Chalk Dust

Every Saturday, FantasyFling looks at some of the current chalk of the main slate before all the dust settles on Sunday morning before lock. He'll be providing insight as to what chalk might be good chalk, what might be fragile, and where to pivot.

We know that it's very rarely a winning strategy to play an entirely contrarian lineup and completely fade chalk. Chalk is typically chalk because those are some of the best plays, so the field is gravitating towards them. Most GPP-winning lineups will have a combination of chalk and contrarian pivots.

If you've been playing DFS a while, you've seen chalk fail time and time again for various reasons. One of the questions to ask yourself is (and thus avoid some chalk landmines) how can this chalk fail? For example, a WR1 going against a top-tier corner. Or a running back behind what is suddenly a shaky offensive line because they're down multiple starters, facing a strong defensive front, and the field seems to be sleeping on it.

There are a myriad of factors as to why and how chalk fails, so each week I'll do my best to identify some spots where maybe chalk is fragile (either based on the matchup, or on what historical data has told us), and also look for some spots where we can pivot and find some great plays that the field should probably be higher on.

Chalk stacks and divisional games

After years of looking at DFS NFL winning lineups, two things stand out: chalk stacks fail at a very high rate, and so does chalk in divisional matchups. This week we have both in the same spot.

One of the reasons is familiarity. These teams know each other very well, and they slow the other side's weapons down just enough that those players underperform relative to what a tournament-winning score actually requires; typically 4x their salary.

That spot is the Dallas Cowboys facing the Washington Commanders, in what projects as a high-scoring game with a 50.5-point game total according to the Vegas lines. And in that game, Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Javonte Williams and George Pickens are all projected for a lot of ownership.

Now what I find even more interesting with this particular matchup is that when I look back at all the games between these two teams over the past three years, I wasn't able to find many examples of stacks from this game being the nuts stacks in DFS.

For example, on December 25, 2025, the game between Washington and Dallas went for 53 points - which in DFS terms is a game that produces enough scoring that you would want pieces of it to build winning DFS lineups.

Looking at the box scores from those games: Jake Ferguson had a touchdown. Javonte Williams had a touchdown. KaVontae Turpin had a touchdown. Jacory Croskey-Merritt had two touchdowns. So while there was good fantasy scoring in this game, it was not necessarily from the chalk pieces that you would expect, like CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens or Terry McLaurin.

The idea here is that more times than not, when the field is on a chalk stack, it is better to fade that stack and find leverage pieces in that game - or fade the game entirely and hope it plays to the under. The reality is that if this is the game and stack you need and you faded it, you're going to get dusted. But you can just as easily get dusted by the people who faded this chalk as they pass you on the leaderboard. Scared money doesn't make money. I like playing the Jayden Daniels side as opposed to Dak stacks.

Bijan Robinson: the bull and the bear

Bijan Robinson is projected for almost 35% ownership, and we currently have him with the highest RB projection on the slate at 21.81.

We just watched the Chicago Bears rush for over 200 yards against this Carolina Panthers team last week on their home field. There are a lot of paths to Bijan Robinson smashing in this game. He got an absurd 31 opportunities last week and I would expect similar volume in this matchup. That's the bull case.

The bear case is that Cooper Rush is absolutely terrible, and this offense could be inefficient if they can't get the screen game going - specifically because the Panthers are likely going to sniff it out, as it was on film a lot last week. The Falcons have a 20.5-point implied team total and are home underdogs. This is something we looked at when we studied the data for Milly Maker winners: home underdogs are a fade you typically want to make in DFS.

Bijan looks great from a median projection standpoint and is quite likely to hit 2-3x his salary according to Spreadsheets' Sims, which should make him great for cash and small-field tournaments. However, given the quarterback play, there is reason to question his ceiling in what normally looks like a high-ceiling spot for him. At $8,200, he likely needs 30 points or more.

Christian McCaffrey is posting an almost identical projection at similar pricing, looks great in Spreadsheets' Sims right next to Bijan, and is looking to have significantly less ownership at 21% as of Saturday. You could argue that Kaelon Black's usage was because CMC was cramping; Kaelon is also dealing with a groin injury, so we could see CMC back in his usual volume. He could be a great one-for-one pivot off Bijan.

The Dallas receivers

Lamb is at 20% projected ownership and Pickens at 18%. As covered earlier, Dallas stacks will be the chalkiest stack when we flip the cards over on Sunday.

Starting your lineup with a Dak stack with Lamb or Pickens is definitely asking for some serious fades elsewhere, as this will be a highly owned stack. You can get different by double stacking because not a lot of the field is forcing double stacks anymore; this is something we saw is still hitting at a high rate when you target the right game environment. Or you can simply play a piece of this game, such as Lamb or Pickens, and pair them with a contrarian stack from another game. The field will be on these players, as they're projecting for the highest ownership as of Saturday.

In addition to chalk stacks failing, wide receiver chalk fails at a high rate. For as great as Lamb and Pickens are, there have been a lot of games where Pickens eats and Lamb doesn't, and vice versa. Or Javonte Williams rushes for 2-3 touchdowns and neither Lamb nor Pickens ends up hitting tournament-winning value.

In the game I highlighted earlier, Lamb and Pickens were the highest-owned wide receivers on the slate and failed to deliver tournament-winning value, with 9.6 fantasy points for Lamb and 11.8 for Pickens. Turpin finished with 15.6 at low ownership and Croskey-Merritt finished with 25.5. Dak did great with 25.68 fantasy points, but you didn't need Lamb or Pickens; that's the point. Be wary of playing the chalk wide receivers, because they do fail, often.

Where to shift exposure

There are a plethora of wide receivers on this slate to shift exposure to:

• Jaylen Waddle, who Denver is surely going to get involved this week after the debacle in KC.
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who isn't getting nearly enough ownership at his current 13% projection because Darnold is hurt.
• Christian Watson, a stud on a team that projects to pass a lot, and projected for under 10% ownership.

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Make sure to follow @PredFantasy on X so you never miss an article. FantasyFling will be dropping his debut of Chalk Outline on Sunday morning, where he writes a full report of the chalk at every position after the dust settles - so you know which chalk to eat, which chalk to fade, and where we predict the field has got it wrong.