DraftKings Price: $2,700
Poor Jesse James. After the NFL's wonky catch rule stole a touchdown from him in Week 15, he became an also ran against the Houston Texans in Week 16, seeing only one target to Vance McDonald's five. While James may come back into relevance this week, it's his teammate that is more interesting from a value perspective.
The Pittsburgh Steelers end the season in a dream matchup for tight ends. Their Week 17 opponent, the Cleveland Browns, has given up the most receptions and second-most touchdowns to the position this season, resulting in them giving up the third-most points to tight ends. If it weren't for two matchups late in the season against tight-end-deficient teams (the Green Bay Packers in Week 14 and the Chicago Bears last week), the Browns may have overtaken the New York Giants as the worst team at defending the position.
McDonald has seen five targets in each of his past two games and has scored at least 9.2 DraftKings points in each of his last three games played. Against the Browns way back in Week 1, Ben Roethlisberger looked heavily towards Jesse James, who finished with two touchdowns on eight targets. Pittsburgh may try to take advantage of that weakness again. Now that McDonald has a better rapport with Roethlisberger, that target share could be more evenly split up amongst James and McDonald. We saw that in Week 14 against the Baltimore Ravens as McDonald and James combined for 18 targets.
McDonald probably won't put up 20 points this week, but he could easily put up a solid day and has a chance at finding the end zone against a team that has given up 10 touchdowns to tight ends. He also offers much needed salary relief if you want to double dip with high-end running backs this week.
While others are looking at Antonio Gates and high-priced plays, take a look McDonald's way in a few lineups.
Ian Goldsmith is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Ian Goldsmith also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username zoidbergs_revenge. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.