Thirteen games, and the money problem sits at running back again. Bijan Robinson at $8,200 tops the board and only one receiver comes within $100 of him, so the top of a roster is two decisions instead of five. The cheapest quarterbacks and tight ends beat their price tiers harder than anything in the middle of either position, which makes the structural call short: punt both on DraftKings and spend it all on two backs and a receiver you couldn't otherwise afford. FanDuel breaks the other way at tight end and defense. Wednesday's Matchups piece has the game by game read.
Cash below is the group we think beats its price tier hardest, with a floor we can live with and enough of a right tail to matter. What the field does plays no part there and takes over completely in GPP. Everything runs price descending, and the table at the bottom ranks by site.
CASH
QUARTERBACK
Bands off the DraftKings pool: pay up $6,200 and above, mid tier $5,100 to $6,100, cheap under $5,100.
Jayden Daniels ($6,300 DK, $7,900 FD) – the pay-up tier, and the only one in it we'd buy. He adds 7.1 rush attempts to 30.6 dropbacks and ran five times on top of 34 attempts in the opener. The legs are the floor, and his is the best at the position on DraftKings. Dak Prescott at $6,400 sits in the same band inside a 49.7 total with almost nothing on the ground.
Tyler Shough ($5,300 DK, $7,000 FD) – mid tier, and our DraftKings quarterback. He threw for 410 yards and three touchdowns in the opener, and no arm on this slate is down for more volume. New Orleans put the ball up 56 times that day and won't do that every week, but $5,300 already prices the pullback in, and his quiet weeks still clear anything under $5,500. Jordan Love at $5,900 fills out the band, and no quarterback on the board carries a higher passing yardage line than his.
Geno Smith ($4,800 DK, $6,700 FD) – cheap tier, and the cheapest starter we'd actually use. He went 19 of 24 for 215 in the opener, and New York is only a field goal underdog, so the script never takes his dropbacks away.
FanDuel usually wants you spending at quarterback and we're only half obliging. Drake Maye at $7,500 is the one expensive arm whose floor justifies it. Below him the FanDuel prices compress so hard that Malik Willis at $6,600 and Geno Smith at $6,700 beat everything above them, and Willis is the one we take there for the 7.2 rush attempts.
RUNNING BACK
Pay up $6,800 and above, mid tier $5,400 to $6,700, cheap under $5,400.
Bijan Robinson ($8,200 DK, $8,900 FD) – top tier, and the most expensive player on the slate. He's down for 19.7 carries plus 5.3 targets, his 130.5 rushing line is the highest anywhere, and he caught eight balls for 90 and a score in the opener while taking over half his team's targets. No player here draws more of the field, and a back over $8,000 gets rostered more than the projection suggests. In cash that changes nothing. Below, it changes plenty.
Derrick Henry ($7,200 DK, $8,700 FD) – 23.1 carries, more than anyone on the slate, inside the second-highest team total on the board, off a 144-yard, three-touchdown opener. He catches close to nothing, and on a 27.0 team total that's survivable instead of ideal. At $1,000 under Bijan he's the back we'd rather own. Ashton Jeanty at $6,800 rounds out the tier with 20.2 carries, and an 18.8-point team total keeps him below must status.
Rhamondre Stevenson ($5,700 DK, $6,700 FD) – mid tier, and the receiving half is underrated. He caught five of six looks for a 19.4% target share on top of 18 carries in Week 1, is down for 16.0 and 3.0 now, and TreVeyon Henderson is scraping 4.6 behind him. A 2.5 reception line and a 71.5 rushing line put the market where we are. Breece Hall at $6,200 fills the band at 18.6 carries.
Aaron Jones ($5,100 DK, $5,900 FD) – cheap tier, and if you play one player everywhere this week, make it him. Jordan Mason, who out-carried him 15 to 12 in the opener, is on injured reserve, and Jones is down for 19.5 carries at a price set before that landed. Nothing at the position on either site beats its own tier by close to this much. Two honest marks. He's down for barely two targets, and a back on a middling team total with no pass-game work is a median play rather than a ceiling one. Chicago also played the most man in this group last season at 41.8%, which costs backs checkdowns. We're buying the carries anyway.
MarShawn Lloyd ($5,300 DK, $6,100 FD) – cheap tier, and the want that news already promoted. Josh Jacobs is out, Lloyd took 13 carries in the opener with Jacobs active, and he's down for 16.3 behind a 66.5 rushing line. He stays a want rather than a must because Chris Brooks is still taking real carries at $4,800, and that's the only thing between this price and a full workload.
WIDE RECEIVER
Pay up $6,400 and above, mid tier $4,700 to $6,300, cheap under $4,700.
Chris Olave ($7,200 DK, $7,900 FD) – top tier, and the best receiver here against his own price. He's down for 11.0 targets, more than any pass catcher on the board, and he owned 50.3% of the New Orleans air yards in a ten-catch, 182-yard opener while leaving another 52 on the field. He's carrying a hamstring tag as of Friday, and we won't take an unresolved one into cash. If he's active Sunday he's the play at the position. If he sits, that volume lands on Devaughn Vele at $4,200.
Mike Evans ($6,600 DK, $8,200 FD) – top tier, with nothing unresolved attached to him. San Francisco holds the highest team total at 29.5 and is without Brandon Aiyuk, Ricky Pearsall and Christian Kirk, so 7.8 targets and 36.9% of the projected air yards reads as a floor rather than a forecast. He took the same 36.9% share in the opener on six catches for 49 and a touchdown, and we'd pay the $8,200 on FanDuel too. Jaxon Smith-Njigba tops the tier at $8,100 with the largest target share on the slate at 35.8%, but Drew Lock threw it only 22 times in the opener with Sam Darnold out, and JSN already turned 76 air yards into 122 receiving yards, which is the opposite of a rebound case.
Garrett Wilson ($6,000 DK, $7,200 FD) – mid tier, 7.3 targets, a 26.3% target share and 45.8% of the projected air yards, after taking 49.4% of New York's in the opener. Only one receiver on the slate owns more of his own passing game, and he costs $2,100 more. His 5.5 reception line is the largest in this article.
Matthew Golden ($4,700 DK, $5,900 FD) – bottom of the mid tier, and the receiver we fill with first. Twelve targets and a 30.0% share in the opener, 7.3 projected now, and he costs $1,500 less than Christian Watson, who scored twice. The price hasn't caught the conversion yet: 137 air yards, 30.2% of Green Bay's total, and 95 receiving yards out of it. That 42-yard gap is the buy.
Devaughn Vele ($4,200 DK, $5,500 FD) – cheap tier. Seven catches for 69 and a touchdown on nine targets in Week 1, 6.3 projected, a 3.5 reception line at the book. He works underneath at 13.5% of the New Orleans air yards, so his ceiling comes from catches rather than yardage. He inherits the target load if Olave sits, so his worst case is still fine.
TIGHT END
Pay up $5,400 and above, mid tier $4,000 to $5,300, cheap under $4,000.
Trey McBride ($6,900 DK, $7,500 FD) – the pay-up tier on his own, 8.0 targets and a 29.7% share after nine catches for 95 and a score on 31.4% of the Arizona air yards. We're not paying it. Climbing from the cheap tier costs $3,700 and an 18.9-point team total won't give it back.
Dallas Goedert ($4,800 DK, $5,700 FD) – mid tier, 6.1 targets and a 23.5% share, a quarter of the Philadelphia air yards, four catches for 77 and two scores in the opener, with Grant Calcaterra and Eli Stowers both on injured reserve. On FanDuel, where the punt tier doesn't discount as hard, he's the one we'd buy. Mark Andrews at $4,400 is the same tier on the second-highest team total here.
Dalton Schultz ($3,200 DK, $5,200 FD) – cheap tier, and our DraftKings tight end. Eight targets in Week 1, 6.3 projected, a 19.5% share, and Tank Dell and Jayden Higgins both on injured reserve. He works at the line for under 9% of the Houston air yards, so you're buying catch volume rather than depth. He'll be well owned for a $3,200 tight end, and that changes nothing.
Gunnar Helm ($3,100 DK, $4,600 FD) – cheap tier, 5.5 targets and a 16.7% share, four catches on five looks, and the FanDuel version of the same trade at $1,100 under Goedert.
We're punting on DraftKings, and the defense is one line: getting from Schultz to Goedert costs $1,600, the difference between Matthew Golden and a receiver you'd rather not start.
DEFENSE
Pay up $3,200 and above, mid tier $2,600 to $3,100, cheap under $2,600.
New England ($3,100 DK, $4,100 FD) – mid tier, and the unit we want on both sites. Aaron Rodgers is down for 29.6 dropbacks on an 18.7-point team total, the pass-heavy trailing setup this position feeds on, and it beats everything above it on FanDuel.
Tennessee ($2,100 DK, $3,000 FD) – cheap tier, and the cheapest unit we'd start, for the builds that land $1,000 short of New England.
The Swaps
Swap one, $11,700 a side. Aaron Jones plus Mike Evans against Rhamondre Stevenson plus Garrett Wilson. Same salary, and the Jones side wins at both ends of the range. The other side is where a lot of builds land by accident, because both names sit in the comfortable middle and neither looks wrong.
Swap two, $11,900 a side, and this one could go either way. Derrick Henry plus Matthew Golden against MarShawn Lloyd plus Mike Evans. The gap is small enough for judgment to settle, so we settle it on the fourth tiebreaker: Lloyd's worst outcome is a committee that never resolves, Henry's is a bad day at a workload nobody's taking.
GPP
Uncertainty
Two backfields changed after salaries were set and the field has found neither. Seattle is the cleaner one. Zach Charbonnet is on the physically unable to perform list, so Jadarian Price ($5,500 DK, $6,500 FD) is down for 13.4 carries inside a 23.7 team total behind a 58.5 rushing line, and almost nobody's there.
Atlanta still hasn't named a quarterback, and neither Michael Penix Jr. nor Tua Tagovailoa holds a passing line at a single book, so we won't name one either. Its pass catchers are priced as though the answer will be bad. Drake London ($6,000 DK, $7,700 FD) holds a 26.1% target share and a 4.5 reception line in a game the spread has close, on 29.3% of the Atlanta air yards.
Leverage D/ST
Nobody on this slate draws a bigger share of the field than Bijan Robinson, and a back over $8,000 gets rostered more than the projection implies, so the gap is bigger than it looks. Getting off him is the biggest tournament decision of the week, and the cheapest way is to bet against his offense.
Carolina ($2,700 DK, $3,300 FD) faces a team with no named quarterback and no passing line at a single book. A defense that cheap in that spot costs almost nothing and buys leverage on the chalkiest player of the week. Pair it with Chuba Hubbard ($5,800 DK, $6,300 FD) and one story covers both: Atlanta can't move it and the priciest back on the board turns 19.7 carries into nothing.
Late Swap
The late window is Jacksonville at Denver and Las Vegas at the Chargers at 4:05, then Seattle at Arizona, Miami at San Francisco and Washington at Dallas at 4:25. Washington at Dallas is the trap, with the highest total on the board at 49.7 and ownership on both sides, so swapping in only moves you into rosters half the field holds. Leave Miami at San Francisco alone.
Seattle at Arizona is the one worth building around. The Arizona side is close to untouched. Jacoby Brissett threw for 277 in the opener and nobody has him, and Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison Jr. both sit in low single digits behind Trey McBride. Leave those slots open through the early window and decide with the inactives in hand.
THIS WEEK'S MODEL BETS
Out of the game simulation, ordered by distance from the market. Both spread modes remain on paper, so nothing here is a spread.
Miami at San Francisco, over 45.5 (-110). Nothing else disagrees this hard. The simulation sits most of a touchdown above the number despite the widest spread on the slate, because it rates the underdog's defense far lower than the market does.
Jacksonville at Denver, over 45.5 (-105). Second-biggest gap, from the home side, whose quarterback threw for 131 yards in the opener. The simulation reads that as an outlier.
Cleveland at Tampa Bay, over 41.5 (-105). The market has this among the slower games here, and the simulation gets Tampa Bay most of the way to the total alone.
Minnesota at Chicago, under 48.5 (-115). The only play pointing down, and you're laying juice for it, because the simulation doesn't believe Minnesota throws enough to keep pace.
Three of the four are overs, the same tilt the model carried in Week 1, and the stake it wants on each is barely a token. Full output sits on the NFL game simulation page.
CHEAP WR
The filter: under $5,000 on DraftKings or $6,000 and under on FanDuel, with at least five projected targets. This is a short list rather than a sweep of the tier.
DraftKings & FanDuel
Matthew Golden ($4,700 DK, $5,900 FD) – 7.3 targets, and nobody in that room sees more. Twelve looks and 30.2% of the Green Bay air yards, 42 of which never became receiving yards. He's the cleanest unconverted receiver on the board, priced off a box score that undersold him.
Wan'Dale Robinson ($4,600 DK, $5,300 FD) – 6.7 targets, more than any teammate, and the deficit does the work. Tennessee is down for 17.5 points, which is what generates the attempts. He caught five of six behind a 4.5 reception line, all of it short at 14.0% of the team air yards, so buy catches and not yardage.
Jayden Reed ($4,500 DK, $5,600 FD) – 6.8 targets out of the same offense as Golden, which is the awkward part of listing both. Seven looks turned 50 air yards into 20 receiving yards, a smaller version of the same case. Golden holds a reception line at the book and Reed holds none, which is the price gap.
Devaughn Vele ($4,200 DK, $5,500 FD) – 6.3 targets after seven catches for 69 and a score on nine looks a week ago. The vacancy in front of him might widen by Sunday morning, and he's the one who absorbs it.
Malik Washington ($4,000 DK, $5,600 FD) – 5.4 targets on a 20.4% share, and 43.7% of the Miami air yards, the largest downfield claim in this group. He's the one positive regression candidate who survives every question that screen usually kills a name on: eight targets and 135 air yards produced 53 receiving yards, an 82-yard gap, nobody has come back to reclaim the role, and Malik Willis is still throwing them.
FanDuel Only (over $5,000 on DraftKings)
Carnell Tate ($5,100 DK, $5,500 FD) – 6.3 targets and 35.3% of the projected air yards, the deeper half of that same trailing script. He took 40.9% of the Tennessee air yards in the opener and turned 67 of them into 38 receiving yards, so the depth is there and the output isn't yet.
Jalen Coker ($5,100 DK, $5,900 FD) – 6.7 targets and a 21.3% share after eight catches for 138 and two scores on 36.9% of the Carolina air yards. He already cashed that in, so you're buying the role and not a rebound. An ankle designation is open on Friday, which keeps him out of cash.
RANKINGS
| Pos | Rank | DK | FD |
|---|---|---|---|
| QB | 1 | Tyler Shough | Drake Maye |
| QB | 2 | Jayden Daniels | Malik Willis |
| QB | 3 | Geno Smith | Geno Smith |
| RB | 1 | Aaron Jones | Aaron Jones |
| RB | 2 | Derrick Henry | Derrick Henry |
| RB | 3 | MarShawn Lloyd | Rhamondre Stevenson |
| RB | 4 | Rhamondre Stevenson | MarShawn Lloyd |
| WR | 1 | Mike Evans | Mike Evans |
| WR | 2 | Matthew Golden | Matthew Golden |
| WR | 3 | Chris Olave | Chris Olave |
| WR | 4 | Garrett Wilson | Carnell Tate |
| WR | 5 | Devaughn Vele | Wan'Dale Robinson |
| WR | 6 | Jayden Reed | Devaughn Vele |
| TE | 1 | Dalton Schultz | Gunnar Helm |
| TE | 2 | Gunnar Helm | Dallas Goedert |
| TE | 3 | Dallas Goedert | Mark Andrews |
| DST | 1 | New England | New England |
| DST | 2 | Tennessee | Tennessee |
Tools used for this slate
Every number in this playbook comes off the free BankrollSZN tools: this week's NFL DFS projections, the free NFL lineup optimizer, and the live NFL odds and totals.