Dolphins is where I am going.

Q:  FAVORITE BETS?

Cleveland -12.5 & Survivor Pick.  Browns second half of season schedule gets harder so you should be using them up now.

Bengals/Bears OVER 45

Bills/Dolphins OVER 47.5 + Dolphins ML

Dallas +3

Q:  Best game to fade?

Raiders and Steelers

Q:  Game nobody is touching that could go off?

Bills and Dolphins

CONTEST SELECTION REMINDERS

Reminder on a couple things you should be looking for each week are as follows

• Tournaments with less than 1k users in them
• Tournaments with less than 300 users in them
• Tournaments that pay 10x to first not 50x to first
• Higher paylines (% of people who get paid)
• How much does 10th place get?  20th place?

Focus on not first place but below that.  Make sure you are playing a tournament that is one you can win in and will not have a ton of tilt by entering a lineup and having to worry about every single person who scores on the slate.  You’ll find that in the long run any tournament that only pays 10x to first is one you will profit in.

Good luck this week to everyone.

Boom!  Lets roll.