🎱 3 New-Look Backfields Shake Things Up

Setting lineups while listening to Taylor Swift. Impossible to lose today...

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Pikkit:

Today is a great day because we get to see RB Christian McCaffrey in a Niners uniform.

Instead of being a 13 point underdog to the Bucs on a team projected to score 13.25 points, he'll be playing in a potential shootout game (49 over/under) where his team is projected to score 24 points.

Life comes at ya fast.

The real question is how much he's expected to play. It sounds like he'll  be eased in:

I'm not playing him in DFS, but you have to start him in your season-long leagues. There's a wide-range of outcomes here, as evidenced by our three rankers slotting him in across the RB1-2 spectrum:

So while you might have to wait a week for a full workload, his upside in a great game coupled with his ability to earn high value touches in the redzone, keeps him firmly in play on a bye-depleted week. 

For all of your other Week 7 needs, FantasyLife.com has you covered. Read on for the biggest pieces of overnight news in the Morning Download and take advantage of all our free tools on the site and follow our Twitter account for any late-breaking news updates:

• INACTIVES - updated at 11:30am ET for 1pm games

• RANKINGS - Full Week 7 rankings for multiple scoring settings from Dwain, Waz, and Hill.

• FANTASY LIFE TWITTER - If news breaks, we'll have it.

• START/SIT TOOL - Debating who to start? Simply type in both players to this tool and we'll tell you the best option:

• PLAYER PROPS TOOL - Our newly updated props tool is here to give you the best bets for each game.

Today's newsletter is presented by Pikkit, the app that showed me I have bet on Josh Allen over 18 times, for a total profit of $335...looks like it's time to order his jersey...

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📁 A new Chiefs RB1?

It seemingly happens every year: the Chiefs give it the 'ol college try with Clyde Edwards-Helaire before ultimately moving on to a more capable back. This year that back is rookie Isiah Pacheco, who took first-team reps in practice this week and is expected to start at RB for the Chiefs, per sources. This will likely be a committee vs. the Niners, but you can start Pacheco as an RB3 in a pinch and hope he earns expanded work going forward.

📁 D'Andre Swift to miss another week

In a surprise piece of news coming off their bye, Swift (ankle/shoulder) will miss today's game. This means another week with Jamaal Williams leading the backfield. WR Amon-Ra St. Brown will play, although he admits he isn't 100% either. The team also placed DJ Chark on the IR, meaning Josh Reynolds will continue to see significant playing time on the outside.

📁 Keenan Allen a GTD

The Chargers WR is technically listed as questionable for today's matchup vs. the Chargers due to his hamstring injury, but if you read the tea leaves, it seems unlikely that he'll play. The team has a bye next week and know how valuable that extra week would be for rest. This is a later game today, so if you are rolling the dice, make sure you have a contingency plan.

📁 Russell Wilson will not play vs. the Jets

The Broncos have made the decision to hold back Wilson, who is struggling with a hamstring injury. Brett Rypien will get the start. This game opened with a 43-point total and is now all the way down to 37 (🤮). Outside of Breece Hall and the defenses, you really don't want to be playing anyone in this game.

📁 J.K. Dobbins placed on IR

The Ravens have placed Dobbins on IR so he can undergo knee surgery next week. He's expected to miss 4-6 weeks. It's unfortunate news for the snakebitten back and his fantasy managers, although the silver lining for the team is they are getting Gus Edwards back this week. For at least today's matchup vs. the Browns, it is likely a committee with Edwards, Justice Hill, and Kenyan Drake. Btw, WR Rashod Bateman is expected to return today. Here's what you can expect from him.

🚁 Don't forget about this sleeper WR. He got the chopper treatment. 

❓ Have Start/Sit questions? Get them answered by Dwain McFarland at 11 am ET LIVE on AMP! 

💥 Could the Broncos blow things up? They are taking trade calls.

🔎 What's going on with Kyle Pitts? An investigation.

🚀 This QB could break the slate. Find out why you need him in your DFS lineups.

🤐 Marshawn Lynch is a national treasure...who has zero concern for national television protocols. 

🤣 Oh no, Steelers fans. This didn't hold up well.

🤔 Dak is back, but is it go time in Fantasy? Find out why you should temper expectations 

When playing DFS, we want to correlate our lineups because it means we have to get fewer things right. Tournaments have such top-heavy payout structures that when you are right, you want to be right in a big way. That’s where stacking teams and games come into play. Today, Eliot shares his favorite game to stack...

🚀Geno Smith > D.K. Metcalf (Bring Back: Austin Ekeler)

We were on the Seahawks stack last week and fell flat on our faces. But if you don’t succeed at first, try again.

This game features two top 10 offenses in pass rate over expectation while the Seahawks rank top 5 in EPA per pass play on offense and bottom five on defense. 

This Chargers’ defense has not been the same since Joey Bosa’s injury in Week three, giving up an average of 26 points per game to the Texans and Browns. The only team they were able to slow down was the Broncos, but let’s be honest Russell Wilson, and the Broncos are not dangerous. 

After playing some of the worst offenses in the league, they now have a different challenge on their hands, facing off against the Seahawks and their top 5 offense.

Geno Smith has finished as a top 7 QB in 50% of his games thus far, and I expect another this week. The Chargers play man coverage at a top 5 rate, and Geno Smith has been the most accurate QB in football against man coverage this season per player profiler. 

Another area where Geno has excelled is play-action passing, leading the league with an 81.7% completion rate. On the flip side, no team has allowed higher yards per attempt (10.72) than the Chargers against play action. As Dwain has preached consistently, a play-action target is worth almost 20% more than a non-play-action target.

While I love Kenneth Walker this week and am all over him at 68.5 rushing yards on BETMGM, DK Metcalf is the top option for me in a stack with Geno. On the year, Metcalf is averaging an absurd 4.31 yards per route run against man coverage compared to 1.41 against zone. On the season 24% of Metcalf's targets have come on play-action passes - he should feast on the Chargers there as well. 

While Mike Williams is a strong option in this game stack, Austin Ekeler is worth prioritizing. As offensive coordinator, Joe Lombardi continues to limit deep shots for Justin Herbert, and Ekeler has been the biggest beneficiary. He has three straight weeks finishing as a top 3 RB. 

Ekeler is coming off a 16 target game against the zone-heavy Broncos and now has a 40%+ target rate per route run against zone coverage this season. Not only are the Seahawks a heavy zone team, but they have allowed 9.24 yards per catch to RBs this season and 28.6 DK fantasy points per game.

This SNF has some promise. The Dolphins are 7.5 point home favorites vs. the Steelers, but this is the first friendly matchup Kenny Pickett has faced since taking over at QB for Pittsburgh.

The Dolphins will also be getting a big boost with Tua Tagovailoa returning to action for the first time since his scary injury on TNF vs. the Dolphins almost a month ago.

This game has a respectable 45.5 over/under, but there's plenty of reasons to think this one could sail over that number.

Here's everything we like tonight from a fantasy, DFS, and betting perspective:  All odds via BetMGM...

Every Sunday we'll highlight two interesting matchups you should be aware of before setting your lineup. Take it away, Kevin...

🥵️ Travis Etienne vs. NYG

Travis Etienne and James Robinson in this Jaguars backfield are like two ships passing in the night. While Robinson’s ship has hit the iceberg and is leaking water, Etienne’s is full steam ahead as he’s out-snapped and runs more routes per dropback than Robinson over the past three weeks. Etienne has also finished in the top 24 at RB in the last two weeks. Of all RBs with at least 20 attempts in the previous three weeks, Etienne has the second-highest yards per carry at 6.8 yards.

If there’s a blow-up spot for Etienne, it’s in Week 7 against the Giants, who allow over 125 rushing yards per game and 5.6 yards per carry. The Giants let borderline dust-ball Kenyan Drake put 119 yards on then on just 10 carries in Week 6. So if anybody can reel off chunk plays in the run game — against THIS defense — it’s Etienne.

I like Etienne to finally get into the end zone this week and pay off handsomely for fantasy managers (including myself) who have waited patiently.

🥶 Drake London @CIN

There’s little doubt that Drake London will be a star in the NFL — the talent he’s shown on the field speaks for itself. 

But what if a team’s situation is just too much for a player to overcome?

Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with London, as the Falcons are one of the most run-heavy teams in the NFL, passing the ball just 42.7% of the time — the second-lowest mark in the league behind the Bears. While London has received 32% of his team’s targets over the last three weeks, that gaudy target share is misleading as the overall volume of the passing game is lacking. In those three weeks, he hasn’t finished higher than WR49 in full PPR and only has a combined nine receptions for 92 yards. 

Not ideal, but if the Falcons are succeeding with their run-first approach, why change? We hate this for London and Kyle Pitts, but the Falcons (sadly) do not care about our fantasy teams. 

Tack on the fact that the Bengals are quietly a top-ten unit in terms of giving up fantasy points to WRs and have only given up two touchdowns to WRs this season. Combine that with the lack of volume, making London an uneasy start in Week 7.