NFL Lineup Optimizer Picks – 9/8/16
Chris Durell
It feels like forever and a day since we had NFL football and specifically daily fantasy football. I hope you are as excited as me to get started. Every week I am going to be bringing you a stacks article for your lineup that will be out on Wednesday/Thursday and will cover my favorite teams to stack each week when looking at the Sunday/Monday slate. At the start of the season, you are going to see a ton of references to last year’s stats and rankings as we just don’t have enough data yet. As the data for 2016 rolls in I will slowly integrate it into my models. Let’s get started!
Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Washington Redskins
QB – Ben Roethlisberger
Elite WR Option – Antonio Brown
Value WR Options – Markus Wheaton, Eli Rogers, Sammy Coates
Week 1 is a great opportunity to pay up for some elite combos in tournaments as there are a ton of values on both sites as initial pricing has been out for weeks now. You can’t talk elite QB/WR combos without mentioning Big Ben and AB. Brown, who was second only to Julio Jones in 2015 with an average of 12.1 targets per game and receiving yards per game with 114.6. Ben only played 12 regular season games last year, but put up an impressive volume in those games with an average of 39 passing attempts per game while completing 68% of those passes for 8.4 yards per attempt average(3rd highest in the league). Monday night should be another high volume passing attack as they face the Redskins who rank 25th in passing yards against per game last season. With such a high volume passing attack it opens up value at the other wide receiver positions but is only recommended as contrarian plays. DraftKings is only offering the Monday Night games on their Thurs-Mon Slate unless things change between now and Sunday. FanDuel offers both Thurs-Mon and Sun-Mon slates.
Detroit Lions vs. Indianapolis Colts
QB – Matthew Stafford
WR Options – Golden Tate, Marvin Jones Jr.
If you are looking for some value on Sunday, look no further than the Lions/Colts game which ties the highest points total(51) on the entire slate this week. It is also projected to be one of the highest paced games as both teams ranked near the bottom in overall defense last season, and until I see major improvement, I will target them on a weekly basis. I lean on stacking the Lions more this week as I feel the Colts are the better team that should be able to jump out front early putting the Lions behind from behind position. This will force the already pass-happy Stafford to throw 40+ times. Stafford was terrific down the stretch last season throwing for 1,655 yards and 17 touchdowns while completing 73% of his passes in the final six games under Jim Bob Cooter. He lost Calvin Johnson which shouldn’t hurt too much as they have been adapting the passing style over the last couple years while dealing with Megatron’s injuries. They added the talented Marvin Jones to pair with Golden Tate. This is a team I would possibly stack both WR’s with Stafford as there is no clear #1 at this point. I, personally, love Jones a bit more this week as he is vastly under priced.
Oakland Raiders vs. New Orleans Saints
QB – Derek Carr
Elite WR Options – Amari Cooper
I think the Raiders provide an excellent low-ownership stacking opportunity in Week 1 at home against the Saints. This game has one of the three totals that eclipses the 50 mark this week with the Raiders coming in as slight underdogs. Much like the Lions above I feel the Raiders are the inferior team and will be playing from behind creating a situation where Carr will have to throw lots in keep up mode. He threw the 9th most passes in 2015 accumulating 3,987 yards and 32 touchdown passes. It was Amari Cooper who tallied nearly 25% of that production with 1,070 yards and six touchdowns. The connection should have no problem picking up where they left off against the Saints who allowed the second most passing yards among all NFL teams last season.