FanDuel Single-Game Daily Fantasy Football Helper: Week 4 Monday Night (Patriots at Chiefs)
It's rare to get the same team playing on Monday night in the NFL, but that's what we have this week with the Kansas City Chiefs, after their game with the New England Patriots got pushed a day later after Patriots quarterback Cam Newton tested positive for COVID-19.
Replacing Newton under center will be Brian Hoyer.
The spread in this game is double-digits now (the Chiefs are favored by 11.5 points), so how does all this affect the single-game slate on FanDuel?
Before we dig in, don't forget to brush up on some single-game perfect lineup trends and leverage our Sharpstack single-game optimizer for correlated lineup plays. Let's dig into MVP considerations and flex possibilities, as well.
MVP Candidates
Patrick Mahomes ($17,000) - Mahomes is going to be the key to the slate and whether you roster him in your MVP slot or not. Historically, quarterbacks are a little too popular in the MVP spot than they actually occur in the optimal lineup, but on this slate, based on a thousand simulations, Mahomes has a 49.7% chance to be the top scorer and a 90.5% chance to post a top-five score. That's how far ahead of the pack he is.
If you're looking for reasons to fade him or play someone else at MVP, know this: since 2016, quarterbacks projected for at least 20 attempts and favored by double digits do tend to underperform their projection by about three percent and average 16.2 FanDuel points. However, Mahomes has this in his favor: last season in 12 single-game slates with a double-digit spread, 7 optimal lineup MVPs were quarterbacks -- all from the winning team.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire ($13,000) - Edwards-Helaire has played between 62.3% and 69.3% of the Chiefs' offensive snaps, which doesn't put him into elite territory, but in this offense, those snaps add up in value. Edwards-Helaire has averaged 114.0 yards per game but has just a single touchdown and is now a huge home favorite. From a game theory standpoint, Edwards-Helaire makes sense as the first non-Mahomes pivot at MVP because 3 of the 12 MVPs in double-digit-spread optimal lineups were the winning team's running back. CEH should have that claim unless the Pats pull something wild.
Tyreek Hill ($13,500) - Hill has historically fared well against the Patriots in his three games with totals of 20 catches, 28 targets, 337 yards, and 4 receiving touchdowns, and so far through three weeks, the Patriots are 31st in Target Success Rate allowed to wide receivers. Hill at MVP is a great way to roster Mahomes in a more unique way.
Flex Considerations
Brian Hoyer ($5,000) - Hoyer, beside Mahomes at MVP, is the other massive lineup decision to make. He's almost a lock for your lineups at such a low salary. We project him for 15.8 FanDuel points, and he doesn't need much to pay off the salary. He's rating out at an 8.6% chance to lead the slate in scoring and is 54.7% likely to finish with a top-five score. There's game theory in avoiding him. Last season, two-quarterback lineups were difficult to find in optimals (just 29.8% did), but a lot of that has to do with the elevated salaries for starting quarterbacks. It's an extremely difficult recommendation to fade Hoyer outright.
Travis Kelce ($12,500) - Kelce could be an MVP candidate, but last year -- over 124 optimal lineups -- there were only 6 instances of a tight end in the MVP slot. Kelce did do it once, but the overall difficulty for yardage upside from a tight end makes them losing propositions long-term. That said, Kelce has a 7.4% chance to lead the game in scoring. He's a strong play but perhaps not that strong an MVP pick.
Julian Edelman ($11,500) - Edelman represents the only semi-safe Patriots offensive player for a few reasons: he has a 26.4% target share with a 52.5% air yards share in this offense. That comes with 8.0 total targets per game and 2.3 downfield targets and 1.3 red zone targets per game. That's tough to match in a game where the passing volume should be elevated.
Value/Differentiation Considerations
N'Keal Harry ($7,500) - Harry has a full-season target market share of 24.2% (a top-14 number among all wide receivers entering the weekend) on a low average target depth of 6.3 yards. If the team plays it close to the vest with Hoyer, Harry could get peppered in comeback mode.
James White ($9,500) - Rex Burkhead ($10,500) comes at a slightly elevated salary after a 31.3-FanDuel-point showing. But in Week 1 when White played, no Patriots running back saw higher than a 29.7% snap rate (White, Burkhead, and Sony Michel all had the same snap total). White is returning for this game to see what is guaranteed negative game script. In that opener, White had 3 targets (15.8%); Burkhead had zero. Update: Michel has been ruled OUT tonight. This should further solidify White's role tonight.
Damiere Byrd ($6,500) - Byrd is coming off a 66-snap game (95.7%) and ran every pass route in Week 3. Byrd has now played at least 86.1% of the team's snaps in every single game so far and had a 9-target game in Week 2, when the team threw 44 times.
Demarcus Robinson ($7,000) - It's Mecole Hardman ($8,500) coming off a monster week, but Robinson played 41 snaps to Hardman's 29 and ran 29 routes to Hardman's 21. There's nothing against Hardman here, but he'll likely be the chalky value play from the Chiefs, whereas Robinson has had the better on-field role and could be the forgotten man on this single-game set.
