Week 3 NFL DFS Preseason Friday Breakdown

Aug 24, 2018

Week 3 of the preseason is dubbed the "dress rehearsal" because the starters play for the longest duration of any game. Unfortunately, this takes a bit of the edge off because the players who blindly roster starting players aren't at an inherent disadvantage. Nonetheless, we can still gain leverage by knowing which starters will play the most. There's a particular first-team offense that won't be on the field this week that may be popular amongst the unaware. Here are the game-by-game playing time notes...

Patriots at Panthers

This is probably one of my favorite games of the Friday slate. The Patriots will most likely play starters into the third quarter. There isn’t a definitive timetable yet, but they played the entire first half last week. The Patriots starters haven’t played this much in the preseason in a few years, but the common thread is the last time they played a lot in the preseason, they didn’t have a joint practice with another NFL team, just like they didn’t during this year’s camp. So load up on Tom Brady, James White, Chris Hogan, Julian Edelman. If you’re mass multi-entering sprinkling Philip Dorsett, Jacob Hollister and Cordarrelle Patterson may be a good idea. Rob Gronkowski’s status is up in the air at this point but check back for updates.
UPDATE: GRONK IS IN! HOLLISTER IS OUT!
The Panthers are absolutely playing more than two quarters as Ron Rivera was quoted as saying he wants to go through the halftime adjustment process with the first unit and put them back out there to execute it. Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey are top plays. McCaffrey has been deployed as a workhorse back throughout the preseason, getting the bulk of the first team reps including goal-line carries. As far as a stack with Newton goes, Devin Funchess, Greg Olsen and Ian Thomas should see the bulk of the targets outside of McCaffrey

Giants at Jets

Pat Shurmur hasn’t divulged playing time information all preseason, but Landon Collins mentioned in his post-practice presser that the Giants’ defense expects to play three quarters. Take that with a grain of salt, but it’s information we should be processing. Odell Beckham Jr. and Saquon Barkley won’t be suiting up, which means. I don’t want any Eli Manning despite rumors he’ll play two quarters, but I can get behind the other skill players, especially Wayne Gallman. With Barkley not playing and the embalmed Jonathan Stewart not very enticing, Gallman could be in for a lot of reps. He helped us immensely last week getting into the end zone twice.
The Jets starters will play into the third quarter. I’m probably not going to target them heavily. Perhaps a little Robby Anderson. The running back situation is a bit muddied now that Isaiah Crowell and Trent Cannon are reportedly on the mend and likely to get run Friday.

Broncos at Redskins

Continue reading to see how Pat is attacking the Broncos at Redskins game, as well as for the rest of his Week 3 NFL DFS preseason Friday slate breakdown...