Seattle at Dallas: A DFS Perspective

I am fading the fast-track a little, okay? Atlanta at New Orleans is sure to be popular. I won’t do a full fade, but I am choosing to be “overweight” on Seattle at Dallas compared to the masses. I am banking on people being slightly bearish on Ezekiel Elliott in his first game back. I am also hoping that Devonta Freeman’s explosion in Week 15 makes him popular and that Alvin Kamara/Mark Ingram are highly-owned as well (at least compared to Zeke). We shall see.

I do not expect single digit ownership on Elliott. I am just thinking he will be lesser-owned than normal in his first week back. When I couple that theory with the dud that Seattle put up in Week 15, it seems like the perfect time to zig when everyone else is zagging...and stack this game up repeatedly. People are pretty sour on Jimmy Graham right now, even though the guy has monstrous scoring upside each week. He will be a staple in my DFS lineups this weekend.

What follows is one amateur’s in-depth look at a single game. This is done in the spirit of doing at least one thing well. I am prone to spreading myself too thin when playing DFS. For just one weekend, I am going to buck the trend and stack this game. I will be inserting a bunch of one-offs around my Zeke-Russ-Graham shares. Let’s get into the numbers a bit.

I play on FanDuel primarily, so touchdowns are my deal—not receptions. Since I expect Dallas to try to cram the ball down Seattle’s throat, my focus is on the Seattle passing pieces. Here goes nothing:

Jimmy Graham’s scoring upside cannot be disputed, despite his no-shows the last couple of weeks. After that, Richardson being the second-favorite red-zone target was a surprise to me. Richardson has also been a no-show recently, which should suppress his ownership this weekend. Baldwin being fourth in RZ targets was another surprise. Perhaps we really should be relegating him to PPR formats...

Here lately, the Seahawks have been throwing to Lockett in the red-zone slightly more than they have been throwing to Richardson and Baldwin. Check the table:

Unfortunately that’s only been about once per week for Lockett. The tables tell the story: Jimmy Graham is the big-time scoring threat for this team, at least through the air. If you roster a receiver other than Graham, it makes sense to look at aDoT (average depth of target) and hope for a deep play.

So let’s do that!

If you scope out Josh Hermsmeyer’s work at airyards.com, you can see that Doug Baldwin and Paul Richardson have been pretty solid in aDoT since my arbitrary endpoint of Week 10, while Tyler Lockett has been really hit or miss. Here is each receiver and his aDOT since Week 10, as well as each receiver’s season average:

If you subscribe to the idea that deeper targets are worth more, I think you have to at least consider Paul Richardson over Doug Baldwin right now. Richardson has amassed 7 targets in each of the last two weeks (14 total), while Baldwin has a total of 10 (6 and 4). So, Richardson gets targeted deeper on average, gets targeted more in the red-zone, and has more targets than Baldwin over the last two weeks. Sign me up.

On a micro-level, the matchup against Dallas is sweet. The Cowboys allow the sixth-most points to enemy wideouts. In fact, if you exclude Week 14 against the putrid Giants, the ‘Boys have allowed two touchdowns to enemy receivers in every week since Week 11.

Week 11: Alshon and Torrey

Week 12: Keenan and Tyrell

Week 13: Grant and Doctson

Week 15: Crabtree (2)

Week 16: ???

I won’t presume to tell you which Seahawks receiver will find paydirt, but I can tell you I will have some Richardson and Baldwin, with a little bit of Lockett sprinkled in.

Some DFS values are already screaming out at us from the bottom of the pile, namely Chris Godwin ($4,500) and Damiere Byrd ($4,900). Keelan Cole ($5,300) is sure to be popular after last week’s explosion, too.

Here is one lineup build that I like so far:

Russell Wilson, Ezekiel Elliott, Kareem Hunt, Mohamed Sanu, Robert Woods, Paul Richardson, Jimmy Graham, Josh Lambo, Chiefs defense.

What games/players do you like this weekend? Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter at @HeathCapps and let’s get ready for Week 16 with some friendly banter.