Papy is a full-time DFS player, with a focus on high-stakes tourneys, and with hundreds of thousands in lifetime profit
Welcome to Week 5 DFS! This week is defined by three attractive game environments. KC // MIN (53) tops the slate, PHI // LAR (50) is second, and then the blowout risk game of NYG // MIA (47.5). Beneath those are seven games with totals ranging from 38-44.5 that carry upside in certain spots but are all at risk of producing a dud. Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, and Tua Tagovailoa are projected to be the three highest owned QBs, which gives us a pretty good idea that chalk is going to form around the top three games. While they’re all good spots, there is a lot of uncertainty around the offenses involved. KC is spread out behind Kelce, the Vikings get a tough KC defense, Philly spreads out their groundwork, Kupp clouds the Rams target allocations, the Giants offense stinks, and the Dolphins might not need to stay aggressive to win. That isn’t to say you should avoid the higher total games but it is worth considering that there will be a lot of fragile chalk this week. With that in mind, let’s get to Week 5’s pieces!
Wandale Robinson ($3,000) is expected to be one of the chalkiest plays on the slate. It makes sense. He has the upside for 20 points, a reasonable chance at 15, and is likely to get 10. That’s a nice range of outcomes for someone who is min-priced. I’ll have some Robinson myself but the truth is we are all playing him because he’s safe. He’s a slot WR with limited upside but we know he’ll be involved and we know that if he gets 15 points we won’t look back on him as a “reason we lost.” But will we look back on him as a reason we won? The Giants top three WRs in order of snaps last week were Slayton (88%), Robinson (64%), and Hyatt (60%). That’s a big jump for Hyatt who was playing 30% of the snaps for the previous three weeks. He’s an absolute burner (4.31) who was known for being a deep ball specialist in college. Imagine a game where Robinson finishes with 8-70 on 10 targets at 25% ownership and Hyatt finishes with 3-140-2 on six targets at 1% ownership. Even though Robinson wouldn’t be a bad price considered piece, he wouldn’t be what you needed to win a tournament. That man could be Hyatt this week.
Nico has been kind to me in Best Ball and DFS so far this year and I’m going to keep riding the train until his price catches up to his role. He has been a top 10 WR through the first four weeks and is still priced like a midrange WR2. He’s seen 9 // 3 // 9 // 11 targets and it’s astonishing his price hasn’t gone up more. The Falcons defense isn’t the pushover they were last season and there is some concern that they might be able to run on Houston easily and take the air out of the ball, but Nico’s price is too mismatched from his role to ignore. As a bonus, the Falcons call man coverage at a top 10 rate, and Nico has some of the highest ratings against man coverage in the league.
