Daily Fantasy Advisor: NFL DFS Week 8 Value Plays

I took the day off of writing yesterday, as my son had surgery.  I'll make up for it today.  I almost never include Thursday night games in my advice anyway, so it shouldn't affect anything I'd have said yesterday.  Here are your value plays for week 8 in the NFL:

Value Stack
Andy Dalton/Tyler Eifert $11,300 combined price.

Is Eifert "unblockable"? The Steelers
will find out this Sunday.

Somehow, despite being the leading scorer in fantasy for a good chunk of the season, and still being in the top 5 after his bye week, Andy Dalton continues to fly under the DFS radar.  At just $6,000, he's $2,300 cheaper than say...Tom Brady.  And according to his week by week point scores this season, you'll get about the same impact.  Pair him with Eifert.  Eifert has been having a great season, and they're headed to Pittsburgh, who gives up an average of 18.1 ppg in draft kings leagues to the opposing tight end.  They've faced three uber-talented TE's so far this year:
Rob Gronkowski caught 5 passes for 94 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Antonio Gates caught 9 passes for 92 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Travis Kelce caught 5 passes for 73 yards.
Eifert is what some players have been calling "unblockable" as a tight end, and should perform well against the coverage of Ryan Shazier, who just hasn't proven he can cover tight ends, but should pick up the assignment nonetheless.  At $11,300, this stack is a GREAT value.  Compare it to other stacks like Brady/Edelman ($16,400) or Rivers/Allen ($14,300), or Eli and Odell ($15,100) and you can see you're saving a significant amount to spend at other positions.  Despite the toughness of an in division matchup, many are predicting this Cinci-Pitt game to be a high scoring game, look for Dalton to be pushing for a big win, and pushing it down the field whether he's ahead or behind.  This is a statement game for the Bengals, where they have the opportunity to really put their stamp on the AFC North against a fully healthy Steelers team.  I think Dalton and Eifert capitalize.

Value Back
Danny Woodhead, RB, Chargers $4,500
Last week, Woodhead put up over 33 points for his owners (probably about 2% of teams) reeling in two touchdowns through the air.  I'm looking for him to put up a comparable performance Sunday, when the Chargers travel to Baltimore.  I think the Chargers will struggle, west coast teams traveling for a 1pm start often do.  However, I think a large part of their game plan will be quick outs to Danny Woodhead, and see what he can turn it into.  Baltimore is 24th in the league in allowing receiving yards to running backs this season.  Meanwhile, Woodhead averages the most (58.1) receiving yards per game among running backs.  Look for him to raise that average a bit this weekend.

Value Receiver
Stefon Diggs, WR, Vikings $4,800

Diggs continues to impress in Minnesota.

You're not going to stop hearing Stefon Diggs' name from me or many other fantasy experts and analysts until his price goes up a bit.  He's an incredibly talented receiver currently acting as Teddy Bridgewater's favorite target.  Now, that's not exactly the same value as being the favorite target of a Brady or Rodgers, but it'll get him 8-10 looks a game, and since starting his career in the NFL he's been turning those 8-10 looks into around 100 yards and a touchdown.  Look for him to continue that trend this weekend, The Bears are 27th in the league in giving up fantasy points to WR's, and I don't think they'll be able to change that by stopping Diggs this weekend.  Look for him to score 20+ this weekend.

Value Tight End
Owen Daniels, Broncos, $2,900
I think Daniels could be a sneaky good buy here.  The Packers are 24th in the league against TE's, allowing 14 fantasy points per game to them thus far.  Now, they've played some good tight ends (Antonio Gates, Travis Kelce, Martellus Bennett, and Jimmy Graham among them) but that's still a weakness that Peyton may try to exploit.  The Packers are a better defense than a lot of people realize, and I think they'll be shutting down many of his other options, so Daniels may be the security blanket type of check down look Peyton settles on.  That could very well result in a decent fantasy day for him.  At just $2,900 it might be worth the risk.

Value Defense

Will Greg Hardy be the key to a great Cowboys defensive
performance on Sunday?

Cowboys, $2,700
I think the Cowboys could be a great pick up on defense this weekend.  They face the weakest offensive line in the league, in the Seahawks, who have allowed a league leading 31 sacks of their quarterback.  This, despite less dropbacks than most other teams, as they feature a strong running game with Marshawn Lynch.  Dallas on the other hand, has 13 sacks on the year, with 10 coming in the last three games.  They're averaging 3.5 per game since the return of Greg Hardy, who himself is averaging 1.5 sacks per game since returning.  This should lead to 4-6 Dallas sacks this weekend.  I expect this game to be an ugly defensive, grind it out type contest.  I think ultimately the Seahawks win, but they don't score a lot of points to do so, and give up quite a few sacks and maybe even a pick along the way.  (I'm also playing the Seahawks' defense in several stacks this week, they're just expensive so not a value pick.)