“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.” – Bertrand Russell
If you’ve been reading this column since I began writing it over a year ago, you’d know I like to lead into the heavier stuff with some light-hearted half-related personal anecdote that I assume all of you just skip over to get to the good stuff. I’ve done this for pretty much all of our last 22 articles. Well, today I feel like being a little contrarian (see what I did there?) to what’s become our status quo, and just get right in to the good stuff.
Last week, PapaGates won the DraftKings MillyMaker with this lineup:
What’s especially interesting about this lineup was how PapaGates avoided the chalk in every instance save for Antonio Brown. His five players under five percent owned all paid dividends.
I liked Matthew Stafford’s chances last week, but suspected he would be highly owned against a porous Green Bay secondary struggling to tread water without cornerback Sam Shields. LeSean McCoy too was a guy I’ve been all over due to his high percentage of bell-cow games, but he too I suspected would be highly owned despite what seemed like a difficult matchup. Terrelle Pryor was a guy I did not write up, but ramped up my exposure to when news broke that he would be taking some reps at quarterback. T.Y. Hilton was a very sneaky play up against shutdown corner Jason Verrett that I had zero exposure to.
Last week was a fantastic week for the contrarian, and hopefully, it was a strong week for you too.
Looking at Fantasy Aces’ Week 4 ownership percentages from the $3 Quick Slant Thursday-Monday GPP contest provided to us by TwoQBs.com, this week, the following players are projected to be the chalk (most highly owned): Melvin Gordon, Jordan Howard, Cam Newton, Marvin Jones, Terrelle Pryor, Antonio Brown and Zach Miller.
As is typical, we’ll be fading the above players on the majority of our lineups and we will instead be looking at the following leverage plays (players who would benefit the most if the chalk underperforms) and contrarian plays (players under 7.5 percent owned) this week:
Quarterbacks
Brock Osweiler, Houston Texans (2% owned)
After getting blown out on primetime television last Thursday night, Osweiler is going to go underowned in what projects to be a very soft matchup. He’s a home favorite — which is a trend that typically lends itself to above average fantasy scoring at the quarterback position. Although Tennessee hasn’t been giving up very many fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks, their secondary currently sports our third-worst pass-coverage grade. I like Osweiler’s upside in a tournament when paired with either (or both) of DeAndre Hopkins or Will Fuller.
Hopkins, in six career games versus the Titans, averages 10.0 targets, 6.7 receptions, 116.0 yards, 0.8 touchdowns and 23.1 fantasy points per game. Opposite him, Fuller is not only being targeted often (8.3 targets per game), but is seeing high quality targets (20.16 average depth of target). Both should see a fair amount of time against Perrish Cox and Jason McCourty.
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