Tipsy Picks Playoff Week 1
Sunday 3 Game Slate.
From cash games to GPP 3 game slates are a different game than full sized ones. Chalk will be centralized and you aren’t really trying to avoid it in most cases. You HAVE to have the top scoring guys but you also need to find the gem that goes over-looked to go with them.
BAL (-3.5) @ TEN 54.5
Here is another underdog I like. Give me the home team with points in most occasions for playoff games. I know the Titan defense is really, like really, really bad. However, their offense is shredding, Henry is going nuts and Tannehill and the WR corp have got to be kinda rested without being necessary in the month of December!
There is of course the chance that Baltimore gets the ball first, scores, makes a good defensive stop, and then scores again and takes Tennessee out of its rhythm immediately. I like the thought that no matter what they pound Derrick Henry every chance they get. He’s expensive, he’s the highest owned guy on the slate, but that floor is close 25 touches and 100 yards. Cash I don;t see many reasons to fade and even at 45% it’s hard to be off of him in 3-5 max entry tournaments. I will probably be right with the field at that rate. If you think that they have to air it out and Baltimore takes over early make sure you are sufficiently over the field in your love for Lamar, Hollywood and Andrews.
Is it weird that I like Tennessee to win but I think it’s on someone else’s shoulders than A.J. Brown? I like Marlon Humphrey’s to do his best to keep Brown out of the game. If you think I’m on an island, take a quick look at ownership levels and see how much higher Corey Davis is. Sure, that is largely price affected, but I like him to be more open than Brown all game and that $2,200 discount is the cherry on top. Vegas says this will be the highest scoring game and I am in league with that idea. I will stack this way left and right and have plenty of both of these guys.
Ryan Tannehill is probably the sneaky play this slate with big attention going to not only Henry in this offense but Lamar and Big Ben in general. Both teams are going to have to score big to win this one and the more I look at this the more I want to fit in a Tannehill/Henry/Brown stack to see where it lands me….
You can’t look at this Titan Defense and think Lamar Jackson doesn’t have a shot to score huge. Playoff woe’s aside his potential is the highest on the slate and I will have plenty of him. I like Pairing him with either or both of Marquise Brown and JK Dobbins. This offense has slowly funneled to those 3 main plays. Andrews is fine but too expensive for me and you can always toss a long shot at Boykin for a signature single long grab for a TD or Willie Snead to be forgotten about. I’m out of Duverney.
CHI @ NO (-9.5)
If you want to win money this week, stack this game… Why? I just ran 3-4 test lineups on this slate and didn’t have more than 1 spot with Robinson and 1 spot with Sanders. When I nearly fade a game it always bites me in the ass, but here we are. I should probably get more exposed to this game but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Kamara or Thomas coming off little to no practice, as high priced and owned as they are, in a game specific scheme like Sean Payton likes to play, in a game they should probably handle from start to finish on the strength of their Defense. I might change my mind Sunday morning but I just have no good feelings here.
If I’m going to drop a few players into my builds I like Emmanuel Sanders playing against some of the weakest nickel coverage of my lifetime. I like Jared Cook for the same reasoning as the Bears are soft up the middle.
Don’t get me wrong, Alvin Kamara, is always a strong play and the Bears are thoroughly beat up inside. He very much could be a stud, I just hate that price and ownership and am choosing mostly to spend salary elsewhere.
Can anyone say Jimmy Graham revenge game? Yeah, me either… I’m not buying it and staying strictly at Cook and Ebron for my TE plays. David Montegomery almost single handedly won me a couple championships so you know I am a big fan, But I really think this is a low scoring defensive win for New Orleans so the opportunities are just not going to be there for me to pay up for him. I basically only have interest in Allen Robinson outside of the definite contrarian stack I will put in just in case of the upset.
CLE @ PIT (-6) 47
Oh Cleveland… I was all aboard the Browns train until recently. Pittsburgh has been kinda…bad for the last month. I’m hoping part of that was resting as their schedule forced them to not have a buy week since week 4. They have been exhausted and beat up. But it is playoff time. Big Ben has the experience, the talent around him and the coaching staff that makes all the difference in the playoffs.
If you saw my playoff snake draft I did with the guys you will see I ended up pretty high on the Steelers. Most of that had to do with what got picked around me and just taking a stab at an all or nothing approach, but I really do like their chances to make the AFC championship game.
With Ben Roethlisberger back and the ground game being lacking all year, I am all over the Ben to Diontae Johnson connection that has smashed multiple times this year. I’m not sure I like how JuJu shit talked the Browns defense… so I might just have to fade him a bit. Chase Claypool at $300 less and less owned has huge big play upside and the Browns are awful against the TE so I like Eric Ebron too. I have little to no interest in the Steelers running game, but it seems James Conner fits the salary builds quite a bit.
I just have this gut feeling the Brown disappoint on the national stage and the Pitt defense rebounds to a top notch performance. As such I am way under the field in Nick Chubb ownership, which usually leads to over the field in Kareem Hunt. I really hate the WRs on the Cleveland but if they fit I can see the upside, the salary and ownerships lead me to like Rashard Higgins a fair amount at around 10% owned and only $4,100.
While I really like the Pittsburgh DEF and will fit them in while I can, I honestly think I end up punting the position and playing the Titans hoping for some turnovers in a high volume attack and not worrying so much about giving up points.
