NFL DFS Tournament Takes & Leverage Points: Week 2 (Fantasy Football)

This year, I’m personally writing our Tournament Takes article as a chance to dive into how I’m approaching roster percentages and my exposure in large field GPPs.

I’ll discuss our Roster Percentage Report and where I differ from it, discuss ways to gain leverage on the field, and any other slate-specific thoughts.

I don’t want to simply repeat what I’ve done throughout the week so here are those articles if you need a chance to catch up:

As always, the best place to receive immediate feedback and discussion is in our #dfs Discord channels for JointheFoot.com members.

Roster Percentage Thoughts

My goal is to walk position-by-position through our Roster Percentage Report and talk through the most popular players. Our DFS Optimizer is a great place to compare projections, roster percentage, and overall game environments for GPPs. These percentages are based estimates using historical averages in large field tournaments.

Quarterbacks

• This is a very different slate than Week 1. With 4 of the top-5 fantasy QBs on the slate, expect the roster percentages to remain relatively flat with Lamar taking the cake from cash lineup overlap.
• For Burrow stacks, you do need to figure out how to get somewhat different with all of his top-3 options carrying a ton of roster percentage. It can work, but figure out how to get different elsewhere either with different bring-backs from the Browns side (Njoku? Tillman?) or your secondary stacks in other games.
• Notice that Jalen Hurts is NOT in the mix making him one of my favorite tournament plays of the week. He was the cover boy for Aaron Larson’s FanDuel GPP article.
• Mac Jones + CMC is going to show up in small field tourneys as a combined $11,500 salary needs to hit only 46 combined DK points to 4x.
• It is somewhat surprising to see Trevor Lawrence as high as he is given his performance last week.

Running Backs

• All bow down to CMC! We are playing him in cash but man, if ever there was a week to go underweight in tournaments, the roster percentages say you have a ton to gain. Call it an emotional hedge but after having CMC everywhere in redraft, my stance is play him in cash and likely half that (15%) in my tournament exposure.
• Kyren’s roster percentage feels a touch feel. The road matchup against a historically stout TEN rush defense makes me pause. Kyren’s skillset is better for FanDuel as an inefficient pass-catcher. I’ll be underweight on DK.
• I can’t argue with Chase Brown, Gibbs, or Achane given their elite receiving work. I’ll meet the field there.
• Beyond those elite guys, I like James Conner a ton as a heavy home favorite against the league’s worst defense and Jonathan Taylor was one of Betz’s slate breakers. Playing RBs who are under-rostered because of a matchup (DEN) is a great way to gain leverage.
• Further down the board, Travis Etienne Jr. is not catching as much roster percentage as I would’ve thought. He’s viable in Burrow bring-backs or TLaw stacks.
• There are a lot of legit RBs like Breece Hall pushed aside this week. I am a fan in tournaments as a Price Point Pivot from the more popular Kyren Williams.
• Let’s throw some RB darts: David Montgomery can be a wipeout pick in the CHI/DET game, TreVeyon Henderson intrigues me, and RJ Harvey is worth a couple of shots in tourneys.

Wide Receivers

• I stopped the list above at 10% but there are so many routes this week. Be mindful of common combinations that you’ve simply copied over from a cash pool. GPPs are about game stacking and building from there, not the same group of guys who project well at their median outcomes.
• The CIN chalk is tough to decipher but Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins carry very little correlation (0.04) over their last 13 games together. I won’t be playing them together with that roster percentage loaded up. Chase Brown, on the other hand, correlates best with Burrow (0.32) and Ja’Marr Chase (0.29) making that 3-pack on my to-do list.
• Puka is a tough play on the road for me. He correlates quite negatively with the LAR DST (-0.53) making those two chalky plays not playable together.
• Zay Flowers will be part of Lamar stacks AND as a Flacco bring back.
• I’ve struggled with how to approach Hollywood Brown. My gut reaction is come in underweight and only employ him as a bring-back from PHI stacks, which should be less popular. He played a ton in the slot (52%) and with Xavier Worthy being declared out, it feels like he will get clicked a ton.
• Someone explain to me Calvin Ridley and Ricky Pearsall? They feel quite risky given the QB play to be steamed up this high.

Tight Ends

• I plan on being pretty flat in my TE exposure this week apart from boosting guys like Mark Andrews and Tyler Warren. The guys that are showing as the highest rostered (McBride, Fannin, Kelce) are not paired with QBs I plan on attacking with. In that instance, I have to decide to play them as one-offs (McBride), go underweight (Fannin), or only as a bring-back (Kelce).
• I give some thoughts on the TE position below in the leverage section if you find yourself in the common trap of punting off the position. I like the middle range (Sub $5k) as a chance to find 6+ targets (hello Tyler Warren) at a fraction of the cost of others.
• At $3,900, Jonnu Smith is totally forgotten this week in a game you likely did not remember was even on this slate.
• Note: Ignore the Dallas Goedert projection that might still be in the optimizer or roster percentage report. He is zeroed out in our projections.

DSTs

Get weird folks! I wish I had a strong tournament take on defense but I give it very little thought until the end of my lineups. My exposures will be relatively flat but my favorite contrarian for tournaments: SEA, DAL, DET, and NYJ.

Leverage on the Field

IMPORTANT NOTE: These leverage plays should NOT be all played together.  Dear lord, I had to say that or someone will message me saying “hey I did everything you said in that leverage section and my lineup was doo doo“.

Chalk isn’t all bad in DFS: there is a reason these players are projecting as popular plays. However, finding one spot in your lineup to create leverage and differentiate yourself from other lineups might be all you need.

Creating leverage is all about knowing what the public is thinking about a specific slate. We must pick and choose our spots wisely.

Every week I will look back at the previous week to see if anything was helpful (and for accountability reasons

Here are my favorite leverage plays in GPPs for this week:

Fade the Chalky, Cheap TEs – You are going to see the redraft waiver wire darlings of the week (Harold Fannin Jr., Juwan Johnson, and Brenton Strange) likely be popular tournaments plays. There are so many directions to go at TE so in large fields, I plan on pivoting to guys like Mark Andrews (Lamar stacks), Tyler Warren (because duh!), and Sam LaPorta. Honestly, David Njoku and Cedric Tillman are both solid plays as well for leverage on Fannin.

Believe the Dolphins are Back!  For Real This Time!– Wait didn’t you say this last week Kyle?! Yeah I know what I said and I know what the results were but I don’t care! Tua, Tyreek, and Waddle are all completely abandoned this week despite Achane once again being a cash game consideration. Flipping the builds (Maye stacks + Achane) to something contrarian (Tua double stacks + TreVeyon) is betting on a lot of the game factors Betz discussed on the podcast.

Play Some Eagles– I wrote this up in the Best Plays but it is worth repeating. From Saquon Barkley being off our minds to Hurts stacks (love DeVonta Smith as always), that game slowly is growing in my mind as one to target. I mentioned Hurts’ splits and the game is in that beautiful 45-48 window where the field doesn’t quite know what to do.

Onslaught Stacks– The Ravens offense certainly profiles as an onslaught stack you could lean into this week. Whenever you deploy 3-4 players from one side, you invite a huge amount of risk. But in large field tournaments, lineups that sport a chalky Lamar can get different by adding more than one piece. Lamar is a great example because traditionally he is “skinny stacked” with someone like Zay Flowers or Mark Andrews because we are banking on his legs producing enough for him to outdistance himself from the rest of the field. Onslaught stacks allow you to differentiate your lineup from the field. I also don’t mind go overweight Bengals (as in 4 total pieces).

Price Point Pivots– We mention this a lot as a large field strategy but finding players. Here are a few of my favorites that you can mix in sparingly, especially in 20-max or 150 sets.