The 3rd Year WR Theory for #FantasyFootball owners proves to be a legitimate stat that requires attention. Who is this year’s D-Hop, TO, and Cooper Kupp? Tony Cutillo dives into all the WRs ready to break out in their 3rd Year!
Welcome to the Week 4 edition of The Inside Look for the 2022 NFL season. This will be a data driven article and will go under the hood to see if the box scores tell the whole story about what transpired during the weekend. My goal here will be to either calm your nerves about a player that may have underperformed or cause you to rethink some of the spots you may have taken.
Let’s dig in to the data!
Before we dig in to individual player performances I wanted to take a moment to talk about why we focus so heavily on Targets. Targets equal opportunities and in fantasy opportunity more often than creates production. The more targets that a player gets the better chance there is that the player will return on value.
Cooper Kupp did everything but find the end zone Monday night. With the Rams seemingly down the entire game, Stafford was forced to the throw the ball a ton. That equated to a season high 19 targets for Kupp and a career high 14 receptions for Kupp. His final stat line for the night was 14 catches for 122 yards. He’s now reached at least 100 yards receiving in 3 of the games this season. Up next for the Rams will be a matchup of the Coopers as the Cooper Kupp and his teammates take on Cooper Rush and the Cowboys.
With a combination of Tua and Teddy Bridgewater throwing to him, Tyreek Hill was targeted a season-high 14 times. He’s now had double-digit targets in 3 of the games and for the second time this season, Hill finished with over 100 receiving yards. Unlike the first time he did though, Hill failed to find the end zone and the Dolphins fell to the Bengals 27-15. The Dolphins will look to return to the win column next week vs. the New York Jets.
Another receiving that had a monster stat line that was missing a touchdown was Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings. After being completely invisible in Weeks 2 and 3, Jefferson returned to form in Week 4 with a season-high 10 catches on a season-high 13 targets. His 147 receiving yards were the most he’s had since Week 1 vs. the Packers. Next up for the Vikings will be a touch test with the Bears, a team that has given up just 725 yards through the air this season.
Similar to Week 2, this was another disappointing week in terms of targets and running backs. Not a single back this weekend was targeted more in double digits.
While the rushing yards weren’t there for Christian McCaffrey this weekend, McCaffrey owners had to be excited about his participation in the passing game. Coming into Week 4, McCaffrey had been targeted just 10 times. This week he nearly doubled his season total with 9 targets. He was able to catch all of them and finished with a season-high 81 receiving yards.
Return of the Hock! Coming into Week 4, T.J Hockenson hadn’t been targeted more than 7 times in any game this season. That all changed this weekend. Thanks to being without D’Andre Swift, DJ Chark, and Amon-Ra St. Brown, Hockenson was targeted 12 times. And he made the absolute most of those as he caught 8 of them and went for 179 yards and 2 touchdowns. The 12 targets were the most he’s ever had in a game and this was the first time since his first NFL game in 2019 that he surpassed 100 receiving yards.
Similar to his teammate Cooper Kupp, Tyler Higbee had a season-high in targets with 14 of them. Also like Kupp, Higbee failed to find the endzone. Although he didn’t score, Higbee did set season highs in receptions with 10 and receiving yards with 73.
Ryan Tannehill only threw the ball 21 times this weekend, but of those nearly half of them went to his running backs. Tannehill and Robert Woods have yet to really click as Woods hasn’t had more than 4 catches in any game this season. This offense runs through Derrick Henry. And that is as clear as it has ever been as he led the team in targets this week with 5.
Another thing that was crystal clear in Week 4 was Kirk Cousins use of his standout wide receivers. Justin Jefferson and Adam ‘I’ve got a’ Thielen accounted for 22 of Kirk Cousins 35 passes. In total, more than 70% of Kirk Cousins’ passes this weekend went to a wide receiver.
Holy usage Saquon Barkley! Barkley ran the ball 31 times this weekend. Through the first 3 games of the season, he hadn’t ran the ball more than 21 times in a game. The 31 rushes were the most he’s had in a game in the NFL. After failing to reach the century mark in Weeks 2 and 3, Barkley ran for 146 yards this weekend. He’s now run for over 100 yards in 2 of the 4 games this season. Up next will be a date with the Packers, a team that has given up the fifth most rushing yards of any team in the league this season.
Josh Jacobs, have yourself a day! Josh Jacobs ran the ball 28 times on Sunday and finished with a career-high 144 rushing yards. To make it even sweet for fantasy owners, Jacobs also found the end zone 2 times on Sunday. Next week he’ll get a much tougher task as he’ll face off against the Chiefs, the team that has given up the few rushing yards this season.
The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.
The New York Giants ran 59 plays this weekend, 75% of which were run plays. With the passing game seemingly ineffective and Daniel Jones going down and then Tyrod Taylor also going down, the Giants just ran, and then ran some more. It proved effective as they topped the Chicago Bears by a score of 20-12.
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum we have the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs ran 58 plays this week, with 90% of them being pass plays. With Mike Evans and Chris Godwin back, Tom Brady threw the ball 52 times for 385 yards. If only Brady could play defense.
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
Win Daily Sports is proudly partnered with Monkey Knife Fight. MKF is offering you a FREE Win Daily Gold membership for three months ($150 value) simply for making your first deposit on Monkey Knife Fight. And if free gold isn’t attractive enough, they’re also offering a 100% match bonus up to $100 when you use promo code WINDAILY.
Today I’ll be highlighting one of my favorite contests on Monkey Knife Fight, the Touchdown Dance. This Sunday MKF is running a special contest where if you play in a $5+ Touchdown Dance contest and all 3 of your players score a touchdown you get a share of the jackpot. Today’s jackpot is $5,000!
Let’s dig in and see if we can find some touchdowns!
Ronald Jones vs. New York Jets
Ronald Jones stands as good of a chance of scoring a touchdown today as anyone on the early slate. No team in the NFL has given up more rushing touchdowns this season than the Jets as they’ve given up 22. The next closest team is Houston with 18. Even if we dive into a smaller subset, the Jets have given up 5 over their 4 last games. Running backs have their way with the Jets and Ronald Jones will also have his way with the Jets.
Jones filled in admirably last week for Fournette with 65 rushes and 1 touchdown against a slightly tougher opponent in the Panthers. With Fournette on IR, Jones will get the bulk of the carries again today and should find the end zone in back-to-back weeks, helping us get our first touchdown in the Monkey Knife Fight Touchdown Dance contest. Confidence Level – High
Jonathan Taylor vs. Las Vegas Raiders
Jonathan Taylor had somewhat of a disappointing week in week 16. Although he rushed for over 100 yards for the third straight week, he failed to find the end zone for the first time since week 3. In week 17 he gets a great shot of bouncing back against a Raiders team that has been below average against running backs all year.
On the year they’ve given up 14 rushing touchdowns to running backs and 5 over the last 4 weeks. They’ve gotten progressively worse over the course of the year. Only once over the past 6 weeks have they gone a game without giving up a rushing touchdown to a running back. Jonathan Taylor should have no issue finding the end zone in this one. Confidence Level – High
Cordarrelle Patterson vs. Buffalo Bills
A once stout defense against the run, the Bills have really been struggling to try to contain running backs. They started out the year not giving up a single rushing touchdown to a running back until week 6 against the Titans. Since then it’s been all downhill. Over the last 6 weeks, they’ve given up a total of 9. In that stretch, they have games where they gave up 4 and 3 touchdowns. I’m going to attack them today with a running back that I’ve gone to in the past, Cordarrelle Patterson.
The ninth year back has really had a breakout season. He’s set career highs in both rushing touchdowns and rushing yards. He’s had rushing touchdowns in 3 of his last 5 games. Patterson is a risk because he doesn’t get a whole lot of volume, but where he does get volume is in the red zone and that’s extremely important here. Over the last 3 weeks, he’s had 13 red zone rushes. If the Falcons get in the red zone today, they’ll hand it off to Patterson. Confidence Level – Medium
Cooper Kupp vs. Buffalo Bills
I normally keep it to running backs in the Monkey Knife Fight Touchdown Dance because their volume is easier to predict at times. That said, Cooper Kupp is in an absolute smash spot today. The Ravens’ secondary has been decimated by injuries all season and the results have shown it. Over the last 4 weeks, the Ravens have given up a league-high 8 touchdowns to wide receivers. That’s tops in the NFL over that stretch. During that stretch of 4 games, they’ve given up multiple touchdowns to receivers 3 times.
Kupp just stands out so much here. Even last week in what was considered a subpar week for Stafford and Kupp, he still had over 100 receiving yards. Last week was the first time since week 12 he failed to find the endzone. I just don’t see a scenario where he goes a second straight week without a touchdown. Confidence Level – High
Other guys I also like this week are Davante Adams vs. Minnesota and David Montgomery vs. New York
Make sure you ar using our optimizer when setting lineups.
Good luck and hope to share the $5k with you!
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate! !
The NFL DFS season continues with this week’s Thursday night showdown, and we’re helping you win big money in the first Week 14 NFL DFS contests!
DraftKings calls them “Showdowns,” and FanDuel doesn’t really have a name for them other than “Single-Game Contests,” but whatever we call them they require an understanding of game narratives and game theory – which means we need to target low-ownership players that will give us the best opportunities within the narratives and game outcomes we’re expecting.
My picks will focus almost exclusively on finding GPP-winning combinations that have a chance at taking down the contests you’re entering, be they single-entry or MME. While we can’t cover all the possible combos or provide full lineups for you to deploy, the goal here is to give you the tools to win and highlight some names that will help make for profitable results.
If I enter five lineups in a large-field GPP, at least three of those lineups will focus on the most likely game outcome (based on Vegas odds, props and totals), with one or two contrarian builds. As we know, late-breaking news can have a significant effect on full slates, and that’s just amplified with single-game contests. If you have any questions leading up to lock, please consult our NFL DFS experts in Discord.
Let’s get to the game!
Some notes on the differences between MVP on FanDuel and DraftKings: The 1.5x point boost on FD comes with no salary penalty, while and DK also bumps the salary to 1.5x – a crucial factor in deciding who we can and cannot afford on both sites. We can use this to our advantage on FD by occasionally targeting non-QBs to establish more variance and more unique lineups, and on DK it allows us to build more hearty overall stacks when we punt the MVP position with a cheap but high-upside player.
This contest sports one of the lower projected game totals of the Week 14 slate, with the Rams the betting favorite at -240 and 24.75 projected points.
The chalk is leaning toward Jared Goff and away from Cam Newton, who is questionable with an abdomen injury that he played through last week en route to a 45-0 drubbing of the Chargers. His practice snaps have been capped in consecutive weeks because of the injury, but he’s fully expected to play on Thursday night.
Both teams are expected to lean more heavily on their running games this week as both pass defenses have been stifling over the past few weeks. The Rams DST is certainly an option for builds, but the opportunistic Patriots DST strikes me as a possible contrarian play up top, as we’ve seen the Rams QB get a little kooky and turn the ball over in the past.
Top corners from both teams (Stephen Gilmore for the Pats and Jalen Ramsey for the Rams) could impact the effectiveness of the opposing passing game, but Ramsey is unlikely to match up exclusively against one of the Pats WRs – since they don’t have a true No. 1. Gilmore will likely be on Robert Woods, since Cooper Kupp lines up in the slot quite a bit. Ownership will end up being pretty close for these two, with a slight recency bias going to Woods (double-digit target consistency over the past three games) – so Kupp might end up being the better value.
Playing both Kupp and Woods together with Goff doesn’t seem like a viable option, though I wouldn’t scold you for crafting one 1/10 GPP lineups that way. For the Pats, I’m most interested in Jakobi Meyers because of his PPR strengths, though he’s made just 15 catches over the past four games since his 12-reception party against the Jets. But the price on Damiere Byrd is obnoxiously low for some reason, and he’ll be in a few of my builds for sure.
As for the running game, we’ve got healthy committees for both teams that complicate the touch distribution, with Cam Akers heading the Rams backfield and Damien Harris leading the charge for the Patriots pounding style. Sophomore talent Darrell Henderson, Jr. is a sneaky play if you’re fading Akers, and there’s always the possibility that capable veteran Malcom Brown gets a few goal line carries and in crunch time. Brown is super cheap on DK and could be worth using in the CPT role if you want to stack the high-upside position players.
The Patriots usually just play the hot hand at RB, but Harris should begin s the early down pounder while James White fills in on third down and obvious passing situations. Sony Michel is finally healthy, so Bill Belichick could throw a monkey wrench into the mix by tapping him for a few additional carries or giving him a lead role if Harris fumbles. Coach is not a big fan of fumbles.
Tight ends won’t likely play a big role between the 20s, but we could see either Rams TE notch some red zone targets and sneak in for a TD. But both Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett would be final lineup construction pieces for me rather than core builds.
Remember to build your team based on a narrative that makes sense, and utilize the WinDaily fantasy toolbox for cheatsheets and projections that can help you tremendously with lineup building.
DO: Build a trio (or quartet) of offensive weapons for a team that makes sense together.
DON’T: Feel confined to a classic narrative this week. Kickers and DSTs are again in play with some of the true defensive playmakers on these teams and both QBs are turnover prone.
DO: Make Damien Harris a big part of your builds. It could blow up if the Rams really make a point of stopping him, but I don’t see Belichick getting away from what has worked for them.
DON’T: Expect a high-scoring game. Both coaches have engineered these teams to win battles, but neither is especially interested in getting into a shootout.
Now that we’ve established some narratives and MVP candidates, the best way to round out this piece is with a list of my favorite options in descending order, based on overall value (a combo of salary and projected points):
The NFL DFS season continues with this week’s Monday night showdown, and we’re helping you win big money in the final Week 11 NFL DFS contests!
DraftKings calls them “Showdowns,” and FanDuel doesn’t really have a name for them other than “Single-Game Contests,” but whatever we call them they require an understanding of game narratives and game theory – which means we need to target low-ownership players that will give us the best opportunities within the narratives and game outcomes we’re expecting.
My picks will focus almost exclusively on finding GPP-winning combinations that have a chance at taking down the contests you’re entering, be they single-entry or MME. While we can’t cover all the possible combos or provide full lineups for you to deploy, the goal here is to give you the tools to win and highlight some names that will help make for profitable results.
If I enter five lineups in a large-field GPP, at least three of those lineups will focus on the most likely game outcome (based on Vegas odds, props and totals), with one or two contrarian builds. As we know, late-breaking news can have a significant effect on full slates, and that’s just amplified with single-game contests. If you have any questions leading up to lock, please consult our NFL DFS experts in Discord.
Let’s get to the game!
Some notes on the differences between MVP on FanDuel and DraftKings: The 1.5x point boost on FD comes with no salary penalty, while and DK also bumps the salary to 1.5x – a crucial factor in deciding who we can and cannot afford on both sites. We can use this to our advantage on FD by occasionally targeting non-QBs to establish more variance and more unique lineups, and on DK it allows us to build more hearty overall stacks when we punt the MVP position with a cheap but high-upside player.
While there are viable showdown builds that feature Bucs WRs Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, Tom Brady will be the chalk at captain on Monday night, largely because he spreads the ball around quite a bit. Evans was targeted a season-high 11 times last week, while Godwin has yet to receive fewer than six targets in any game he’s suited up for this season. Embattled egomaniac and HOA member Antonio Brown was targeted eight times last week in his second game with the team, so he’s another WR who could make an impact.
The Rams DST could be the best contrarian punt option to directly challenge the “Tom Brady smashes in typical fashion” narrative, since we’ve seen a disruptive Aaron Donald and this unit post double-digit DK point totals in four of the last six games.
Jared Goff is certainly an option as well, but the three-headed Rams rushing attack presents a difficult situation to parse for fantasy purposes. Goal line work that typically goes to a healthy Darrell Henderson, Jr. was handled by Malcolm Brown (two rushing TDs on six carries) in Week 10, and Cam Akers finally saw some work between the 20s with 10 carries and a modest 38 rushing yards. The Bucs stingy run defense also complicates the deployment of Rams RBs – but it also helps to reduce their ownership, so picking the right one (just like picking the right Bucs pass-catcher) could be the key to smashing the slate.
On the Bucs side, we’ve got two explosive RBs, with Ronald Jones II the clear RB1 and Leonard Fournette acting as a change-of-pace runner and an elevated role in passing down work. It doesn’t matter which back you use – you could even use both – but whatever back you choose should reflect the obvious correlation plays for both teams.
As for the other Rams position players, I usually lean more heavily toward Robert Woods for his possession attributes and larger snap share, but Cooper Kupp and his elevated price could make him the preferred option in GPPs this week. I’m also interested in Tyler Higbee, as frequently targeting the Rams TE it could be a way for Goff to neutralize the pass rush.
And speaking of TEs, the Bucs have two good ones in Rob Gronkowski and Cameron Brate, both of whom receive red zone targets and make for more affordable options.
It’s a week where an expertly constructed single-entry lineup could see tons of success, but multiple entries are the way to go if you’re hell-bent on coming close to finding the golden ratio of showdown perfection and taking down a huge GPP.
Remember to build your team based on a narrative that makes sense, and utilize the WinDaily fantasy toolbox for cheatsheets and projections that can help you tremendously with lineup building.
DO: Build a trio (or quartet) of offensive weapons for a team that makes sense together
DON’T: Be afraid to get a little different with your builds. Tom Brady will be massive chalk on FD, and last night’s winning lineup didn’t have Patrick Mahomes (90% owned) or Tyreek Hill (21.5 FD points), even though both had solid games.
DO: Follow a narrative that makes sense. If you’re committed to a rare Brady bust, feel free to get the Rams DST in there.
DON’T: Forget about Bucs kicker Ryan Succop – who’s had double digit totals in four of his last six games.
Now that we’ve established some narratives and MVP candidates, the best way to round out this piece is with a list of my favorite options in descending order, based on overall value (a combo of salary and projected points):
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