The league threw a brutal NFL DFS main slate at us for Week 15, as the Thursday and Saturday action combined with the Sunday-Monday nighters pull so many old standbys out of the player pool for Sunday afternoon. The running back position especially has just been rocked for daily fantasy football contests, and when you throw in relatively tight pricing on DraftKings, it's a difficult slate to parse in constructing a tournament/GPP lineup consisting of the right mix of picks with respect to projected ownership rate.
I'll reference UFCollective projections in analyzing developments affecting DK ownership for tournaments on the Sunday main slate, featuring 11 games at 1 and 4 p.m. ET.
Week 15 Rankings:
Quarterback | Running Back | Wide Receiver | Tight End | D/ST | Kicker
NFL Week 15 DFS Ownership: Quarterback
Tom Brady ($5,900) and Ben Roethlisberger ($6,600) both stand a good chance at hitting double-digit roster rate and find themselves in the most popular QB-WR stacks. As of Friday afternoon, New England-Pittsburgh carries the lead in Vegas point total by a touchdown over the rest of the DraftKings main slate.
Marcus Mariota ($5,100) figures to go super-low owned even down at your typical basement price. Injuries and the Titans' run tendencies in positive game script have led to some duds this year more Mariota, but he's also landed around 4X value a few times in the past couple months.. ... Josh Johnson ($4,300) pushes the basement QB price uncommonly low this week, though just about everyone's washed their hands of Washington.
WEEK 15 DFS CASH LINEUPS: Yahoo | FanDuel | DraftKings
NFL Week 15 DFS Ownership: Running Back
The chalk seems pretty apparent on this workhorse-barren slate accompanied by tight pricing. Ezekiel Elliott ($9,900), Saquon Barkley ($9,400), and Joe Mixon ($6,100) should dust the pack at RB in ownership. Fitting both Zeke and Barkley will be a challenge, but dropping one for Mixon should be relatively popular. I like Mixon more in cash than GPP since the volume is more enticing than demonstrated upside in that Cincy offense.
There's scuttlebutt over Mike Zimmer's annoyance with the lack of run calls from his deposed offensive coordinator. Given how miserable the Vikes' already-maligned OL looked in prime time, I'm not sure #NarrativeStreet overcomes that enough to boost ownership in a major way for Dalvin Cook ($6,500), especially with the option to save $400 to pick up Mixon.
WEEK 15 DFS GPP LINEUPS: Yahoo | FanDuel | DraftKings
NFL Week 15 DFS Ownership: Wide Receiver
The Pats held Antonio Brown ($8,500) under 30 yards JuJu Smith-Schuster ($8,000) went over 100 last time they played. Since this should be the most slammed game on the main slate, JuJu looks destined for chalk, but Brown probably still manages mid-tier ownership. Keenan Allen showed the value of exploiting Steelers linebackers from the slot, so many will also run back the other side of a Ben-JuJu/Brown stack with Julian Edelman ($7,200).
Calvin Ridley ($5,000) has left people stone-dead in tournaments, so the DK masses will probably leave him for dead even with Patrick Peterson likely to shadow Julio in a home domer. ... A fair amount of people will follow Amari Cooper through the $900 price bump, while Michael Gallup ($3,600) flies under the radar at half the price with more air yards since Week 12.
MORE WEEK 15 DFS: Values | Stacks | Lineup Builder
NFL Week 15 DFS Ownership: Tight End
George Kittle ($6,300), Eric Ebron ($5,900), and Rob Gronkowski ($5,800) conduct the chalk train this week, riding that monorail above the TE wasteland. The ownership cliff comes after that, save for maybe Jared Cook ($5,600) picking up decent ownership despite woeful road splits for him and the Raiders pass O.
Kyle Rudolph ($3,500) makes for an interesting punt if you really like to live dangerously. You're fading the Zimmer-Pounds-the-Rock narrative and betting on Kirk-Gets-Right-at-Home, where Rudolph reeled in seven catches last time out.