One thing I love to look for as part of my main stack is two teams playing with defenses that are bad against the pass. That gives you the best upside for QB/WR duos to have ceiling games. Well, Washington and Dallas come in allowing the 3rd and 5th most passing yards in the league, so this could turn into a gun slinger matchup. It has the 3rd highest implied total on the slate and you have some serious weapons on both sides to put up huge numbers. I think I would only start with Dak Prescott ($6,700) who should have all of his guys back. He has been a bit of a rollercoaster lately, either scoring over 25 DK points or under 13, but no in between. I think the matchup against Washington will bring the peak of the coaster and we see a ceiling spot potentially. CeeDee Lamb ($7,200) and Amari Cooper ($5,900) have prime matchups against William Jackson and Kendall Fuller who have been pretty atrocious this season. Fuller is giving up a ton of catches and yards while Jackson has been giving up the TD's, so you can't go wrong with either. I think the pricing is what makes me start questioning which to go with. Cooper should be back to normal this week so I think we see his targets normalize, but will it be enough to catch Lamb. Lamb got a whopping 13 targets last week compared to Cooper's 2, but they said that Cooper was limited. I will take that to heart and assume he gets back to the 5-8 target range. That is actually pretty solid and anything more would just be a bonus. I think you are really banking on his snap % to increase back to normal because last week it was under 40% and Michael Gallup ($5,500) was in the 90% range. That needs to change for Cooper to be an option and I do think it regresses back to the norm. Gallup on the other hand is quite interesting. The only time that all 3 played together (Lamb, Cooper, and Gallup) was Week 1 where Cooper led with 88%, Lamb with 73% and Gallup in at 60%. I think that alone speaks volumes to how Gallup will still be used quite a bit and should see somewhere in the 75% range. Now a lot of this hinges on if the Cowboys come out and announce if Cooper will be getting his normal workload. If they say he is going to continue to be limited then I would certainly love Gallup. If I were to rank them right now, I think it goes Lamb > Gallup > Cooper for me. After that, Dalton Schultz ($5,400) is certainly in play. He has scored 9+ DK points in each of the last 3 weeks but that was without Cooper and Lamb for portions. Washington is pretty middle of the pack when it comes to TE DK points allowed, so nothing to count Schultz out there. I think he is a decent contrarian option, but I would go the three WRs first over him more than likely. As for the backfield, I think the Tony Pollard ($6,400) injury scares me a ton so I wouldn't go there. However, if he is out then Ezekiel Elliot ($7,300) is in a great spot to get a ton of work all over the field. He would likely get in the 13-18 carry range and 4-7 targets. At this price that gives you a ton of upside, but the real question is can he outproduce the value RB's who are much cheaper. I still think yes, but only if Pollard is out or limited.
On the other side of the ball, Washington has weapons but none as important as Terry McLaurin ($7,000). I fully expect him to get a healthy dose of Trevon Diggs and he really hasn't been getting the targets I would want out of someone this expensive. He has just one game over 12 DK points in the last five, but even against Diggs I think he can have a ceiling game. Diggs has been prone to allowing big plays this season despite the massive INT numbers. Dallas has given up the 4th most explosive pass plays in the league which bodes well for McLaurin. While he might be boom or bust, this lines up really well for McLaurin to boom and not bust. Then you have a slew of guys that quite frankly let you down more than they actually do anything for you. Adam Humphries ($3,500), DeAndre Carter ($3,400) and Curtis Samuel ($3,600) have all gotten under 2 targets in multiple weeks over the last month or so. Making a call on which could potentially pop makes no sense, so it seems to me like McLaurin is the only option for the WRs. As for the TE position, we might only have John Bates ($3,000) with Ricky Seals-Jones questionable and Logan Thomas now on IR. Bates would get a ton of snaps and probably a good amount of targets in the event that RSJ sits. I think the price makes it easy to fit him in as a run back if you go the Dak/Lamb route. I still think I would take McLaurin over him for the ceiling, but I think Bates is a great cheap TE option regardless as long as RSJ is out. If he ends up playing then I think the split is enough to make Terry the only good option. The backfield is the last spot to look and if JD McKissic ($5,000) ends up playing then it will likely take Antonio Gibson ($6,000) out of the equation. Dallas is actually 3rd in the league in rush yards allowed at under 100 yards/game. I think Gibson would need that receiving upside to make him an intriguing play and McKissic would chew into that greatly. I think from a game script perspective this actually looks really good for McKissic to get a good amount of work with Washington playing from behind. It really just feels and reads like McLaurin and Bates to a certain extent are the only good-great run back options with Gibson if McKissic is out as an interesting option as well. Everything else is risky. I guess I should finish off by saying whichever WR gets the Anthony Brown coverage is due to get a few PI calls called for them, but that doesn't help for DFS so take that with a grain of salt.
