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 for 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.

RB chalk is heavy at the top

Jahmyr Gibbs currently projects for almost 25 FPTS on DraftKings and over 32% projected ownership. At $8,800, that is a lot of projected ownership, and it's important to do the math on what you need from Gibbs to cash in your contest or have a shot at winning the tournaments you're entering on Sunday.

Let's start with cash games. You mainly want floor, as you're just trying to beat half the field, so you aren't trying to assemble a roster with some high-variance, low-floor players like you would in large-field tournaments, where you need a top 1% finish. You pay up for guys like Gibbs because he comes with the safe floor that you need for cash games.

Let's dig into that a little further. He got 34 opportunities in Week 1. Five of those were targets, which he caught, scoring 8 PPR points off 5 receptions for 30 yards. He also gets pretty much all the goal-line carries, with Montgomery now in Houston and no formidable backup to vulture them, so he added another 12 points off touchdowns in addition to his 156 rushing yards. With the bonus factored in, he scored 37.6 FPTS. That was enough to crush your cash games in Week 1, and it was definitely enough to win large-field tournaments, as he was in the winning Milly Maker lineup and undoubtedly many other tournament-winning lineups.

In Week 2, he faced a tougher, negative game script as the Lions were trailing most of that game, and he still got 24 opportunities: 16 carries for 52 yards, and 8 targets, catching 6 of them for 61 yards and a touchdown. That totaled 18 fantasy points through the air plus another 5 on the ground. That is exactly what you want in a RB at his price, because he's nearly game-script proof. Was it a decline from Week 1? Absolutely. He also averaged only 3.25 YPC as opposed to 5.38 YPC in Week 1, and he was still able to provide a solid floor. He didn't get phased out of the game, which absolutely crushes you, as it has over the years with backs who catch fewer passes, like Derrick Henry. That's what makes him cash viable, because we're paying for the floor. The 23.3 FPTS would've been enough to cash on a main slate, and that's what we'll be chasing every week.

Most large-field tournament winners need over 4-5x the salary of the entire lineup, so typically you want the players you're playing to average that across the lineup. 4x for Gibbs at $8,800 is 35.2 FPTS.

Now, the entire lineup doesn't have to average 4x in every spot. You will have weeks where you get a 3x from a player like Gibbs, but one player in the lineup produced 6-7x their salary and the lineup still had the ceiling needed to take down the tournament. The idea, however, is that you need to look for paths for and against that player to hit 4x their salary if you're trying to take down a large-field tournament.

I imagine when we flip the cards over on Sunday, he'll be 75-80%+ owned in your cash games. He's practically a free square, so considering we only need to beat about half the field, he's a guy who should be a cash lock in your lineup. He doesn't hurt you - at all - but when you don't play him and he goes off for 30+, well, you just took an unnecessary risk in cash, and it's going to be a bad week for you overall.

Large-field GPP tournaments are a losing contest until they aren't. You will typically lose most weeks in large-field GPPs, and you need to play the best plays in cash to make up for those losses and even be profitable. Gibbs is the top cash play on the slate.

For tournaments? How does he fail? I struggle to see how he's not a great tournament play this week, even at the ownership. There's already a lot of value on this slate, and that should open things up for an $8,800 player like Gibbs. This game total is one of the highest on the slate at 48 points. The Lions are at home in the dome and almost 7-point favorites. We've found from studying past winning lineups that you want to play running backs on favored teams with a high implied team total, and the Lions' implied team total is 27.5.

You could make the argument that the Jets' run defense has been good to start the season, and it's been decent, but I think that has more to do with the poor rushing attacks they've faced than anything else. They ranked 29th against the run in 2025, and Jahmyr Gibbs is easily one of the most talented backs in the league while attached to one of the most potent offenses in the league. Spreadsheet also had Gibbs as one of the players with the highest 90th-percentile outcome in his simulations of the slate. The other one?

Kenneth Walker III. The reality is that Walker is underpriced for this matchup and for how efficient he's been through two games. He's gotten 29 and 34 opportunities in his first two games of the season and averaged 8 targets in each game. He's turned those opportunities into an average of 145 rushing yards, 2 touchdowns and 34.2 FPPG. Yet he's priced below Gibbs, CMC, Henry and JT at only $7,400. At his projection of 23.1, that makes him the top fantasy-points-per-dollar play listed in our DFS Optimizer. We have him with the second-highest projected ownership on the slate at 27%.

At this price and projection, there's even less reason to fade him than there is Gibbs. The Chiefs are 10-point favorites against a really bad Dolphins team. The main reason to fade him (apart from a game-theory standpoint) is that there has been talk of Emmett Johnson continuing to get more snaps. Johnson could get more snaps and we could still see Walker touch the ball 20+ times and end up in the winning lineup. At $7,400, he doesn't need 30+ to hit 4x his salary, and 25 points could even do it. He's a cash lock and very strong chalk in tournaments given the spot. Walker also showed up optimal most often at the RB position in Spreadsheets' Sims, at 36% of the time.

Chalk that is less of a lock

I've said it before, but wide receiver chalk fails at a high rate.

Parker Washington projects for just a fraction of a point behind Amon-Ra for the highest wide receiver ownership on the slate, after a 12-target, 7-catch performance last week against Denver and 7 targets in Week 1. He's good, and his 18 FPPG at $6,000 is fantastic for cash. However, when we look at the 4x benchmark it takes for him to provide tournament-winning value, we have to look for paths to this chalk failing. As talked about in the past, wide receiver chalk fails at a high rate. He looks solid to hit a median outcome in cash, but the Patriots have been stingy on defense to start the year, allowing only 3 points to the Steelers and 13 points to the Seahawks. He'll likely need to get into the end zone to provide tournament-winning value, and the Patriots have been hard to score on. I still like him in tournaments, but I want to leverage some of that ownership and shift exposure to other wide receivers I think could smash at a similar salary.

Mark Andrews chalk: if Andrews couldn't do it last week with Flowers out, why is the field going back to him in a game that Flowers may play in? Andrews was once one of the elite tight ends but hasn't looked like the same player for over a year now. It's been almost exactly a calendar year since his last 20-point game, and with tight end chalk failing at the highest rate of any of the skill positions, I'm happy to fade this chalk at 16% projected ownership.

Where to shift exposure in tournaments

When I would do a weekly review video studying the habits of DFS pros, one of the things I noticed a lot is that they weren't afraid to be significantly under the field on a player in a great spot, especially one that is priced above $8K and chalk. For example, if the field is going to be 30% on a player, they may go 10-15%, which is still 15-22 lineups (in 150-max contests) giving yourself a chance to win the tournament, while also setting yourself up well if you shift exposure to players the field is overlooking but who could be the guy you need on the slate.

• Amon-Ra St. Brown is still projecting as chalk, but if Amon-Ra is going crazy, there are a lot of scenarios where he's crushing Gibbs' lineups. That's where we see the floor from Gibbs but not the ceiling to win the tournament.
• Christian McCaffrey has sadly only averaged 16 opportunities across two games, which is low for his historical volume. Those games also weren't competitive, so giving extra work to Black makes sense. The 49ers are really banged up along the defensive line, so I think this game has more shootout potential than most are anticipating. They may lean on CMC more in that scenario; he has 30+ point upside when given more than 20 opportunities. He's at half the ownership of Gibbs.
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba: I wrote up JSN last week as a pivot, and he obliterated the field with 45.5 FPTS. He continued where he left off in 2025, starting the 2026 season with 37.4 FPPG in his first two games with a backup QB under center. Darnold is back, and the field is sleeping on him again against a poor Washington secondary? Make it make sense. 10% projected ownership is low for a wide receiver with a 44% target share against the lowly Commanders secondary.
• Tetairoa McMillan and Jalen Coker: the Panthers have been operating at a much higher pace of play than expected, even when their opponent is as lifeless as the Falcons were last week with Cooper Rush under center. That's great for Tet and Coker, who have both soaked up the majority of the target share in the offense, with 9 targets each in both games this season. They come in at half the ownership of Parker, against a Browns team that is due for an emotional letdown after a big win in Tampa last week.
• Jameson Williams at 8% projected ownership. I know, I know, but he has sucked this year. He's had stretches in prior years where he's done the same thing, but he has 5-6x upside at his $5,400 salary. He's a high-variance player, and that's exactly the kind of uncomfortable player you need to get comfortable with putting into your lineup if you have big dreams of taking down a tournament. He's direct leverage off of Gibbs and Amon-Ra, who are the top chalk at their respective positions.

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Make sure to follow @PredFantasy on X so you never miss an article. FantasyFling will be dropping The 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.