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We are in the home stretch of the NFL season.  It’s Week 16 and we are starting to get a clearer, but packed playoff picture.  Today we have a solid lineup of games and some teams looking to bounce back after sub-par games last weekend.  

Let’s dig in and see if we can find some Monkey Knight Fight games we can win.

More or Less – 3.6x Payout

Matthew Stafford – 280.5 Passing Yards – More

Matthew Stafford has the potential to have an absolute monster game today vs. the Vikings.  Only 2 teams this season have given up more passing yards to QB’s than the Vikings.  In total, they’ve given up over 3,800 yards passing to QB’s.  The magical number that Monkey Knife Fight is giving us for Stafford today is 280.5.  The Vikings have given up more than this number 7 times.  Most importantly though, they give up at least 280 yards 4 times in their last 5 games.  Their secondary has been taking a beating. 

If we switch gears and look at what Stafford has done of late I’m pretty confident that he’ll get to the 281 yards needed to beat his target today.  He’s thrown for at least 281 yards in 6 of his last 8 contests.  Stafford has as good of a crop of pass-catchers as you’ll see in the game.  The group of Kupp, Beckham Jr., Jefferson, and Higbee should help Stafford get to his number today.  I’m going with the More side.

Tom Brady – 280.5 Passing Yards – Less

Tom Brady will be without his top running back in Leonard Fournette today.  Although Ronald Jones is a very capable back I expect Brady to throw even more than he normally if that’s even possible as the Buccaneers offense is a pass-heavy offense.  Week in and week out the Buccaneers are running about a 70/30 pass to run offense.  One of my biggest trepidations here is that the path to beating the Panthers is on the ground, not through the air. 

Only the Bills have given up fewer passing yards than the Panthers this season.  If we look at the target of 280.5 yards that Monkey Knife Fight set today, the Panthers have given this up just once this season and that was all the way back in week 6 vs. the Vikings. 

My other big reason for concern here is that Brady will be without the 2 guys that he has relied on heavily this year in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.  Between the 2 of them, they’ve accounted for over 2,000 yards this season.  Not having them on the field today will be a big blow for Brady.  The Buccaneers are expected to get Antonio Brown back today but that’s just not enough for me here. Anything can happen on a Sunday, especially when your name is Tom Brady.  There are just too many negatives here for me today.  I’m going with the Less side for Brady.

More or Less – 3x Payout

James Robinson – 75.5 Rushing Yards – More

With Urban Meyer out of the picture, it’s starting to be James Robinson’s time to shine.  He started to shine last weekend against a poor Houston Texans team as he rushed for 75 yards and a TD.  This week he gets an equally tasty matchup as the Jets are just as bad against the run as the Texans.  The Texans and Jets have given up more rushing yards than any other teams in the business. 

The Jets have been especially atrocious against the run in recent games.  They’ve given up more than 100 yards rushing to running backs in 6 of their last 8 games.  Over the last 3 weeks, running backs have more than 460 yards rushing against them.  I’m not going to sit here and say that the way to beat the Jets is on the ground as they’re an overall bad squad.  But they are 100% attackable on the ground and the 75.5 rushing yards goal that we’re getting from Monkey Knife Fight today seems extremely attainable for a guy like Robinson.  I’m going with the More side on this one.  

Alexander Mattison – 69.5 Rushing Yards – Less

Alexander Mattison should get the start today with Dalvin Cook on the shelf due to Covid protocols.  In the three games that Mattison has started this year, he’s done nothing but produce.  In each of those 3 games, he had more than 20 carries and at least 90 yards rushing.  On most other teams he’d be the top guy carrying the ball.  With that said, I think today is the day that Mattison struggles as a starter. 

2 of the 3 games he started were against the Lions and the third was against the Seahawks.  Both teams are in the bottom half of the league in terms of run defense.  In the Rams, we’re getting a team that is extremely solid against the run.  They’ve given up more than 100 yards rushing to running backs just 4 times on the year.  I expect the Rams to get out in front early in this game which will mean more passes from Kirk Cousins.  More passes will mean fewer carries for Mattison.  Getting to 70 yards will be tough for him today.  I’m siding with Less here.  

Good luck tonight and hope you cash!

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! 

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Welcome to the Week 15 edition of The Inside Look for the 2021 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.

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.

Unlike weeks past, we still have 2 games to play today and 2 tomorrow.  Thanks COVID! 

Let’s dig in to the data!

Wide Receiver Targets

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. 

If you have ask most Ravens fans, Marquise Brown had 1 less target than he should have had in Week 15.  Many camera angles show him wide open in the end zone when they went for 2.  That said, he still had a great weekend in terms of targets. No one in the NFL had more targets than Brown did this weekend.  Brown was targeted 14 times this.  It’s not all rosy picture though for Brown. 

Even though he was able to catch 10 of his targets, he went for only 43 yards passing.  After getting 116 yards vs. the Vikings in week 9 Brown now has 6 consecutive weeks of less than 60 receiving yards and also hasn’t found the end zone since Week 7 vs. the Bengals.  If the Ravens have any hope of beating the Bengals next weekend they’ll need a bounce back game from Brown.

While Brown had a down week, Tyreek Hill showed the world why he is one of the most dynamic players in the game, albeit frustrating players as well.  Hill had gone 9 consecutive games without breaking the 100 yard mark.  This week he broke it with some room to spare.  Hill was able to catch 12 of his 13 week 15 targets for 148 receiving yards.  He was also able to find the end zone for the first time since week 10.  Hill and his teammates look to keep the good times rolling against the Steelers in Week 16.

Brandon Cooks, have yourself a day!  For the second consecutive week Cooks had double digit targets and over 100 yards receiving.  With opening week starter Tyrod Taylor down with an injury, Cooks and Davis Mills have really found a rhythm together and it’s been somewhat fun to watch.  The two of them also connected for 2 touchdowns this weekend.  Up next week is a much tougher assignment in the Chargers.  Can they keep connecting like they have been?  

Running Back Targets

Penn State alum Saquon Barkley led all backs this weekend with 8 targets.  The good news?  He was able to catch 4 of them.  The bad news?  He did absolutely nothing with the targets as he finished with just 24 receiving yards.  There’s no other way to describe his 2021 season than saying it’s an utter disappointment.  He’ll look to get back on track next weekend vs. an Eagles team that is fighting for their playoff lives.

I’m not going to spend too much time talking about running backs and targets this weekend as running backs and targets did not mix well.  Not a single back had more than 50 yards receiving this weekend and there were only 5 receiving touchdowns for backs.  Ameer Abdullah led all running backs in receiving yards.  If that doesn’t tell you about the weekend and running backs, I don’t know what will. 

Tight End Targets

Where I do want to spend some time is with Tight Ends.  I’ll start with Mark Andrews.  Week 15 was very kind to Andrews.  He led all tight ends with 13 targets.  Andrews was able to catch 10 of them for 136 yards and 2 scores.  My season long fantasy team thanks you very much.  This was Andrews second consecutive week with over 100 yards receiving and fourth overall.  Up next week for Andrews and his mates are the Cincinnati Bengals in a must win game for the Ravens.

While Andrews had a stellar week, Travis Kelce was really the one who stole the show.  Kelce finished 9 yards shy of the 200 yard mark.  He was able to convert his 13 targets into 10 catches and 2 touchdowns.  This was Kelce’s first 100 yard game since week 10 against the Raiders.  The combo of Hill and Kelce combined for well over 300 yards.  They’ll look to do it against this coming weekend against the Steelers.

We won’t go down the negative road and talk about the night that Rob Gronkowski had.  Ok, you talked me into it.  Gronk had arguably his worst game of the year, as did Brady. The only other game that comes close to his poor week 15 performance was all the way back in week 8 vs. the same New Orleans Saints.  Gronk was targeted 11 times yesterday and was only able to catch 2 of them for just 29 yards.  Gronk season long owners in the playoffs probably weren’t too happy with that yesterday.  

Quarterback Target Share

Ryan Tannehill threw the ball 32 times in week 15.  Of those 32 times, more than half went to either his running backs or tight ends.  Once Julio Jones left the game yesterday, it became a much different plan of attack for Tannehill.  Tannehill now has 3 consecutive weeks with less than 200 yards passing.  With both his top receivers injured he’s struggled to find anyone else. 

When you have a tight end like Mark Andrews, you use him heavily.  That’s exactly what Tyler Huntley did on Sunday.  Of the 39 pass attempts for Huntley, a third of them went to Andrews.  Another third went to Marquise Brown, although those were far less successful than Andrews’ targets. This has pretty much been the game plan all year.  Thrown to either Andrews or Brown and it has worked with much success.  

If you expected the Lions to completely dominate the Cardinals in week 15 raise your hand?  I doubt anyone is raising their hand right now.  Jared Goff had his way with the Cardinals secondary yesterday.  Goff only threw the ball 26 times yesterday, but 21 of them were caught which is an extremely solid completion %.  Of his 26 attempts, 20 went to his wide receivers.  Amon-Ra St. Brown was the biggest beneficiary as he caught 8 of his 11 targets for 90 yards and a score.   

Running Back Touches

At this point, Jonathan Taylor has to be considered one of the front runners for the MVP.  Week in and week out he has been a stud.  He’s reached the 100 yard mark in 8 of his last 11 games.  Taylor also has touchdowns in all but his first 3 games of the year.  The Colts are in the thick of the playoff race right now and it’s 100% due to the play of Taylor. 

With the Lions top 2 running backs on the shelf this weekend, Craig Reynolds stepped up and boy did he step up.  He was second to only Taylor in week 15 with 26 carries.  He made the most of his carries as he finished with 112 yards on the ground.  In his two weeks carrying the ball Reynolds now has 195 yards on 37 carries.  Not bad for someone cut earlier in the year. 

Just moments before kick off the Dolphins announced that Duke Johnson would be the starting running back.  That 100% looked like the right call in week 15 as Johnson finished with 107 yards on 22 carries and 2 touchdowns.  While Gaskin owners I’m sure weren’t overly enthusiastic about the move, it worked for the Dolphins as they beat up on the lowly Jets.  Up next week is a much tougher task in the Saints and you have to think that the Dolphins will turn to a healthy Gaskin more.  

Playbook

The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.

The Indianapolis Colts ran the ball almost 80% of the time in week 15.  Why not when you have the league’s most prolific back.  Of the Colts 51 plays this week, 39 were for runs compared to just 12 pass plays.  It worked for them this week as they surprisingly beat the Patriots 27-17.

Tampa Bay continued to throw often last night, even thought it just wasn’t working.  Tom Brady threw the ball 48 times and had only 26 completions.  It was just the second time all year that Brady was held without a passing touchdown.  A lot of it was due to the fact that the Buccaneers were decimated by injuries last night as they lost Fournette, Evans, and Godwin to injuries mid game.  That led to Tom Brady being shutout for the first time in 15 years.   

Inside Look Wrap Up

Week 15 was as weird of a weekend as we’ve seen in quite some time, and hope to see in the near future.  Covid wreaked havoc on the schedule as we now have a 2 game slate on a Tuesday and a Monday afternoon game.  We did have some solid performances as 5 backs rushed for over 100 yards and another 5 guys had over 100 receiving yards.  We still have a healthy amount of games left with 4 still to play. 

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! 

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Welcome to the Week 14 edition of The Inside Look for the 2021 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.

Outside of the MNF game we have a pretty good sense of what transpired this past weekend. 

Let’s dig in to the data!

Wide Receiver Targets

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. 

Chris Godwin now has back to back weeks with at least 15 targets.  After getting targeted 17 times in week 13 Godwin saw another 15 targets in week 14.  And for the second straight week he broke the 100 yard mark.  Although it was a third consecutive week where he did not find the end zone, Godwin fantasy owners have to be happy with his level of production.  Good ole Tom Brady continues to look his way and you have to think we a match up vs. the Saints next weekend, we’ll see more of the same.

We need to start talking more about Hunter Renfrow.  Since their bye in week 8, Renfrow has seen at least 9 targets in all but 1 game.  Over the last 2 weeks he’s been targeted 24 times.  He now has 3 straight weeks of at least 100 yards and this week he scored his first touchdown since week 10.  The man is currently on a mission and is quickly becoming one of Derek Carr’s favorite weapons.

After a little bit of a mid season swoon, Davante Adams is back folks.  Coming off the bye Adams exploded for 121 yards yesterday against the bears.  He was targeted 13 times, the most targets he’s had since week 9 against the Chiefs.  For the second time in 3 three weeks Adams finished the game with 2 touchdowns.  Up next week is a big game vs. a Ravens team that is seeing its season spiral out of control.    

Running Back Targets

Opportunity came knocking at Royce Freeman’s door on Sunday.  With David Johnson ruled out prior to the game with Covid and Rex Burkhead leaving the game early with an injury, someone had to take snaps next to Davis Mills and that was Royce Freeman. 

Freeman more than doubled his season’s worth of targets with 8 on Sunday.  Those 8 were more than any other back in the game.  He actually did a little bit of work with them as he finished with 6 catches and 51 yards.  This will probably be a 1 and done though depending on injuries and Covid protocols.

Devin Singletary was another guy that saw productivity come out of nowhere in terms of receiving.  After having been held to just 6 targets between weeks 10 and 13, Singletary was targeted 7 times on Sunday.  He also made the most of them as he caught 6 and went for 37 yards.  With the Bills seemingly down the entire game, Allen through often and Singletary was a beneficiary of that. 

Tight End Targets

George Kittle is on an extremely impressive run right now.  While he didn’t top his week 13 output, he came pretty darn close.  After going for 181 yards in week 13, he went for 151 yards yesterday.  His 15 targets yesterday were the most he’s seen all year and his 13 catches were also the most.  Kittle found the end zone once and now has touchdowns in 5 of his last 6 games.  This combo of Garoppolo and Kittle has been a ton of fun to watch.

No Lamar Jackson, no problem for Mark Andrews.  He continues to be the main target for whoever is behind center for the Ravens.  Andrews’ 11 targets this weekend were the most he’s seen since week 5 against the Colts.  His late touchdown almost helped the Ravens come back from what seemed like an insurmountable deficit.  The Ravens look to get back on track with a tough assignment next week against the Packers.

Quarterback Target Share

Matt Ryan only threw the ball 27 times this weekend, but the majority of those went to non-receivers.  Of his 27 passes, 19 went to either running backs or tight ends.  He targeted 3 people 6 times each, 2 of which were Patterson and Pitts.  The loss of Ridley has really hit the team hard in terms of where to pass.  Week in and week out Ryan has been forced to use his running backs and tight ends in the pass game. 

Jimmy Garoppolo has a favorite weapon and it’s not even close.  Garoppolo threw the ball 37 times on Sunday, with 15 going to Kittle.  He was by far the most targeted person in the passing game.  The next closest person was Brandon Aiyuk at 11.  If it isn’t broken, no need to fix it.  Look for that type of game plan to continue in the weeks to come.

When you have a main receiving corps of Chase Claypool and Diontae Johnson, is the really a reason to throw to anyone else?  Of Big Ben’s 39 passes on Thursday night, 19 went to the duo of Claypool and Johnson.  Only 6 of his passes went to non-receivers.  While the Steelers didn’t win on Thursday, it wasn’t due to a lack of offense.  This is a game plan that works well for Roethlisberger and it’s something we’ll see often as the season winds down.

Running Back Touches

For the first time in weeks we got to see a healthy Alvin Kamara.  Boy was it fun to watch.  Kamara carried the ball 27 times in week 14 and was extremely successful.  For the first time since week 4 against the Giants, Kamara broke the 100 yard mark.  His 27 carries were also the most he’s had all year.  The stars aligned for Kamara this week as he got to face the Jets and his back up running back was out due to covid.  Next week he gets a much tougher assignment in the Buccaneers.  

After sitting out week 13 with a shoulder injury, Dalvin Cook came back with vengeance in week 14.  Playing in a prime time game against the Steelers, Cook showed off a skillset only a few have.  He carried the Vikings offense with 205 yards on the ground with 2 touchdowns.  Cook had season highs in every aspect of his game.  Most carries, most yards, and most touchdowns.  He should wear that shoulder harness more often.

Playbook

The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.

With the Eagles on a bye in week 14 we’ll need to find another team to talk about.  With Taysom Hill behind center and having an injured finger on his throwing hand, the Saints went with a run heavy offense.  They ran the ball almost 70% of the time this weekend.  While the Jets have many weaknesses, the run defense is one of the biggest.  The Saints finished with 44 run plays and over 200 yards rushing with 3 touchdowns. 

The Jaguars are a mess.  There’s no other way to put it.  They were down seemingly from the start of the game.  With Meyer refusing to use his star running back, Trevor Lawrence was forced to throw the ball more than 80% of the time on Sunday.  He threw the ball 40 times.  You would think that many passes you’d have a respectable final line.  Nope, Lawrence finished with only 221 yards and 4 INT’s.  Urban Meyer, if you’re reading this: Give. The. Ball. To. James. Robinson

Inside Look Wrap Up

Week 14 was another fun weekend of football.  We saw some solid performances from people we’ve come to expect, Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook, and George Kittle.  And some we normally wouldn’t expect it from, Rashaad Penny, Rashod Bateman, and Brandon Cooks.  Make sure to use our

Don’t forget to check out our projection models and cheat sheets which will be updated throughout the week.

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! 

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Welcome to the Week 13 edition of The Inside Look for the 2021 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.

Outside of the MNF game we have a pretty good sense of what transpired this past weekend. 

Let’s dig in to the data!

Wide Receiver Targets

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. 

It felt like Tom Brady threw the ball all game long.  One of the biggest beneficiaries of that game plan was Chris Godwin.  After averaging only 6 targets per game in weeks 9-12, Godwin was targeted a season high 17 times.   His 15 catches and 143 yards were also season highs for Mr. Godwin.  The only thing that Godwin wasn’t able to do this weekend was get a touchdown.  Next week will be a tough test for Godwin and the Bucs as they host the Bills at home.

Russell Gage, have yourself a day.  Gage was another guy that had his best game of the season.  While he failed to find the end zone, Gage had season highs in targets, catches, and yards.  He finished with 11 receptions on 12 targets and 130 yards.  It was his first 100 yard receiving game of the year and his first game with double digit targets and receptions.  Gage’s stock is riding high right now as he has at least 5 catches in 4 of his last 5 games.  Ryan is looking his way more often and his value is really jumping. 

Ravens fans will not be sending Christmas cards to Diontae Johnson this year.  Johnson’s late touchdown broke the hearts of many Ravens last night, including the majority of my family.  Johnson just continues to put up solid numbers.  This weekend was his first multiple touchdown game of the year and he now had double digit targets in 9 of his 11 games this season. It was also his third 100 yard receiving game.  He is the Steelers offense at this point.  

Running Back Targets

There was some good and bad for Saquon Barkley this weekend. The good was that he had a season high 9 targets this weekend and was able to catch 6 of them.  The bad was that he did virtually nothing with them as he only went for 19 receiving yards.  While the receptions are great, he really needs to do more with them or they will be essentially meaningless.

Javonte Williams was tied for the lead among running backs with 9 targets.  The story was much different for him than it was Barkley as he surely made the most of his targets.  Williams was an absolute beast last night vs. the Chiefs as he finished with 6 receptions and 76 yards.  He also converted one of his receptions into a touchdown.  His 76 yards receiving yards was on top of his 102 rushing yards.  He had by far his best game of the year.   

Tight End Targets

There is probably no one happier that Kittle is back than Jimmy G.  With Kittle back Garoppolo now has one of his favorite and most dangerous weapons back.  Coming into the week 13 matchup vs. the Seahawks Kittle had two very down weeks.  Boy did he make a strong comeback this week. 

His 181 receiving yards were by far the most he’s had all year and his 12 targets were also a season how.  This marked his second 100 yard game of the year and it was the first time he had multiple touchdowns.  Since his return he now has touchdowns in 4 of his last 5 games.

We highlighted with Godwin that Brady threw a ton this weekend.  Another recipient of his throwing was Rob Gronkowski.  Gronk was targeted 8 times yesterday and finished with 4 catches and 58 yards.  What’s most important though is that he found the end zone twice this weekend.  It was his third multiple touchdown game of the year, but it was his first since week 2 against Atlanta. 

No Jalen Hurts, no problem for Dallas Goedert. While it was a cake matchup vs. the New York Jets, Goedert had one of his best games of the year.  For the first time this season, Goedert broke the 100 yard mark and scored his first touchdowns since week 4 against the Chiefs.  Goedert now gets to dream about his memorable performance for an extra week as the Eagles are on a bye in week 14.

Quarterback Target Share

Of Gardner Minshew’s 22 pass attempts this weekend 8 went to his wide receivers.  His most heavily targeted person this weekend was Dallas Goedert, and 8 of his 22 passes were split between Gainwell and Sanders.  His plan was clear and it was short passes.  It worked out well as they beat the Jets by a pretty sizeable margin this weekend. 

When you have one of the game’s best tight ends you throw to him often.  That’s exactly what Garoppolo did this weekend.  Garoppolo threw the ball 30 times this weekend, with 12 of them going to his tight end.  Those 12 matched his total to his trio of wide receivers.

Only 4 working fingers, no problem for Joe Burrow.  Even though he damaged the pinky on his throwing hand late in the first half, Burrow continued to throw the ball often.  And Tee Higgins was the biggest recipient.  Burrow threw the ball 38 times yesterday and 29 went to his wide receivers.  There may be no better trio than Higgins, Chase, and Boyd. 

Running Back Touches

Not really sure what else there is to say about Jonathan Taylor at this point.  The man just continues to smash defenses.  He now has rushing touchdowns in 10 consecutive games.  His 143 rushing yards this weekend is the fourth most he’s had in a game this year.  He is having as dominant of a season as we have seen in a number of years. 

With Darrel Henderson banged up coming into the game this weekend, it was Sony Michel season. For those that picked him up last minute off the waiver wire he surely did not disappoint.  His 24 carries were the most he’s had all season, as were his 121 rushing yards.  His touchdown was also only the second rushing touchdown he’s had all year. 

Playbook

The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.

The Eagles were back to their running ways this weekend.  With Hurts out the Eagles ran the ball more than 60% of the time this weekend. It helped that Miles Sanders was on his A game this weekend as he finished with over 100 yards rushing for the first time this season. 

With Arizona up big from the start of the game Kyler Murray ended up only having to throw the ball 15 times.  Between himself and James Connor they ran the ball 35 times yesterday.  Their mix of 70/30 was the biggest run to pass ratio on the weekend.

They were joking on the broadcast yesterday that Brady was on pace to throw the ball 80 times. While he didn’t get quite there, he did throw the ball 51 times yesterday. His 51 pass attempts marked the third time this year he threw the ball at least 50 times and it was the first time since week 3 against the Rams.

Inside Look Wrap Up

What a fun day of football that was yesterday.  All in all we saw 10 different receivers/tight ends go for over 100 yards receiving and 5 different players reach the 100 yard rushing mark.  While we still have a solid match up tonight in the Bills vs. Patriots, this may go down as one of the more fun weekends of football this season.  Unless you are a Ravens fan or married to a Ravens fan.  Then it wasn’t so much fun.  Not even close.   

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! 

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Welcome to the Week 12 edition of The Inside Look for the 2021 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.

Outside of the MNF game we have a pretty good sense of what transpired this past weekend. 

Let’s dig in to the data!

Wide Receiver Targets

Before we dig in to individual playing 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. 

With the Steelers getting blown out by the Bengals the majority of the game, Big Ben took to the air and threw the ball a ton.  Diontae Johnson saw 14 targets for the first time this season.  This was the eighth time out of 10 games he’s played in where he had double digit targets.  At 95 yards he just missed getting his third 100 yard game of the year. 

Jaylen Waddle had one of his best games of the season yesterday.  For the first time this season he cracked the 100 yard mark as he finished with 137 yards receiving. 

Prior to this week Waddle had cracked the 80 yard mark just once in week 7 vs. the Falcons.  Can he keep it up next week vs. the Giants? 

Welcome to LA Mr. OBJ.  After an under whelming debut vs. the 49ers a couple of weeks ago, OBJ finally got into the action.  For the first time this year he had double digit targets. 

He was able to catch 5 passes yesterday for 81 yards and 1 touchdown.  It was his first score of the year.  Maybe it was Baker?

Running Back Targets

Two Sundays ago it was the Jonathan Taylor show.  Yesterday, it was the Leonard Fournette show.  Fournette did it through the air and on the ground yesterday.  Fournette was tied with all backs yesterday with 8 targets.  He was able to catch 7 of them for 31 yards and 1 receiving touchdown.  We’ll get to Fournette on the ground shortly. 

Austin Ekeler was another guy that had 8 targets this weekend.  That’s not new to him though as it’s a number he’s hit a couple of times this season. 

Ekeler finished the game with 68 yards on 6 catches and for the third straight week he found the end zone.  That now makes it 7 receiving touchdowns on the year for him. 

Tight End Targets

Cole Kmet reached double digit targets for the first time this year.  Prior to this week he hadn’t had more than 9 and finished Sunday with 11.  The 65 yards he had were also the second most he’s had all year. 

If the Bears continue to have limited options, Kmet has a chance to really showcase his talents.  Next up is a tough Cardinals team coming off a bye.

Rob Gronkowski had a flash back type game this weekend.  His 10 targets and 123 yards were both season highs.  Prior to this week he hadn’t had more than 8 targets which he had hit twice.  It was also the first time he hit the 100 yard mark.  Next week he gets a great match up vs. a bad Falcons team. 

Quarterback Target Share

Jared Goff only threw the ball 25 times this weekend, but half off those went to either his running backs and tight end.  With the Lions not having a strong group of healthy wide receivers we can expect this trend to continue.

Tom Brady threw 34 passes this weekend.  14 of those went to the duo of Rob Gronkowski and Cameron Brate.  Both Godwin and Evans had very light games as the two combined for only 10 targets.  Not what the DFS world was expecting to see yesterday. With Gronkowski having a solid game funneling all the passes to him made sense.

Running Back Touches

Leonard Fournette tried doing his best Jonathan Taylor imitation, in front of the man himself.  Fournette had by far his best game of the season.  He finished with 100 yards on the ground and 31 through the air.  Between rushing and receiving he found the endzone 4 times on Sunday.  Have yourself a day Mr. Fournette. 

Joe Mixon is on a mission.  Over the last 2 weeks he has close to 290 yards rushing.  This week Mixon finished with 165 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns.  He now has multiple touchdowns in 3 straight weeks and only has 3 games this season without a rushing touchdown. 

Elijah Mitchell now has a couple of games this season where he has shown some serious upside.  For the second time this season he had over 130 yards rushing as he finished Sunday with 133 yards rushing and 1 touchdown.  It was fourth rushing touchdown this season.  Up next week is a surprisingly poor Seahawks defense. 

Playbook

The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.

With the Steelers down big most of the game, Big Ben took to the air often on Sunday.  He threw the ball more than 70% of the time.  The Steelers continue to run a heavy pass offense even with one of the top backs in the league in Harris.  

Nothing seemed to work for the Eagles this weekend.  Up until this week they were running a mostly ground offense.  This weekend they flipped the script a bit and only ran the ball about 55% of the time on Sunday.  Who would have throught it would be the Giants that would make Jalen Hurts look like Mitch Trubinsky?

Inside Look Wrap Up

We had some solid individual performances this weekend.  11 different players had over 100 yards receiving and 6 running backs had over 100 yards rushing.  8 quarterbacks threw for over 300 yards also.  Leonard Fournette did his best Al Bundy impersonation and matched his 4 touchdown performance.  

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! 

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The NFL DFS season continues with the Monday night showdown, and we’ve got the breakdown to help you win big money in the final Week 12 NFL DFS contests!

NOTE: For a refresher on showdown general rules and strategy, see my first showdown article of 2021.

Let’s get to the game!

Week 12 NFL DFS MVP candidates (1.5x points)

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.

Week 12 NFL DFS Chalk: Tom Brady (FD $17,000, DK $16,800)

Pivot: Daniel Jones (FD $15,000, DK $14,400)

Contrarian #1: Mike Evans (FD $13,000, DK $15,300)

Contrarian #2: Leonard Fournette (FD $11,500, DK $15,000)

Contrarian #3: Saquon Barkley (FD $12,000, DK $11,700)

Contrarian #3: Rob Gronkowski (FD $10,000, DK $9,300)

Tom Brady should end up being the chalk tonight, as he’s adept at spreading the ball around to his receivers. There’s no Antonio Brown again this week but the absence of safety Logan Ryan for the Giants could mean a massive bounce-back game from the GOAT, who seemed more than annoyed after last week’s loss to another NFC East opponent, the Washington Football Team.

Giants notes: Sterling Shepard will miss another game, which means an upgrade for rookie WR Kadarius Toney and the explosive Kenny Golladay, who only has one big game this season (Week 4 vs. NO: 6-116-0). Darius Slayton will also be in play for the Giants, but the biggest news is the likely return of Saquon Barkley, who is listed as questionable but is expected to see his first game action since Week 5. While the Giants may want to bring along Barkley’ slowly, he may be in line for a huge workload with Devontae Booker also questionable and seemingly at greater risk of missing the contest. Evan Engram may not be busy, but he’s relevant for his use in the red zone, where he’s scored in consecutive weeks and seeing a few targets per game. But QB Daniel Jones, Barkley and Golladay stand out as the primary targets in this showdown. There’s also the possibility that Elijah Penny sees actin if Booker is inactive and Barkley has an in-game setback.

Bucs notes: The usual suspects are in play for the Bucs, including Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and even Rob Gronkowski, who’s listed as questionable with a back injury that’s kept him out Since Week 3, but got in full practices on Thursday and Friday before taking a rest day on Saturday. Leonard Fournette remains the only safe RB option, since both Ronald Jones (one snap last week vs. Washington) and Giovani Bernard don’t real have meaty enough roles to consider in anything but large-field GPP builds that count on fluky narratives and injuries. I’d much rather look to a guy like Tyler Johnson (five targets last week), even though he’s likely to assume a smaller snap count and looks with Gronk back in the mix.

Week 12 NFL DFS Final thoughts (and some DOs and DON’Ts)

Remember to build your team based on a narrative that makes sense.

DO: Build a trio (or quartet) of offensive weapons for a team that makes sense together.

DON’T: Feature many shares of the Giants DST, who will have its hands full with this Bucs offense.

DO: Use the projected team totals to shade one way or the other with your selections.

DON’T: Forget about Gronk, who could have a monster day against this Giants team.

Now that we’ve established some Week 12 NFL DFS 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):

  1. Tom Brady
  2. Mike Evans
  3. Chris Godwin
  4. Daniel Jones
  5. Saquon Barkley
  6. Rob Gronkowski
  7. Leonard Fournette
  8. Kenny Golladay
  9. Kadarius Toney
  10. Bucs DST
  11. Evan Engram
  12. Ryan Succop
  13. Darius Slayton
  14. Graham Gano
  15. Giants DST
  16. Tyler Johnson
  17. Kyle Rudolph
  18. Giovani Bernard
  19. Devontae Booker (if he plays)
  20. Ronald Jones
  21. Elijah Penny (if Booker sits)
  22. Cameron Brate
  23. Kaden Smith
  24. Scotty Miller (IR, could be activated)
  25. Collin Johnson

Don’t forget to read the rest of WinDaily’s excellent football articles this week as you prep for next week’s action!

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Welcome to the Week 10 edition of The Inside Look for the 2021 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.

Outside of the MNF game we have a pretty good sense of what transpired this past weekend. 

Let’s dig in to the data!

Wide Receiver Targets

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. 

No Big Ben, no problem for Diontae Johnson.  Even though Johnson was missing his QB this weekend he was still able to lead all wide receivers this weekend 13 targets.  Of those 13 targets, he was able to catch 7 for 83 yards.  While the 13 targets matched his season high in targets, Johnson has now gone 4 consecutive weeks without finding the end zone.  Johnson’s next opponent has me thinking his touchdown less streak will last at least 5 weeks as the Chargers have only allowed 4 receiving touchdowns all year to wide receivers.

This was the game we’ve been waiting for.  Stefon Diggs hadn’t reached 100 yards receiving since week 4 against the Texans.  I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slump because he has had a couple of touchdowns since then, but the productivity just hadn’t been there for Diggs. 

What better slump buster than the New York Jets?  None.  Diggs led all receivers yesterday with 162 receiving yards.  Up next is a match up against the Indianapolis Colts, a team that has shown some susceptibility to giving up big games to big time receivers.

Tyreek Hill showed again this weekend why he is one of the most dynamic, albeit most frustrating wide receivers in the game.  No receiver in the league presents the upside that Hill has.  He is one of the top in the league in terms are average depth of targets. 

With him, it’s just a matter of ‘will he catch the ball today?’  Well last night he certainly did.  Hill caught 7 of 10 targets for 83 yards and 2 touchdowns.  That was his first multi touchdown game since week 4 against the Eagles.  Next week will be a tough match up against a solid Cowboys team.

Running Back Targets

Guess who’s back, back again?  For the first time this season Christian McCaffrey was the target leader for running backs.  It was also the first time this season that he reached double digit targets.  Being the dual threat running back is what has made McCaffrey into one of the premier backs in the league.  This weekend had to be an encouraging sign for his fantasy owners. 

With Alvin Kamara missing the game this weekend the New Orleans Saints turned to their old friend in Mark Ingram to be the lead back.  Ingram was most effective this weekend catching passes as he caught 4 of 7 targets for 61 years.  The 61 receiving yards were the most he’s had all season.  While the weekend was great for Ingram, it will be short lived as once Kamara is back he’ll go back to his role of being the secondary back. 

When your QB is on fire, you’re bound to revel in the results as well.  Darrel Williams had a perfect night on Sunday.  He caught all 9 of his targets and led all running backs with 101 receiving yards.   

Tight End Targets

We’ve already highlighted a wide receiver and a running back in our targets section, may as well highlight a tight end too!.  Travis Kelce had one of his most productive weeks in quite some time.  For the first time since week 3 against the Chargers Kelce eclipsed the 100 yard mark.  He caught 8 of his 10 targets this weekend and for Kelce owners that were worried about his tailing off production, this weekend hopefully calmed some nerves.

I think we can all agree that this week by Mike Gesicki was statistically one of the worst weekends we’ve seen in quite some time.  Gesicki was targeted 7 times on Thursday night and didn’t catch a single one of them.  Gesicki will look to get back on track next weekend against the New York Jets.  We’ve already talked about them being a great slump buster.  They’ll get to prove it next weekend again.

Quarterback Target Share

The combination of McCaffrey and Abdullah were at it again this weekend.  Carolina threw the ball 32 times this weekend and 14 of those went to either McCaffrey or Abdullah.  This is the second straight week that Carolina led the leagues in terms of using their running backs as part of the passing game. 

This weekend we had 2 teams that targeted their tight ends at least 30% of the time in the passing game, Browns and Dolphins.  Neither team really had much success as it only resulted in 1 touchdown for Hooper and a sub 50% completion rate between the 2 teams. 

Josh Allen was the only quarterback this weekend to throw at least 80% of his passes to receivers.  In fact, no other quarterback topped 70%.  With the Bills up from the start, well they were probably up before the game even started to, Allen only had to throw the ball 28 times this weekend.  Of those 28 passes, 13 went to Stefon Diggs.  Only 4 of his passes went to either his tight end or running backs.

Running Back Touches

Jonathan Taylor continues to be a staple of this section.  Taylor now has reached the 100 yard mark in 4 out of the last 5 weeks and has a touchdown in 7 straight.  Over those 7 weeks he has 10 touchdowns on the ground and in the air.

Of all the backs with at least 20 carries this weekend no one had more yards per carry than Taylor.  The next closest guy was Najee Harris who was a whole yard and a half behind Taylor.  The guy is becoming one of the top running backs in the league.  I just hope you all are taking notice. 

With some questionable weather in Pittsburgh yesterday and an ineffective passing game, the Lions turned to D’Andre Swift yesterday.  And boy did they turn to him.  Up until this weekend Swift hadn’t carried the ball more than 14 times. This weekend he finished with 33 carries. 

For the first time this year he surpassed the 100 yard rushing mark and finished with 130 yards.  The only thing that could have made this weekend better for him was a touchdown because for the first time this year the Lions did not lose. 

Playbook

The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.  Week in and week out we continue to see Philly run a predominantly run focused offense.  This weekend nearly 65% of the plays they called were runs. 

40 running plays vs. just 22 passes.  Unfortunately for us the Eagles have as crowded of a backfield as there is with Boston Scott and Jordan Howard splitting duties.  Jalen Hurts had more rushes than both Scott and Howard.  

With the Buccaneers down from the start the ago and an ineffective run game Tom Brady tried his best to throw the Bucs to victory.  The Buccaneers passed the ball more than 70% on the Sunday.  Unfortunately they came up short as they lost to the Washington Football Team by 10 points. 

Inside Look Wrap Up

The NFL returned to some normalcy this weekend.  Patrick Mahomes no longer looked like Mitch Trubisky this weekend and had one of his best games of the year.  The Dallas Cowboys also returned to form with an absolutely dominating performance against the Atlanta Falcons.   

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! 

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Welcome to the Week 8 edition of The Inside Look for the 2021 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.

Outside of the MNF game we have a pretty good sense of what transpired this past weekend.

Let’s dig in to the data!

Wide Receiver Targets

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. 

Every single player in the top targets for Wide Receivers this week outperformed their previous 4 week target average.  One of the biggest outperformers was Michael Pittman.  After failing to get more than 10 targets every week since week 3, Pittman led all receivers this week with 15 targets.  That was 3 more than his previous season high of 12.  Pittman was able to convert on 10 of his targets for 86 yards and 2 TD.  Should Hilton miss Thursday’s night game against the Jets, Pittman would be come a must play in showdowns.

Cole Beasley may be back.  After poor weeks 4 and 5, Beasley has now seen targets of 9 and 13 in back to back weeks and for the first time this season cracked the 100 yard mark.  Beasley was a big favorite of Josh Allen at the start of the year so Beasley fantasy owners have to be extremely encouraged by this uptick in targets.

No Russell Wilson, no problem.  After pretty poor weeks in weeks 6 and 7 where Tyler Lockett had a combined 10 targets, we saw the return of the Lockett we have grown to love with 12 catches on 13 targets and a whopping 142 yards receiving.  While he didn’t find the end zone, Lockett owners had to be happy with the production yesterday after a slow couple of weeks.

The “What could have been” award goes to Jaylen Waddle.  The normally sure handed Waddle had a pretty rough day, failing to convert on 8 of his 12 targets.  Waddle finished the day with just 4 receptions for 29 yards.  The volume is still there for him so we have to hope this was just a rough week against an extremely solid Bills defense.

Running Back Targets

It’s Michael Carter’s world and we’re all just living in it.  At least that’s what it felt like yesterday.  What a day from the rookie running back.  Just in the last 2 weeks Carter has been targeted 23 times and has caught 17 of them for 162 yards.  With Zach Wilson sidelined, this tandem of Mike White and Michael Carter has been extremely fun to watch.  It’s not going to last forever, so let’s take advantage of it while it lasts.  

Aaron Rodgers had to throw the ball the to someone on Thursday night right?  He was without Adams, Lazard, and then Tunyan.  Aaron Jones stepped up big time with double digit targets for the first time this year.  Up until this past week Jones hadn’t had more than 6 targets.  Jones corralled 7 of his targets for 51 yards.  With Adams and Lazard both expected back this coming up Jones his receiving prowess should come back down to earth.

J.D. McKissic is on a nice little roll. He now has weeks of 10, 6, and 8 targets over the last 3 weeks.  This week he was able to catch all 8 targets and finished with 83 receiving yards.  That was the most he’s had since week 2 against the New York Giants where he also finished with 83 yards.  The only thing that can slow down McKissic at this point is a bye and that’s what is on the calendar for Washington this upcoming week.

Tight End Targets

One of these is not like the other.  That would be Kyle Pitts.  When Calvin Ridley was ruled out many people pivoted right to Kyle Pitts, myself included.  What a letdown that was for anyone that made that move.  Coming into the week Pitts was playing as well as, if not better than all tight ends in the league.  Week 8 was Pitts worst week of the season, statistically speaking.  He finished with just 6 targets, just 2 receptions, and 13 yards.  Let’s just hope he forgot to eat his Wheaties this weekend and returns to form against the Saints next weekend.

Hock!  While Pitts had his worst week of the season, T.J. Hockenson had one of his best.  Hock is on a roll now with weeks of 11, 9, and 11 targets.  His 89 receiving yards were the most he’s had since opening weekend vs. the Niners.  Up next week for the Lions is probably 18 holes, or just a relaxing weekend on the couch as they have a bye.  When they return in week 10 they get a match up vs. the Steelers.  Hopefully Hock continues his stellar play.

With Ertz out of the picture, it’s now Dallas Goedert’s time to shine.  And boy did he shine this weekend.  The only thing that Goedert didn’t do this weekend was find the end zone.  He saw season highs in targets with 7, receptions with 6, and receiving yards with 72. 

Quarterback Target Share

Two guys that really stand out are Matt Ryan and Jared Goff.  Both guys were extremely reliant on their backs and tight ends over the weekend.  Ryan threw nearly 75% of his passes to either his running backs or tight ends.  Tajae Sharpe was his only receiver this weekend with multiple targets.  With Calvin Ridley out for the foreseeable future, we have to think that this make up of his passing scheme won’t change.  The one thing that we do hope is that Pitts returns to form after a disastrous week 8.

If we turn to Jared Goff, we also see a QB that relied heavily on his backs and tight ends.  Of Goff’s 32 passes, only 9 went to wide receivers and 5 of those went to Amon-Ra St. Brown and St. Brown was the only wide receiver to actually catch a pass.  One doesn’t need to look at the final box score to see that yesterday was a struggle for the Lions.  Having your wide receivers only catch 3 passes is not a recipe for success, regardless of who your running backs and tight ends are.

It doesn’t matter who the QB is in Seattle, all passes will funnel to Lockett and Metcalf.  That’s exactly what happened this weekend.  Geno Smith only threw the ball 22 times, but 19 of the attempts went to that combo.  If you can cover those two, you can be successful against the Seahawks.  While the recipe for that is clear, the 2 of them are some of the toughest receivers to cover in the game. 

Running Back Touches

Do we have a case of tired legs?  Is there an injury that we don’t know about?  We now have 2 consecutive weeks where, although the full load was there for Derrick Henry, his yards per carry were under 3.  If we look at his weeks 4-7, he had an average of more than 4.5 yards per carry.  That’s a significant drop and with it happening 2 weeks in a row it’s getting closer to a trend than it is an anomaly.  It’s something we’ll want to keep an eye on and see if there are any injury designations this week.  

Conversely, hello Elijah Mitchell!  We now have back to back really solid weeks for Mitchell.  Two straight weeks of 18 carries, 100+ rushing yards, and a rushing touchdown.  While he isn’t a receiving threat, he’s someone that is becoming a must play with his volume and ability to find open spaces. 

Playbook

The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.  With Eagles up big the majority of the game they had a very simple game plan.  Run, run, run, and then run some more.  Nearly 75% of their plays on Sunday were for the run and it was a pretty even split between many of their backs.  Scott, Howard, and Gainwell all had at least 12 rushing attempts.  Scott and Howard were the most successful as they each had at least 57 yards rushing and 2 rushing touchdowns. 

Tom Brady on the other hand threw the ball, and he threw it often as he had 40 pass attempts.  That marked the sixth time this season he threw the ball at least 40 times.  This weekend almost marked the fourth time he threw for at least 300 yards.  The 4 touchdown passes were also the fifth time he’s had at least 4 touchdown passes this season.  When all is said and done, this Brady fellow will have had a pretty decent career. Maybe a super bowl championship or two.  

Inside Look Wrap Up

This was as crazy of a week as we’ve seen this season.  The New York Jets, those same Jets that have been absolutely awful all season, defeated the first place Cincinnati Bengals.  A week after the Bengals dominated the Baltimore Ravens.  Jets beating the Bengals is all you need to know about this weekend.  Well, we also had 8 receivers crack 100 yards receiving this weekend and only one running back to have 100 yards rushing.  There was one other guy that broke the 100 yard rushing mark and it was Justin Fields.  Missing from the Fields equation this weekend was Coach Nagy.  I’m not saying it was addition by subtraction, but maybe Trubisky wasn’t all that bad…

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! 

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The NFL DFS season continues with the Thursday night showdown, and we’ve got the breakdown to help you win big money in the first Week 6 NFL DFS contests!

NOTE: For a refresher on showdown general rules and strategy, see the Week 1 TNF showdown article.

Let’s get to the game!

Week 6 NFL DFS MVP candidates (1.5x points)

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.

Week 6 NFL DFS Chalk: Tom Brady (FD $16,500, DK $18,600)

Pivot: Jalen Hurts (FD $15,500, DK $17,700)

Pivot #2: Mike Evans (FD $13,500, DK $15,300)

Contrarian #1: DeVonta Smith (FD $12,000, DK $13,200)

Contrarian #2: Antonio Brown (FD $11,500, DK $12,300)

DK Contrarian #3: Zach Ertz (Don’t CPT him on FD, DK $4,800)

First off, there’s nothing really wrong with Tom Brady or his thumb. He’s the chalk and he’s fine, but Eagles QB Jalen Hurts is a close second and should be popular because of what he can do with his legs — a feature to his game that Brady lacks. If we want to properly stack this game for large-field GPPs, I think we need to think outside the box a little and pick the right value play at captain that lets us get a lot of big names in. That could be a guy like a very affordable Zach Ertz (since Dallas Goedert is doubtful on the COVID list heading into tonight) or the right Bucs skill position player.

Bucs notes: You really can’t go wrong with any of Antonio Brown, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, and it’s hard to say who will be the most popular since Godwin was limited earlier in the week but isn’t saddled with an injury designation tonight, and both Evans and Brown are coming off monster games. There’s no Gronk again tonight, and I’m partial to Leonard Fournette in the backfield and Cameron Brate at TE since O.J. Howard has been doing a lot of blocking. And again — as well as Brady spreads the ball around, I think he needs to be in most of our lineups in cash and GPP. The Bucs DST is definitely an option because of Hurts and his propensity to make bad throws, but I have less interest in the kickers in this game since there will be so many TDs scored (judging by the 52.5 expected game total).

Eagles notes: I mentioned that Ertz will be a staple of my builds and is a great cash game option at flex, and I have plenty of interest in DeVonta Smith, Jalen Reagor and deep threat Quez Watkins. I’ll be fading Miles Sanders for the most part but have some interest in rookie RB Kenneth Gainwell since a blowout is on the table and he seems to eat up late-game receptions. There’s a path to GPP success if we follow the right narrative, and that might end up being some two-or three-man combination of Hurts, Ertz, the right WR and/or Gainwell with three or four Bucs.

Week 6 NFL DFS Final thoughts (and some DOs and DON’Ts)

Remember to build your team based on an NFL DFS narrative that makes sense.

DO: Build a trio (or quartet) of offensive weapons for a team that makes sense together

DON’T: Worry about spending every dollar.

DO: Use the projected team totals to shade one way or the other with your selections.

DON’T: Tread too much in the sub-$1K range this week. Not a lot to see here this week, although I did mention Marlon Mack in my last showdown column and he was in the winning milly lineup.

Now that we’ve established some Week 6 NFL DFS 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):

  1. Tom Brady
  2. Jalen Hurts
  3. Mike Evans
  4. Antonio Brown
  5. Zach Ertz (drop down if Goedert is somehow in)
  6. DeVonta Smith
  7. Chris Godwin
  8. Leonard Fournette
  9. Bucs DST
  10. Kenneth Gainwell
  11. Cameron Brate
  12. Miles Sanders
  13. Giovani Bernard
  14. Ryan Succop
  15. Jake Elliott
  16. O.J. Howard
  17. Ronald Jones
  18. Eagles DST
  19. Tyler Johnson
  20. Greg Ward
  21. Jack Stoll (Eagles backup TE assuming Goedert out)

Don’t forget to read the rest of WinDaily’s excellent football articles this week as you prep for Week 6 action!

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The NFL DFS season begins with the Thursday night showdown, and we’ve got the breakdown to help you win big money in the first Week 1 NFL DFS contests!

A Refresher on Single-Game Showdowns

DraftKings calls them “Showdowns,” and FanDuel calls them “Single-Game Contests,” but the gist is that we need to break down a single game and be aware of the narratives, opportunities and game theory techniques to help drive our success.

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, the goal here is to give you the tools to win and highlight some names that will give you leverage.

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!

Week 1 NFL DFS MVP candidates (1.5x points)

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.

Chalk: Tom Brady (FD $16,000, DK $16,800)

Pivot: Dak Prescott (FD $15,500, DK $15,600)

Contrarian #1: Mike Evans (FD $13,000, DK $13,800)

Contrarian #2: CeeDee Lamb (FD $10,000, DK $12,300)

Contrarian #3: Ronald Jones (FD $9,500, DK $7,500)

I’m leaning toward using the chalky Tom Brady as my MVP on FanDuel based on the lack of salary multiplier and his propensity to both spread it around and not really stop running up the score. I may find a different route on DraftKings.

Tampa Bay notes: Getting some combination of Brady, Evans and Jones is probably the safest way to approach this offense. If you’re going to play the Bucs DST, and that’s not a terrible strategy for a few GPPs then it’s probably important you use one or more Bucs RBs. Jones is technically the lead back, but Leonard Fournette is still an explosive player with sneaky value if Jones isn’t getting it done. Chris Godwin was nursing a hamstring injury, and he’s actually been left off the final injury report after being limited Tuesday, but I’m most interested in the matchup nightmare that Evans presents for the Cowboys. Aside from Brady, he has the biggest upside. If Godwin sits, we can consider Antonio Brown, who’s listed as questionable but has been trending up in recent weeks as someone finally gelling with the Bucs system and Brady.

Dallas notes: With the absence of OL Zack Martin due to COVID and the Buccaneers solid rush defense, I’m a little less interested in Ezekiel Elliott. I’ll prioritize Prescott/Lamb and either Michael Gallup (with Bucs safety Jordan Whitehead on the shelf for Week 1), but Amari Cooper remains in play for GPPs. Blake Jarwin offers some value at $5,200 on DK, but he’s more of a GPP play as well given how well the Bucs LBS defend that territory and the red zone, where he gets most of his looks.

Week 1 NFL DFS Final thoughts (and some DOs and DON’Ts)

Remember to build your team based on a Week 1 NFL DFS narrative that makes sense.

DO: Build a trio (or quartet) of offensive weapons for a team that makes sense together

DON’T: Get cute with the sub $1K players in this one. Both offenses should be approaching full strength and unless we get breaking news close to lock, there’s not much in that range we can use.

DO: Use the projected team totals to shade one way or the other with your selections.

DON’T: Use both kickers and defenses. There are some showdowns where using that strategy can help find the magic mix, but this Thursday night isn’t that night.

Now that we’ve established some Week 1 NFL DFS 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):

  1. Tom Brady
  2. Dak Prescott
  3. Mike Evans
  4. CeeDee Lamb
  5. Ronald Jones
  6. Chris Godwin
  7. Michael Gallup
  8. Ezekiel Elliott
  9. Amari Cooper
  10.  Bucs DST
  11.  Antonio Brown
  12.  Leonard Fournette
  13.  Rob Gronkowski
  14.  Blake Jarwin
  15.  Giovani Bernard
  16.  Tony Pollard
  17.  O.J. Howard
  18.  Ryan Succop
  19.  Greg Zuerlein
  20.  Cowboys DST
  21.  Cameron Brate

Don’t forget to read the rest of WinDaily’s excellent football articles this week as you prep for Week1 action!

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