CPT/MVP Plays: Hall (chalk), Wilson, Samuel, Kittle, Mason, Conklin (GPP Value), Lazard (Elite GPP Punt)
Flex/UTIL Plays: Purdy (chalk), Rodgers, M. Williams, NYJ D/ST (slight lean), 49ers D/ST, Moody (Preferred), Zuerlein (GPP), Allen, Guerendo (GPP) Bell (Punt)
UPDATE: Christian McCaffrey is OUT. Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Jordan Mason is going to be gargantuan giga chalk now. As Justin said above, the Niners have shown a willingness to ride with a back up before and they have been successful at doing that. However, that begs the question…what do we do with Jordan Mason? Do we have to lock him in? The safe answer is yes. However, we do not know with 100% certainty how SF is going to split up this backfield. It seems likely that Mason assumes the bulk of the work but it is possible that Isaac Guerendo steals his thunder here. You easily could see a scenario where Mason has a poor first drive, Guerendo has a stellar second drive, and then they ride the hot hand for the rest of the game. Guerendo had amazing metrics when he got drafted, so he is far from a slouch. You also could see them just use Deebo as the primary RB and Mason could just stay as a backup. All this to say that Mason is not a LOCK to smash, although he seems likely to at least hit value. There is uncertainty here that will not be reflected in ownerships though and it may be wise to lean into it here. On top of this, even if he does play the whole game as their starter, there are tons of cheap guys that could still outscore him. Imagine a 15 carry for 60 yard game from Mason that doesn’t end in a TD. He could have 8 points and easily get outscored by a Lazard or Conklin who scores a TD. This also is going to take ownership away from the other cheap guys like Lazard or Conklin since people absolutely won’t need the money. All the other players on this slate were priced under the impression that McCaffrey and his immense price tag were playing, so they are all too cheap now and you have no use for two value guys. I just love Allen Lazard in this spot and, as a result, I am going to fade Mason here and bank on Lazard to outscore him. It could bury you, but you have to make a stand. Secondly, This makes me far less likely to roll with Purdy in any capacity as ownership is going to steam in his direction and the matchup is no better than it was before. Therefore, I am going to steer far away from him now as it seems like unnecessarily bad chalk to eat. Breece Hall is going to be the chalk CPT now and Garrett Wilson will be second in command. I really like pivoting to Deebo or Kittle off of them as their roles are going to be even more important now that McCaffrey is out.
A very strange Week 1 across the NFL will conclude with a bang tonight with a marquee matchup in store between the New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers. We are candidly super excited about this slate and are ready to attack it. Let’s get straight down to business!
With the 49ers returning pretty much the same cast of characters as last year on the offensive side of the ball, it is very instructive to take a look back at their last couple of showdown slates to see how ownership turned out and who people played in the top spot. When doing so, a pattern starts to emerge. In the Super Bowl, Christian McCaffrey was the highest-owned captain (21%) while Patrick Mahomes turned out to be the optimal captain on the slate. In the NFC Championship game, McCaffrey once again carried the highest ownership in the CPT spot (19.3%) and it was Jameson Williams who turned out to be the optimal captain in that one. What this tells us is that the salary multiplier on DraftKings is doing its job and they are pricing him well enough to force people to make a decision. He is projected to carry nearly twice the ownership of the next closest option on the slate as a CPT and is the clear optimal selection in the spot. The key decision point for us is that McCaffrey was fully healthy in those games and still did not turn out as optimal. He has been battling both a calf and Achilles injury throughout the preseason and training camp and the Niners don’t really have any incentive to overburden him in this spot. He will still get his requisite 15-20 touches, but will that stretch to 25? We would doubt he has that upside here. He averaged 21.9 touches per game last year, so we are talking something in the neighborhood of a 10-15% decrease. As a result, we are far less keen on just blindly following the sheep and captaining Christian. We would much rather just flex him for the raw point total and keep things moving. You also can use Jordan Mason as a flex option in this one. Elijah Mitchell is out for San Francisco and he will be Christian’s backup. He should spell him and receive a few carries after a very successful preseason. If McCaffrey were to reinjure himself, Mason would smash. We wouldn’t play them in the same lineup in all likelihood as their ceiling games limit the other significantly.
One final thing to call out: It is important to note that anybody you play in the CPT spot that is not McCaffrey will be a GPP play by nature and we called that out in the header. On FD, without the salary multiplier, it will be harder not to play McCaffrey in the MVP spot given the point floor he possesses, but we do think it is viable to slide another one of the studs in there.
With that in mind, we will continue our analysis of the 49ers by starting with their signal caller, Brock Purdy. This is a brutal matchup for Brock, who had one of the largest discrepancies between expected fantasy points and actual fantasy points we have ever laid eyes on last season. The Jets pass defense is elite as they ranked 4th in DVOA against the pass and 5th in pressure rate a year ago. Given his struggles against elite defenses last season, we are not super keen on his upside in a game we think could turn into a defensive struggle. He is best served as a flex play at best.
Out wide, the Niners sport a number of strong options to consider and they begin with the dynamic duo of Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk. Aiyuk concerns us. He just signed his extension a short while ago and did not get much, if any, practice prior to this one. We just saw Ja’Marr Chase do very little in this same spot. Wilson primarily plays on the outside and that will force him to contend with both Sauce Gardner and Michael Carter, two top 10 corners according to PFF last season. While he is always viable to catch a TD, this feels like a spot where he will be somewhat limited and not worth the full price you will have to pay for him. We would much rather pay the slight premium and get exposure to Samuel, a player the Niners move all around the formation and also hand the ball off to as well. He will not have a consistent matchup against the outside corners of the Jets and that should help free him up to cause ruckus. With Samuel priced $2k below McCaffrey on DraftKings, that turns into a $3k difference in the CPT spot and makes him a strong pivot off Christian in GPPs. Jauan Jennings is going to be the WR3 for SF with Ricky Pearsall on IR after getting shot while being robbed. Jennings is not somebody to get fired up about as he is priced relatively highly and only managed double-digit fantasy points in 2/13 games last year. We would use him as a GPP flex play only. Ronnie Bell is the WR4 and probably will score 0. However, he is min priced and only needs to catch a single ball to return value for you. He grades out as the best point-per-dollar option in our projections tonight and is the best flex punt play available, but that certainly doesn’t mean you need to use him, it’s just a product of costing nothing.
We saved the best for last. George Kittle is our favorite of the Niners offensive weapons tonight. There are currently five players projecting for more ownership as a CPT than he is and he is projecting for just about a quarter of CMC’s ownership up top. He is a really hard player to pin the tail on because he seems to either dud or go nuclear without much middle ground to speak of. The Niners seem to pick and choose their spots to deploy him as a pass catcher versus as a blocker, and we think this is clearly a spot to send him out on routes. The overwhelmingly best part of the defensive scheme for the Jets is their corners outside. They tend to over-rotate towards taking away receivers at the expense of other areas and the tight end is one of those spots. Last year, they allowed the 12th most points to opposing tight ends and the Niners would be wise to cut him loose. For that reason, we think he is best used as a GPP CPT option and not as a flex option simply because if you do use him, you are banking on him going off. If he isn’t doing that, he’s often very mediocre in the flex. That being said, he’s of course an acceptable flex play as one of the Jets studs could also go off as your captain. On FanDuel, you don’t save any salary by putting Kittle in the MVP spot, so it’s very GPP to do it there.
On the other side, the Jets are excited to have the band at full-strength after Aaron Rodgers saw his season end immediately in their opener last year with his Achilles tear. He is now 40 years old and we are essentially two seasons removed from seeing him play at full speed in a live game. The 49ers defense allowed the 3rd fewest points per game in the league last season, so this is not a spot where you have to feel compelled to jam in Aaron. One of the concerns we do have about him is what Kirk Cousins looked like for Atlanta this weekend. He was pretty stiff and was not as good as he once was in that game. That being said, Rodgers injured the other foot which is typically less of a hindrance for planting and throwing, and he was never much of a runner to begin with, so it’s possible that it won’t hold him back too much. Rodgers is much older though and is facing a gauntlet of a defense that will be in his face the entirety of the game. Like Purdy, we would primarily use him in the flex for his raw point floor, and we don’t think he has much upside as a passer.
Breece Hall is an excellent option this evening. In what very well may be a rough and tumble, defensive minded affair, Hall’s performances for an offensively challenged Jets squad last year give us a ton of confidence in his ability to produce for an offense that might be struggling to move the ball. If there is one spot to attack the SF defense, it is with the run. They ranked 15th in DVOA and 26th in EPA against the run last year. This is pretty sneaky because they allowed the 4th-fewest fantasy points to RBs last season, so most people would look at the rankings and think it was a bad spot to target. The reason for the disconnect is the Niners were often obliterating teams last year and that took them away from running the ball. However, as the stats show, when they were running it, they were doing so successfully. This game has a 3.5 point spread, which clearly tells us that Vegas is anticipating it being close. Hall is one of the best pivots off CMC in the CPT/MVP spot. Braelon Allen is his backup and can also be used as a flex play as he should see a couple of carries here. Him and Mason project similarly and we would most likely use just one of them at most given how thin the scenario where both produce would be.
On the edges, Garrett Wilson is another terrific option. He and Rodgers never got to play together last season but we have been very high on his upside coming into this year given how well he produced with the Bad News Bears at quarterback for the Jets last year. Hufanga and Ambry Thomas both are going to miss this one for the Niners, so they do have a bit of a weakness in the secondary to speak of. They allowed the 3rd-most receptions per game to their opponents last year, primarily because they were constantly winning games and forcing teams to throw, so Wilson has added appeal on a site like DK that is full PPR. Like Hall, he makes for a great GPP pivot at CPT as well. Mike Williams is working his way back from injury, and will play, but is expected to be limited here. That significantly hurts his upside in a tougher matchup. It is still possible he catches a bomb here as he has been known to do, but we would reserve him for flex consideration. You wouldn’t have Aaron Rodgers on a team without Allen Lazard. He is FAR too cheap at just $2k on DK and it would not be shocking to see Rodgers fall back on an old friend when under pressure tonight. If you were to tell us Lazard saw 6-7 targets in this one, we would not be surprised in the slightest, especially because Williams is not at full strength. For his price, that is exceptional upside and he can also be deployed as a GPP punt at CPT given the work he should see. At a bare minimum, he is one of the best cheaper options to choose from. Finally, we have the Conk Daddy, Tyler Conklin. He is projected the exact same in terms of point-per-dollar value as Lazard, he is just projected for around 50% more ownership than Allen. That makes him the optimal value choice on the slate while Lazard is the GPP pivot. It is entirely viable to pair them together if you wanted to snag their value and we do not think you would then have to play Rodgers. They are both cheap enough to pay themselves off and then some with just receptions and yards, or one touchdown, but Rodgers would need significantly more to be optimal himself.
Finally, if it is not clear by now, we think this is the first game where kickers and defenses really could rule the day. On one side, we have a QB in Purdy that has been liable to melting down against great defenses. On the other, we have a 40 year old QB coming off a torn Achilles after we just saw a younger option (Cousins) play exceptionally poorly 24 hours ago. Either defense is firmly in play here. If we had to give a slight lean, it would be to the Jets D/ST, simply because we are hunting TDs and we think that Purdy is the more likely of the two to throw a pick 6. In terms of kickers, Jake Moody is our preferred selection. This does have the feel of a spot where the Niners may be able to move the ball a bit with the Jets D ultimately standing strong once in field goal range. Zuerlein is viable as he is slightly cheaper and projected for the same value as Moody. Best of luck tonight!