Every Sunday in the weekly fantasy chats, I get asked about my favorite plays of the week or who is in my player pool that weekend for DFS.
This article series covers exactly that.
Every week, I will go through the players I am targeting to play in DFS for all games, tournaments, and game stacks.
The idea is that this will paint a clearer picture of framing lineups.
Week 7 DFS Content:
| Week 18 DFS Picks |
|---|
| Core Plays |
| Tournament Picks |
| Best Game Stacks |
It is not that tournament players cannot be used in cash games.
If a player here works out for your team structure in cash games surrounding your primary core, use them.
These are just the players that come with some element of inherent risk but are the primary players that I still want to be ahead of the field compared to the percentage of rosters they are projected to make this weekend.
I will analyze the player selections and game writeups, but for a detailed breakdown of the players and games, check out the Week 7 Worksheet.
Quarterback
Jordan Love ($6,900 DraftKings/$8,700 FanDuel)
Ending the week as QB3 (25.6 points), Love has delivered three QB1 scoring weeks over his four starts, with a low week only as QB14.
Houston has been a mixed bag defensively to open the year.
They have only allowed 6.2 yards per pass attempt (3rd) while allowing a league-low 53.3% completion rate.
However, Houston is 25th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.458). When passes have been completed, they have allowed a 6.7% touchdown rate (29th) and 11.6 yards per completion (26th).
Throwing touchdowns is what Love does.
He leads the NFL with an 8.2% touchdown rate.
While that rate is undoubtedly set to come down, Love was 5th in the NFL with a 5.5% touchdown rate in 2023.
He is building out an extended sample of outproducing his touchdown expectations.
Jared Goff ($6,500/$7,800)
Over his past three games, Goff has completed a league-high 81.8% (54-of-66) of his passes for a league-high 12.2 yards per pass attempt with 7 touchdowns and 1 interception.
He has been a top-5 fantasy scorer in his past two starts against the Seahawks (27.2 points) and Cowboys (25.1 points).
Minnesota has faced several good passing games to open the season and ranks 5th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.303), allowing 6.3 Y/A (5th), a 60.3% completion rate (4th), and 10.4 yards per completed pass (13th).
That is not a glowing endorsement for this matchup, but there are paths to fantasy points here.
Brian Flores did what he did against everyone versus Goff last year.
Minnesota blitzed him on 73.0% of his dropbacks, their highest blitz rate versus any quarterback they faced multiple times.
They played zone coverage on 72.7% of those dropbacks behind the blitzes, playing Cover-3 on 41.6%.
The Vikings pressured Goff 33.8% of those dropbacks, which was critical to his success when they slowed him down.
When Minnesota pressured Goff, he was 9-of-23 (39.1%) for 4.7 Y/A in those games.
When they did not pressure Goff, he completed 44 of 49 (89.8%) passes for 9.6 yards per attempt and 3 touchdowns.
This game could be an outright shootout. Goff is hot, and if Minnesota does not pressure him, you see the efficiency he is capable of.
The Vikings have had much play-by-play success against the pass, but they have allowed Brock Purdy and Jordan Love to have 300-yard passing games.
Sam Darnold ($6,200/$7,500)
I do want to play both sides of the Minnesota/Detroit game.
Despite the down week in London, Darnold still leads all quarterbacks in passing points per attempt (0.587).
Detroit has allowed one or fewer passing touchdowns in every game this season, so this is not as clean.
But we do have the loss of Aidan Hutchinson.
Hutchinson was the league leader in pressures (45), which was 10 more than the next closest pass rusher this season.
25.0% of his snaps as a pass rusher generated pressure—no player with as many pass rush snaps as Hutchinson had a higher rate.
When the Lions have pressured the opposing passer, they have allowed a 49.2% completion rate (15th), 5.0 yards per attempt (9th), and a first down or touchdown on 26.2% of those attempts 915th).
When they have not generated pressure, Detroit has allowed a 71.5% completion rate (18th), 7.3 Y/A (15th), and a first down or touchdown on 35.8% of those attempts (20th).
We also should see many dropbacks for Darnold to stack counting stats.
The Lions face 40.4 pass attempts per game, the third-most in the league.
Running Back
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