Once again, it was relatively easy to project who was going to be popular in Week 2. The obvious chalk of the week was Ty Montgomery on both sites at a very decent price. He ended up being over 37% owned in the DraftKings Milly Maker. He was 12% higher owned than the next highest player Tyreek Hill at 25%. On Fanduel, he was 35% owned in the $7 Millionaire contest, tied with Julio Jones. Jones was predicted to be the highest owned wide receiver and he was 21% on DK. Coby Fleener was the next highest owned player on DK at nearly 21%. This was predictable due to his low price of $3100 and playing in a game expected to shoot out. Also from the Patriots game Brandin Cooks and Chris Hogan were popular. Cooks was higher owned on Fanduel and Hogan on DK due to pricing. Hogan ended up scoring 18 DK points, but Cooks was a disappointment. Another popular play on Fanduel was the Baltimore defense. They were 28% owned, tied for the most rostered player.
Tom Brady, the highest scoring QB on the day was 16% owned on both sites. He was the highest owned QB and turned out to be well worth it. Carson Wentz, the second highest scoring QB was less than 1% on each of the big sites. Quite a difference from the week before. If you played him, congrats, as any time you can get a player at 1% and he goes off it is awesome. Michael Crabtree was only 7% and 4% owned and he scored three touchdowns. Another great play was C.J. Anderson, who was only 6% and 1% owned, yet scored two touchdowns and was in the top three overall fantasy scoring. Travis Kelce, who I recommended playing, was the highest scoring tight end at only 6 and 7 percent owned.
This week’s two highest over/unders are the Oakland/Washington game at 54 points and the Detroit/Atlanta game at 50.5 points. The Oak/Wash game is the primetime game and will draw heavy ownership. Unlike week one, Matthew Stafford will be popular going up against the Falcons defense. In general, I don’t worry about quarterback ownership that much. Even at 16% last week, Brady was well worth the play. You hardly ever see ownership over 20% for Qbs on the main slate. Look for Devonta Freeman to be more popular than he was last week. Julio will always carry high ownership, and I expect that again this week. Derek Carr and Crabtree will be owned by plenty of people. I like them in this spot, but may lean towards Amari Cooper, who should be lower owned than Crabtree. I think I may go back to Marshawn Lynch, who may get overlooked. He might be your best bet to get some action in the night game at lower ownership.
Here are some other players I think will be highly owned this week. LeVeon Bell’s ownership should go back up this week even after another not so great performance. He faces a much softer defense in the Bears than he did last week. Expect Kareem Hunt to be chalky this week. He has certainly earned it with his play the first two weeks. Jay Ajayi faces the putrid New York Jets this week and should carry some ownership. Melvin Gordan should also be a popular play.
With Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb banged up, Davante Adams should be chalky this week at wide receiver. I don’t see any super values standing out just yet at this position. Most ownership should fall on a lot of the studs like A.J. Green going against the Packers. He is priced down this week actually at only $7500 on Fanduel. Mike Evans should be popular after a good week one. Keenan Allen may be popular as well after receiving 20 targets the first two weeks. Antonio Brown, I am not sure just yet. He is actually less expensive than Julio this week, which is rare. Look for Zach Ertz to be popular again, even though his long catch last week was a fluke. (It bounced off defender who should have picked it). Eric Ebron also should be chalky at the tight end position.
Remember, not all chalk is bad chalk. The saying goes “chalk is chalk for a reason”. Players in good spots are naturally going to be higher owned than players in bad spots. Finding the players in perceived bad situations, but that could do well is the key to pivoting off the chalk. Listen to the late week podcast and read the articles on dfs.scout.com to determine which popular players to roster and which are best to fade.
