DraftKings Wild Card Slate Breakdown

Jan 04, 2019

The 2018 fantasy football season has come to a close, but we can still get our fix in with over the next few weeks with these condensed playoff slates. The overarching theme of this article will be GPP focused. On a short slate, one or two players can decide the entire slate. When that's the case, I like to play strictly tournaments with a portfolio of players, rather than one cash game lineup that can get destroyed by one-player variance.

Core Plays - These players will have the highest ownership in my player pool. Usually, they'll be a mix of my favorite high-floor and high-upside players.

Contrarian Plays - These are generally players who may be going overlooked or usually have volatile fantasy production. They will be sprinkled into lineups around the core plays to make them a bit unique.

Saturday Update: With Keke Coutee active, DeAndre Carter becomes a GPP only play and not someone I'll be overweight on. I also don't mind Coutee now that he is active.

Quarterbacks

Core Plays

Deshaun Watson ($6,700)

Watson began the season on fire, then seemed to be limited statistically by a chest injury, then finished the season on fire again. After his chest injury healed, he got back to running the ball a ton, which is a great floor to have from our fantasy quarterback. In the last two games, he's eluded two solid pass-rushing teams in the Eagles and Jaguars by rushing 21 times for 115 yards and three touchdowns. This could also be due to a lack of weapons that the Texans currently have on offense. Obviously, you'd be foolish to not pair him up with DeAndre Hopkins, who is commanding 12 targets per game. Having already played the Colts 19th-ranked QB defense, in terms of schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed (aFPA), we have two data points to look at. The first game in Indianapolis was a shootout that Watson exploded for 34 fantasy points. In the second meeting, he was a victim of touchdown variance that often shows itself week-to-week. Both Lamar Miller and Alfred Blue rushed in short touchdowns that were brought inside the five-yard line. Blue's touchdown came after a penalty brought the ball all the way down to the three. Miller's came from the one-yard line after Ryan Griffin was stopped inches short of the goal line. This game is going to have touchdowns scored and Watson's rushing yardage on top of his passing prowess gives him a very slight edge on Andrew Luck.