November 15, 2022

Jon Anderson looks into the NFL DFS projections for week five to pick out some spots to attack and mispriced players for your DraftKings DFS lineups.

Hey, RotoBallers! It's Jon Anderson back again to open up the week 11 DFS slate! If you're new here, this is not meant to be a definitive "picks" article, but just a first look to point out the best game environments and best projections and value plays. Quite often, by Sunday I'm not on all of the plays I start with here, but it does set the table for the rest of the week of search.

Again, I don't think it's profitable to build a lineup based on these picks, and certainly not this early in the week. You should be focusing heavily on game environments and correlations when building lineups, and this post doesn't really give you that. It's just a table-setter to look at the slate from a high level and pick out these mid-priced players. I hope it is helping, and I will continue to make it stronger as we move forward.

We are looking at the DraftKings NFL DFS main slate on Sunday, November 20th. Here we go!

Game Environments

Bye week teams

• Jaguars
• Dolphins
• Seahawks
• Bucs

Island game teams

• Titans
• Packers
• Chiefs
• Chargers
• 49ers
• Cardinals

All of that with the addition of the Cooper Kupp injury makes this a unique slate with tons of the league's best fantasy scorers off the slate. There are no stand-out games either at this point:

1. Bears @ Falcons: 50.5 O/U, 3 point spread
2. Cowboys @ Vikings: 47.5 O/U, 1.5 point spread
3. Lions @ Giants: 45.5 o/u, 3 point spread
4. Eagles @ Colts: 44.5 O/U, 6.5 point spread

Those are the top games to target, but once again we are without one of these total smash games that you really, really want a piece of. Pricing has really tightened up over the last few weeks, and this seems like another challenging slate. Let's get into it.

DraftKings NFL DFS Quarterbacks

Top Raw Projections

Top Values

Three of the big four quarterbacks are on the slate, but they are very expensive and have no shortage of holes to poke in their games for this week.

Lamar Jackson has a good matchup here but has been pretty disappointing in terms of DraftKings scoring this year. He's been under 20 points in five of his last six outings, so that makes me pretty hesitant to pay the big price for him. Jalen Hurts projects well, of course, but the matchup with the Colts is far from great.

Only two quarterbacks have gone over 20 DraftKings points against the Colts this year (Trevor Lawrence and Taylor Heinicke – and the Colts have played against Patrick Mahomes). Hurts will almost surely get over 20, but the Colts are a team that likes to slow it down and a blowout is a real possibility here as well if the Eagles get right after that tough Monday Night loss.

Then we have Josh Allen at $8,500. It was surprising that he played last week, but a good sign. He has had three pretty underwhelming fantasy scores in a row now (18 points, 25 points, 23 points) and that price tag is really, really prohibitive. If you're paying $8,000+ for a QB, you really want 30+ points – and I'm just not that sure that's very likely with any of these three guys this week.

The bad news is that the cheap options are all brutal right now. It feels really gross to consider Russell Wilson at this point, but he does get a matchup with the Raiders that has allowed a minimum of 16.2 DK points to quarterbacks this year. The Raiders also allowed Russ to score 27.5 points against them back in week four as he threw for 237 yards and two touchdowns while adding a rushing touchdown.

Daniel Jones would have to be the other cheap guy to consider in the great spot against the Lions. That game is pretty interesting overall. The Lions have allowed big scores to QBs all year (Fields 42, Smith 35, Wentz 31, Tagovailoa 32), and Jones comes in with a pretty high ceiling for a guy this cheap (he's run for more than 50 yards on three different occasions and has a 32 fantasy point game).

It's a tough call here, and the QB play will be determined based on what we can find at the other positions. Let's move on.

DraftKings NFL DFS Running Backs

Top Raw Projections

 Top Values

Another week, another smash spot for Saquon Barkley. He carried the ball 35 times last week and has a minimum of 18 touches this year. It's fairly easy to move the ball on the Lions, and Barkley is pretty much the only way the Giants do that. It's going to be a good game for Barkley – but the price has gotten to the point where you're hoping for 25+ from him to pay it off, and that's far from a sure thing.

Alvin Kamara checks in under $8,000 again after a really disappointing game against the Steelers. Kamara, I think, is somewhat matchup-proof since he gets so much work in the passing game, but the floor is certainly low here with the Saints having trouble scoring points most weeks.

The best options may be Joe Mixon and Rhamondre Stevenson, both priced pretty fairly with roles very close to that of Saquon Barkley. Stevenson has scored 23, 25, 24, 21, and 16 points in his last five games and has seen at least five targets in his last four games while averaging seven targets. That price doesn't seem right against the Jets. Jonathan Taylor gets a really tough matchup with the Eagles, but we know what his ceiling is like and the big-play ability is there.

A tough grouping at RB too, no doubt – but it's possible we get some value in Jaylen Warren ($4,900) who might step into the starting role if Najee Harris is unable to go. Even so, Warren has earned 15 carries and six targets over the last two weeks as his role is increasing (he's managed 21.2 DraftKings points in those last two weeks on the limited opportunity without the benefit of a touchdown). Keep an eye on that news.

DraftKings NFL DFS Wide Receivers

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 Top Values

Kupp and Hill are off the slate, but we still have Diggs and Jefferson here. Jefferson is in a tough matchup, although I don't think that matters – and Diggs looked just fine with banged-up Josh Allen last week, earning 16 targets and hauling in 12 balls for 128 yards. Diggs is probably the best play on the slate there, but CeeDee Lamb isn't too far behind since he's $800 cheaper.

The standout value option is Chase Claypool, who played just 17 snaps and ran seven routes in his Bears debut. Obviously, this projection is expecting an increased role for him next week, but it's an incredibly risky play. Wan'Dale Robinson is in a similar situation. The Giants are in that smash matchup and everybody has been expecting Robinson's role to increase as the year progresses, but that didn't happen in week 10 as he ran just 19 routes and saw only two targets. Risky stuff as usual under $5,000 at wide receiver.

The one spot not shown above is the Rams receiving corps. There are about a dozen extra targets to go around now with Cooper Kupp on the shelf, but it's anybody's guess how they will be distributed between Allen Robinson ($5,600), Van Jefferson ($4,500), and Ben Skowronek ($3,900). I think Skowronek might be a pretty good pay-down option since you don't need a ton at that price, and he should play a good amount of snaps in the slot. You could easily see a five-for-fifty game here which would be perfectly fine under $4,000 – but we should wait for smarter people than I to weigh in on that before clicking that button.

DraftKings NFL DFS Tight Ends

Top Raw Projections

 Top Values

After a few weeks of just having nothing to look at in tight end territory, Mark Andrews has re-appeared! Andrews has been banged up and missed the Ravens' last game before the bye week, but I would expect him back and at least close to 100% – and the price has come down. He has gone over 20 points four times this year, which would be a huge advantage on this slate at tight end with very few other options.

The rest of the options are short of awful, as you can feel pretty good about getting a good amount of targets from Higbee, Schultz, and even Moreau – but the ceilings are low. Higbee will likely soak up some of those Kupp targets, he has five games this year with eight or more targets even with Kupp on the field - so five catches here feel very, very likely. He is probably the top per-dollar play at the tight end position, but Andrews is the guy I want the most.

That's it, we've popped the top on another tough Sunday NFL DFS slate. Hope this helps, or at least hope somebody enjoyed reading it. Good luck, and keep it locked on RotoBaller all week long!

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