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🤑 Week 3 Money Moves

🤑 Week 3 Money Moves

Players to watch for season-long and DFS

Joe Holka
September 22, 2023

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Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

Week 3 Starts/DFS plays 👍
Optimal DraftKings lineup builds 😎
An irresistible PrizePicks stack 📚
This week’s latest player news and notes 🏈

Each week this NFL season, I’ll be chatting with @LordReebs from Sharp Football Analysis about some of the best matchups and DFS plays in the league.

Check out my YouTube channel for the videos.

WR: Zay Flowers (BAL)

Flowers had a ridiculous 48% target share in Week 1, and that was never going to continue once Mark Andrews returned, but he’s still the most consistent WR on the Ravens so far.

He’s run lots of routes:

Week 1: 90.3% of pass plays
Week 2: 85% of pass plays

And the Colts are soft against WRs over the first part of this season. They have allowed four receivers to finish as top-20 guys in 2 weeks. It’s pretty poor.

Also encouraging for Flowers is Fantasy Life’s RACR metric, which measures how well a player converts air yards into actual receiving yards. Through 2 weeks, Flowers is 11th in the NFL, but 3rd among players with 10 or more targets, behind just Jaxon Smith-Njiba and CeeDee Lamb.

RB: Travis Etienne (JAX)

Speaking of attacking a specific defense, Jacksonville draws Houston, which has just been horrible vs. RBs.

Combine that with ETN’s volume, and we’re onto a nice play for season-long as well as DFS. There was concern in the summer about Tank Bigsby maybe carving out a role for himself, but that hasn’t come to pass just yet, as he hasn’t topped 15 snaps and didn’t record a touch in Week 2.

Meanwhile, Etienne is 5th among all RBs having run a route on 66% of the Jaguars’ pass plays.

As a topper, he rushed 19 times for 179 yards vs. Houston in two games last year. That’s 9.4 yards per carry.

WR: Amari Cooper (CLE)

We’ve seen the Titans start the season strong against the run, but they’ve allowed 4 WRs to finish in the top 24 fantasy scorers through 2 weeks.

Cooper wasn’t even expected to play this past Monday, but came out with a huge game, catching 7 targets for 90 yards. With another week to heal, he should be closer to 100%. After Keenan Allen torched them last week, Cooper’s in a great spot.

This is also a week I’m expecting a lot of passing volume, as the Browns want to get something more out of Deshaun Watson.

RB: Jahmyr Gibbs (DET)

This one is easy. David Montgomery was injured and he isn’t expected to play. Even when he was dominating the carries, Gibbs has looked like a guy who’s faster, more explosive, and closer to breaking big plays.

The Falcons offer a nice matchup. They haven’t been very good against the run in 2 weeks:

20th in yards per carry
21st in rushing success rate

Then there’s the passing game usage. Gibbs already had 9 targets in Week 2, so if he’s on the field more in this explosive offense, we should see some fireworks from the rookie.

WR: Drake London (ATL)

The Lions played a lot of zone in Week 1, which was uncharacteristic, but a result of respect for Patrick Mahomes. In Week 2, they RETURNED to their aggressive, heavy blitzing, man-based scheme.

When Desmond Ridder was blitzed in 2022, he targeted Drake London on over 30% of plays.

The volume has been there so far, and I think it will translate into good production in Week 3.

Click here for the number 1 QB Start of Week 3

THE BEST FRIDAY LINKS

6 things your friends probably read this week… so you’ll probably want to catch up 👇🏻

• 🏆 The only link you can find my redraft rankings this week

• 💥 My favorite PrizePicks & Bets this week

•⭐️ Top DraftKings picks at each position

• 🎯 Low-owned DraftKings tournament plays

•📚 Best DraftKings GPP Stacks

💰 The DFS Masterclass

A free e-book to teach you how to win more on DraftKings & FanDuel

Every single week this season, I’ll post videos of my chats with @allinkid of The Athletic, and DFS tournament player @RyanHodge. We discuss the best DraftKings plays and GPP tournament pivots of the week ahead.

If you want to check these out, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

QB: Kirk Cousins (MIN) - $6,900

Kirk’s volume has been nuts. He’s had 44 attempts in both of the first 2 games of the year, and just continues to keep chucking up the football. Alexander Mattison has been inefficient, and the team literally just completed the Cam Akers trade, so the running game still isn’t quite where they want it to be.

The Chargers haven’t done a great job stopping good WRs after they got torched by Miami AND Tennessee.

Ultimately, there’s not much difference here in terms of upside between Cousins and his opponent, Justin Herbert, who is coming in at $7,500, so why not jump in here?

Tournament Pivot: Lamar Jackson ($7,700), projected ownership 9-13%

RB: Tony Pollard (DAL) - $8,000

Pollard is at the start of a terrific season. Looking at Fantasy Life’s Red Zone rushing tool, we can see he has 16 attempts inside the 20 yard line, which is 6 more than 2nd-place Kyren Williams.

He has 12 rushing attempts inside the 10, which is double 2nd-place D’Andre Swift.

It says something that he’s still getting that kind of usage in blowout games. Mike McCarthy has even spoken about how impressive Pollard’s conditioning has been, indicating he can handle the huge workload that he’s gotten over the first 2 weeks.

This week, he gets to face the Arizona Cardinals, who are awful overall, and bottom-3 against the run. When that kind of usage faces that kind of leaky defense, I say go for it.

Tournament Pivot: Travis Etienne ($6,900), projected ownership 18-23%

WR: Keenan Allen (LAC) - $7,600

It’s time to just put some respect on this man’s name.

He was injured last season, which was uncharacteristic. So until this guy gets to the $8,000 range, where guys like Justin Jefferson are priced, there’s no reason not to play him.

The biggest shift with Kellen Moore opening up the offense hasn’t been the deeper balls from Justin Herbert, even though that’s been a factor. It’s been the way they’ve deployed Allen. They move him all over the field, so he’s not playing solely out of the slot anymore.

The matchup against the Vikings is as good as it gets, so click this guy and don’t worry about it.

Tournament Pivot: Elijah Moore ($4,700), projected ownership 1-4%

TE: T.J. Hockenson (MIN) - $6,500

In this kind of game environment, Hock should SMASH.

He doesn’t see a lot downfield, but he’s been getting a ton of volume, and this week looks like it could turn into a shootout.

You probably aren’t getting him in your lineup if you’re playing a lot of chalk at other positions, but if you can fit him in, he could give you a boost at the historically horrible position.

Tournament Pivot: Kyle Pitts ($3,900), projected ownership 5-8%

DST: Dallas Cowboys - $4,400

Not a lot of people will make it work with this expensive price, but if they continue to score 15 or 20 points, it gives you a massive advantage, even at cost.

They’re going against the Cardinals and Josh Dobbs, who will try to take shots down the field. If there’s a guy this defense can prey on and make a big turnover happen, this is the one.

Tournament Pivot: Carolina Panthers ($2,600), projected ownership 1-4%

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• Chris Godwin MORE THAN 57.5 receiving yards: He has 22% of the Bucs’ targets so far despite taking a backseat to Mike Evans. The Eagles secondary is banged up and allowing slot guys to produce.

• Drake London MORE THAN 52.5 receiving yards: When Desmond Ridder is blitzed, he tends to look London’s way. The Lions went back to their heavy blitzing scheme in Week 2.

• Mike Williams MORE THAN 61.5 receiving yards: He’s been playing more slot this season than in the past, and was targeted on 32% of his routes vs. man coverage in Week 2, which the Vikings will play often.

• Jordan Addison MORE THAN 49.5 receiving yards: When he’s been on the field, he’s looked miles better than K.J. Osborn despite having fewer snaps and routes. This total just feels low.

• Kirk Cousins MORE THAN 291 pass yards: The pace and total in this matchup suggests Kirk will throw more than 40 times. In 8 such games last year, he exceeded 291 in 6 of them.