Hidden Gems. Week 17 Underdog Battle Royale Value Picks.
Before we dive into the Week 17 picks, let’s recap our picks over the past few weeks:
- Week 16: It was Joe Flacco week, whoops
- Week 15: No gems piece, we wrote up a playoff best ball primer
- Week 14: Wilson and Sutton delivered
- Week 13: Some hits, but no big wins
- Week 12: Solid week, nailed Pat Freiermuth but Shaheed got hurt
- Week 11: Brutal week, we were on the Jags but not the right one!
- Week 10: Seattle/Washington hit, but not in a big enough way to win tournaments
- Week 9: Rough week, only Hunter Henry helped squads
- Week 8: Whiffed on our AFC South QB stacks, but Trey McBride did us proud
- Week 7: Very upset we didn’t unearth D’onta Foreman, but Rashee Rice and James Cook got there
- Week 6: Rough week, had the wrong QB/TE duo from Commanders/Falcons game
- Week 5: Resurrection bye week
- Week 4: Fields breakout game vs. the Broncos
- Week 3: Whiffed on our RBs and Jahan Dotson, but nailed Tank Dell
- Week 2: We called the Lions/Seahawks the matchup to target and the two teams combined for 68 points.
- Week 1: We unearthed one massive Hidden Gem in Brandon Aiyuk, who popped off for 28.9 points
We made it to Week 17 and we need to be sure to savor it.
This is the last full slate of the year (13 games) where we also don’t have to worry about the teams resting starters (Week 18 is always notoriously tricky).
After this one, we’ll be down to just short slates for the playoff weekends.
Thanks to 13 games, we have tons of great scroll-down options for Battle Royale contests. The field is going to get funneled to the Top 36 players, which means we can veer slightly off the beaten path to select players who don’t project that differently, but come at a fraction of the popularity.
As a reminder, you can sign up for Underdog Fantasy and get a 100% deposit match of up to $100 when you use promo code LIFE below to start drafting today!
Let’s dig in for some gems…
QB: Justin Fields (ADP: 33.6)
There are lots of field tendencies we can exploit in Battle Royale contests (ADP anchoring bias, chalk combos, etc.), but none are greater than recency bias.
This isn’t unique to just Underdog Drafts, either. This plays out in basically every form of fantasy:
Whatever happened last week, is sure to happen again this week, right?
Last week Justin Fields was the unanimous QB1 in Battle Royale contests thanks to his juicy matchup with the Cardinals. His 24.5 point performance was solid, but not enough to edge Joe Flacco (26.82) from the optimal.
This week he gets a home matchup vs. a middle-of-the-pack Falcons defense and drafters have responded by pushing him all the way down to QB7.
There’s a big difference between QB6 and QB7 in these formats because the QB6 (this week it’s Matthew Stafford) is drafted in the majority of contests, while the QB7 is drafted far less frequently.
So when we select Fields in Week 17, not only are we getting access to a signal caller with QB1 upside, but we’ll be doing so at a fraction of the field exposure relative to the other Top 6 QBs.
TE: Cole Kmet (35.7)
What’s also great about the Fields selection is that you can further compound the leverage by pairing him with his TE, Cole Kmet, who rarely gets drafted as the TE8 right now.
Kmet does currently have a Q (questionable) tag after not practicing on Wednesday, but this is not a bad thing.
We haven’t discussed Q tag strategy in this space this year, but if you draft a player with a Q tag who is later ruled out (think Tyreek Hill in Week 15), Underdog will automatically swap them out for the best available TE via ADP (or your personal ranks).
The team who won the Week 15 Battle Royale selected Hill, but then swapped to Jaylen Waddle:
This dynamic allows us to lean into uncertainty that the field often avoids, while also providing a safety net that ensures we won’t take a zero at the position.
If you select Kmet and he didn’t play for some reason (you could ensure that someone like Kyle Pitts, Darren Waller, or Dalton Kincaid replaced him).
RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire (ADP: 35.8)
Last week we attacked the cheap, projectable RB volume in the form of Ty Chandler and Chuba Hubbard, and we’re going back to the well again this week with the Chiefs starting RB, Clyde-Edwards Helaire.
His current ADP indicates that he’s rarely getting drafted in Battle Royale contests (likely less than 10% of the time), which seems like a mistake.
CEH is slated to have the backfield to himself in Week 17 vs. the Bengals with Isiah Pacheco (concussion) and Jerick McKinnon (groin, IR) not available.
The Bengals are a bad defense (No. 29 in defensive rush success rate), per Matthew Freedman) and Edwards-Helaire had a strong role when Pacheco missed in Weeks 14 and 15:
Don’t hesitate to scroll down for CEH this week. He’s not a slam dunk, but he has paths to being a Top 5 RB on this slate while ending up on very few lineups.
WR DeAndre Hopkins (ADP: 33.6)
I generally don’t like writing up the same guy on back-to-back weeks because variety is the spice of life, but since the theme of this week’s edition is fading recency bias, let’s go back to DeAndre Hopkins.
The Titans controlled things on the ground last week vs. the Seahawks and Hopkins saw his lowest target total of the year (4).
But they now face a Texans squad that just gave up 11 receptions, 265 yards, and 2 TDs to another veteran WR in Amari Cooper.
Hopkins is currently going behind players who project for fewer targets and in worse matchups:
Hopkins doesn’t feel “safe” by any means, but these are the exact type of spots we want to attack when trying to take down a top prize in a big tournament.
Some other players who look mispriced to me this week: Calvin Ridley, Zamir White, and Dalton Schultz.
Good luck this week, see ya at the top!
