You can follow Josh at @Fantasy4Cast. Please do not hold Big Cat Country responsible for bad food takes or when a Jaguars player undoubtedly lays a goose egg on your fantasy team.
Winning was fun. Wasn’t that fun?
Week 1 of the NFL season took us to a place that we as Jacksonville Jaguars fans, haven’t felt in quite some time. And then, all of us came back to earth and remembered our place.
We are Jaguars fans, and as you’ve read on this site time and time again, we suck until we don’t. Frankly, after just two weeks of the 2017 season, it’s safe to say, we suck more than we don’t.
Thank goodness there is fantasy football.
Fantasy football has always given us an outlet to feel like a winner, even when our real team disappoints us and kicks us repeatedly in the giblets. However, as a Jaguars fan, part of enjoying the game may be having your favorite Jaguar player or players on your fantasy roster. That’s where these weekly articles will come into play.
Every week, I will help you build the ultimate DFS Jaguars based team so that you can not only have good players, but also enjoy rooting for your favorite Jaguars at the same time! It’s a win / win / lose. (The lose comes from the Jaguars ultimately losing the game, but hey, at least you can root for those garbage time fantasy points, right?)
This week, my lineup consists of a lot of value Jaguars players, as well as guys I think are great overall DFS values. This roster is consisted of a $50,000 salary cap and configured by Draft Kings salary prices:
QB: Blake Bortles - $4,400
I know! I know! They signed Ryan Nassib. The writing is on the wall that Blake is getting benched. Look, here’s the deal… Blake is the king of garbage time fantasy stats.
He’s actually only scored five less points than Cam Newton and three less points than Russell Wilson this season, who are both still nearly $2,000 more dollars to roster. I believe Blake has the ability this week to put together as much as an 18-point outing and I’m willing to spend only $4,400 of my salary to secure that outing.
RB1: Leonard Fournette - $6,000
I don’t need a long write up here. Fournette is the man on this Jaguars offense and is on pace to have more touches than Ezekiel Elliot had his rookie year. I want that man on my fantasy team based on opportunity alone. And at $6,000, he’s priced as an RB2, where I feel he’s more RB1 value.
RB2: Carlos Hyde - $5,200
Averaging over 7.0 yards per carry so far this season, the emergence of Carlos Hyde in regards to fantasy relevance this year has been a pleasant one. He’s now the top option in the running game, short passing game, and a three-down back on a team with a quarterback who looks to check down often. He’s an RB1 priced as an RB2 or RB3. I’ll take it!
WR1: Mike Evans - $7,500 | WR2: Dez Bryant - $6,800
Saving a lot on our quarterback and running back roster selections has allowed for us to grab Evans and Bryant as our top receiving threats this week. I fully expect Evans to emerge as the top receiver in the league this year and last week was a good taste at what I think he will produce on a weekly basis, scoring over 20 fantasy points.
On the other side, Bryant, once again, is one the most targeted wide receivers in the league when their team is in the red zone. And as usual, it appears he’s going to have huge weeks, and weeks where he puts up very little. But, for this week based on his price point, I’ll take the upside and hope for 15 or 20 points as I’m counting on one of those targets turning into a score.
WR3: Allen Hurns - $4,600
Costing the amount of a flex play, I’ll plug in Hurns here and hope he continues to see the large share of the Jaguars targets, as he did last week with eight. The upside for Hurns is he caught seven of those with a score. Hopefully, he can squeeze out a similar day and take advantage of soft coverage in the fourth quarter.
TE: Travis Kelce - $6,000
10 targets last week and a score. The most athletic tight end in all of football. Involved in all avenues of the offense. And with Kareem Hunt becoming a threat to score in all facets of the game at anytime, that removes a lot of the focus on Kelce which I feel will continue to aid him at becoming the overall TE1 for the season.
Flex: Marshawn Lynch - $6,000
The Washington Redskins are 28th in the league against the run. Oakland’s use of Lynch in the fourth quarter as the knockout punch vs teams is something I want to be a part of. He had 10 carries in last week’s fourth quarter alone. I expect this to continue this week and Lynch to dance his way on the sidelines to a solid overall outing for my flex play.
DST: Jaguars - $3,400
Look… Baltimore’s offense hasn’t been very good this year and this article is about building the ultimate DFS lineup with Jaguars players. This is one week I feel like we can play the Jaguars defense with the confidence of a couple sacks and at least one turnover. At least I hope so.
Summary
So there you have it. My ultimate Jaguars-based DFS team for Week 3. I wish all of you lots of success with your Week 3 lineups. But even more so, let’s hope for a Jaguars victory this week. Because, let’s be honest, even if we make money with our fantasy teams, I’m sure we all feel like Nacho Libre:
“I don’t want to get paid to lose! I wanna weeeeeennnnnnn!”