Hilow is a game theory expert (courses at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Northwestern) and tournament champion who focuses on mid/high-stakes single-entry/three-entry max
The Week 8 main slate presents a stark shift in emphasis compared to the previous month of play. As I posited last week in the Oracle, I believe DFS scoring to be more closely tied to the available value rather than how many projected points Vegas expects to be scored on a given slate. This week brings numerous places where players are not priced as high as they should be. Player pricing came out before Tua Tagovailoa was expected to return from his most recent concussion, leaving Tyreek Hill, De’Von Achane, and Jaylen Waddle entirely too cheap for their range of outcomes against the Cardinals. Player pricing was released before the Buccaneers lost both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin on Monday Night Football. Player pricing was released before the Browns handed the starting job to Jameis Winston or announced a change at offensive play caller from head coach Kevin Stefanski to offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey. Jameson Williams was hit with a suspension on Thursday after we first heard about a potential violation of the league’s PES policy late Monday night. And there are still more situations that could develop through injury, like the potential for Tank Bigsby without Travis Etienne, or the Seattle pass-catchers without DK Metcalf, or Rashod Bateman without Zay Flowers.
The point I’m trying to make here is that the score needed to win GPPs is likely to be much higher this week than the previous four weeks of the season, the time when player pricing began to get extremely tight. As such, it is absolutely imperative that we shift how we’re looking at the slate ahead with the understanding that our end goal is likely a much different target than what we’ve grown accustomed to in recent weeks.
Quick explanation :: Restrictive chalk is an expected highly owned piece that restricts the maneuverability of the remainder of your roster while expansive chalk is an expected highly owned piece that allows for higher amounts of maneuverability on the remainder of your roster. Classifying various forms of chalk as either restrictive or expansive allows us to visualize what it means for roster construction on a given slate and how restrictive a certain player might be – meaning more of the field will look similar from a roster construction standpoint with that piece.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Breece Hall ranks fourth in expected fantasy points per game and plays a Patriots team allowing the third most fantasy points per game to opposing running backs this season. The biggest blemish to Hall’s upside here is an offensive line generating the fewest yards before contact in the league.
EXPANSIVE CHALK. Cade Otton is “fine” at salary but he’ll need the five (or six-to-seven, depending on how you view Dalton Kincaid and Sam LaPorta) tight ends capable of putting the slate out of reach (Brock Bowers, Travis Kelce, Trey McBride, David Njoku, Evan Engram) to not do so to matter on this slate. That number of tight ends with that type of upside only increases on FanDuel, where both George Kittle and Jake Ferguson are added to the main slate.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Tyreek Hill is objectively priced $1,200-$1,500 too low with Tua Tagovailoa expected to return this week. It really is that simple.
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. The matchup is pristine, but J.K. Dobbins has rushed for more than 2.9 yards per carry in just one of his previous four games and the Chargers rank top-10 in pass rate over expectation in the two weeks since their Week 5 bye. If a yardage and touchdown back fails at either reaching the bonus or scoring multiple touchdowns, they simply aren’t returning a GPP-worthy score, particularly one priced almost in restrictive chalk territory.
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Javonte Williams ranks 24th in expected fantasy points per game this season and 18th over the previous month of play. That said, his matchup could not be better against a Panthers team allowing the most fantasy points per game to opposing running backs.
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Uh, what? Just one game of even a 3x salary multiplier through five games this season is not where I want to be placing my hard-earned bongos this week. Throw in a quad injury on Friday that led to a questionable status and this is a hard pass for me.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Joe Mixon ranks fourth in expected fantasy points per game and has seen opportunity counts of 33 and 28 in his two fully healthy games this season, playing an opponent ranked dead last in rush rate over expectation against. Love.
