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$1,000 Beat The Expert Contest (Week 5)

When you’re sporting a 0-4 record and hanging your comeback hopes on preseason sleeper favorites like David Wilson, finding a little side action outside of your main fantasy league can be pretty therapeutic. As the few thousand of you ‘Beat the Expert’ winners know, the free prizes are a nice bonus too.
 
What’s the Beat the Expert contest? It’s a weekly salary cap game that lasts exactly one weekend. It’s completely free to enter, and has a weekly $1,000 prize pool. You also receive a $5 bonus just for beating our featured expert. Yep, bet $0 and win $5 if your team can outscore the expert’s team.
 
Our featured pro this week is Kevin Hanson from EDS Football. Kevin was our third most accurate fantasy football guru in 2011, and he’s currently #11 out of the 85+ experts we’re tracking this season. He also went 70.2% against-the-spread on NFL picks last season. We don’t track sports betting accuracy (yet), but Kevin publishes his picks each week on his site.
 

Week 5 Undervalued Players by Kevin Hanson
 
Regardless of format, finding undervalued players compared to their relative cost is one of the keys to consistently winning at fantasy football. Based on StarStreet’s player salaries, here are five players that I consider to be undervalued for Week 5:
 
RB – Marshawn Lynch, Seahawks: Grab yourself a handful of Skittles and rest easy inserting the NFL’s leading rusher into your lineup this week. At a cost ($11,501) only slightly above the average salary cap per starter, Lynch is a workhorse back that earns every penny. Going back to Week 9 of last year, Lynch has 20-plus carries in 11 of 12 games with the exception being his 19 carries in Week 17. Only two teams have allowed more yards per carry than the Panthers (4.9), who have also allowed three consecutive 100-yard rushers.
 
RB – Reggie Bush, Dolphins: No team has allowed more rushing yards per carry than the Bengals (5.3) so you could argue that Bush has an even more favorable matchup than Lynch. Although 20 running backs have a higher salary than Bush ($9,324), he has scored more fantasy points per game than all but eight of them. While Brian Hartline has established himself as a viable fantasy option at wide receiver, the team’s offense still revolves around Bush as its best playmaker.
 
WR – Percy Harvin, Vikings: So dangerous with the ball in his hands, Harvin can make opposing defenses pay in so many different ways. Failing to reach six receptions and 80 receiving yards last week for the first time this season, he returned a kickoff for a 105-yard touchdown to begin the game. Not only does Harvin make plays as a receiver and returner, he has 63 rushing attempts in his 20 games played in 2011 and 2012. At a bargain price of $9,607, there are 17 receivers with a higher cost than Harvin but few with more value.
 
WR – Torrey Smith, Ravens: With the exception of the Redskins, no team has allowed more passing touchdowns this season than Smith’s Week 5 opponent (Kansas City, 10). Since the tragic passing of his younger brother, Smith has been nearly unstoppable. In those two games, he has racked up 224 receiving yards with three scores on 12 receptions. That said, he is only the 24th-most expensive wide receiver for Week 5 at a cost of $8,692.
 
TE – Martellus Bennett, Giants: Bennett had a disappointing performance in Week 4 (one reception for two yards), but he had scores and double-digit fantasy points in each of his other three games this season. Despite ranking eighth in fantasy points per game among tight ends playing in Week 5, Bennett’s salary of $6,124 is only the 16th highest at the position. Considering Hakeem Nicks has already been ruled out for Week 5 and Ramses Barden may not play after suffering a concussion last week, Bennett should get a significant amount of targets, especially in the red zone.
 
I want to thank Kevin for participating in our contest and providing his take on undervalued players. Take Kevin on this weekend through our Salary Cap Contest, and remember to track your own start/sit accuracy through our Pick Five Games. Good luck to everyone this weekend!
 

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