Below are positional rankings for the 15-game early slate of Week 10 DraftKings contests on Saturday with some commentary along the way. Keep in mind that salary has a huge impact on a player’s ranking.

Matchup Chart

Below is a matchup chart I create each week that includes information from Vegas and information on each team’s opponent in terms of their defensive strength. The defensive numbers are rankings from Football Outsiders’ S&P+ ratings. All the info is color coded as follows from most favorable to the offense to least favorable: purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red-burgundy.

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Quarterback

1. Skyler Howard – $7,500 – West Virginia
2. Greg Ward Jr. – $8,600 – Houston
3. Marquise Williams – $7,000 – North Carolina
4. Dane Evans – $7,400 – Tulsa
5. C.J. Beathard – $5,500 – Iowa

As a 2009 graduate of Texas Tech University, I am acutely aware that the Red Raiders have always had trouble playing defense. But this year they seem to have taken it to another level. The 70 they gave up to Oklahoma State in Week 9 was tough to watch. And the numbers back up the idea of Tech being historically bad defensively as they rate 120th in total defense according to the S&P+ ratings. West Virginia has the highest team total of the slate and for good reason. Tech can score as well, so plenty of points figure to be scored in this one, and about any Mountaineer is an option. Their quarterback, Skyler Howard, is almost impossible to pass up.

Greg Ward Jr. has rushed for two or more touchdowns in five of his eight games but has only had one rushing touchdown in each of the last two weeks. But he should get back to his running ways this week against a Cincinnati team that rates 128th (aka dead last) against the run. Ward could well be back over 40 points this week, something he has done four times already.

I’d recommend rostering Howard and Ward together if it all possible, but the guys ranked third through fifth here are also options. Marquise Williams is a GPP option as he’s gone for 30+ DK points three times this season but has a tough matchup against Duke who rates fifth in total defense. Dane Evans is more of a cash option. He wasn’t used much last week in Dallas against SMU, but there was weather in play that day. Prior to that game he had attempted at least 36 passes in each of his four previous starts. That kind of volume usually sets a high floor. His matchup with UCF is great so long as they don’t jump out to a massive lead early. And the C.J. Beathard is the ultimate GPP salary relief play. He started the season with four straight games of 19+ DK points, but he has been in the single digits the last two weeks. The matchup with Indiana is a good one and there’s value potential, but there’s also potential to get nada.

Running Back

1. Wendell Smallwood – $6,400 – West Virginia
2. Christian McCaffrey – $8,300 – Stanford
3. Paul Perkins – $6,900 – UCLA
4. Sony Michel – $5,900 – Georgia
5. LeShun Daniels, Jr. – $4,100
6. Alvin Kamara – $3,700 – Tennessee

As mentioned, WVU has a great matchup with Tech, and it’s actually a better matchup for their ground game. For one, West Virginia should lead most of the game, so game flow shouldn’t be an issue. And Tech rates worse against the run than they do against the pass. With the exception being a loss to Baylor in which West Virginia trailed a lot, Wendell Smallwood has at least 19 carries and 100+ yards in four of his last five games.

Speaking of good recent performances, Christian McCaffrey has two straight weeks of 200+ yards from scrimmage and 45+ DK points. He slowed down a bit last week, but he has a good chance to get back to that high upside in this week’s matchup with Colorado. The Buffs rate 101st in total defense and 107th against the run. McCaffrey is pricey, so I understand if you can’t afford him, but try to make him work.

Now let’s discuss some injured guys. Paul Perkins returned from injury last week and racked up 159 yards on just 16 touches. His matchup this week with Oregon State is a good one as they rate 92nd in total defense and 77th against the run. The only concern as that they keep Perkins under 20 touches again and he’s not as productive per touch. But given that he came out of Week 9 without any setback, there’s probably not too much cause for concern.

Sony Michel has a broken bone in his hand, but is expected to play through it. I could potentially live with that risky factor if he had been productive since taking over for Nick Chubb, but he has averaged less than four yards per carry in each of his last two games. His matchup with Kentucky is great as they rate 95th in total defense and 89th against the run. And he’s cheap enough that he has some upside for GPPs. He’s just hard to trust.

If you’re looking for salary relief, LeShun Daniels, Jr. may be your best bet. Akrum Wadley went wild two weeks ago with Daniels and Jordan Canzeri out of the lineup. But with Daniels back last week, Wadley got 19 carries to Daniels’ 13, and it was Daniels who was more efficient and found the end zone. This is a great matchup for the Iowa ground game against an Indiana team that rates 110th in total defense and is worse against the run than they are the pass. If Canzeri were to make it back for this game, the backfield might be too tough to predict, but the thought is that the Hawkeyes won’t rush Canzeri back this week. If they don’t, one of Daniels or Wadley needs to be owned. Given that Daniels is $1,700 cheaper, that’s who I prefer. Alvin Kamara provides a bit more salary relief if you need it. He sees around 10 touches per game and can get you 15-20 DK points on a good day. But since he’s not that much cheaper than Daniels, he may not be necessary.

Wide Receiver

1. Shelton Gibson – $5,500 – West Virginia
2. Demarcus Ayers – $6,100 – Houston
3. Keyarris Garrett – $6,800 – Tulsa
4. Malcolm Mitchell – $4,300 – Georgia
5. Tre’Quan Smith – $3,700 – UCF
6. Matt VandeBerg – $4,300 – Iowa
7. Josh Atkinson – $5,500 – Tulsa
8. Jovon Durante – $3,200 – West Virginia

Let’s start with the stack options of the quarterbacks discussed above. First, a Shelton Gibson-Howard stack is hard to pass up. Gibson is a tiny bit scary because he’s a big play guy as evidenced by his average of 23 yards per reception. But he delivers on his big play promise more often than not as he has at least 17 DK points in five of seven games and 25+ DK points in three of seven. In this matchup it’s hard to imagine him not hitting at least one big play if not several. Jovon Durante is the other WVU receiver option, but he’s been pretty dormant since a big Week 1, and he only has three catches in his last three games.

For Tulsa, it was Justin Hobbs that took advantage of the good matchup last week at SMU, but I expect their big boys to cash in this week. Garrett has immense upside as the #1 receiver with Keevan Lucas out for the year. His displayed that upside a couple week ago when he went for 268 yards and three scores. He’s good enough to be a cash play, but that upside is very attractive in GPPs. As for Atkinson, he had been incredibly reliable until last week when an Achilles injury slowed him down. But prior to that, he had at least 99 yards in his first six games of the season. There has been no report that his injury worsened this week, but there’s still a bit of risk there in my view.

Other stack options include Demarcus Ayers for Houston and Matt VandeBerg for Iowa. If you’re going with Iowa’s Beathard for salary relief, you pretty much have to pair him with VandeBerg. VandeBerg sees 26.21 percent of Iowa’s targets, which is the seventh highest share of team targets of any receiver playing on this slate. Ayers is also his team’s primary receiver as he has the sixth highest share of team targets of any receiver playing on this slate. Ayers has a season low of 15 DK points, so I see no reason not to stack him with Ward. He also has upside if that’s what you want, with two 28-point performances and a 40-point performance.

The two receivers on this list whose quarterbacks were not ranked are the salary relief options of Malcolm Mitchell and Tre’Quan Smith. Mitchell is another guy seeing a lot of targets as he has the ninth highest share of team targets of any receiver playing on this slate. He’s averaging 15.3 DK points per game, but he started a bit slow and has been much better the last six games. His matchup with Kentucky is great with the Wildcats rating 95th in total defense and 100th against the pass.

Smith will be on the other side of that Tulsa-UCF game. UCF should be chucking it with regularity trying to keep pace with Tulsa, and Vegas likes them to do a decent job of scoring with a team total of 23.5. Tulsa rates 106th in total defense, so UCF should be able to score some. Smith is boom-or bust as he has single digit DK points in four of nine games. But he also has three games of 15+ DK points and is UCF’s most targeted receiver. There is value potential at his price.

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