Daily Fantasy Football Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - Week 14 12/8/16

After a week 13 that saw the DFSR lineup optimizer cash in every slate on FanDuel and DraftKings, we're feeling pretty good about our prospects for week 14. This is an NFL season unlike any in recent memory. There are like 8 teams with decent running games, the big name wide receivers are all over the place, and tight end is as bad as any position I can ever recall. That said, now that byes are over, we get access to a nice big player pool to have it all come together. Let's get it on.

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QUARTERBACKS

Aaron Rodgers FD 8000 DK 6400
Opponent SEA
Proj Points FD - 22.86 DK - 23.47
Some people will be off A-Rod this week after a down performance against Houston, but I won't be. First of all, the sites have continued their trend of undercutting price too deeply based on match-up, and Rodgers is just a steal at $8k on FanDuel and $6.4k on DraftKings. Second of all, when you take weather into context, his week 13 performance was actually great. He completed 67% of his passes (which as I noted last week has been his average since week 3), threw 2 picks and no interceptions, and did all of this in terrible weather. That shouldn't be as big an issue this week. As for the match-up, Seattle has been good on defense this year, but there a few steps behind the days when they were the clear cut #1 defense in the league. They're a top 10 passing defense, but they rank behind Houston (Rodgers' Week 12 opponent), and I see no reason that Rodgers shouldn't go back to being the guy who scored 23 fantasy points for 6 straight weeks before last week's anomaly.

Matt Barkley FD 6200 DK 5000
Opponent DET
Proj Points FD - 18.69 DK - 19.74
Who is the real Matt Barkley? Is it the guy who threw for 316 yards and 3 touch downs against Tennessee, or the guy who turned the best possible match-up with the Niners into a complete dud of a performance? It's never exciting to say this, but it's probably somewhere in the middle. Weather wound up destroying any chance Barkley had of even being trusted to take over the game last week. When you account for the decreased opportunity, though, the line doesn't actually look terrible. The Bears still scored 3 touch downs (and yes, Barkley didn't have a part in those), and Barkley did complete 61% of his passes at 11 yards per attempt. That's pretty great. He'll roll it back here with a league average match-up with the Lions, and if you trust the underlying numbers as much as I do, I think we have a great chance to get Barkley at his cheapest price for the rest of the season.

Andy Dalton FD 7700 DK 6100
Opponent CLE
Proj Points FD - 21.93 DK - 23.15
How about another diamond in the rough pick, while we're here? Dalton has fallen off radars with AJ Green hurt, but he's mostly been just fine without him. Tyler Boyd looks like a real prospect, and Tyler Eifert is still a big problem for opposing defense when the Bengals get down low. The issue of course is that the Bengals have a clear plan for when the game gets out of hand, which is to hand the ball off to a bunch of random dudes until the game is over. But if things stay a little closer? Dalton's prospects get pretty interesting. He's coming off a stretch where he faced the 12th, 1st, and 11th most oppressive passing defenses, and this week he'll be up against Cleveland's 31st ranked squad. I don't think you can call this safe by any means, but if you want to shoot the moon on a guy who will likely have low ownership, Dalton's your guy.

Matt Ryan FD 8300 DK 6500
Opponent LA
Proj Points FD - 23.34 DK - 24.25
I'll preface this by saying I'm pretty unlikely to play Ryan over Rodgers in cash games, but I wanted to include him here because I think he's a solid option if you want to avoid Rodgers in a tough match-up. LA's actually been decent when it comes to total passing yards allowed this season, but that's a little bit colored by the fact that they just get blown out all the time and teams have less incentive to pass. They've allowed the 5th highest completion percentage, and have just 6 interceptions on the year. Ryan, meanwhile, trails Drew Brees by 100 passing yards for first place on the season long list, and will top 4,000 yards in this game almost assuredly. He hasn't been a part of a lot of the touchdowns recently, which has significantly hurt his value, but if he runs hot in that department in any given week we could see him really go off.

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RUNNING BACKS

Le'Veon Bell FD 9000 DK 9000
Opponent BUF
Proj Points FD - 23.54 DK - 26.49
David Johnson FD 9700 DK 9800
Opponent MIA
Proj Points FD - 22.44 DK - 24.63
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It seems like we write these dudes up every single week, but that's the current state of the NFL right now. We haven't seen this big a lack of value at the RB position in all of the years that we've been running this site. Let's go on a tangent right now, and talk about teams with reasonable running back situations from a fantasy perspective.

Group 1: Good situations
Pittsburgh, Arizona, San Diego, Dallas. These teams have good running backs that you can look at every single week.

Group 2: Decent situations that can be good when the situation is right
Miami, Chicago, New England, Tennessee, Buffalo. We've seen some big rushing performances from these teams, but they come and go based on game script or match-up. New England has an excellent plan A that doesn't involve a ton of running, and the rest of the teams just aren't consistent enough to warrant their prices week in week out.

Group 3: Speculative situations that may or may not work out
Seattle with Rawls, or Denver with Devontae Booker (lots of carries, bad performance), or Atlanta with Devonta Freeman. Rawls is in a slightly different category here because he should emerge as the clear #1, and might move into the 2nd group here. The other two could be good from week to week but are very dependent on scoring touch downs to pay value. Either way, both are pretty expensive for what we can rely on them for.

So where does that lead us? Back to Bell and Johnson. The most important thing we can determine about each fantasy season is where we should be paying up. Last year it was pretty firmly at wide receiver, and this season it seems to be at running back. When group #1 has good match-ups, we will usually prioritize them. If group 2 gets a perfect match-up (like Howard against SF in the snow last week) we'll grab them. The punts really haven't panned out this year. Miami is an objectively amazing match-up - they have allowed the 3rd most fantasy points to opposing running backs this season. So while we're pushing the upper limits of what we can pay for Johnson, I'm still on board. Bell is a little cheaper with a league average match-up with the Bills, and looks like a fantastic play as well.

Demarco Murray FD 7900 DK 7000
Opponent DEN
Proj Points FD - 16.92 DK - 18.59
If you want a little bit more of an off beat play, I think Demarco Murray will be off radars and likely under-owned. A lot of people view Denver as the same match-up it has been in the past, but it really hasn't been. The Broncos have allowed the 5th most running yards this season, and are in the bottom 10 in terms of yards per carry allowed. Importantly, they've also been amazing against the pass. I don't think the Titans are going to want to feed Mariota to the wolves here, and I think plans A and B involve Murray trying to go HAM. I wouldn't play him over the studs if I had my druthers, but I could see him exceeding either for the sake of a big tournament.

WIDE RECEIVERS

Golden Tate FD 6300 DK 6600
Opponent CHI
Proj Points FD - 15.68 DK - 19.48
What could have been with Golden Tate last weekend. We bumped his implied targets to 10 inside of our system, and while that was good, it didn't quite get him into optimal line-ups. Thankfully they still came in for cash games. Sadly we missed out on a monster. We underestimated the degree to which Marvin Jones' absence would increase Tate's role in the down-field game, and in hindsight that was a mistake. The good news is that we a mulligan with Tate this week. His price has climbed by just $400, but his opportunity remains the same. Chicago hasn't been super soft against opposing wide receivers this season, but this is a just a case where price and opportunity don't align. Given the lack of other options for the Lions, Tate looks like a really high floor play to me.

T.Y. Hilton FD 7600 DK 7500
Opponent HOU
Proj Points FD - 15.17 DK - 18.06
Hilton's been up and down all season long, which makes sense for a guy who has historically converted a low % of his targets into receptions. There are some interesting trends with Hilton this year, though. He has 69 receptions on the season, which is as many as last year, but in 20 fewer targets. He hasn't been as good in terms of yards after the catch, but that's actually because he's catching more balls in traffic (and thus being tackled more quickly). We now have 3 weeks in the last 4 where Hilton has been the main feature of the Colts offense, and the week he took off was with Scott Tolzien under center. The big draw to Hilton, though, is the price. At just $7,600 he's probably $500-$700 cheaper than his fair price, which makes him a play even in a tough match-up with Houston. He's got as much upside as any receiver in the game, and if he's adding sustainable gains to his conversion % we could see a price increase coming in the very near term.

Julian Edelman FD 6600 DK 6800
Opponent BAL
Proj Points FD - 14.22 DK - 17.97
Man, there are a lot of good receivers in bad match-ups this week. Edelman is no exception. So why trot him out against the league's 7th best passing defense? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, the Pats are one of the quickest teams in the league to shift game plans from week to week. While Baltimore is tough on the pass, they are otherworldly against the run, and our projection system seems the Pats defaulting back into their "short passing is the new running" plan. The only wrinkle there? Gronk is on the IR, and Martellus Bennett hasn't produced reliably. That leaves Edelman. Edelman has been targeted forty times in the last 3 weeks, and that number doesn't rate to go down against the Ravens here. If he's going to be targeted this way he's very clearly worth as much as $1,000 more than these prices, and I'd be happy to slam Edelman in lineups in any format regardless of the match-up.

Jordy Nelson FD 7100 DK 6800
Opponent SEA
Proj Points FD - 17.51 DK - 20.79
You guys! More receivers in bad match-ups! But let me stop you before you start, hypothetical objector. Nelson is the definitive red zone receiver in Green Bay right now, and since they have literally no running game, that's worth quite a bit. He's had a touchdown in 5 of his last 6 weeks, and would have averaged 100 yards per game in that time if it weren't for getting his soul crushed by Josh Norman a few weeks ago. Is there risk here against Richard Sherman? Absolutely. But there was risk in the bad weather last week, and he went off for 118 and a touchdown. There just aren't a lot of receivers with 18 target upside, even if you pay up $2,000 more than what you pay for Nelson here. I think people will overrate how bad a match-up this is and Nelson will be under owned as a result.

If you insist on paying up this week, our system likes both Antonio Brown and Julio Jones about the same - roughly 2x points per dollar. It's not that either of those is bad, it's just that they'll likely wind up on the outside looking in thanks to the issues outlined in the RB section this week.

TIGHT ENDS

Zach Ertz FD 5700 DK 4900
Opponent WAS
Proj Points FD - 12.77 DK - 16.27
I almost decided to swallow glass instead of write up any of our tight end options this week, but then I saw Zach Ertz. He saw an astounding 15 targets with Matthews out of the lineup, and while we can't on him for that many targets if Matthews returns, I still like him here. First of all, Matthews is no sure thing. And really, Ertz has been one of Wentz's most reliable targets since he discovered him in November. They've connected on more than 65% of Ertz's targets in that time, which has provided the consistency the Eagles have lacked in other facets of their offense. Tight End is also just so bad, and getting a real player here feels like a breath of fresh air.

Tyler Eifert FD 6700 DK 6000
Opponent CLE
Proj Points FD - 13.71 DK - 16.31
Eifert's disappearance last week is sort of inexplicable, particularly after he after his 11 target week against Baltimore in the week prior. I'm confident, though, that a lot of that was thanks to a peculiar game script where Cinci led the whole way. While the Browns shouldn't give them too much a contest here, Eifert still provides a lot of upside for the position. He's continued last year's red zone usage (with 2 touchdowns in his last 7 receptions), and with his return to health coinciding with AJ Green's issues, I think we have a nice play on our hands against a horrendous Browns defense.

Jermaine Gresham FD 4500 DK 2500
Opponent MIA
Proj Points FD - 8.92 DK - 10.96
It's this week's edition of "cheap tight end who will probably suck but we should mention him anyway." Gresham has 16 targets over the course oft he last 2 weeks, and 2 touchdowns in his last 3 games. He's light years from safe, but at a terrible position, it might make sense to just pay the minimum and get away cheaply. As crazy as it sounds I might strongly consider him if Ertz and Eifert's teams get healthy (costing them opportunity) and the money works out better with Gresham involved. I can't believe I just wrote that.

DEFENSE/ SPECIAL TEAMS

Minnesota Vikings vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars
Welcome to week 14's chalk defensive play! At just $4,800 on FanDuel you can get one of the top 5 defenses in the league against the Jacksonville Jaguars? Surely, my eyes deceive me. Minny is in the top 5 in sacks and interceptions this season, and Jacksonville has thrown the 2nd most interceptions this season. They also seem to have given up completely. They gave 35 caries to TJ Yeldon, Denard Robinson, Marqise Lee, and Shane Wynn last week in a game where they trailed the entire time. Oh, and the Jags have the lowest implied total of the week. It's a great time to be alive.

Cincinnati Bengals vs. the Cleveland Browns
A high upside play that fewer people will be on because the Bengals are more expensive and the match-ups is a little better. But this match-up is nothing to sneeze at, either. Vegas sees the Browns as having the 2nd lowest implied total of the week, and there's lots of upside here as well. The Browns have been sacked 6 more time than any other team in the NFL, and while sacking the QB isn't Cinci's forte, the Cleveland offensive line is so bad that I think we have a chance at fantasy greatness here. It's a huge upside play from where I'm sitting.

Football, baby!

Again, you can grab a free trial of our NFL DFS suite of tools including full projections, optimal NFL lineups and our Player Lab, which includes filters to help you create NFL lineups for FanDuel and DraftKings for any format. It’s a set of tools well beyond anything we’ve ever had, and something we feel will help our users crush it this daily fantasy NFL season.

You can grab a go test it out yourself.