Well, well, well. Your fantasy football season didn’t exactly go like you thought. What I’m saying is that you missed your league’s playoffs, and now you’re itching for some more fantasy football. In steps daily fantasy football leagues, where you can fill infinite lineups (but never that hole in your heart). It’s a lot of fun to jam Christian McCaffrey into your lineup, but he finally costs a pretty penny on daily fantasy football sites. If you want to get some starts into your DFS lineup, that means you need some cheap guys to fill out your roster. Below are guys on the major daily fantasy football sites that provide you with some good deals. Hopefully, the week fourteen daily fantasy football dumpster dives help you find victory.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Quarterback (Fan Duel):
Jacoby “The Rake” Brissett at Tampa Bay ($7,400)
Unlike most positions, where an infinite number of players can contribute, we reasonably expect 32 quarterbacks every week. There is no TNF, SNF, or MNF in the main slate, so that knocks the number down to 26 guys to look at. Brissett is somehow in the bottom half of that, ranking as the #17 QB by price on Fan Duel. Sure, he’s struggled lately, accounting for four touchdowns and four turnovers over his last five games. Sure, he’s topped 202 passing yards once in that time frame. I mean, okay, he has no receivers. Sorry, I lost my point…
Oh, Tampa Bay! The Buccaneers are just dreadful in pass defense. Absolute garbage. They’ve given up the second-most passing yards in the league, and have done it on the back of the second-highest yards per pass allowed. Only the Dolphins and the Cardinals allow more passing touchdowns per game than the Bucs. It’s also impossible to run on the Buccaneers, so the Colts will throw, throw, throw in this game.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Quarterback (Draft Kings):
Ryan Tannehill at Oakland ($5,800)
On Draft Kings, Ryan Tannehill is the sixteenth-highest priced QB. He’s somehow behind Devlin Hodges. He’s the #4 quarterback since taking over for Marcus Mariota in week seven. And he’s below Devlin Hodges. Devlin Hodges! Tannehill has eight touchdowns in his last three games, and there’s really no reason for Draft Kings to price him this way. It’s certainly not the opponent.
The Raiders defense is quickly circling the drain. They had a high-profile breakout game against the Chargers on TNF. Outside of that, they haven’t done much to stop anyone not named Ryan Finley since their week six bye. They’re allowing 23.52 fantasy points to quarterbacks since taking the week off. It’s an ascendant Tennessee offense and a struggling Oakland defense. Sometimes fantasy football doesn’t have to be hard.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Running Back (Fan Duel):
Devonta Freeman versus Carolina ($6,000)
Devonta Freeman’s season hasn’t gone how he’s thought it would. Injuries cost him multiple games, and ineffectiveness cost him fantasy football owners’ trust. However, he’s shown that he can take advantage of plus matchups; Freeman has three 100+ yard games to prove that point. The Atlanta offensive line just can’t get enough push against quality defensive opponents to give Freeman running room. Luckily for Freeman and that offensive line, they do not play a quality defensive opponent this week. Also, their opponent just fired their head coach and sent their quarterback out for surgery. The Panthers started their drain swirling, and it’s just waiting out the season for them.
Ultimately, Freeman’s the #26 running back by cost, playing the #32 (of 32) ranked defense against running backs. They allow a staggering 5.3 yards per carry and have given up five more rushing touchdowns than any other team in the league. Freeman’s setup to return good value on his investment, it’s just a matter of getting over your bad feelings about Freeman to invest in him.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Running Back (Draft Kings):
Derrius Guice at Green Bay ($4,900)
Maybe I’m chasing the feel-goods from last week, but last week was Derrius Guice’s coming out party. He had 137 yards and two touchdowns on twelve touches. Granted, I don’t expect that to happen. In fact, I don’t expect any of that to happen. Washington worked Guice in with Peterson as he returned from injury, but he showed last week that he’s ready to take over the lead role there. Like Freeman, he’s the #26 ranked running back by salary.
This week, Guice goes from a primo matchup to a slightly-less primo matchup. He takes on the Packers this week, a squad that’s given up six double-digit fantasy days against running backs in their last three games. This means that even if Peterson gets a chunk of touches, the Packers defense allows for multiple running backs to perform. Guice on an upswing at $4,900 is great dumpster diving.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Wide Receiver (Fan Duel):
Curtis Samuel at Atlanta ($5,800)
Curtis Samuel scored a touchdown last week after staying out of the end zone for two straight games. Those two games were a couple of the worst fantasy football outputs for him this year. Samuel mustered just 9.9 fantasy points in those two games combined and had just four targets two weeks ago. However, everything surrounding those performances leads me to believe that last week’s 65-yard, one-touchdown performance was not fluky. Curtis Samuel has the target volume (at least six in every game but two this season, including five-of-six since the bye), and the sophomore wide receiver leads the Panthers in air yards. It’s just a matter of converting them into production.
This week, he has a good shot at converting his targets and yards into fantasy football production. He gets a Falcons defense that gave up 184 and two touchdowns to Chris Godwin a couple of weeks ago, and 217 and three scores to Will Fuller earlier this year. They also yielded 107 and 1 to Nelson Agholor. What do these guys all have in common? They’re secondary wide receivers. Like Curtis Samuel is to D.J. Moore.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Wide Receiver (Draft Kings):
Mike Williams at Jacksonville ($4,500)
Mike Williams is permanently disrespected in pricing (#45 on Draft Kings) due to his lack of touchdowns. In fact, he’s one of just seven wide receivers to ever have 777+ receiving yards in a season without scoring a touchdown. This is banking on our little friend, regression, rearing his pretty little head. This season, wide receivers score a touchdown about every 170 receiving yards. Williams not having one after 778 receiving yards is the ultimate in flukery. I am banking on him cashing one, maybe two, in against Jacksonville.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Tight End (Fan Duel):
Kyle Rudolph versus Detroit ($4,800)
If you’re feeling especially dumpster dive happy, check out Ian Thomas below. He’s also min-priced on Draft Kings. How about instead, in the name of praying to the Gods of Content, I offer you the #26 TE in Draft Kings pricing this weekend? The latest news on Adam Thielen’s hamstring is that it is “regressing.” I am not a doctor, but that doesn’t sound good for a guy who hasn’t been able to play a full game in almost two months. The only logical explanation is the Draft Kings pricing bot anticipated Thielen’s return, though that looks unlikely. Kyle Rudolph has low yardage over his last six games (38.2 yards per game), but he has six touchdowns in six contests.
Dumpster Dive Daily Fantasy Football Tight End (Draft Kings):
Ian Thomas at Atlanta ($2,500) (min-price)
As of writing this, Greg Olsen is a longshot to make it back for Carolina’s game on Sunday. The Panthers already fired Ron Rivera and sent Cam Newton out for surgery, so it’s highly unlikely they rush Greg Olsen back from a concussion in a lost season. That leaves the door wide open for Ian Thomas. He was great down the stretch in 2018, but the Panthers passing out of 2-TE sets lower than almost anyone in the league tanked his 2019 value. Without Olsen, he should thrive.
Thomas gets a great chance to kick off his 2020 fantasy football sleeper bid by getting the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons are middle-of-the-road against tight ends on the season, but that seems to setem from a lack of touchdowns against them. They’ve allowed just four TE touchdowns on the season, all in a three-week span. However, Jared Cook, Greg Olsen, and… Jared Cook, again, have turned in at least 8 half-PPR points against them. Given the target distribution to TEs in the Panthers offense, Thomas should provide a nice PPR floor.
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