Draftkings Contrarian and overweight picks for Week 3 DFS 2018

By Tod Burros
Tod Burros


Week two of the NFL season was very good for me. I came in 10th in the Draftkings Slant among other good lineups. Besides settling on a core group of players and giving them high ownership which I have struggled to do in the past I also had success identifying sleepers including Matt Breida who was less than 2% owned and was part of my 5k winning lineup.

This is the second year in a row that I have been able to leverage my over 200 bestball drafts into successful early weeks in DFS due to taking chances on talented players who I drafted a lot during bestball season who had not gone off yet. This is a strong strategy but between Draftkings pricing up a lot of backups up and tighter pricing in general I am not seeing as many clear opportunities as I did last week. However there are some situations I plan on leveraging this week.

 

 

Overweight Position

Deshaun Watson and Will Fuller: My Cash and single entry teams will have this grouping. Fuller is a game breaker type who was limited by his number of targets up to this point. But last week he got 9 targets. I will be doing some game stacks as well of this game as well as having lineups with both Deandre Hopkins and Fuller but my core will have Watson and Fuller. While I love Pat Mahomes again this week with tight pricing I can’t afford the extra $900 to get up to Mahomes. Add in the ability to have a stack in my main lineup and I am set. Also the Giants Defense this week will be without Eli Apple and Olivier Vernon hurting both their pass rush and their secondary. I am expecting a big day out of this play this week.

Tyler Boyd: Boyd is my favorite salary saver of the week. He has gotten 20% of the targets on the Bengals so far this season. In the old days third year WR often the lights would turn on and so far and looks as if Boyd has turned that corner. Do I feel wonderful about it? No but if we can get 6-9 targets out of him for $3700 I truly believe he is the best salary saver at the position. If you can get up to $4500 Geronimo Allison is also someone I am investing in.

 

 

 

 

Contrarian Picks

Dak Prescott: When I mentioned this one on one of the Slack channels I am part of I got a bit of derision. Sure the Cowboys have looked awful but last week Prescott looked much better and scored 14.9 points on Draftkings and the team was playing from ahead. The key to my success whenever I have won big is finding that 1% owned player who has a chance to go off. The two main reasons I am on him this week is because
1- Seattle’s Defense is no longer good.
Coming in to the season a lot of people thought the Seahawks D might be bad. And week one that proved true as Case Keenum scored 25 points against them. But week two Mitchell Trubinsky was bad which allowed Seattle off the hook. Had Trubinsky been even mildly good I think Dak would be on some radars this week. But lucky for us that didn’t happen. Now that Earl Thomas might also miss and it puts Dak in a great spot to succeed. For $5100 on Dk on a tight salary week Dak only needs 200 yards passing and 1 pass TD to get you near 3X value. He also has upside beyond that should he run one in.
2- Dak has upside beyond that!

Last year Dak had FOUR games of 29 points or higher three of which were when Ezekiel Elliott was active. So having Zek active helps Dak get his upside. And as bad as Dak’s weapons are they were not much better last year. The fact that I can reasonably expect Dak to hit 3X and has the upside for 5-6X and 1-2% ownership makes him a wonderful risk in GPP. I will have a couple lineups with Zek and or Cole Beasley but I am not afraid to play him naked either.

Alfred Morris- A great way to find contrarian picks is to find the guy who has opportunity but failed the DFS community the week before. Everyone was talking Morris last week out of the 49ers backfield but it was Matt Breida who had the big week. But Morris still out touched Breida and if I can get 16 touches again for $3700 on a tight week AND very low ownership I will have 10-20% of Morris in my lineups. You could also add George Kittle to the list of those who disappointed who is in a great bounceback spot.

Alfred Morris AND Matt Breida: I also like pairing both backs together in about 10% of my lineups. In a game that has a 56 point total it allows me to differentiate my game stacks. And leverage it some in a few lineups without full game stacks. Last week between them they scored 38 points. At a cost combined of $9100 I will take that any day for two slots. And this game obviously has a much higher total than last week’s game. Sure there is a chance that they are playing from behind but I don’t think Kyle Shanahan will completely ignore the run. I think it is worth the risk as NO ONE will be playing them both together and if somehow they score 45 points together you could be sitting very pretty in GPP’s.


You might love my picks or you may hate them. But searching for things others are completely off when you have good facts to show why it could work opens opportunity to win big in DFS. Remember on the contrarian picks that you don’t need 20% or more on these guys. If a player is 1-2% owned a nice 10% stake gives you all the opportunity in the world.