The Look Off: Weeks 6-7

Guess who's back (offense, that's who).

Totals are back up. Offenses are cooking. And somehow, this week’s small slate is saturated with potential blowup games. Literally half the slate (counting Sunday Night Football) looks like a good option to attack.

It’s far from guaranteed that the outpouring continues, so enjoy it while it lasts.

As a heads up, this analysis presumes that Cooper Kupp doesn’t make it onto the field. Naturally, if healthy, he’s an important piece of the slate—but the trend looks bad. I feel comfortable leaving him out of the equation until at least next week.¹

The Tape - Looking Back to Last Week

Detroit whacked the Dallas Cowboys. They continue to prove they’re a Lombardi contender. Chicago cracked the Jaguars. The Falcons continued their offensive turnaround and don’t have a reason to stop now.

More teams are flashing the potential to have slate breaking days. Rising totals reflect that fact. On the season, Washington is still the top offense when it comes to pouring it on. They’re tailed by a cluster of teams—DET, CIN, BAL, BUF—that have been consistent and logged a couple blowup games. Personally, I think Buffalo is the pretender in that set. Josh Allen is playing reasonably well, but the supporting cast just isn’t there, and eked out wins against the Cardinals and Jets (see below) don’t impress me. A Tennessee win this week wouldn’t shock me.

While they’re not on the slate this week, Tampa Bay has slid back a bit further in the season-long DR rankings. They keep putting up points, but they’re not wiping the floor with opponents anymore—the suggestions of a fantasy floor are starting to emerge.

And Minnesota—big floor there as well.

Here’s the summary stats through last week:

Game Buckets

Hoping for Variance

• Miami Dolphins at Indianapolis Colts (Total: 43.5—Early Slate)

• Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles Rams (Total: 43.5—Late Slate)

Tournament Edge

• Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills (Total: 40.5—Early Slate)

• Cincinnati Bengals at Cleveland Browns (Total: 41.5—Early Slate)

• Philadelphia Eagles at New York Giants (Total: 43—Late Slate)

Obviously Attractive

• Seattle Seahawks at Atlanta Falcons (Total: 50—Early Slate)

• Carolina Panthers at Washington Commanders (Total: 51.5—Late Slate)

• Kansas City at San Francisco 49rs (Total 47—Late Slate)

• Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings (Total: 50.5—Early Slate)

• Houston Texans at Green Bay Packers (Total: 48.5—Early Slate)

Hoping for Variance

Miami Dolphins at Indianapolis Colts: Per comments above, even this game feels like a bit of a powder keg. Anthony Richardson returns against a respectable Miami passing defense (by EPA per play). The Colts have gotten the ball to move under Joe Flacco, but Richardson under center could mean established usage patterns devolve. Adonai Mitchell got air yards in weeks past and has flown under the radar thanks to Josh Downs. Mitchell is an interesting way to save salary if you’re trying to pay up for a premium RB.

The Dolphins offer nothing except De’Von Achane. And he’s basically a way to get different—that’s it.

Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles Rams: Vegas contains some interesting cash plays and the most attractive pay-up TE in Brock Bowers. The Rams present Kyren Williams and a smattering of overpriced pass-catchers. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Bowers or Williams unlocking the slate. Bowers loses some steam on FanDuel, but with TE as bleak as it is, he’s still a strong option.

Tournament Edge Games

Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills: Here’s the thing—the Bills are not all that good at defending the pass. They’ve been cut up by teams with mediocre passing attacks (ARI and NYJ, for example). The Titans and their field general Will Levis aren’t analogues to the Cards with Kyler Murray or the Jets with Aaron Rodgers. However, Levis does have a penchant for taking risks and at least one receiver getting air yards in recent weeks. Calvin Ridley is a bit pricey at $5,500, but has real upside.

The Buffalo side looks grim. Tennessee is not the defense you want to roster Bills against—top-tier Domination Rating notwithstanding. Maybe you snag a couple as part of a game stack (see below), but that’d be the only situation it’s worth the risk.

Cincinnati Bengals at Cleveland Browns: The Bengals are quietly producing like the elite offensive unit they were forecast to be. However, the Browns have a respectable pass defense by EPA and are unlikely to push back. I’m not sure there’s a need to reach for the Bengals in tournaments with so many high-total on the board, but Tee Higgins, Ja'Marr Chase, and Joe Burrow are a viable option. They might even dodge the ownership their salaries imply.

Avoid the Browns except for Jerry Jeudy, recognizing that he’s a flyer due to a potential (further) Browns implosion. Best case scenario is Jameis Winston comes out to play. I 100% will be playing a couple of darts with Winston at QB. Not because he’ll start—but in protest of the Browns decision to keep rolling with a below-par QB.

Philadelphia Eagles at New York Giants: The Eagles are in a get-right spot against NYG. Saquon Barkley, A. J. Brown, and DeVonta Smith are all big salary commitments, but present big upside. Classic tournament-type plays. An injured Dallas Goedert makes the backup TE a possible punt—I’ll probably stay away from him in favor of Brock Bowers or Travis Kelce.

On the other side of the ball, the PPR King Himself—Malik Nabers—is back in action. He’s the lock of the slate on DraftKings and a strong play on FanDuel. You could bring along Daniel Jones and commit to the thesis that the Giants toss three touchdowns to Nabers—he’s just likely better used as a solo shot.

New York Jets at Pittsburgh Steelers: Including some Sunday Night action for the first time in this column! This game narrowly avoids the “Hoping for Variance” bucket due to uncertainty flowing from a Russell Wilson start and the Davante Adams trade. I’m probably not going to touch it—I think there’s better ways to avoid the ownership trains this week. Garret Wilson and Adams are options if you feel inclined to dabble. Garret Wilson might pull no ownership due to the Adams trade. He’d be the piece I’d look at if I dipped into this game.

Obviously Attractive

Seattle Seahawks at Atlanta Falcons: This game is an incredibly attractive option for game stacking. DK Metcalf and Drake London are both in the top five for expected points on dropbacks (among available options—Cooper Kupp isn’t on that list, for example). Tyler Allgeier drew a ton of touches last week. That makes both him and Bijan Robinson interesting plays. Naturally, they can’t be taken together, but either has a good chance of a) outperforming their salary and b) garnering low-ownership. On FanDuel, Robinson is a much tougher sell. I’d imagine he’s purely an ownership play there. The other options—Darnell Mooney, Kenneth Walker III, etc. are also viable. It’s a matter of picking the right combination from the set.

Third-string WR Ray-Ray McCloud pops in the expected points metric. Which explains the chatter I’ve heard around him. Because cheap receivers are scarce, I’d expect to see a fair amount of him this week. Doesn’t make him a bad play at all—I’ll have my fair share of him—just realize he’s not going to be enough to differentiate a lineup. Assuming McCloud is popular, Kyle Pitts gets that much more interesting as a way to get unique.

Carolina Panthers at Washington Commanders: This one’s all about Jayden Daniels, Noah Brown, Terry McLaurin, and what you believe about the Washington Commanders. The total suggests you fire them up. Here’s the problem—there’s not an obvious way to play the Commanders side of this. On top of that, it’s unclear how hard Carolina will push back. Lack of pushback hasn’t been a problem for Washington this year (they lead the league in DR). So I’ll likely chase this game with random combos of pieces and a smattering of bring-backs like Diontae Johnson, who looks like a solid play in his own right (16th in avg. expected fantasy points on dropbacks—including the horrors of the Bryce Young era).

But man—with a spot this attractive, you’re going to need differentiators elsewhere.

Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings: Both QBs are viable here, as are the obvious pieces. Going to Jahmyr Gibbs, especially on FanDuel, to avoid inflated ownership looks attractive. Or, if you want to stack up the game and get different, both DET RBs isn’t the craziest thing you could do. That’s only for deep, deep fields and with Vikings WR bring-backs—but it’s on the table.

If you’re just trying to win a normal contest, this game screams double or triple stacks. Sam LaPorta has been dusty but gets you away from Brock Bowers and Travis Kelce chalk. Justin Jefferson might be hard for the field to cram in given the lack of salary relief this week. Not quite sure how you’d play him alongside a pricier QB like Daniels, but I suspect he’ll be pretty low owned away from Sam Darnold. If he pops off for two long TDs, it’s gonna be tough to say we didn’t see it coming. He seems especially attractive at FanDuel—you’ll just be paying for him.

Kansas City at San Francisco 49rs: Squeaking into this bucket, KC and San Fran is an interesting way to attack this week. Both teams have the capacity to shut the other squad down. Both also have the capacity to hang 40—although to be fair, that capacity is an article of faith when it comes to the Chiefs, who’ve displayed limited stomach for torching the opposition. The total’s at 47 for a reason.

The double and triple stacks are going to consume a large chunk of your salary. Each piece you’d consider for that build, like Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle, Xavier Worthy, and JuJu Smith-Schuster (who has potential to make a huge chunk of rosters this week), runs at over $6,000 on DraftKings. But the ownership on the stack should be non-existent.

It’s not particularly likely this is the game that breaks the slate—no game ever gets that designation. This game just has the chance to catch the field off guard.

Houston Texans at Green Bay Packers: Like the game above, this game also looks like it’ll dodge heavy ownership despite its powder-keg status. Green Bay’s demonstrated they can put points on the board. The question mark is Houston sans Nico Collins. Tank Dell, Stefon Diggs, and Joe Mixon get a slight bump in this spot. Diggs especially looks like a high upside selection—he’s 12th in expected points from dropbacks, including his time sharing opportunity with Collins. If it’s not Diggs, you might even be able to take both Tank Dell ($6,500 on DK, $7,000 FanDuel) and Joe Mixon and get value on both.

The options from Green Bay are probably all playable. It’s just a question of hitting on the right combo. Outside of Jayden Reed, the menu’s large.

The Chalkboard

With the games bucketed and analyzed, this next section walks through how the entire slate might play out

The idea here is not to issue a definitive statement about what will happen. Rather, the goal is to identify the most likely sets of combined outcomes, and parsing out how DFS players can build lineups to take advantage of those outcomes. In other words, we’re taking to the chalkboard, and scratching out some attack plans.

This analysis focuses heavily on tournament play. For example, game stacking, a technique discussed below, is rarely optimal in head-to-head type games. Just be mindful that all the sample lineups below are lineups built to finish in the 95th percentile or higher. Anything worse than that—it could be the bottom of the barrel for all I care.

Scenario 1: Multiple Obviously Attractive Games Hit

In this situation, the trick is finding value in the high-total games. This is the most likely situation, and it’s the toughest to play. The suggestion below utilizes a Cousins double stack, trusting that it’s easier to find a good stack than run the board perfectly. the odds of anyone doing that are low, especially in the age of widely-available contest sims:

Scenario 2: One Obviously Attractive Game Laps the Field

If this happens—you need to stack this game, plain and simple. Think Houston and Tampa Bay’s explosive match from last year. The only difficulty? figuring out which game pops. Here’s an idea for playing the DET-MIN bout:

Scenario 3: One Tournament Edge Game Barely Tops the Board

This scenario is the least likely of the triplet—but if it emerges, it’ll mean some real opportunity to slice up deep field contests. Again, you’re left trying to isolate the right game, but at least there’s a handful of sides that outshine their peers. Take a look at this sample build with the Bengals. Notice: it’s very difficult to get away from the Titans DST.

Final Thoughts

Offense is back (or at least totals are high)! Despite a rash of injuries, teams are finding their stride and breaking through to the endzone.

While scoring doesn’t necessarily make for better football—it tends to create some pretty impressive highlight reels. Enjoy that this Sunday.

Happy watching!

1. Data in this article typically comes from nflfastr. Betting lines are from the Action Network.