NFL Value
Well, damn, that escalated quickly.
In my season-long leagues, especially PPR leagues, I avoided taking RBs early. I knew injuries would happen and I could snag a few guys off the waiver wire.
But I expected that to happen maybe Week 6 or later, not Week 3. If you play both season-long and daily formats like I do, you certainly have a myriad of cheap RB options to choose from.
But this article is for DFS, and there are a lot of choices to make regarding the running back position. Do you pay up to get the guaranteed totes or do you pay down and fill up your roster with WRs?
I don’t know the answer, but as a multi-lineup person, I am going to have exposure all kinds of options.
Honestly, I hate when this happens because it’s much more fun to have a feeling about what is going to happen with a player than to only know that now a timeshare is imminent and you just aren’t sure how that will play out.
Adrian Peterson, Ameer Abdullah, Arian Foster, Danny Woodhead, Doug Martin, and Jonathan Stewart are all out this week and longer. Peterson may be done in Minnesota completely while Woodhead is out for the year. Abdullah, Foster, Stewart and Martin all should see the field again in the coming weeks, but it makes for a mess at the position.
Josh McCown, Donte Moncrief and Corey Coleman (broke hand in practice Wednesday) are all out this week as well. Jamaal Charles is another question mark.
The questionable tag on player injury reports is misleading. After having done away with the “Probable” tag, players are either Questionable, Doubtful or Out. I am not used to it, so see that Q by player names still takes me aback a bit. But you have to check their status to make sure it’s nothing more than being limited at practice, etc.
With all of that, I hope to steer you in the right direction for your value plays. The Index is sitting in second place of our expert rankings this week, so I hope to keep the momentum going.
More picks than I’ve been providing the past two weeks, but there’s a lot of value to be had out there. I don’t typically care about ownership percentages when making selections, but I did try to make some pivots from those I think might see higher ownership this week.
Marcus Mariota – QB – Titans – vs. Oakland Raiders – DraftKings – $5,900
Analysis: Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck are two of the top-priced quarterbacks, but in my opinion, are way underpriced, thus valuable. However, because they are two of the top-priced quarterbacks, they don’t exactly meet the criteria for the Value Index even though I think they are each a lock for 20+ points this week. So, enter Marcus Mariota….again. For the second week in a row, Mariota makes it on my list and he’s $100 cheaper than last week! I hope this isn’t a trap, but Mariota has yet to score 20+ DraftKings points this season, but this is the perfect situation to eclipse that mark as the Raiders have been the worst defensive team against the pass through 2 weeks. Drew Brees and the “resurgent?” Matt Ryan have combined for 819 yards and 7 TDs through the air. Add in Mariota’s ability to run and the ceiling is enormous in a home game where he should eat.
