Daily Fantasy Football Week 15: DraftDay Value Plays

Cincinnati Bengals skill position players last week saw an across-the-board salary dip on DraftDay last week, for reasons that I still don’t quite understand.

I didn’t strain my degenerate brain to try to understand why Andy Dalton, Gio Bernard, and A.J. Green saw marked salary cuts in their Week 14 matchup against the Colts. I just plugged them into my lineups. I hope you followed suit.

Our little value-seeking exercise paid off for those who rolled with Dalton and company, as the Bengals decimated the unraveling unit formerly known as the Colts’ defense. Soft up front and torchable in the secondary, Indy jumped out to me as a prime DraftDay target for a Bengals offense that can be a high-octane unit when it wants to be.

Bernard, our main Week 14 value play, piled up 148 yards on a mere 16 touches against the Colts. He racked up 18.8 points on DraftDay without the benefit of a touchdown.

Pinpointing daily fantasy market inefficiencies is so much easier in December than it is in September. We have a veritable ocean of data through which to swim, not a tiny sample size that may or may not be telling a baldfaced lie. Let’s keep it going in Week 15, fellow degenerate.

• Masochists should plug Eli into their lineups, posthaste. For only a daily gamer who enjoys pain could deploy the living, breathing turnover machine against the NFL’s most vicious defense. The Giants’ receivers couldn’t exploit the squishy San Diego secondary last week. How do you think they’ll do against Seattle’s cover guys?

• Newton, DraftDay’s eighth priciest signal caller this week, is something of a value play after a salary decrease that likely resulted from his Week 14 dud in New Orleans. That dud, by the bye, produced 17.5 points. rotoViz’s GLSP app projects Newton to have a 20.3-point median score against a Jets’ defense that stifles and run and isn’t all that interested in stopping the pass.

• Smith gets his crack at the a Raiders’ defense allowing 18.9 schedule-adjusted fantasy points to quarterbacks, ninth worst in the league. Smith fell victim to game flow last week in Washington. If he gets a whole game against Oakland, 20 fantasy points isn’t unreasonable.

• Brown might have the most drastic salary cut on DraftDay this season. He goes from one of the most expensive DraftDay backs to the 23rd highest salaries runner in a single week. His matchup is atrocious — the Seahawks allow the fifth fewest points to running backs — but his low salary makes him an intriguing play. Brown won’t take a seat on the sideline if (when) Seattle jumps out to a big lead on Big Blue, so I think he’s immune to a dud here. He’s certainly cheap enough to be a nice against-the-grain play in tournaments.

• The Rams allow 28.1 adjusted fantasy points to running backs. Darren Sproles has been reduced to something of a part-time player. Thomas jumps off the page as a money-saving option with huge upside against St. Louis. GLSP gives Thomas a high projection of 17.5 this week.

• There’s still no irrefutable proof that Wright showed up in Denver last week. Ryan Fitzpatrick’s favorite target caught two balls for 17 yards in the Titans’ blowout loss. Wright’s salary has predictably plummeted to outside the top-20 on DraftDay, a full-PPR site on which Wright is most valuable. While Arizona allows a measly 30.2 fantasy points to opposing receivers, I think Wright could easily justify his Week 15 salary.

• Marshall is officially cheaper than his teammate, Alshon Jeffery, opening an opportunity for value seekers. Game watchers expect Cleveland cornerback Joe Haden to cover Marshall this week, though that shouldn’t terrify anyone who saw Cecil Shorts make quick work out of Haden a couple weeks ago. I’d prefer Marshall to Jeffery this week.

• Hilton went for 121 yards and three touchdowns last time he played the Texans. That’s a slim argument, I know, but it’s all he has working for him at the moment. Hilton gave gamers almost nothing in one and a half quarters of pure garbage time last week in Cincinnati.

• Witten, through spotty production, is still fantasy’s No. 6 tight end through 13 weeks. Probably that speaks to how maddening the position has been this year, just like 2012. He has a decent matchup here, with Green Bay allowing 11.8 fantasy points to enemy tight end. GLSP has Witten pegged for a median score of 15.4.

• Only Cook could face off against the Cardinals — the most generous defense to tight ends — and have his DraftDay salary plummet the following week. You’re not dead to me, Jared, but you’re damn close.

Lineups:

C.D. Carter

C.D. Carter is a reporter, author of zombie stories, writer for The Fake Football and XN Sports. Fantasy Sports Writers Association member. His work  has been featured in the New York Times. Follow @CDCarter13 !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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