Fantasy
12/16/23
8 min read
How To Handle Week 15 Chalk In DFS
It's common for DFS players to key in on the same expected top plays each week, or 'chalk plays' if you will. Each week, we'll look at the expected chalk plays with tips and best practices to improve your roster construction.
We’ll also explore theoretical and conceptual areas of roster construction in DFS as we examine various pieces of chalk throughout the season, with the goal being to grow as players along the way. Numerous tips, or best practices, will emerge from this exploration. With that, and in our best Bruce Buffer voice, it’s time!
Week 15 Chalk
Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams
Kyren Williams has the most valuable role of all running backs not named Christian McCaffrey, and now gets a matchup with a Washington Commanders team that has surrendered a top five overall running back score in five consecutive weeks. I can stand behind this one.
Ezekiel Elliott, New England Patriots
Look, it’s extremely difficult to ignore the fact that Ezekiel Elliott is coming off a game where he saw 30 running back opportunities. We also must understand that Elliott is on the tail end of his career and that extreme workload came in a game where the New England Patriots controlled the environment throughout.
That is extremely unlikely to occur against the Kansas City Chiefs. Even so, Elliott carries the slate’s highest projected workload-to-price balance and could prove useful on a slate largely lacking projectable value pieces.
Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers
Christian McCaffrey has the league’s top role on one of the league’s top offenses, playing an opponent that has bled production to opposing backfields both on the ground and through the air. I can stand behind this one.
Jayden Reed, Green Bay Packers
The injuries in Green Bay are likely to force a higher degree of concentration amongst the primary skill position players that are healthy, in what has consistently been one of the more pass-funnel matchups in the league over the previous three seasons.
We don’t expect a ton of volume from the Green Bay Packers offense and Jayden Reed is highly unlikely to pierce the 100-yard receiving threshold, making him a solid cost-considered, point-per-dollar play that comes with a rather shaky ceiling.
Antonio Gibson, Washington Commanders
Antonio Gibson is an objectively worse on-paper play that Elliott and is likely gaining steam due to the field’s interest in the Rams on this slate, a product of the hangover effect of forcing a bring-back (which, as we’ve proven this season, is a dying technique). I won’t be going here, personally.
Chigoziem Okonkwo, Tennessee Titans
Chigoziem Okonkwo has a modest 74 percent route participation rate, meager 16.3 percent target share, and gross 10.0 percent red zone target share. Yea, we need value on this slate, but this ain’t it (for me).
Wan’Dale Robinson, New York Giants
Wan’Dale Robinson is coming off his best fantasy performance of the season, which was buoyed by a late 32-yard catch against the Packers. This feels more “Nationally televised game boost” than top on-paper play. I don’t want any part of Robinson on a slate we’re likely to need to score 230-245 points to ship GPPs.
Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals
Is there going to be a slate where Trey McBride isn’t chalk for the remainder of the season? Good Lord, man, this dude just always garners ownership. He’s now at his most expensive salary of the season and is in the nut-worst matchup for tight end production. No thank you.
Rashee Rice, Kansas City Chiefs
Rashee Rice continues to be an objectively strong on-paper play in an expanding role, coming off a three-game stretch of 10, nine and 10 targets. The matchup is not ideal, but we can comfortably expect eight to 12 targets for the emerging rookie.
Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
We kept talking about Matthew Stafford’s impending touchdown regression after he threw for multiple touchdowns just once in his first nine games. He has now thrown 10 touchdown passes in his previous three games and gets a Commanders defense that has bled production through the air all season.
One major change with that defense was a shift away from their previously high man-heavy tendencies in favor of extreme rates of Cover-2 (71 percent) and zone (94 percent) in their first game with head coach Ron Rivera calling defensive plays. That doesn’t appreciably affect Stafford’s expectation here more than it alters the likeliest path for the production to flow.
What’s Most Important in Week 15
First off, there are a lot of chalk pieces on this slate, and the chalk that is present is expected to garner higher levels of ownership than we typically find on most slates. That said, less than half of the chalk on this slate is on the top on-paper plays from the top expected offenses in the top expected game environments. In other words, there are still some extremely shaky chalk pieces on this slate.
Approaching the slate from the same hierarchical approach as we’ve done the previous two weeks leads us to the San Francisco 49ers as the most important entity to account for. It seems as if the field as correctly identified San Francisco as the top spot to account for, albeit with a high concentration of expected ownership on running back McCaffrey and quarterback Brock Purdy – more on this below.
The next spot with high certainty is the Los Angeles Rams. Like the 49ers, the field seems to have correctly identified the Rams as a top offense on this slate, albeit with a high concentration of expected ownership on running back Kyren Williams and quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Beyond those two offenses, the Dallas Cowboys-Buffalo Bills game involves two teams with high-powered offenses that both also brandish elite defenses, leaving that game with a rather wide range of potential outcomes. Even so, the top-end outcomes from that spot are much higher than the other games on the slate, with each offense capable of elite-level production. That makes this spot optimally attacked through a complete game over-stack as opposed to trying to pick out individual pieces.
Building Leverage Through That
This slate creates a high likelihood of rosters in play with a very constricted starting point. We’re likely to see over one-quarter of rosters in play this week contain either Stafford plus one of his pass-catchers plus McCaffrey or Purdy plus one of his pass-catchers plus Williams.
Both of those starting points are elite on this slate, which begs the question of how we leverage away from that base. The most obvious and glaring example is to also include Purdy or Stafford’s running back in those team stacks.
With so much of the field likely to play one of Williams or McCaffrey, running backs like Raheem Mostert, Bijan Robinson and Derrick Henry also gain increased leverage as the three backs likeliest to challenge Williams and McCaffrey for the top overall score at the position on the slate.
The next glaring spot to generate leverage on this slate is through the value pass-catchers as the field seems to be taking a rather risk-averse approach to salary savers. Compare the chalk value pieces like Reed, Okonkwo, Robinson and McBride to players with higher theoretical upside like Noah Brown, Rashid Shaheed, Brandin Cooks, Logan Thomas and Michael Wilson.
The latter list of players provides a clearer path to 20+ DK points than the former, which can be the difference between a top one percent finish and shipping a GPP.
The final clear spots for leverage are the players on the top expected teams not expected to garner much ownership. Simple, right? There is nothing in the matchup for the 49ers that clearly points to one player over the other three, leaving Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle as high-upside, high-leverage pieces on this slate. Similarly, both Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp carry as much upside as Williams yet will carry far lower ownership.
That will do it for our Week 15 exploration of chalk and some theoretical and conceptual takeaways. We’ll be running this series every week of the 2023 season, picking out new learning points with each week. I welcome all feedback with this new column, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to let me know things you like or things I could do better.
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