NFL DFS Week in Review – Ownership, GPP Winning Lineups

NFL Week 12 was expected to be a good one. Only one game on the Sunday main slate had a spread of greater than 4.5 points, and that was the Patriots -7.5 against the Titans. Not every game ended up living up to the billing, but there was still plenty of competitive football.

There was a couple of monster DFS performances this week, but there were some disappointing performances as well. Let’s dive into some of the biggest, along with some of the winning tournament lineups on both DraftKings and FanDuel.

Winners

Leonard Fournette

Last week belonged to Jonathan Taylor, but Fournette stole the show in Week 12. He was facing Taylor and the Colts, and he put together a monster performance. Fournette finished with 100 rushing yards, seven receptions, and 31 receiving yards, and he added four touchdowns for good measure. He ultimately finished with 47.1 DraftKings points, which was the highest fantasy total of the week.

LIke Taylor last week, Fournette also checked in with minimal ownership on DraftKings. He was owned in approximately 4.2% of tournament lineups, which made him a true slate-breaker. Ultimately, it was tough to win any of the large tournaments this week unless you had him in your lineups.

Bengals’ Offense

The Bengals racked up their third consecutive win against the Steelers, which is something they hadn’t previously done since 1990. Their offense was the biggest reason why. They racked up 41 points, so there was plenty of fantasy value to go around.

Joe Mixon led the way. He finished with 28 carries for 165 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, and he added four receptions in the passing game. He finished with 35.3 DraftKings points, which trailed only Fournette’s mark on Sunday.

Tee Higgins also put together his biggest game of the year. He had scored 17.0 DraftKings points or fewer in each of his previous eight games this season, but he exploded for 26.4 against the Steelers. He led the team with eight targets, which he parlayed into six catches for 114 yards and a touchdown. That made him the second-highest scoring receiver on the slate.

Jaylen Waddle

The Dolphins have quietly won four straight games, and their next two games are against the Giants and Jets. If they can win both of those contests, it will bring them back to .500 for the season. They remain longshots to make the postseason, but it’s a nice turnaround for Brian Flores and co after a disastrous start to the year.

They had a few winners on Sunday, but Waddle was the biggest. He racked up nine catches for 137 yards and a touchdown, which was his highest-scoring performance of the year. Waddle has had some excellent games in his rookie season, but he’s been overshadowed a bit by Ja’Marr Chase and Mac Jones.

Waddle was also a contrarian target on this slate, checking in with approximate ownership of 6.25% across DraftKings tournaments.

Also — shoutout to the Dolphins’ defense. They’ve been the driving force behind the team’s winning streak, and they put together 23 DraftKings points against the Panthers.

Losers

Christian McCaffrey

What a day to forget for McCaffrey. He had put together two strong performances over the past two weeks, finishing with at least 24.9 DraftKings points in both contests. That led to plenty of ownership for McCaffrey at $9,000 in Week 12, and he has historically provided excellent value with a comparable salary. He’s played 17 previous games with a similar price tag, and he’s averaged 26.24 DraftKings points in those contests.

Unfortunately, none of that mattered for those who rostered McCaffrey on Sunday. He finished with 10 carries for 35 yards, and more surprisingly, he had zero catches on one target. It wasn’t entirely his fault — he played just one snap in the second half after suffering an ankle injury — but that won’t provide any comfort to his fantasy owners.

Chris Godwin & Mike Evans

If I told you that the Buccaneers scored 38 points on Sunday, I’m sure you would’ve expected one of Godwin or Evans to put together a big game. You’d be wrong. Godwin finished with just four catches for 24 yards, while Evans had three catches for 16 yards. Neither player scored a touchdown either, so it was a disastrous day for both players.

That disappointed a lot of DFS players. Godwin checked in with the second-highest ownership on DraftKings at approximately 24.6%, while Evans garnered 9.6% ownership. Godwin also tanked a lot of Buccaneers’ stacks.

All of the Buccaneers’ fantasy value went to Fournette and Rob Gronkowski, who continues to dominate when he suits up. He led the team with 10 targets and racked up seven catches for 123 yards.

Chalk Defenses

Playing chalk defenses is seldom advised in NFL DFS, and it went horribly for those who did that in Week 12. More than 50% of the field rostered either the Texans or Jaguars on DraftKings and those units combined for just nine points. That’s simply not going to get the job done.

If you rostered one of those teams, it put you well behind the 8-ball compared to those who went with the Dolphins, Bengals (19.0 DKFP), or Broncos (17.0 DKFP). All three of those squads were priced similarly to the chalk defenses, but they checked in with a fraction of the ownership.

Predicting defenses is a fool’s errand, which is why fading the top units is almost always the correct theory from a game theory perspective. Even if the Texans’ D went off against the Jets, you’d still have to compete with the other approximately 35% of users who rostered them. 

Winning tournament lineups

NFL $3.5M Fantasy Football Millionaire

This lineup was able to survive one clunker — Robby Anderson finished with just 2.5 DraftKings points — but that’s the power of being contrarian. If you have a bunch of players in your lineup that goes off at low ownership, it allows you to survive a snowflake or two.

Saying this lineup had the right contrarian options is an understatement. It had the three highest-scoring players on the slate in Fournette, Mixon, and Waddle, and they also had the top defense in the Dolphins.

The rest of this lineup is filled out by Gronkowski, who was simply too cheap to ignore at $4,400, and a Rams stack featuring Matthew Stafford, Darrell Henderson, and Odell Beckham Jr. None of those players truly went off, but they all did well enough for their respective salaries.

NFL $1.25M Wildcat

This tournament features a $333 buy-in, so it’s a hybrid between the low stakes and the high-stakes tournaments. That means you don’t have to be quite as perfect to have the winning lineup.

This lineup certainly wasn’t perfect. Tim Patrick and Mo Alie-Cox combined for just 6.2 DraftKings points, while Dalvin Cook failed to return value before getting injured. They also got just six points from the Falcons defense, which was well behind the top defenses on the slate.

However, the rest of this lineup was fantastic. It had the trio of Fournette, Mixon, and Waddle, and they also got the top quarterback performance of the week from Aaron Rodgers. Van Jefferson was also a great play at just $4,900, finishing with 93 yards and a touchdown and just narrowly missing a second score.

$1.5M NFL Sunday Million

There wasn’t much overlap between the big FanDuel winner and the big DraftKings winner this week. Both lineups unsurprisingly had Fournette, but the only other common plays were Gronkowski and the Dolphins D.

This team got excellent production from their quartet of wide receivers. Higgins, Adam Thielen, Kendrick Bourne, and Deebo Samuel each finished with between 20.3 and 20.7 FanDuel points, thanks in part to eight total touchdowns.

Samuel’s stat line was particularly unique, with the wide receiver finishing with just one catch for 12 yards. He did most of his damage as a running back, totaling 66 rushing yards and two scores. That added wrinkle gives him an additional way to score points that is unmatched at the position.

This lineup also rode a nice game from Austin Ekeler, while Tyrod Taylor did just enough to lead this team to victory. The margin of victory was just 0.02 fantasy points, so this contest was an absolute nail-biter.