NFL DFS First Look at Salaries & Matchups for Week 2 (Fantasy Football)
On Tuesday, Betz and myself share some of these insights on the Fantasy Footballers DFS Podcast if you want further commentary on some of the salary standouts.
Every week the First Look article gives you a taste of the slate and some of the more intriguing salaries that DraftKings and FanDuel release. The goal is to identify early-week cash game considerations, as well as potential tournament plays, before we piece together the stacking options.
Check back on Thursday when Matthew Betz and myself share our official DraftKings and FanDuel picks for cash and GPPs exclusively in the DFS Pass.
Here are the games for this week’s main slate* including team implied totals (TIP) for each matchup.
*These lines are provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and are accurate as of time of publishing.
Overview
At first glance, here are a couple of things to note:
- First, there is one fewer game on the main slate this week with two taking place on Monday night. Keep that in mind as the player pool shrinks and your projections look a bit lower. Teams off the main slate: KC, LAC, TEN, BUF, MIN, and PHI.
- The salaries also have some major adjustments. It’s rare as the season goes on that you see players move more than $500. This week, as I’ll detail below, there are some players with massive salary spikes of $1,000+
- The totals are all aboard the struggle bus. Only one is over 50 points and even that one looks troubling with the way the Cardinals’ offense looked last week.
- There are some heavy favorites at home this week. We usually want to lean into their team implied totals and find at least one player from the other side to correlate with. Those bring backs can be identified easier if their target shares are condensed.
- Finding the games in the 45-48 range on this slate that hit the over is one of the keys in my opinion. Find one you like, compare it with our Roster Percentage Report and see if you can find stacks and correlations going under-rostered in tournaments.
Quarterbacks
Keep in mind Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Jalen Hurts are all off the main slate this week.
DraftKings
- It’s wild to see Tom Brady ($6400) priced down so low. The Buccaneers looked sluggish in the first half against Dallas and Chris Godwin‘s injury definitely lowers the outlook but this is Brady we’re talking about here. His two games in New Orleans as a Buc (20.5 and 28.2 DK pts) gives you a clear floor to work with.
- With the highest team implied total of the week, the Raiders and Derek Carr ($6200) are going to be on your radar. I would project Carr to be a popular cash game and GPP option this week likely being in the top-3 of QB roster percentage.
- Chalk up Trey Lance and the 49ers’ rough Week 1 to the downpour they played in. At $5,700, he’s once again cash game viable and currently manning my QB spot in early cash lineup. Against Seattle as a 9.5-point home favorite, he has 2+ TDs in his projection along with 40+ rushing yards.
- Cooper Rush ($5000) isn’t quite low enough to consider. I mean Daniel Jones is only $5100. But I do want to give the Cowboys’ backup QB some love. He had one start last year: Halloween night on Sunday night football in Minnesota. He went 25/40 for 320 yards and two TDs. I rewatched all his pass attempts on GamePass today. My main takeaway: he’s not just a one-read guy. He’s willing to look at the intermediate area of the field and has some mobility. Before completely abandoning all Cowboys passing options, realize in that game he supported both Amari Cooper (8/122/1) and Ceedee Lamb (6/112/0) in a come-from-behind victory.
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