Yahoo! Week 10 $1 Million Baller and Cash Game Strategy

Nov 12, 2021

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Whether you are playing in the biggest tournament of the week on Yahoo! or prefer to play in smaller GPPs, there are some general positional strategies that you can implement in any size tournament. These concepts include stacking, finding pivots off of popular players, and looking for leverage in other spots. While it’s important to implement these into your lineup-building approach, the foundation of any tournament lineup is a solid core, usually players that you would use in cash games.

Stacks to Target

QB Josh Allen, Bills $40

WR Emmanuel Sanders, Bills $14

There are five QB/WR pairings in 4for4’s Stack Value Report with a ceiling projection of at least 56 points but this is the only stack with a combined salary below $62.

Josh Allen has only had one good quarter in his last two games but he should be able to turn it around against a Jets defense ranked 30th in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. The Bills also get starting tackle Spencer Brown back this week which should allow Allen to let some of his longer pass plays to develop, an issue in the games without Brown.

Rostering Emmanuel Sanders not only offsets Allen’s high salary but his likely high rostered rate as well. Teams that play Allen in their lineups will likely roster him with Stefon Diggs or Cole Beasley, but Sanders ranks third among all pass-catchers on this slate in expected fantasy points over his last three games. A healthy Brown should benefit Sanders more than any other pass-catcher in terms of letting his long plays develop, as his 17.4-yard average target depth is the highest of any player in the league averaging at least five targets per game.

QB Teddy Bridgewater, Broncos $21

WR Jerry Jeudy, Broncos, Broncos $16

Maybe the biggest determining factor in who succeeds in GPPs this week and who doesn’t is whether or not a lineup includes D'Ernest Johnson, who will not only be the most popular player on the slate but could draw the highest rostered rate of any player has all season.

One way to be contrarian in lineups without Johnson is with an unpopular salary allocation—most rosters will likely pay down at running back with Johnson and roster a low-salary tight end in order to get up to the high-salary quarterbacks and wide receivers. By rostering a low-salary stack such as Bridgewater and Jeudy, lineups will naturally be unique by spending salary at positions that others aren’t.

Bridgewater targeted Jeudy on 32% of passes last week and that should carry over to Wek 10 against an Eagles defense that filters passes to the short and intermediate part of the field—Jeudy’s average target depth is 8.6 yards, well below that of Courtland Sutton and Tim Patrick.

RB D’Ernest Johnson, Browns $13

TE Hunter Henry, Patriots $15

When a player is expected to be as popular as Johnson is this week, it’s natural to want to look for leverage plays in the same game—in this situation, it might be the Browns’ passing game or the opposing running back. Neither of those situations is particularly attractive upside plays. Rather than finding leverage off of Johnson, GPP players can add a low-rostered correlation play from the same game—running backs with opposing pass-catchers has been a profitable stack this season.

While Henry won’t get much volume, he likely just need a touchdown to pay off tournament value on a slate that is weak at the tight end position. Six of the top seven tight ends in terms of fantasy points per game are either inactive or off the main slate and Henry is a salary pivot off of popular tight ends such as Pat Freiermuth and Dan Arnold.

Contrarian Plays to Target

RB Leonard Fournette, Buccaneers $25

Tampa Bay is favored by 9.5 points at Washington but most lineups that roster Buccaneers will likely do so with their passing game. If Chris Godwin ends up inactive, Mike Evans could be the highest-rostered wide receiver on the slate. Fournette is a leverage play off of the passing game and has as much upside as any back with the second most high-value touches per game over the last five weeks.

WR Adam Thielen, Vikings $24

Minnesota will travel to Los Angeles to play the Chargers in a game with an over/under of 53 and a spread of just 3.5, indicating huge shootout potential. Both running backs in this game should be quite popular with Keenan Allen and Justin Jefferson likely to end up on a relatively high percentage of rosters, as well.

That leaves Thielen as a low-rostered addition to stacks or as a contrarian one-off play, doubling as a salary pivot off of receivers such as Stefon Diggs and Diontae Johnson. The Chargers limit the deep pass but allow short and intermediate pass-catchers such as Thielen to succeed.

Cash Game Strategy

The cornerstone of cash games this week is D’Ernest Johnson with Kareem Hunt still out and the rest of the running back room dealing with COVID. There are also a handful of affordable tight end and defense plays that allow cash players to pay up for players in high-scoring games.