Week 3 provided some of the best upside DFS plays of the young season, as typically-great fantasy offenses – i.e. Pittsburgh, Carolina, Arizona – fell apart. We were careful to avoid them and place our daily fantasy assets elsewhere. One week later, we now have the opportunity to flip sides and buy.
An elevated amount of higher-priced targets will, naturally, restrict our budget. For this reason, it is imperative to target some bargain buys. Of course, most weeks require a nice balance of salary, but the expected rebound from some of the league’s more popular fantasy players forces most lineups to utilize the ‘stars-and-scrubs’ approach.
Sporfolio’s NFL Daily Fantasy Sports game-by-game analysis columns are driven by expected game flow. Based on a combination of our Week 3 NFL picks against the spread and our expectations for a given game, we project the actions necessary to make these picks come to fruition. We aim to pinpoint players integral to our predicted game flow for each game of the week.
Luke May is Sporfolio’s NFL DFS expert, and Mario Mergola operates Sporfolio as the expert for NFL Picks Against the Spread.
Los Angeles Rams at Arizona Cardinals
Luke’s DFS Take: Simply put, the Arizona Cardinals will not play as poorly as they did in Week 3, anytime soon. Expect the Arizona offense to come out firing, showing no mercy in an attempt to prove that last week was a fluke. David Johnson is a near must-play because of his incredibly high volume and knack to find the endzone. Carson Palmer is an immediate ‘bounceback candidate’ after one of the worst games of his career, and he should be the beneficiary of an all-out attack. It was nice to see Todd Gurley have some success against Tampa Bay, but Week 4 is a different story. Gurley will go against a Cardinals defense allowing the second-fewest yards-per-attempt on the ground, and the Rams – according to our expected game flow – will be trailing early. With that, Case Keenum will need to carry the Los Angeles offense, making Tavon Austin the only skill position player on the Rams to consider.
Mario’s DFS Take: Everyone from Arizona. Is that fair to say? Is it too aggressive? It doesn’t matter. The Cardinals were just embarrassed in Buffalo and return home to lick their wounds against a division rival. Like Seattle, last week, Arizona will look to make a statement, and it will come in the form of a relentless offensive attack. I mentioned it in my pick column, but it is worth repeating how the Cardinals actively try to put their collective foot on the proverbial gas pedal. Already, Arizona has attempted the most ‘deep pass’ plays in the league, and there is no reason why the trend would stop on Sunday. At least one of Carson Palmer, Larry Fitzgerald, John Brown, and David Johnson needs to be used. If the waterboy is eligible for a lineup, start him, too.
Kansas City Chiefs at Pittsburgh Steelers
Luke’s DFS Take: Here we go. The Pittsburgh Steelers just got dominated by the Eagles, while the Kansas City Chiefs put together one of the greatest defensive performances possible against the Jets. Are we afraid of this? Of course not. The Steelers’ offense has proven to be lethal and, given the motivation to rebound after last week, no opponent appears too tough for Pittsburgh. Le’Veon Bell’s return makes him a must-start, as the Steelers already announced that Bell will be a major part of the offense. We are not surprised. Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown should also be considered as the trio of Ben, Brown, and Bell will shoulder almost all of the burden of an offense poised to explode. Kansas City might also be activating their own former star running back, as Jamaal Charles is possibly in line to play on Sunday night. His presence makes the Chiefs’ offensive gameplan more difficult to project but, with the expectation that Kansas City is trailing, only Jeremy Maclin and Travis Kelce work their way into the mix.
Mario’s DFS Take: Like the Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Steelers will be out for blood on Sunday. We will not miss the opportunity to follow them into this fight. Through the first two weeks of the season, Pittsburgh averaged 31 points-per-game and 405.5 yards-per-game, only to see both statistics slashed in Week 3. The Steelers revert to their high-scoring ways, and there is even the possibility that Pittsburgh uses the Sunday Night Football spotlight to unleash its preseason gameplan of attempting two-point conversions after each touchdown. Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown are nearly must-starts – they are must-starts in a Primetime slate – but the return of Le’Veon Bell from his three-game suspension slides him to the top of our list. Bell is healthy, rested, and ready to carry the workload of an offense that fell apart one week ago. In front of a national audience, the encore will be explosive.
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