By: Greg Landry | LineStar Chat: @glandry | Twitter: @GP_Landry

Welcome to NFL Takeaways! An important, and often overlooked, foundation of any DFS process is taking a look back at the previous slate and honestly assessing how we did. What did we get right? What did we get wrong? How can I learn from this and improve next week? This will be a weekly newsletter series with that focus in mind.

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A lot of potential playoff teams surprisingly lost winnable games this week which really tightened up the playoff races going on in both conferences. The Saints, Chiefs, Rams, Bills, and Colts all lost games we really expected them to win. Meanwhile, the Steelers, Raiders, and Titans all picked up huge wins and find themselves right in the thick of things ten weeks into the season. Oakland, in particular, was a big winner this weekend, picking up the win against the Chargers and watching Kansas City lose to the Titans. The Raiders face the 0-9 Bengals this week and are very likely looking at 6-4 and a match up against Kansas City on 12/1 for first place in the AFC West. The Eagles, on their bye week, happily watched the Cowboys lose to Minnesota, making the NFC East title an extremely close battle.

From a fantasy perspective, we learned this past weekend that Patrick Mahomes is ridiculous (wait, we already knew that), the Cardinals still can’t cover tight ends, Cooper Kupp is missing, and David Johnson is not healthy. Let's talk about a few more players' performances we might be able to use to our advantage going forward.

What Did We Learn?

Here we'll focus on a couple players at each position who stood out (both good and bad) and identify if there's any actionable information we can use when building our rosters going forward.

Quarterbacks

Patrick Mahomes, KC: 36/50, 446 yards, 3 TD

Heeeee’s baaaaaaaaack. DFS players who chose to take the wait and see approach on Mahomes only a couple of weeks removed from a dislocated kneecap were disappointed that they missed out on this performance. Without an ounce of rust, Mahomes was right back to scrambling all over the field, slinging the ball sidearm, and even threw a jump pass on his supposedly “bad” knee that went to Mecole Hardman for a 63 yard touchdown. Coming into this week, the Titans had held opponents to 20 points or less in seven of their nine games (granted the last two weeks were the ones where they allowed more than 20 points) making this, theoretically, a difficult match up on paper. Only DJ Moore, Mike Evans, Austin Ekler, Austin Hooper, and CMC had topped over 100 yards against this defense. With Mahomes coming back from his injury, it’s understandable that expectations were tempered by many in this spot. But, what they forgot is this is Patrick Mahomes. He doesn’t care about the match up. The key Chiefs offensive players Hill (11/157/1) and Kelce (7/75/1) saw noticeable increases in their production as well. Despite the heartbreaking loss, Mahomes is clearly back and we should expect this Kansas City offense to put up massive numbers once again going forward. We should also expect this to force the opposing offense to have to open up the playbook, likely early, which increases the opportunities of shootouts.

Kyler Murray, AZ: 27/44, 324 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT

Despite some “rookie” mistakes that kept this from being an even bigger game, it was Murray’s best performance of his young career. Unsurprisingly, it came against Tampa Bay. As we talked about in this article last week, Tampa Bay’s aggressive offensive style and inability to stop opposing passing games leads to games that involve the Buccaneers almost guaranteeing to be a shootout. We can now add Murray to a long list of quarterbacks who have 1) put up their best fantasy game and 2) thrown their highest attempted passes of the season against Tampa Bay. Also add to the list another game the Bucs were involved in that went over 50 points for the total score. I will be jumping off this train for the upcoming week, despite a very impressive two game stretch here, as Murray and the Cardinals will take on the very difficult San Francisco 49ers defense. Yes, Murray (17/24, 241 yards, 2 TD) was actually pretty solid against them in week nine, but that was at home on a short week. I would expect Murray to struggle more on the road and the 49ers to be more prepared this time around.

Running Backs

Kalen Ballage, MIA: 20 carries, 43 yards, 4 receptions, 2 yards

Hopefully you didn’t fall for this trap. Yes, volume is obviously important in NFL DFS but talent needs to be there as well as having the right pieces around you. This Dolphins team, simply put, isn’t set up to support a running game. For starters, the offensive line is 28th in adjusted line yards, creating little room for running backs to get going. Secondly, game script is unlikely to be in Miami’s favor even with their current winning streak (did I just say that?) Add those issues to the fact that Ballage managed to fall behind both Kenyon Drake (before he was traded) and Mark Walton (before he was suspended) on the depth chart and there just isn’t much to work with here. He confirmed this Sunday by turning 20 carries into 43 yards (just 2.15 YPC). The Dolphins aren’t going to go out and sign another running back, given winning was never a goal this season anyway. I’m perfectly fine with keeping an eye on Parker, Gesicki, and even Fitzpatrick in the right match ups but I have no interest in investing in this backfield and neither should you.

Derrick Henry, TEN: 23 carries, 188 yards, 2 TD

The Kansas City defense got exposed on Sunday. They are a pure run funnel defense, ranking 4th in DVOA against the pass but 30th in DVOA against the run. Tennessee took full advantage of this by leaning on Henry to slow the game down, keep Mahomes off the field as much as possible (even though this didn’t matter) and keep themselves in the game. They used Tannehill just enough (only 19 pass attempts) and he, surprisingly, minimized mistakes, throwing two touchdowns and no interceptions. This well executed plan, plus a defensive touchdown off a fumble by Damian Williams, allowed the Titans to beat the Chiefs despite Mahomes throwing for 446 yards. Teams need to continue to pound the rock against this Kansas City defense if they want to have any chance of sneaking out a victory. Next up is the Chargers who have made getting Melvin Gordon more involved a point of emphasis since switching offensive coordinators. Look for them to lean on him on Monday night this week. Gordon will have some “late-hammer” appeal in the Thursday to Monday and Sunday to Monday slates and will be a core piece in smaller slates or the Monday night showdown slate.

Wide Receivers

Darius Slayton, NYG: 10 receptions, 122 yards, 2 TD

There are two angles to consider when it comes to this performance that will help us figure out if Slayton is a player we want to invest in going forward. First, the positive side. Slayton clearly has talent, as he was able to step up on a day his team needed him. The Giants, and Daniel Jones, obviously have faith in him considering the 14 target day. But before we go locking him into rosters, we need to think about the negatives here as well. For starters, the 14 targets were aided by both Engram and Shepard missing. Shepard, however, is looking sketchy with his concussion situation and Engram’s health a question mark meaning this opportunity could still be there for Slayton after the bye week. The other piece working in Slayton’s favor was that this was really the perfect match up for the Giants to lean pass heavy against the Jets pass funnel defense that ranks 3rd in rush defense DVOA and 21st in pass defense DVOA. With Barkley unable to get anything going, Jones ended up dropping back to pass 40 times, something we assume the Giants would prefer not to do when they can typically hand it off to Saquon. The bottom line? Slayton looks like a solid player who will have his fair share of games where he pops off but he’ll likely need some help from an opportunity and match up perspective to get there, so those things need to be weighted heavily each week. The Giants are heading into their bye week and then have difficult passing game match ups against the Bears and Packers the following two weeks. I don’t expect Slayton to be on our radar again for a while. If you can afford the bench spot, I don’t hate stashing him on season long rosters if you have some injuries. The Giants have the Dolphins and Redskins in the fantasy playoffs. Assuming Shepard is out, Slayton could have some opportunities in those games.

Amari Cooper, DAL: 11 receptions, 147 yards, 1 TD

Honestly, the stat line doesn’t do this game justice. How exactly did Oakland not figure out a way to properly utilize this guy? Cooper put on a clinic and this is despite being a game-time decision due to injury concerns with both his knee and ankle. He had multiple “toe-tapping” catches on the sideline where it looked like, at least on TV, the ball was being thrown well out of bounds but somehow he managed to keep his feet in play and pull them in. One of these went for a touchdown. Unfortunately for Dallas, questionable play calling that saw them continually try to pound Zeke up the middle (when the passing game was on fire) could be viewed as one of the reasons they fell short in a critical game. Poor coaching or not, one thing is clear from a fantasy perspective. Cooper is a match up proof WR1 each week. He’s seen at least 5 targets in every game but one and as many as 14 targets in two of their last five games. He also has seven touchdowns now on the season which is second to only Kenny Golladay (8) among receivers. Dallas gets a nice bounce back spot against a Detroit defense that allowed Mitchell Trubisky to throw for three touchdowns on Sunday.

Tight Ends

OJ Howard, TB: 4 receptions, 47 yards 1 TD

In all seriousness, this says way more about just how bad the Cardinals defense is against the tight end than it does about Howard. He had missed the last two games with an injury and prior to that had only seen more than four targets once all season. Even Bruce Arians, who NEVER emphasizes the tight end in his offense, found a way to emphasize his tight end in this spot because of how good a match up it is. I don’t expect Howard’s usage spike to suddenly become consistent. It’s encouraging that he at least was able to step up when they needed him but trying to bank on this as becoming a trend is a very risky bet. He’s nothing more than a GPP dart throw until we start to see this volume happen more often.

Jared Cook, NO: 6 receptions, 74 yards

Quitely, Cook (other than Michael Thomas) was one of the few bright spots for a team on the wrong side of an unexpected outcome. Losing is one thing but not finding the end zone once against the Falcons secondary, while at home in the Superdome no less, is just completely shocking. Prior to missing a couple of weeks, Cook was starting to carve out a role for himself in this Saints offense with at least six targets in two of three games. Granted, this was with Teddy Bridgewater under center. In his only game with Brees (week one) he saw just three targets, so the ten targets in this game is very encouraging. This coming week is a date with our favorite team to target, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We should expect that game to be high scoring and the Saints will likely need to lean on the pass with how much of a funnel defense Tampa Bay is.

Millionaire Maker In Review

In this section we'll take a look at the winning "milly maker" lineup with a focus on players selected, ownership, and roster construction. I'll switch back and forth between DraftKings and FanDuel.

I'm actually not sure what's more impressive. The person who won the milly maker this week or the other person who had a team finish in third place and fourth place. Either way, let's take a look at the lineup that took home one million dollars this past week:

It was a great week to target Mahomes in tournaments. There was a lot of uncertainty around him. Is he really that healthy or is Kansas City rushing him back out of necessity? He was relatively cheap (by typical Mahomes standards) and this was the lowest ownership we’ll likely get him all season. Surprisingly, against a team that loves to slow the game down and keep it low scoring, this game turned into a massive shootout that forced him to throw 50 attempts and put up 446 passing yards. Ideal scenario for anyone who played him this week.

This is the first winning lineup that I remember this season which wasn’t “mega-chalk” at running back. No Christian McCaffrey is the big surprise. It was a smash spot for Derrick Henry and he came through in a big way. The tricky part about Henry is he always feels a bit overpriced on PPR sites for a player who is rarely used in the passing game and is very touchdown dependent. You could also argue, however, that this also leads to him often being under owned in really good spots like this one against a very run friendly defense. I did not buy into the RoJo hype this week, as this wasn’t the first time Coach Arians had told us this season that he was going to be the starter and get the bulk of the work only to see Peyton Barber lead the team in touches. This time, Arians was true to his word, with Jones being the clear leader in this backfield. Even more encouraging was his eight receptions.

If you’re playing Mahomes, you need to pair him with someone. The obvious choices were either Hill or Kelce. Given how stingy the Titans have been against number one receivers this season, the field was leaning Kelce here. So it was smart to leverage the field with Hill in this spot. Kirk was one of the chalk wide receivers this week, with good reason, having seen double digit targets in three of the six games he played in this season. Plus, as we’ve already discussed over and over, we always want exposure to the passing offense facing Tampa Bay’s defense. Michael Thomas was the lock of the week (other than Lamar Jackson) against the pathetic Falcons secondary. Thomas’s target share is second to none right now, having seen double digit targets in five straight games. If only the Saints could have scored in this one.

You know there wasn’t much to love at tight end this week when O.J Howard and Mike Gesicki were heavy topics of discussion around the industry. Hooper has been the best tight end in fantasy football this season but fell off of people’s radars a bit coming off the bye week. Good spot to jump right back on that train. Kareem Hunt was a very risky bet. We were speculating what his role would be on an offense that already can’t figure out how to feed all the mouths it has with an inexperienced head coach. Hunt was fairly low risk, at minimum salary, given his talent that even if he did absolutely nothing he wouldn’t have killed your lineups. As it turns out, he stepped right into heavy passing game work and was a steal.

The Steelers have become one of the most aggressive defenses in football and the trade for Minkah Fitzpatrick is starting to look like a genius move (I was really scratching my head when it happened). Pittsburgh is finding its identity as a run first team who needs to lean on very strong defense and only call on their backup quarterback to throw when absolutely necessary. On top of that, they were priced as if they were facing the reigning NFC champions even though, at this stage of the season, we are seeing the Rams simply aren’t the same offense as last year and “Jared Goff on the road” is becoming a real thing that brings down this entire offense.

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