With the Thanksgiving slate on Thursday, we have a bit of an appetizer before the main course on Sunday. This week’s slate features our usual 11 games with eight in the early window and three for the late slate. I wanted to start this week by taking a look at the offenses with the highest explosive play rates over the past month or so.
Game Stack of the Week
This week, we have a game with a 55.5 point total and just a 3-point spread. Both of the teams featured in the Chiefs – Buccaneers game are in the top half of explosive pass rate. High total, close spread games are always enticing because they have the potential to really shootout as one offense pushes the other to continue to attack.
I’ve done some work on the correlations in these games and one of the biggest jumps you see in games that fit the high total (54+) and close games (spread of 4 or lower) is with the QB-WR2 stack. Based on last week’s usage, that would be Demarcus Robinson ($3,700). Mecole Hardman ($4,200) seemed to be eased back in after being activated from the COVID-19 list, playing just 17 snaps. That opened up plenty of usage for Robinson as he saw eight targets and was on the field for 63-of-78 snaps.
The Chiefs have this kid under center named Patrick Mahomes ($8,000). If you want to afford him, you’ll need to find savings. What better way to find salary relief than using a secondary receiving option on his own team? Speaking of alternative options, can I interest you in some Antonio Brown ($5,700)?
Brown has moved right in, both with the Brady Family and the Buccaneers depth chart. His usage has steadily increased each game he’s been active, culminating in a 13-target game on Monday night. You can obviously use the premier pieces on both sides of this game, as well, but if you’re looking for some salary relief Brown and Robinson are interesting options to build a GPP team around.
Mini-Game Stack
Sometimes, it’s necessary to pay up for a stack. Keenan Allen ($8,000) had 19 targets last week. 19. The Chargers won the game without it ever really being in doubt, and they still targeted him 19 times. Allen turned that into 16 receptions for nearly 150 yards and added a touchdown as the cherry on top.
It’s easy to say that Keenan Allen wins where a defense is at its worst because his entire heatmap is essentially deep red. Stacking him with Justin Herbert ($7,200) makes sense for obvious reasons. He’s coming off of his first 30+ DK Point effort in a month and is on a streak of seven straight games with multiple touchdowns.
On the other side of this game, Stefon Diggs ($7,600) is the first, second, and third option for Josh Allen ($7,600). Having over 100 targets while your next closest teammate has 67 is true alpha status and Diggs needs to be treated as such.
(Almost) Min-Priced Wide Receiver?! (Almost) Min-Priced Wide Receiver!
This will be the final week that we get Denzel Mims ($3,500) at this price. Over the past month, he’s averaging 6.5 targets. Over the season, that’s the same volume that Mike Evans is seeing in 2020 and just over Justin Jefferson’s season-long number. I’m not saying that he is necessarily the same caliber player as those two wideouts, but we have to follow the volume. The Jets are 7-point underdogs to the Dolphins.
They’re pretty bad no matter how you slice it, but the Fightin’ Adam Gases are pretty pass-heavy once they get into second and third downs. We’ll just have to cheer for two yards and a cloud of dust on first down so that they’re forced to throw.
