Weekend of the conference championships in fantasy football: DFS building blocks, values, and a star that will fade

Weekend of the conference championships in fantasy football: DFS building blocks, values, and a star that will fade

No matter if you’ve played Yahoo Daily Fantasy before or this is your first time, this weekly column takes a look at the world of DFS and tells you which players I like to build my teams around, which stars to avoid, which plays are undervalued, and which cheap options will help you make a better team.

Last week, McCaffrey turned 29 chances into 128 yards to scrimmage and two touchdowns, even though San Francisco played a game that wasn’t like them at all.

He will now play against a tough Detroit defensive line that has given up the fewest fantasy touchdowns to running backs in the last five weeks, taking into account their schedule. Still, it’s hard to fade CMC within DFS when there aren’t many other options.

This season, McCaffrey has recorded 23 touchdowns in 17 games. This week, the 49ers are huge favorites by a touchdown and have the highest implied club total (29 points). You should pay CMC a lot of money during the Tournament Round.

These days, the Philadelphia Eagles’ defense has been taking a beating. Three losses in a row, with each opponent scoring more than 20 points (not counting the 34 points given up to Buffalo in Week 12).

But that might not be the case when the Eagles play the Giants within Week 16. The Giants’ offense has had some good times with Tom DeVito, but in Week 15, they couldn’t do anything against the Saints’ strong front seven.

When making their DraftKings lineups for the Conference Championship games, many DFS players will focus on the Bengals-Chiefs AFC title matchup.

However, the 49ers-Rams NFC title matchup also has a lot of high-upside stars and inexpensive sleepers.

Our picks lean a bit toward the Bengals-Chiefs game, but the games should be fun no matter what strategy you use.

Even though Detroit is likely to lock up the third spot in the playoffs, the Lions plan to play their starters on Sunday.

Jameson Williams may have to sit because he is hurt, but coach Dan Campbell wants to get into the playoffs with an advantage after last week’s awful loss.

This year, Jared Goff has seven home games and a 7.8 YPA with 17 touchdowns. The Lions boast a strong estimated team total of 24.5 points. Because of this, the team’s fantasy D/ST hasn’t been very exciting for fantasy managers.

Taking into account the Vikings’ schedule, they gave up the most fantasy points to the slot across the last five weeks. St. Browns runs over fifty percent of his routes through that area.

Samuel says he will play on Sunday, but he very likely won’t get even close to the number of snaps he usually does. They are locked up as the top seed in the NFC, and Sam Darnold will start at quarterback.

The over/under has dropped to 41 points, and Carson Wentz will start for Los Angeles. It’s way too risky to pay Samuel’s WR2 salary this coming week because he might not play.

After San Francisco’s bye week, McCaffrey went back to full practice, so it looks like he is fully recovered from his leg injury.

In 2023, CMC scored more fantasy scores than another running back (100+). On Saturday night, he faces a Green Bay defense that isn’t very good.

The weather report says it will rain, but the 49ers have by far the best-implied team total (30 points) for the weekend. When there are a lot of questionable running backs on the board, McCaffrey jumps out even more.

Samuel was the best fantasy receiver from Weeks 13 to 17, but he rested for the last week, which didn’t matter. During those five games, he averaged 94.6 yards in scrimmage and scored eight touchdowns.

Samuel runs 33% of the time his routes out of the slot, which is where Green Bay gave up the second most points in fantasy games this year.

The Packers are most at risk in the middle, which is also where Kyle Shanahan’s offense works best.

Green Bay also has trouble stopping first-down passes. Brock Purdy led the league in both YPA (11.1) as well as dropback success rate on these plays. Piling up 49ers makes. In Week 18, the Sun God is an important DFS building block.