Fantasy Football: DFS values and targets for Week 16

Championship weekend is here for those still in the mix in season-long leagues! However, if your season is now over, there is still fantasy football DFS money to be made!

Let’s look at some fantasy football tournament values and targets, and strategies for Sunday’s main-slate on Draftkings!  Per the usual, we will look at the four top-priced players at each position and then look at who the best plays/and or values are at each position to put things into a bit of a perspective.

We will be using PlayerProfile.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, and SharpFootballStats.com for player data and statistics.

Top priced Fantasy Football Quarterbacks

Week 16 see’s the usual names still atop the list in terms of rostering price on Draftkings. One new mane to the top four is Los Angles Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert, following his stellar outing on Thursday Night Football last week.

1. Patrick Mahomes – (vs ATL) $8,500
2. Lamar Jackson – (vs NYG) $8,000
3. DeShaun Watson – (vs CIN) $7,600
4. Justin Herbert – (vs DEN) $7,400

All of these big names are great to play when building your lineup, particularly in cash contests, as they all have a solid floor. With those big names, however, comes large price tags. That’s why I tend to look a little further down the list for some values in tournament play.

Values/good plays at QB

Before diving into some even cheaper values at quarterback, we have to stop and talk about Philadelphia Eagles’ new starter, Jalen Hurts. Hurts was featured in our Draftkings article last week, and rightfully so. In his second career NFL start, Hurts went 24 of 44 for 338 yards passing and three touchdowns while putting up a score of 40.82 points. With a price tag reading $5.9k in Week 15, he hit (and surpassed) value.

In Week 16, his price has increased, but I still think it’s too low. At $7k, there is still some considerable value there. Now, he isn’t attempting to throw the ball 40+ times every week or have 300+ passing yards and three scores, but he is starting again this vs. the Dallas Cowboys.

With Hurts’ playmaking ability and his matchup against an exploitable Cowboys defense, you’re going to want a piece of the pie.

After a sluggish start in terms of daily fantasy football, Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield has been consistent over the past four weeks, with a couple of stellar outings in there as well. Since Week 12, Mayfield has posted scores of 18.43, 33.46, 34.02, and 20.98. In that span, he threw for 10 touchdowns and just one interception. Last week against the New York Giants, the third-year signal-caller was 27-of-32, just missing the 300-yard mark with 297 passing yards and two passing touchdowns.

In Week 16, Mayfield faces the New York Jets. It’s a great matchup as the Jets rank 30th in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks and have allowed three passing scores per game over the last two weeks.

Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky has been playing pretty well as of late — for Trubisky standards anyway. Over the last four weeks, he has put up 14.48, 27.98, 14.28, and 21.78 in games vs. the Minnesota Vikings, Houston Texans, Detroit Lions, and Green Bay Packers. Obviously, those sub-20 point games usually aren’t going to be enough to get it done in daily fantasy football, but when the matchup is right, Trubisky is a good value play nine times out of 10.

In Week 16, the matchup is great. Trubisky and company take on the Jacksonville Jaguars — a team that struggles mightily vs. both the pass and the run. That does actually scare me a little bit because this game has the feeling of another David Montgomery extravaganza, similar to that of his showing last week. With that in mind, it’s also too hard to ignore the big-game scoring potential for Trubisky here too.

He’s worth some exposure, but I would probably keep it to a reasonable limit.

It pains me to write this in a way. It really does. But Dallas Cowboys quarterback Andy Dalton is not a bad play in Week 16. A lot of this is matchup based; however, give Dalton (some) credit where credit is due.

Over the past month or so, he has completed over 66% of his passes on average and has led the Cowboys to a few wins. This week he faces the Philadelphia Eagles, whose secondary has struggled both in coverage and to opposing quarterbacks in daily fantasy football, as they play short-handed with a lack of depth. In their six games since their bye, they have given up an average of 277-yards through the air per game, and in the past two weeks, they gave up huge games to the likes of Taysom Hill and Kyler Murray.

Dalton is a bit of a risky play with a low floor, but he’s a great choice for tournaments in terms of potential and contrarian play.