In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by Paramount+:
One of the biggest riddles to the 2024 season has been the TE position.
TE scoring is down across the board and the injuries are starting to pile up.
Unfortunately, things remain as tricky as ever heading into Week 5. Here is a slew of TE status updates, along with some streaming options if you are in a pinch …
Expected To Play: George Kittle (rib), Trey McBride (rib), David Njoku (ankle)
Let’s start with some good news. Our consensus TE1 (Kittle) and TE3 (McBride) are both expected to play. Start ‘em where you got ‘em. Njoku (our TE9) is also set to return for the first time since Week 1 and should make an immediate impact.
Game-Time Decision: Luke Musgrave (ankle)
Musgrave hasn’t practiced all week, but is going to test it out in warmups. I don’t think he’s going to go, though, which means Tucker Kraft is a Top-7 TE play. I also like Rams TE Colby Parkinson in this game, too.
BTW: WR Romeo Doubs got hit with a one-game suspension and won’t play today. We’ve been begging you to add Dontayvion Wicks all week, but sneak Bo Melton onto your roster this AM as well.
Doubtful: Evan Engram (hamstring)
Engram looks unlikely to go for the fourth straight week. Brenton Strange, who has averaged 4 targets/game in his absence, is a serviceable streaming option today vs. a really weak Jags defense.
Read on for some DFS advice from James and more injury nuggets in the Watercooler.
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- James McCool’s Week 5 DFS Advice: His top stack and a GPP gem
- Watercooler: Star players set to return
The Niners Lead The Way On The Week 5 DFS Slate
by James McCool
Week 5 has arrived, and as team strengths and weaknesses become clearer, leveraging matchups is critical to crafting effective daily fantasy strategies.
I'm looking at all of them and scouring data to help you make good DFS choices with my Week 5 DraftKings NFL DFS plays, featuring my top stack, value plays, GPP plays, and fades.
Our NFL DFS Projections and DFS Pick'em Tool are also great resources; if you're interested in college DFS, we have projections here too.
Top Stack - San Francisco 49ers
Brock Purdy once again leads the league in EPA per attempt and shows that he is the face of efficiency at the QB position. Now the 49ers get a matchup with ARI who, according to the DvP model here at Fantasy Life, allows 20.1 PPR points to QBs and 33.9 PPR points to WR groups. They make for the premier stack on the slate.
The 49ers hold the #1 overall QB+2 projection on the slate and the #2 spot as Aiyuk and Kittle project nearly the same. They have a team total of 29, by far the highest on the slate, while sporting a median of around 51 with a salary of around 19k, both depending slightly on which of the two you choose to use.
It is also worth noting that the Top Finish rate for the Kittle combo is 12.70%, around 3% higher than the Aiyuk version. This is because utilizing the TE slot in the QB+2 takes care of a priority position and assumes winning the QB and TE positions, which are overly valuable in NFL DFS.
The only downside here is ownership, as SF stacks currently project for around 50% owned as a sum which is currently the highest on the slate. Granted, I think that GB stacks (specifically Love/Wicks/Reed) are going to be the highest owned when the cards flip, but I still think you have to care about the ownership on SF a tad.
Week 5 GPP Gems
WR: Ja’Marr Chase
We haven’t really seen Chase dominate the way we expected so far in 2024. He has only one game with 20+ fantasy points and has suffered from some bad QB play and shaky game scripts.
However, this looks like a spot where we should consider him for a couple of reasons. The game environment is strong, as evidenced by the 49.50 game total, and the Bengals are projected to throw 1.43 TDs, which speaks well to Chase’s upside. He projects for nearly 20 fantasy points, the highest mark in the projections, and has a top finish rate of all the WRs of 17.50%. What is most important is he will likely be 5% owned, and when you can get a WR with legit 30+ PPR-point upside at such low ownership, you have to take a shot.
He’s a very strong one-off and an even better part of a CIN/BAL game stack.
Value Plays and Fades for Week 5
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The latest fantasy nuggets, silliness, and NFL gossip from our merry band of football nerds:
📊 Projections for every player on the Sunday slate … great tool to help with lineup decisions.
✍️ Bye weeks and injuries make Week 5 a bit trickier. Your start-sit recommendations.
🔮 2 frontrunners in the Davante Adams sweepstakes. Former QBs, eh?
🙏 Stars returning sooner rather than later? Optimism around CMC and Kupp.
✏️ A new starting RB in NE. Adjust the ranks.
🔪 A Rashee Rice update. He’s getting a procedure this week.
🚁 The WR going for 100+ and 2 TDs today. The chopper has spoken.
