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!
This will be a condensed version of my article for the Week 12 main slate. Be sure to tune into the Sunday morning livestream for any updated last thoughts on the slate!
Quarterback
Highest pOWN% QB’s: Justin Fields, Nick Mullens, Geno Smith
My Conviction Plays: Justin Fields, Nick Mullens. Joe Flacco, Kyler Murray, Trevor Lawrence (if in), Taylor Heinicke
We have a small 9 game main slate this weekend, which presents us with limited options across the board. The first thing I noticed about this smaller slate, was that Vegas was really respecting Chicago and Atlanta here. Chicago comes into this week featuring a 23.5 team total while Atlanta is showing 24…those are in line with the Detroit Lions number of 24 and higher than everyone on the slate minus the Dolphins. It makes sense, though, Matt Eberflus is coaching for his job, while Justin Fields is playing for his job as well. It’s the best possible match-up for them against the Cardinals defense, and I agree with the ownership that Fields is the best play on the slate.
Other than Justin Fields, I have to be interested in Taylor Heinicke here at home against the Colts. We have used QB’s for the Colts for weeks now, and it’s a really clean stack when you can plug in Hennessey + London for less than $10K in salary and jam in whatever else you want at other positions.
Flacco is a top option for me as well given how much Cleveland has been throwing the ball lately, while Mullens feels a bit over-owned now that we are approaching Sunday.
Fields is 100% my preferred spend-up, but I don’t hate looking at Kyler Murray on the opposite side of that game – or Trevor Lawrence/Baker Mayfield in a game-stack of TB/JAX.
For me, my main teams this weekend will be Fields or Heinicke.
Running Back
Highest pOWN% RB’s: Ty Chandler, Rachaad White, Breece Hall, Devin Singletary, Chuba Hubbard, Bijan Robinson, Jonathan Taylor
My Conviction Plays: Ty Chandler (if Mattison out), Rachaad White, Breece Hall, Jonathan Taylor, Chubba Hubbard, Kenneth Walker, Tony Pollard, Roschon Johnson, DET RBs, MIA RBs
I have a bigger pool than normal at RB this week, because of the lack of CMC. When CMC is on the slate, I build most of my teams around him and then look at where I can potentially late-swap if I need to after the early games. With him off the slate, the most expensive RB on the slate is only $7,400 and it opens up a lot more when it comes to roster construction. It’s obviously going to be a mid-tier RB week, therefore I’m going to have to consider more options and will ultimately make decisions based off where final pOWN% numbers fall on Sunday AM.
As long as Mattison misses, I’m in agreement that White/Chandler/Hall are the best three RB plays on the slate and they will be staples throughout my builds. White has one of the safest roles in football, Chandler saw a huge workload last week sans Mattison and Hall has upside in a great spot vs WAS. It’s important to note that Hall has been night and day in games the Jets are winning vs losing this season. He’s been one of the most game-script dependent players and with this being a close spread it’s much more likely that he has a big game.
Jonathan Taylor looks fully healthy to me after being left off the final injury report – and with Zack Moss injured I think he makes for an interesting run-back on an ATL stack.
Guys I want to be overweight on this week are Kenneth Walker and Tony Pollard. DFS players are very accustomed to fading RBs vs Tennessee – but I don’t think that is the case anymore. TEN was eliminated from the playoff race last week – and will be missing multiple key defenders especially on the d-line. SEA is very motivated to win here – and with most looking to attack the passing game I want to build with Walker for leverage. I also like Pollard in the highest total on the slate.
I also want to consider Roschon Johnson on non-Fields teams in larger-field contests. It’s an amazing match-up for him on the ground vs AZ – and he is coming off a huge 59% snap-share game. I think it’s time for CHI to unleash him – and I’m going to bet him ATD at +320.
Wide Receiver
Highest pOWN% WR’s: Justin Jefferson, DJ Moore, Drake London, Garrett Wilson, Tyler Lockett, Jonathan Mingo, Jaxon Smith-Njigba
My Conviction Plays: TYREEK HILL, Michael Pittman, DJ Moore, Drake London, DeAndre Hopkins, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Parker Washington, GB WRs, Jameson Williams
The biggest stance for me this week, is getting way above the field on Tyreek Hill. This could burn me, maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t understand the ownership projection of 8% on the best fantasy WR in the highest total game on the slate. He sat out last week, and it’s clear the field is worried about his health coming into this game. In my opinion, since he sat last week, there is no reason he wouldn’t sit again if he wasn’t fully ready to go. He’s clearly still chasing 2,000 receiving yards, and this is the lowest he is going to be owned since the first month of the season. Given the amount of cheap stacks available this week – I’m making him a priority play in all formats.
Outside of Reek, I’ll be mainly focusing on stacks per usual. Fields to DJ Moore and/or Kmet and Heinicke to London.
One-off and mini’s I like are getting DeAndre Hopkins opposite Kenneth Walker. Nuk has made it clear he wants to get 1K yards, and he is 79 shy right now.
I also love Parker Washington this week for his price, with Christian Kirk and Zay Jones both out for JAX. I thought he would be chalky coming into the week, but it looks like he won’t be so I’m looking to pair him up with Rachaad White.
Tight End
Highest pOWN% TE’s: Trey McBride, David Njoku, Cole Kmet, TJ Hockenson
My Conviction Plays: Trey McBride, David Njoku, Cole Kmet, TJ Hockenson, Tucker Kraft
Week 16 gives us some concentrated ownership on some of the more expensive TE plays, mainly due to the lack of games and strong spend-ups at other positions like running backs. I’m pretty in line with the chalky plays this week, and would really only be adding Tucker Kraft to my pool. I’ve been playing McBride weekly for a month now, and after he single-handedly won me cash games in Week 15 I won’t be fading him against the Bears. Chicago’s defense has been playing out of this world since the addition of Montez Sweat, and you need to attack them through the air rather than on the ground. McBride has had the best role in football for a TE over the last five weeks, and that shouldn’t slow down with Hollywood Brown now out for the Cardinals.
Njoku has been smashing since the addition of Joe Flacco, and I think he is viable in all formats this week even with an increased salary. TJ Hockenson has a #REVENGE game against his former team, after dropping 6-77 on them last season. I prefer him to Jefferson in tournaments due to my interest in spending up on Tyreek Hill.
Kraft has been a legit replacement for Luke Musgrave and we saw the big play ability from him last week. He can be used as a one-off or in a mini-stack with Hubbard/Mingo.
Christmas Day Slate Core Plays
Top lays: Zamir White, Rashee Rice, Rashod Bateman
Top Stacks: Hurts-Goedert-Hyatt or Slayton, Lamar-Zay-Bateman-SF run-back
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
