Welcome in to a new year of Ben’s NFL DFS Building Blocks for DraftKings and FanDuel! In this article, I will highlight my favorite NFL DFS plays at each position for small-field tournament formats. If you’re interested in signing up for premium access, which grants you Core Plays for every slate, projections, Final Thoughts player pool + expert picks and our premium Discord click HERE. You can also sign up for our plethora of AI-driven sports betting tools and access to my weekly betting card by clicking HERE. Let’s get into the plays…
It was an amazing start to the NFL season with my premium Core Plays taking down tournaments on the first slate of the season!
Quarterback
This is a strange Week 11 slate, with most big name QB’s off the slate there is chalk concentrating more so than we usually see at the QB position. Brock Purdy and Kyler Murray are both projecting for over 15% ownership right now, with CJ Stroud not far behind at 13%.
Purdy and Murray are both viable in all formats and I will likely have one of them in my cash game build. I prefer Stroud from the high-owned group for tournaments and I will have exposure to him this weekend.
As for the lower-owned stacks – I will be looking to build around offenses that I like this weekend – particularly Dallas and Miami. I’ve written about Dak Prescott stacks in this article a ton the last few weeks and I won’t be stopping this week. Dallas could easily blow out the Panthers, but as we’ve seen twice recently Dak will likely have a big hand in that blowout. More people will be playing Tony Pollard than a Dak/Lamb stack so I will once again consider the Cowboys in my three-max contests.
This is a great spot for Miami at home off their bye week, the healthiest they’ve been since October. They are getting a dynamic playmaker in De’Von Achane back that can really help this offense, and we love to target the Dolphins at home. Las Vegas has played great ball since firing Josh McDaniels, but asking them to slow down this offense on the road is another story. This season, Tua Tagovailoa has had some very stark home/road splits. At home, he is averaging 9.1 yards per attempt with 12:4 TD:INT compared to 7.9 and 7:4 marks on the road. A Miami onslaught is firmly in play for me this weekend.
I also want exposure to one of the best games on the slate — DET/CHI. This game has one of the highest totals on the board at 48 and I think there are several ways to attack it. You can easily go with a Fields-Moore/Kmet-ARSB stack or you can side with a Goff double stack and a Bears bring back. I haven’t decided what I’ll be playing yet, but I will be stacking this game on one of my teams. Goff is another guy that has severe home/road splits so I may lean towards him – but anytime you can get a 5% owned Justin Fields it has to be in consideration.
I also will be considering Josh Allen in GPPs, he could benefit from a switch to Joe Brady at OC and he is one of the few QB’s on this slate with a 40 DK point ceiling.
Running Back
Running back is absolutely loaded this week, with several strong mid-tier plays in addition to Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler at the top-end prices.
Devin Singletary, Tony Pollard, Breece Hall, Aaron Jones, Travis Etienne and Brian Robinson are all projecting for double-digit ownership this weekend. Singletary and Robinson (Gibson out) lead the way. I’m actually pretty content with the chalk plays this week, and will be considering all of those guys in my GPP builds minus Breece Hall. Hall can break the slate, but this Jets offense isn’t good enough to scare me and if he’s going to be owned I would much rather target the others guys in his price range.
People have been falling over themselves to play Tony Pollard recently, but after a stretch of bad games the public is starting to get cold feet. Pollard had a TD called back two weeks ago, and was down inside the five twice last week. I still believe a multi-TD game is on the horizon, and against one of the worst run defenses in football is when I want to attack him.
Two tourney plays I really like this week are De’Von Achane and Jerome Ford.
Achane is making his return from injury, and it appears that he is fully healthy. He is one of the fastest players on the planet, and I played him regularly pre-injury. He’s never going to get the volume of some lead backs, but the ceiling is too good for me to pass up when he is going to be low-ish owned. As long as he is projected to come in under 10% I want to play him – and I think you can easily stack him with Tua in tournaments.
Ford is someone I’ve been fading hard, but he has started to look like the player the Browns drafted the last two weeks. He also is finally getting red zone touches, and I expect a run-heavy script from the Browns here. Ford + Browns DST is a great GPP mini stack.
Wide Receiver
Given the lack of expensive QB plays, the high-end WR’s will be popping for ownership and this week that is Tyreek Hill and Amon-Ra St. Brown. In Addition to that, there is a severe lack of value which is forcing high ownership onto both Michael Wilson and Rondale Moore. Tank Dell, Hollywood Brown, Christian Kirk and DJ Moore are also are projecting for high-ownership in the mid-tier.
Given my interest in the Dolphins and Lions games, I will be playing into the Tyreek Hill and ARSB chalk this week. Hill in particular is my preferred play on the slate – he has averaged nearly 30 DK points per game at home this season.
CeeDee Lamb is once again projecting for 10% ownership despite his recent run of monster games. I will be playing him on my Dak Prescott team – and running it back with Adam Thielen. Thielen in particular could benefit from Frank Reich returning to playcalling duties this weekend. Reich was calling the plays early this season when Thielen was getting fed – and the Panthers could return to that in Week 11.
Other players making my player pool this week are Nico Collins, Garrett Wilson, Puka Nacua, Cooper Kupp, Deebo Samuel, Stefon Diggs, Christian Watson and Jalen Guyton.
For stacking purposes:
Stroud + Tank + one off Collins/Schultz + McBride or one of the cheap WRs.
Purdy + CMC + Deebo + Chris Godwin
Dak + CeeDee + Thielen
Tua + Achane + Hill + Meyers or Mayer
Allen + Diggs + Wilson
Tight End
We once again have clear chalk at TE in Week 11, with Trey McBride coming off a dominate performance in Kyler Murray’s return. McBride went over 20 DK points last week against the Falcons, and will be the highest owned player at his position this week against Houston. We currently have him projected for over 40% ownership on DraftKings. After McBride — Evan Engram, Dalton Schultz, and Cole Kmet round out the top-four in pOWN%, with Dalton Kincaid catching a double-digit % as well.
I typically try to avoid chalk at this position in tourneys, but it’s really tough to ignore McBride this week. There’s a chance that he is a $5,500 TE and we are still getting him at a $4,400 price tag. He can be used in all formats this week, and makes for an easy mini-stack with a Texans player.
Engram is an easy fade for me as chalk. While Schultz and Kincaid are better off in stacks for me.
The guy I really want to be overweight on this week is Donald Parham. He is cheap, and should be increased routes with Gerald Everett out. Despite playing behind Everett this season, he is still tied for 4th in the NFL in targets inside the 10 yard line. He has seen a huge red zone role without Mike Williams, and there is room for that to grow further with Everett now out.
Jake Ferguson, Chig Okonkwo, Michael Mayer and Logan Thomas all crack my player pool as well, but I’ll be prioritizing my stacks here most likely.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
