It’s week twelve of the fantasy football season, and your opportunities to play daily fantasy football are quickly waning. It’s also starting to be the time of year where your regular fantasy football teams might be starting to fade, so turning to daily fantasy football could be a fun pivot to keep chasing the fantasy football dragon. This week, there are some great players with good matchups and high price tags, so it becomes important to figure out how to cram those guys into your lineups. That’s where we step in with our weekly daily fantasy football dumpster dives article. The players in this article aren’t necessarily the cheapest at the position but do provide for inexpensive alternatives for more expensive players to get the true superstars into your lineups.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Quarterback (Fan Duel):
Ryan Tannehill versus Jacksonville ($7,100)
Tannehill slots in as the sixteenth-highest priced quarterback on Fan Duel this week. I won’t get too deep into the numbers for you, but here are his weekly rank finishes at QB in the games he’s started this season: 7, 11, 9, 6. He’s been on a hot streak lately, and he takes on a middling defense that’s allowed multiple QB touchdowns to the last four signal callers to play against them.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Quarterback (Fan Duel):
Mason Rudolph at Cincinnati ($5,500)
Rudolph clocks in at $500 above minimum here, which makes for a good punt play at quarterback. Honestly, this is a “which will break?” game. Will Rudolph’s slow processor or Cincy’s bad defense slip first? There’s not much in his recent track record to say that Rudolph will crush this game, but he should put up respectable numbers against a truly dreadful Bengals defense. Cincinnati’s allowed the third-most fantasy points to QBs this season and hasn’t allowed fewer than 20 fantasy points since week four.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Running Back (Fan Duel):
Kareem Hunt versus Miami ($5,600)
Hunt’s been surprisingly thoroughly used since returning from suspension, without stealing touches and snaps from Nick Chubb. He has 27 touches in the last two games, with thirteen of those were catches. He’s averaged 66 yards per game on those touches, which, alongside the catches, give him a nice floor. He gets Miami this week, which is the sixth-best matchup for running backs this season.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Running Back (Draft Kings):
Bo Scarbrough at Washington ($4,200)
Well, let’s see if Scarbrough is the Detroit Lion that finally turns you a profit off of a limited sample size. He turned fourteen touches last week into 55 yards and a score, almost out of nowhere. He will likely get some touches jacked by Ty Johnson & J.D. McKissic, but he’s playing Washington. Washington’s run defense is dreadful this season, and have given up ten double-digit fantasy days to running backs in ten games this season, including three-straight games of a running back getting at least 16 fantasy points.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Wide Receiver (Fan Duel):
DeVante Parker at Cleveland ($6,000)
Since week four, DeVante Parker has just one half-PPR game under nine points since week four. The fantasy football community was slow to pick this up because, you know, the Dolphins. That’s five double-digit games in the last seven contests for Parker, and it shows no signs of slowing down. He has ten targets in three-of-five games, and he’s averaging 8.8 targets in that span. There’s nobody else to throw to, so Parker will get the big volume play. The Browns aren’t a good defense to try to target with your fantasy wide receivers, but every wide receiver who gets at least eight targets against them produces extremely well.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Wide Receiver (Draft Kings):
Russell Gage versus Tampa Bay ($3,900)
Gage has eighteen targets over his last three games. Sure, nine of those were three weeks ago, but Falcons took on two strong pass defenses in a row after that. This week, they return to passing game glory with a matchup against the lowly Tampa Bay secondary. Devonta Freeman is likely to miss this game, and Brian Hill sucks, so that means lots of passing. Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley are locked in as Matt Ryan’s top receiving targets, but without Austin Hooper, those extra targets likely go towards Gage. He lost a touchdown last week on review, so he’s getting end zone targets. He just has to convert them against the best possible fantasy matchup for wide receivers this season.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Tight End (Fan Duel):
Dallas Goedert versus Seattle ($5,200)
It’s the season of giving thanks, and I am thankful for Dallas Goedert over everything else this week. As it stands, the Eagles tight end has touchdowns in three of his last four games and is averaging 5.6 targets per contest in his last five games. The Dallas Goedert breakout is here, but we’re all too deep into the season to see it. This week, Goedert gets a Seattle defense that gives up the seventh-most fantasy points to tight ends, including blowup games from marginal TEs like Vance McDonald, Gerald Everett, and Ricky Seals-Jones.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Tight End (Draft Kings):
Vance McDonald at Cincinnati ($3,500)
Look, I know. Okay? I get it. Don’t start with me. Vance has seven targets in each of his last three games, and it’s just him, Jaylen Samuels, and James Washington left alive in Pittsburgh. Five guys have more than three targets against the Bengals this season, and all of them have at least 11.8 PPR points. Vance should be a shoo-in to make it five-for-five, as long as he nails that whole “reception” part of it.
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