Mike’s Player Grid 6.22

Mike Johnson (MJohnson86) has racked up nearly $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

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Welcome back to my (Mjohnson86) Player Grid. The format will vary slightly from JM’s Player Grid, as we each see things slightly differently and play in slightly different contests, but should complement his thoughts and content very well for those looking to build their lineups for the week. The format of this article will likely evolve as the season progresses but should provide a lot of value. Enjoy!!

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The Core

This is a list of players that stand out to me at each position from using my “Checking the Boxes” criteria outlined in my course you can find in our Marketplace. This list is a starting point, from which I build out lineups using game theory and roster construction concepts (which we will also touch on) with the mindset being to find the best plays with big ceilings. Low ownership is a bonus, but not a must. This section will focus primarily on three positions – running back, tight end, and defense – as the other two positions (quarterback and wide receiver) tend to have more dependent tendencies which I try to attack from other angles (which we will get into in the other sections). I like all of these plays on all sites unless otherwise noted:

Running Back ::

Alvin Kamara

We saw a vintage game and almost 30 touches for Kamara last week and his price barely moved while ownership looks modest. Taysom Hill won’t smash every week and the Saints are hurting for weapons. I’ll be going back to the well on Kamara.

ENO BENJAMIN

He’s a very solid player in close to the best possible matchup. His passing game chops make him fantasy friendly and his “base case”, barring injury, gives you a very solid score with a lot of upside for more.

Rhamondre Stevenson, Kenneth Walker, Darrell Henderson, Breece Hall

Let’s call a spade a spade. These guys are all going to be heavily owned but all have paths to failure (three of them are on teams that are underdogs). This makes it easy to say “fade the chalk!!”. The reality, however, is that it’s very unlikely they all fail given their price points, matchups, talent, and projected workloads. Each lineup will have its own story, but you need to be aware that if going outside the box at RB this week then if even two or three guys from this group plus Eno go for 20+ points, you’re going to need some monster RB scores from whoever you play in order to keep up.

SIDE NOTES::

• Christian McCaffrey – CMC has looked very good this year, the environment has just been really bad. His price is down to manageable levels and while he won’t be overlooked, he also won’t carry much ownership relative to his ceiling and his floor is really high given his pass game role. I think change is good in this scenario with PJ Walker getting him the ball and a new coaching staff.
• Nick Chubb – he’s basically the ultimate leverage piece off Rhamondre Stevenson.
• Jonathan Taylor – If we knew Jonathan Taylor was fully healthy and Nyheim Hines was out, he’d be a terrific GPP play at single-digit ownership and a $2k discount from his Week 2 price tag.

Tight End ::