This upcoming week of the NFL season features more than a few intriguing fantasy football options for your FanDuel lineup. It’s a little crazy to think that we are already heading into the sixth week of the NFL Season. There have been plenty of ups and downs that have provided a solid fantasy football picture. It has become a little easier setting your FanDuel lineup based on the increased information. After five games, we are able to take a closer look at the matchups and use that to our advantage. There are some very low scoring offenses in the league and ideally you want to avoid starting anyone from those rosters. On the other side, it might make sense to play someone facing those teams as it could provide their offense more time with the ball. This week I looked to save some salary cap space at the running back position. There were some low end options that allowed me to splurge at wide receiver. I also spent a little more at quarterback than I have in weeks past. For the first time this year, I didn’t roster one of the top two running backs or wide receivers. This should provide me with more depth across my roster and steady points. There were more than a few weeks where I went with someone like Todd Gurley to anchor my lineup. However, that left me very thin at other spots which kept me behind the pace. This week’s lineup has some high upside options but more depth across the board.<doc-sep>Things change quickly and drastically during the NFL season. One piece of news can change a top-end stud into a mid-tier play, or elevate a cheap role player to elite value stats. Pricing in daily fantasy tends to lag well behind these changes, as having a whole week for news to break between slates creates an entirely different dynamic than we see in sports like baseball or basketball, where new pricing is set every day. We also deal with uniquely small sample sizes over the NFL season. Only three weeks of NBA or MLB action would give you more slates than the entire NFL season. This means that stats can be full of variance, leaving production (and price tags) well out of line with where they should be. If we add matchup analysis to the mix, identifying spots where we can expect players to see a bump in volume or efficiency, that leaves us with quite an array of angles to approach our hunt for value on any given NFL slate. Let's get right into it and look at some of the best FanDuel NFL value plays for Week 6.<doc-sep>NFL Advanced Matchup Plays: Week 6 How was your Week 5? Mine was bittersweet. It was profitable – basically all of our top plays hit. But not playing over cost me something like $145,000. Here are my Week 6 main slate plays for DraftKings and FanDuel: Note 1: All numbers in parentheses refer to a player’s salary rank on each site. Note 2: All references to expected fantasy points can be explained here. Quarterback Two weeks ago I wrote on a post-it note to myself, “All-in on in Week 6. No matter what.” It’s Week 6. I’m still all-in, with the exception of some lineups. [DK: QB10, FD: QB11] Winston was a lot better last year than you may remember. Across the 11 games he played on at least 50 percent of Tampa Bay’s snaps, he averaged 19.9 fantasy points per game and 306.9 passing yards per game. Those numbers ranked fourth and first, respectively, among all quarterbacks to play in as many games. This season, across the first three games Winston missed, his backup, career journeyman totaled 101.4 fantasy points, or the fourth-most by any quarterback through any three-week stretch ever. Perhaps most of the credit for Fitzpatrick’s impressive start belongs to new OC Todd Monken. You know, seeing as how it’s weird his three best games in terms of passing yards (of 137 career games) all came this year. If that’s the case, I’m eager to see what he has up his sleeve this week, coming off the bye with extra time to prepare. Oh, but how do we know Winston will be a good fit with Monken? Well, he was PFF’s highest-graded quarterback this preseason, recording 30 completions, 388 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions on 41 attempts. And now Winston gets a dream matchup against an atrocious Atlanta defense in what should be a high-scoring pass-heavy shootout. Tampa Bay has had no running game all season and Atlanta is likely to be without this week. Tampa Bay’s defense has surrendered 80 percent of their total yards allowed via the pass (most). Both teams rank bottom-six in schedule adjusted fantasy points per game to opposing quarterbacks. Both teams rank bottom-four in fantasy points allowed per dropback and pressures forced per dropback. Tampa Bay is on pace to set all-decade lows in opposing passer rating (116.2), passing yards allowed per game (360.5), and passing touchdowns allowed per game (2.90). The Falcons rank dead-last in points allowed per drive, while the Buccaneers rank second-worst. Both offenses rank top-10 in pace neutral pass percentage. Atlanta is without their top linebacker Deion Jones, two starting safeties, and their highest-graded defender (in each of the past two years) DL Grady Jarrett is questionable. Tampa Bay is without a starting safety and one or two starting cornerbacks, depending on whether or not Carlton Davis suits up. I can keep going but I think you get the picture. [DK: QB1, FD: QB3] As we outlined just above, the matchup is just as good for Ryan as it is Winston, and maybe better. Ryan struggled in Weeks 1 and 5 when he was on the road but played much better at home in Weeks 2 through 4. How much better? Well, he totaled 100.1 fantasy points, or the fifth-most by any quarterback through any three-week stretch ever. Yes, he’s at home this week in the dome. Other: There are other plays but I’m not going to play them. Running Back [DK: RB1, FD: RB1] Though Gurley is the highest-priced player on both sites, he’s still a top value on FanDuel (though a tougher sell on DraftKings). Gurley has scored at least 20 fantasy points in each of his last nine games, and averages a whopping 31.4 fantasy points per game over this stretch. Since Week 1 of 2017, Gurley leads all players in percentage of his team’s total yards with 32.7 percent. The next-closest player is with 26.5 percent. More impressively, over this span, he’s accounted for 43.8 percent of his team’s total offensive touchdowns. The next-closest player is at only 33.3 percent. These numbers are all backed up by the usage stats as well – carries, targets, snaps, expected fantasy points, opportunities inside the five-, 10-, and 20-yard lines, and then all of those numbers on a market share basis as well. It’s hard to describe just how valuable Gurley is. No other player is a bigger part of their team’s offense than Gurley, and Gurley just so happens to be playing on the best offense in football. He gets a fairly soft matchup this week against a Denver defense ranking second-worst in yards per carry allowed (5.55) and rushing fantasy points per game allowed (19.4). I won’t be making a FanDuel lineup without him this week. [DK: RB10, FD: RB9] In Week 5, Yeldon totaled 26.7 expected fantasy points and 26.2 actual fantasy points, which ranked second- and fifth-best at the position, respectively. Although Jacksonville signed Tuesday, per Tom Pelissero, “the plan is for to still be ‘the guy’ in the Jaguars’ backfield” while is out. Despite Fournette playing four quarters throughout the season, and (now on IR) mixing in, Yeldon still ranks sixth among all running backs in expected fantasy points and eighth in actual fantasy points. Based almost entirely on volume and a lack of competition for backfield snaps, he’s a top value on the slate, despite what’s at-best a neutral matchup even with Sean Lee out. Other (Expensive): , , , Other (Cheap): (a top play if is out), , , , , , , Wide Receiver [DK: WR5, FD: WR5] Despite (as we all know) poor volume and efficiency near the end zone, Jones’ volume has still been pretty good overall. Among wide receivers he ranks seventh in expected fantasy points per game, fifth in targets per game, second in air yards per game, and second in deep targets per game. He’s coming off of a disappointing outing last week, in shadow coverage against Joe Haden, to face the ultimate possible matchup. Tampa Bay ranks dead-last in schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to opposing WR1s. As Graham Barfield noted here, Tampa Bay’s perimeter cornerbacks have been atrocious on a per-target-basis, and that’s where Jones runs 79 percent of his routes. That matchup might get even softer this week with Carlton Davis questionable. Since 2014, Jones averages 26.2 fantasy points per game across eight games against Tampa Bay, or 34.7 fantasy points per game when home and against Tampa Bay. Since 2014, 30 percent of his receiving touchdowns have come against Tampa Bay. After “only” seeing nine targets last week, HC Dan Quinn apologized after the game, saying, “[We] just have to make sure [Jones] gets as many touches as we can in the game. He’s one of our best and most explosive players so every game, we want him involved.” I suspect he’ll rectify that error big-time in Week 6. This is a Julio eruption spot – the only other time I’ve said that within this column he scored over 50 fantasy points – and he’s nonsensically priced on both sites. [DK: WR31, FD: WR32] As bad as Tampa Bay is on the perimeter, they’re far worse in the slot. After losing starting slot cornerback Vernon Hargreaves to the I.R. in Week 1, they’re giving up a league-high 30.4 fantasy points per game to opposing slot wide receivers, which is more than double the league average rate of 14.5. A whopping 65 percent of their wide receiver fantasy points allowed has gone to the slot, which also leads the league. Keep in mind, Sanu runs 75 percent of his routes from the slot and is coming off of back-to-back big games. Over this span, he totals 10 receptions, 184 yards, and a touchdown (on 16 targets). I’d bet he has another big game this week. [DK: WR39, FD: WR35] Over the past two weeks, with and out of the lineup, Rogers has averaged 18.0 expected fantasy points per game. That ranks 10th-most among all wide receivers over this span.<doc-sep>
Need Fantasy Football lineup advice? Talk to CBS Sports on your Google Assistant to get insights on the best sleepers and to help decide between players. Just start with, "Hey Google, talk to CBS Sports." Some weeks it's hard to figure out who the chalk is going to be. This is not one of those weeks. With the Chiefs and Patriots on Sunday night everyone is flocking to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons. Specifically Jameis Winston and Julio Jones. This makes sense because there is a huge disparity between the offensive and defensive talent in this game, but it's going to be hard to get rich playing Falcons and Bucs today. Unless you mix in some of these high-upside contrarian plays. As always, I'm using ownership projections from @UFCollective. You can get their full projected ownership here. Kirk Cousins MIN • QB • 8 Projected FD Ownership 3.86% Projected DK Ownership 3.80% View Profile Kirk Cousins is the rare "under-priced, under-owned" combination this week on FanDuel. I'd play him on that site even if his ownership wasn't projected below four percent. He is a high-volume passer with outstanding efficiency and one of the best receiving corps in the league. There are six quarterbacks priced higher than Cousins on this slate and Matt Ryan is the only one I'd rather play. On DraftKings, this is more about the ownership. Cousins has the upside on a weekly basis to be the highest scoring quarterback on the slate and his Vikings still haven't scored a touchdown on the ground. Bilal Powell NYJ • RB • Projected FD Ownership 6.35% Projected DK Ownership 7.03% View Profile The timeshare between Isaiah Crowell and Bilal Powell has been one of the most frustrating we've had to deal with this season. Powell actually has more carries and more targets. Crowell has scored all of the touchdowns and broken multiple long plays. So on a week-to-week basis they're going to be hard to figure out. But Powell's price combined with Crowell's ankle injury makes him the choice easy this week. The Jets have only used Powell intermittently in the passing game, but this would be a good week to go back to it. Last week this Colts defense allowed 10 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown to James White. Emmanuel Sanders BUF • WR • 1 Projected FD Ownership 3.86% Projected DK Ownership 3.35% View Profile There's a lot of talk about the weather in Denver today. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be cold (in the 20s) but the snow is forecast to stop around kickoff and there's very little wind. That makes both passing offenses appealing if everyone else stays away from them. Emmanuel Sanders and Cooper Kupp are the most interesting because of their usage and price. Sanders has the better matchup and game script, so I lean towards him. Maurice Harris NO • WR • 16 Projected FD Ownership .55% Projected DK Ownership .72% View Profile Maurice Harris played 49 snaps and saw eight targets last week against the Saints. Now Jamison Crowder and Chris Thompson are out as well. This could be a double-digit target game for a receiver that also has big play upside. It's not a great matchup against Carolina but it does look like one where Washington could once again be in garbage time late, and he's dirt cheap. So who should you sit and start? And what shocking QB could win you Week 6? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy football rankings for every single position, and see which shocking QB finishes in the top 10 this week, all from the model that out-performed experts big time last season.