Today if virtually Christmas Eve with the NFL season launching off with 12 games tomorrow. That also means the biggest DFS slate of the season with a million dollars up for grab in FanDuel’s $7 contest. There is all kinds of value to be found, as is usual with Week 1 every year, so let’s take a look at how I built my cash game lineup.
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Quarterback
Carson Palmer (ARI @ DET): $7,300
There is no quarterback that stands out as much safer than the others this week for their values. Aaron Rodgers draws Seattle, Marcus Mariota has two injured wide receivers and Matt Ryan is severely overpriced. Russell Wilson threw 5 picks against Green Bay last season and Eli Manning might be missing Odell Beckham. That leaves us with Palmer, who goes against a pass defense who was torched to close last season. Palmer, meanwhile, finished his season strong with at least 15 points in 8 of his last 9 games including games at Seattle and at Minnesota. He has a plethora of healthy weapons including the best wide receiver value on the slate.
Running Back
Le’Veon Bell (PIT @ CLE): $9,300
Please don’t overthink this one. If you prorate Bell’s pace to 16 games last season, he would have had over 2,500 yards from scrimmage and broke an NFL single-season record. He is playing like an all-time great right now and draws one of the easiest defenses in the NFL on top of a positive game script. He’s got fresh legs too so expect a big time performance.
Bilal Powell (NYJ @ BUF): $6,300
Last season, Powell was extremely efficient with over 6 yards per carry before Matt Forte went down with an injury. Once he was handed the keys to the starting job, he ran for 411 yards and caught 23 balls for 141 in just 4 starts including two matchups against top three run defenses in that time. That is a pace of 2,200 yards over a full season. One of those games was against Buffalo for 137 yards and a touchdown. If he continues to get the volume, he should light up the Bills again this week and is game script proof because of all the targets he sees out of the backfield.
Wide Receiver
Antonio Brown (PIT @ CLE): $9,100
FanDuel has been kind to afford us a huge budget and deflated prices in Week 1. So it isn’t as though Brown is the top value, only that we have the money to spend so it would be crazy to not use the top wide receiver in the league against a bottom three pass defense in the league.
Michael Crabtree (OAK @ TEN): $6,900
Amari Cooper should be good to go after his minor knee injury, but even if he is not 100%, Crabtree might end up leading the team in targets against a bottom 5 pass defense Sunday afternoon. Crabtree may not be a sexy play, but he did post 11 games with double-digit points last season despite having the toughest strength of schedule for a wide receiver.
Larry Fitzgerald (ARI @ DET): $6,400
When John Brown went down for the season, Fitzgerald’s production went south quickly, but Brown is back now and let’s not forget that Larry still led the NFL in receptions with over 100. He scored at least 7 points every week until mid-December last year including at least 5 receptions in all but three games last season. We are looking at a safe floor for a remarkably low price.
Tight End
Zach Ertz (PHI @ WAS): $5,900
To me, this is either Delanie Walker, Ertz or you choose to lose. Walker has the easiest opponent in football for a tight end and has two injured wide receivers lining up by his side. Ertz is similar in that he has a terrific matchup and Alshon Jeffery will be shadowed all day by Josh Norman, who is among the best in the league. This should mean plenty of targets for Ertz, who finished the season with 434 yards and 3 touchdowns on 40 receptions in his final five contests.
Kicker
Ryan Succop (TEN vs OAK): $4,600
There really isn’t much to this. We had exactly this much money to spend and Tennessee has solid wind conditions and a high implied Vegas total. There is nothing fancy to consider for kickers, as any one of them can see zero or five field goal attempts any given week in any given matchup. Just make sure your guy is healthy and actually the starter.
Defense
Jacksonville Jaguars (JAX @ HOU): $4,100
While the Jags are down favored or the top defense on the slate, their price may make them the top value of any position on the slate. The difference in price between them and Houston takes you from T.Y. Hilton to Julio Jones or Antonio Brown. Plus, Tom Savage is quite possibly the worst starting quarterback in the NFL this week so we could be looking at turnovers galore on top of a low point total for Houston’s offense.
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Thanks for reading. If you haven’t already, please check out the FantasyPros Football Podcast (below) that I co-host with Mike Tagliere. Good luck this season.
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