FanDuel Price: $7,400
DraftKings Price: $5,700
Andy Dalton was a popular sleeper pick in season-long drafts this summer, and with good reason.
In 2016, Dalton had a career-low 3.2% touchdown rate, despite throwing his second-most pass attempts (563) and passing yards (4,206) of his career. The issue? His biggest weapons, A.J. Green and Tyler Eifert, both missed significant time due to injuries. Now, he has both of those weapons back, along with rookie running back Joe Mixon, so this offense could be humming in 2017.
But we might have to pump the breaks for a week, as the Cincinnati Bengals go up against the Baltimore Ravens. Although the Bengals are three-point home favorites, the game has a meager 42.5 implied team total, one of the lowest on the slate. As we've grown accustomed to over the years, these AFC North divisional contests don't tend to be very lucrative fantasy affairs. In fact, according to Rotoworld's Rich Hribar, Andy Dalton has thrown one or fewer touchdown passes in eight of his 11 career games against the Ravens. Ugh.
And while the Ravens defense is more known for their run-stuffing prowess, according to numberFire's metrics, they were the 12th stingiest against the pass in 2016.
Dalton is reasonably priced on both FanDuel and DraftKings, but with a slew of games with shootout potential this weekend, even if he outperforms expectations, he's unlikely to give you a huge Week 1 performance. If you're paying down at quarterback, there are far better values on the board, most notably Carson Wentz against the Washington Redskins.