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    Building a Winning DFS Lineups for Week 5: Identifying Stacks and Locks

    Every DFS slate is different. For the Week 5 main slate, two players jump out as elite options to build around!

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    With your normal slate of prime-time games, four teams on a bye, and a London game, the Week 5 main DFS player pool is a little thin this week.

    Good!

    The fewer the options, the sharper your lineup needs to be, and I’ve got some interesting trends and metrics that will give you an information edge over your competition.

    All stats are from TruMedia unless otherwise stated.

    Week 5 DFS Picks

    Let’s do things a little bit differently here. In this article, we will give you the final product before taking you through the ingredients and recipe below.

    DFS Game Stack: Cardinals at 49ers

    We’ve got MVP candidates squaring off in Houston and an AFC North showdown with plenty of firepower. However, at this moment, neither of those games has the highest projected total on the board for Week 5. That distinction belongs to the Arizona Cardinals vs. San Francisco 49ers game.

    I do a lot of research weekly surrounding upside and look to identify ideal spots. Sometimes, multiple opportunities present an opportunity, and other times, no one situation grades out as perfect.

    And then there is this week. This week, one single viable receiver checked every box I had highlighted, resulting in me going for a walk around the block to calm myself down from the excitement of the number-crunching pointing to one individual as my building block.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m a nerd. I get it. Some people get excitement out of a great view at the beach or a perfectly cooked steak. Me? I have this.

    Through four weeks, 17 times has a receiver scored at least 25 PPR points in a single game. That’s not a big sample at all, but in the ever-changing scope of play-calling in the NFL, it’s what we have that is applicable to how offenses are operating in 2024. Of those 17 instances …

    • 12 had at least 20% of their snaps come in the slot
    • 14 earned an on-field target share over 23
    • 15 had a double-digit aDOT

    League-wide, there are eight receivers this season who check all three of these boxes with their per-game averages. That’s obviously too many names to jam into a single lineup, but the Week 5 schedule does us a huge favor:

    Half of our qualifiers aren’t on the main slate, so even before we add one more qualifier, our player pool is chopped in half. The remaining names:

    That’s an interesting list. Jennings’ name is on the list because of a spike Week 3 with the 49ers gutted. In the other three games, his role doesn’t meet these thresholds, and with that being the case entering Week 5, let’s rule him out.

    Down to three.

    Remember those 17 high-scoring receiver games I mentioned earlier? In 12 of those instances, the opponent, for the season, ranks below average in pressure rate when blitzing. That may sound a little complicated, but the logic is strong — defenses that bring the heat and struggle to get home are susceptible to these big receiver games.

    • Tyreek Hill at Patriots (fifth in blitzing pressure rate)
    • Deebo Samuel vs. Cardinals (31st in blitzing pressure rate)
    • Malik Nabers at Seahawks (ninth in blitzing pressure rate)

    Now do you understand why I was excited about the returns on this rabbit hole?

    In Samuel’s top six games under Brock Purdy, his QB has averaged 20.3 fantasy points per game. At cost, that’ll work. If you want to narrow your range to the three most recent Samuel explosion spots, you’ll notice that Purdy averaged 308 passing yards with 10 touchdown passes and just one interception.

    If we get anything close to those numbers, we’re sitting pretty. We’re also putting several points on the board and asking the Cardinals to keep up. I don’t expect this 49ers stack to be overly chalky, and if it is, Marvin Harrison Jr. is likely to be a popular bring-back option. He’s clearly Arizona’s top option, but for 75% of his season up to this point, he’s underperformed.

    • Quarter 1: 50.7 points, 133.4% over expectation
    • Rest of the game: 12.6 points, 54.6% below expectation

    That doesn’t mean he can’t get home in this matchup, but I do think it’s a concern that creates more of a floor than you’d assume if strictly looking at the numbers he’s put on the board up to this point.

    Per the Week 5 Cheat Sheet, 71.1% of Greg Dortch’s routes have come from the slot, and the 49ers happen to own the fourth-highest opponent passer rating when throwing to that spot on the field (24 of 30 for 391 yards).

    Given the efficiency of the targets Dortch earns, approaching 15 PPR points in this favorable game script spot wouldn’t shock me.

    Building Block: Running Back

    I suspect that the trio I have rostered will be somewhat unique, and that gives me the freedom to evaluate the running back position as a whole and take the player who grades out the best for me without concern of ownership.

    Thank God. After working through this slate and crunching the numbers, I would have had a hard time talking myself out of Kenneth Walker III in this perfect spot against a Giants defense that is allowing a league-high 4.18 yards per carry after contact to RBs this season.

    That’s a simple stat that tells you what you know. This is a vulnerable defense, and we know that Walker has the potential to exploit such a spot. But just how favorable is this matchup? I’m glad you asked.

    The NFL is aware of how good Geno Smith is in play-action situations, which is gold for his star RB. Seattle wants to establish the run to position its quarterback to be efficient, and even after they do, the defense is handcuffed — they can’t sell out to slow the ground game:

    Since 2023, Geno Smith

    • Play-Action: 74.7% complete (third best)
    • Non-Play-Action: 64.3% complete (21st)

    Walker is the eighth-most expensive running back on the main slate at DraftKings this week, a range that can sometimes go overlooked.

    Paying up for Derrick Henry or Jordan Mason (we gain leverage on the Mason ownership via the Purdy/Samuel stack) is going to be the move for many, while paying down for Jerome Ford (at WAS) or D’Andre Swift (vs. CAR) is also going to be popular, leaving Walker potentially lesser owned despite the profile.

    Skinny Stack: Commanders vs. Browns

    I expect this to be the game where managers go overweight. It’s a logical spot, but if we can isolate two pieces that soak up usage, we can extract value from this game without mirroring how others are getting access to this high total spot.

    Brian Robinson Jr. has been great this season, and while the Browns’ defense is strong, their profile through four weeks this season isn’t as impressive as it was last season. Cleveland ranks 18th in the league in defensive EPA (expected points added) on first down, leaving them a little vulnerable in those predictable rush spots.

    If Washington can have success on first down (as most teams have in this matchup), this could be a big game for their running back in a spot where I expect much of our competition to bank on the Commanders’ passing game behind September’s breakout star.

    Through four weeks, Robinson ranks fifth in the league in percentage of carries gaining at least five yards after first down (48.1%) and second in rush EPA in such spots.

    This may feel like a bet against Jayden Daniels, but it’s not. In fact, to a degree, it’s the opposite.

    Robinson Rush Rates

    • Weeks 1-3: Loaded box on 35.6% of his carries
    • Week 4: Loaded box on 19% of his carries

    That’s only a one-week sample, but it wouldn’t surprise me if defenses back off the line of scrimmage with Daniels proving by the week to be more and more legit.

    If we are telling a story in which Robinson and the Commanders win this game, the Browns will need to play catch up. I actually think Jerry Jeudy is a reasonable roll of the dice to take in that vein, but based on how my roster came together, I didn’t have to go that far down the board.

    WR1s Against Washington

    • Week 1: Mike Evans (23.1 FP, WR6)
    • Week 2: Malik Nabers (28.7 FP, WR3)
    • Week 3: Ja’Marr Chase (29.8 FP, WR2)
    • Week 4: Marvin Harrison Jr. (15.5 FP, WR26)

    Even if you’re like me and believe that Jeudy’s stock is too low in the market right now, there’s no question as to who the WR1 is in Cleveland. If a fluky play or two goes a different direction last week, Amari Cooper’s stat line looks far more impressive — which likely results in a spike in ownership.

    With those dots being connected, we might get a minor discount in terms of popularity, even against one of the worst defenses in the sport.

    One-Off Spots

    This came down to two receivers for one spot and a clear cut tight end. Dontayvion Wicks (at LAR) and Keon Coleman (at HOU) were the two options left on my card when it came to filling my Flex role.

    I feel great about both. I think each carries some ownership in good spots, so I opted to target the player who I think has a higher ceiling and plays in the late wave, giving me pivot potential if need be.

    In Jordan Love’s return, Wicks racked up 215 air yards, the second most by a receiver this season and the most by a Packer not named Davante Adams over the past six years. He may have only hauled in five of 13 targets, but with Christian Watson sidelined, he’s clearly been identified as the field-stretching option in this offense, which could result in another usable week from the 2023 fifth-rounder.

    Big-play WRs vs. Rams in 2024

    • Week 1: Jameson Williams — 24.4 fantasy points (nine targets, 14.6 aDOT)
    • Week 2: Marvin Harrison Jr. — 29 fantasy points (eight targets, 19.5 aDOT)
    • Week 3: Jauan Jennings — 46.5 fantasy points (12 targets, 13.4 aDOT)
    • Week 4: DJ Moore — 11.2 fantasy points (six targets, 14.7 aDOT)

    Those stat lines are illuminating. And although Moore’s numbers drag down the averages, he did account for half of Chicago’s receiver targets — it just wasn’t a high-volume game.

    As for Bowers, he, along with the 49ers stack, made my “must have” list. He faces an aggressive Broncos defense, and I’m willing to buy into the growth we’ve seen in such spots from Gardner Minshew II this season.

    • 2023: 55.7% complete vs. blitz
    • 2024: 69.8% complete vs. blitz

    That increase in efficiency is nice to have, and it only gains value when you consider that his average depth of target is 6.9% higher in such spots this season than last.

    With Patrick Surtain II likely tangling with Jakobi Meyers this week, I have Bowers labeled as Minshew’s go-to option on Sunday — a role that has been valuable when an extra defender attacks.

    Davante Adams was Minshew’s top option in Weeks 1-3 and Meyers last week. They accounted for a 46.3% target share when Minshew was blitzed, putting Bowers in position to lead tight ends in opportunity count this week.

    Over the last nine games against the Broncos, we’ve seen Surtain’s impact in full effect, a feather in the cap of Bowers who won’t see the All-Pro lined up across from him.

    I’m entering Week 5 with the expectation to see the version of Bowers that we saw to open the season.

    Punt Play: Panthers DST

    I don’t mind paying up to be different at DST when the opportunity presents itself, but paying down is my preferred build.

    Do I think the Panthers’ defense is good? Nope.

    Having said that, getting a defense for the minimum that is facing Caleb Williams is something I’m having trouble turning down. Maybe Carolina can slow down the run and force Chicago to have a high-volume passing game (they rank 16th in pass rate over expectation despite a lack of efficiency in doing so, wanting their rookie to learn through reps).

    Panthers Defensive Growth

    • Weeks 1-2: RBs averaged 2.41 yards per carry before first contact
    • Weeks 3-4: RBs averaged 1.21 yards per carry before first contact

    If Williams is behind the chains, we have fantasy upside. His ranks among qualifiers when it is second or third down with at least seven yards to go is 31st in yards per attempt and 33rd in both sack rate and TD rate.

    It takes one play. One play. Even a dud performance doesn’t doom us at this price point, and if a splash play were to occur, we are gaining on the field from what I expect isn’t a common click.

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