The Death of the Bell-Cow Running Back? Workhorse running backs have been one of the most coveted players in all of fantasy football, basically since its inception. While we've seen a general trend toward more running back by committee situations in the last few years, the first two weeks of the 2018 season have seen an even more dramatic shift away from the classic "feature running back." So how does this affect our daily fantasy football strategies? Who are the safe backs going forward, if such a thing exists? Which slow starts should we take seriously, and which look like aberrations? Read on to find out! Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more! START YOUR FREE TRIAL - AND READ THE...

Millionaire Thoughts Plus GPP Plays and Pivots for Week 2 FanDuel and DraftKings With so much lead-up time to the big event, there’s was plenty of chalk abounding in Millionaire Makers on each site for Week 1. And for the most part, the chalk paid. Four of the five highest-owned plays in the Millionaire Makers were: Alvin Kamara FD 35% DK 34% James Conner FD 30% DK 26% Keenan Allen FD 18% DK 22% Rob Gronkowski FD 22% DK 21% All had good-to-great games with Kamara and Conner in all winning lineups for both sites. (Gronkowski was in the second-overall DK lineup). It’s instructive in some ways because (and we learned this from last season’s Milly Makers as well)... Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more! START YOUR FREE TRIAL - AND READ THE REST! you don’t need to be 100% contrarian to win big GPPs. Sometimes the best, and most popular plays are the best ones for a reason.   Running back the chalk But are there players who *burned* a large percentage of lineups last week that stand to be under-owned this week? For sure. Two stand out in particular with a case to be made for going back to the well. Christian McCaffrey FD 7400 DK 7000 Opponent ATL Proj Points FD - 15.18 DK - 17.96 Week 1 ownership - FD 18% DK 23% McCaffrey didn’t realize the preseason rushing potential many were banking on going into Week 1. After looking like he’d carry the feature back work in the Carolina offense, he only saw 10 carries in a slow game against the Cowboys in Week 1. The ownership will assuredly drop (likely rather dramatically) for the second year guy in Week 2, and I think there is a case to buy on the upside here. There were some encouraging signs. He averaged five yards per attempt (10/50) and was in the game in the Panthers’ red zone opportunities,  fumbling one attempt and deferring to Cam in an RPO scheme where Newton trotted in for a touchdown. There was no dropoff in McCaffrey’s use in the passing game. He led Carolina with nine targets (6/45) and could very well see an even higher target share with Greg Olsen out indefinitely. The Panthers figure to play the “come from behind” game on the road against the Falcons in Week 2 and our system currently has McCaffrey as the fifth-highest projected running back on DraftKings. He’ll for sure be the lowest-owned of the group with massive upside if...

Daily Fantasy Football Top Stacks for FanDuel and DraftKings Week 2 - 9/16/18 Welcome back football fans. With week one in the books, we now have current film and stats to look at and analyze which makes me even more excited for week two. If you haven't already, be sure to go over and check out the Main Article that was posted a couple days ago looking at some of the top cash game plays for this week. In this article, I will be looking at two of my top stacks for GPP formats. Then closer to the weekend be sure to check out Doug's GPP article and my GPP Pivot article concentrating on pivot plays based on ownership projections. Let's get started. Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more! START YOUR FREE TRIAL - AND READ THE REST! Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback - Ben Roethlisberger Primary Target - Antonio Brown Secondary Target - JuJu Smith-Schuster The first place I will be going this week is with the Steelers and Big Ben who is in line for a bounce-back performance after throwing three interceptions and losing two fumbles in a tie against the Browns. The weather was awful and while I am not trying to make excuses for a perceived elite offense, Big Ben did still throw for 335 yards. Looking at the Player Lab, I looked at teams in games with high totals(49+) who also have plus matchups against defenses that rank 25th or worse against the position. This spit out just two options this week and while I like both, I don't think the Saints will fall behind again and shouldn't have to throw as much. For the Steelers, they get a matchup against an electrifying offensive team in Kansas City but the issue with the Chiefs is the defense and this should lead to a very high scoring game on Sunday. They only produced one sack last week vs. the Chargers and allowed Rivers to throw for 424 yards and three touchdowns. While James Conner will be a popular running back choice this week as he got 100% touch share in week one, the Chiefs held Melvin Gordon to 64 yards on the ground but he did grab nine balls for 102 additional yards. I will have some exposure to Conner who did catch five of his six targets for 57 yards but my main target is obviously Antonio Brown who got a whopping 16 targets in week one, catching nine of them for 93 yards and...

GPP Ownership Pivot Plays for Week 1 on FanDuel and DraftKings We touched on our top cash game plays in the main article this week and also provided some analysis regarding top stacks, off-beat wide receivers, and GPP running back options. What I want to do now as we approach lineup lock tomorrow is look at some top GPP pivot plays at each position from an ownership analysis standpoint. In most cases, I like making these pivots for players in the mid to low tier of pricing as, for the most part, your high-priced players who are going to be heavily owned are studs and hit value more than not. When analyzing ownership projections, my top source is FanShareSports who compile every piece of relevant DFS content(articles, podcasts, tweets, videos, etc) and put it all together in an easy to read platform showing overall tag counts, start/sit counts, sentiment rating, and so much more. With all that said, let's jump into this week's top pivot plays. Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more! START YOUR FREE TRIAL - AND READ THE...

Off-Beat WR Plays for Week 1 on FanDuel and DraftKings We took a look at the major cash game considerations at wide receiver for Week 1 in our Value Plays article for FanDuel and DraftKings. Here, we'll take a look at some possibly lower-owned wide receiver options with big upside. If you've listened to our NFL podcast or read DFSR for any amount of time, you'll know that I don't trust anything less than I do wide receivers on new teams. So why write a whole article about them? Read on and find out! Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more! START YOUR FREE TRIAL - AND READ THE...

Three GPP Running Backs for NFL Week 1 FanDuel and DraftKings We took a look at the major cash game considerations at running back for Week 1 in our Value Plays article for FanDuel and DraftKings. Here, we'll take a look at some possibly lower-owned running back options with big upside. Want to see the rest of this article? Go grab a free three day trial of DFSR Pro or DFSR Basic! Your subscription will include access to premium content, our lineup optimizer, our members only chatroom, and more! START YOUR FREE TRIAL - AND READ THE REST! James White FD 5500 DK 4000 Opponent HOU Proj Points FD - 9.15 DK - 11.35 The Pats enter Week 1 with a lot of question marks. Julian Edelman is out for the first four weeks on suspension. 2017 team-target leader Brandin Cooks is gone. The running back situation is looking murky at best with Sony Michel “behind schedule” in terms of practicing and Rex Burkhead possibly not 100%. Plus, the Pats overhauled a majority of their receiving corps bringing in Cordarelle Patterson and basically promoting Phillip Dorsett from within. From a *sure thing* perspective, the Pats are basically working with Chris Hogan and Rob Gronkowski. (The former looking more and more like a cash play for Week 1.) All of these question marks could lead to a much more prominent role for White, who was fourth overall in Pats’ targets last season (72 in 14 games) and in 2016 had the second-most on the team. White wasn’t asked to do much on the ground later in the season because Dion Lewis established himself as close to an “every down back” as you’ll see from the Pats, but he’s gone as well. In what projects to be a very high-scoring game against the Texans (51.5 o/u - the highest of the day) is it unreasonable to assume White sees 10-15 looks (carries + targets) with the number trending to the higher end if the Pats are playing any kind of catchup? The Patriots were rarely tasked with coming from behind last year, but in the two games they did have to (KC Week 1, Carolina Week 4), White combined for 11 carries and 17 targets. He makes for a very attractive correlation play with the Texans (Deshaun Watson, Lamar Miller and DeAndre Hopkins) if the Texans can get out to a lead or the game turns into a shootout. Kenyan Drake FD 6600 DK 5900 Opponent TEN Proj Points FD - 11.73 DK - 13.01 When Damien Williams went down to injury in Week 12, Kenyan Drake instantly burst on the scene, averaging 24 carries and four receptions in back-to-back wins...