Primetime DFS Slate Breakdown: Week 1

The first PrimeTime slate of the year brings us two games that should bring us plenty of points in the Steelers at Patriots and the Texans at Saints. Then we get the drama that is the Antonio Brown-less Raiders hosting the Broncos in the second Monday Night Football game.

Let's break down the games and how we can find the edge that might get us at the top of the leaderboards.

Injuries

• Matt LaCosse, NE, TE - Questionable
• Demaryius Thomas, NE, WR - Questionable
• J.J. Nelson, OAK, WR - Questionable
• Keke Coutee, HOU, WR - Questionable

The big injury to watch here is Keke Coutee, who doesn't look like he will play. That'll be a bump for the likes of Will Fuller and Kenny Stills.

Evaluation of Vegas Spread and Total and What Players Benefit

New England -6 Over/Under 49
New Orleans -6.5 Over/Under 52.5
Denver -1 Over/Under 43

I have done individual breakdowns for each of the PrimeTime games including an in-depth look at the Vegas spreads and totals and what players benefit most. You can find that analysis here:

Pittsburgh at New England

Texans at Saints: Coming Soon

Broncos at Raiders: Coming Soon

Pricing and Projections

These projections are taken from the industry-leading 4for4 DFS projections at the time this article was written. The prices listed are for the three game Prime Time slates on both sites.

Roster Construction

Top Points-per-dollar plays

Ownership

If I was to break down projected ownership on a game-by-game basis, it'd look something along the lines of Texans-Saints 50% Steelers-Patriots 35% and Broncos-Raiders 15%. This means the latter game will contain the low-owned contrarian plays. The bulk of the ownership though is going to be on that first game with the likes of Drew Brees, Alvin Kamara, Michael Thomas, Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins, and Duke Johnson garnering a large share of rosters. From the Steelers-Patriots game, Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, James Conner, and JuJu Smith-Schuster will all be popular plays and well in the Broncos-Raiders game, Darren Waller and Tyrell Williams with the absence of Antonio Brown from the Raiders could see some ownership as value options. Josh Jacobs also should be popular given his price point relative to his expected workload.

Potential Low-Owned Difference Makers

Before he was released, I was all about Antonio Brown in this spot. In fact, I had to revise the initial draft of this article substantially as a result of his release. Thanks a lot, AB! Anyway, I think there is some value in the likes of Hunter Renfroe, Ryan Grant, and J.J. Nelson as low-owned difference-makers, but I think their upside is somewhat limited so I wouldn't go overweight on them. I prefer to be overweight on Waller and Tyrell Williams to those three. Outside of that group, I think targeting some other players in that last game makes for a good contrarian play. The ones I like most are from the Denver side—Emmanual Sanders, Joe Flacco, and either of their two RB's. Josh Jacobs will be fine at some point this year, and I know Denver has a reputation for giving up more on the ground then they do through the air, but I'll be a bit underweight on him this week (mainly because I think the game script will have the Raiders passing more). As I mentioned in my Sunday Night Football article, I want to be overweight on Josh Gordon and Jaylen Samuels, and that is the same here. I also think Kenny Stills, if Coutee is out, has upside to be a difference-maker that will have low ownership.

Optimal Lineup Construction

Using the 4for4 projections these are the optimal ownership numbers when running the numbers through a 250-lineup model - currently I only have the numbers for DraftKings, I'll add FanDuel when it becomes available on the optimizer:

This surprised me a bit and perhaps I'm a bit too down on Josh Jacobs given his showing in the optimal lineups. A big factor in that is his affordable price point on DraftKings. Essentially the optimal construction contains him and the two big WR's on the slate in DeAndre Hopkins and Michael Thomas. Those two appear in 100% of optimal lineups. The Raiders defense is surprisingly in over 2/3rds of optimal lineups - a function of their price more than anything. The two QBs from the Texans-Saints game comprise most of the ownership (over 90%) and Darren Waller at 56% is to no surprise the optimal TE and if you include the 40% of Vance McDonald, you pretty much cover the TE position. Julian Edelman rounds out the players topping the 50% mark.

A few surprises for sure. Alvin Kamara came in at just 8.8% while his teammate Latavius Murray is nearly 50%. Kamara is expensive, will be high-owned, so there is merit to fading him, especially if you're wanting to get the two high-priced WRs into your lineup. Others showing up in more than 20% of the optimal lineups and all plays I like in general are James White, Tyrell Williams, and Phillip Lindsay. Just below the 20% threshold is Donte Moncrief at 19.6%.

Here's a quick look at how some of the popular players looked in terms of showing up in optimal lineups.

• James Conner 16.8%
• JuJu Smith-Schuster 14.4%
• Sony Michel 12.4%
• Jared Cook 9.6%
• Duke Johnson 8%
• Josh Gordon 2.4%
• Tom Brady 2%

Fading those players could not only be contrarian, but also correct from a mathematical perspective.

Where's the Edge?

With Antonio Brown out, being overweight on Tyrell Williams and Darren Waller is the direction I want to go. The Raiders are going to want to show the world they can survive in the passing game without the enigmatic Brown and I think they'll lean on these two heavily.

Outside of that, I'm going to go with the masses and stack the Texans-Saints game as many ways as possible while sprinkling in some overweight shares of Josh Gordon. I'll make sure to have some Patriots stacks in there as well—mainly Brady-Edelman-White-Gordon type stacks. Those are the three main teams I'll be targeting, with James Conner, Emmanuel Sanders, the backup WRs on the Raiders, and Kenny Stills (if Coutee is out) will all be in a fair share of lineups for me.