FanDuel Daily Fantasy Football Helper: Week 4

Week 4 marks our first set of byes, with the Washington Redskins and Carolina Panthers getting the break this week, but that still leaves us with a 12-game main slate. While we won't have Patrick Mahomes and friends available due to the Kansas City Chiefs playing on Monday, there should be plenty of offense to go around, including a pair of games reaching the 50 over/under threshold.

We'll dig into that and more in our weekly FanDuel primer, where we give you an overview of the Sunday main slate to help you get started on your research. As always, we recommend checking out all of numberFire's premium tools at your disposal. In particular, the heat map is a great way to get a general overview of the slate's implied totals, and every team's strengths and weaknesses. You also have access to numberFire's weekly projections, which can assist you in nailing down who might be the slate's top scorers and best values.

Be sure to also pay attention to inactives prior to Sunday's games, which can often completely change the makeup of a given slate. After all, injuries can have a huge impact on playing time, where an otherwise low-priced backup can suddenly find his way into a feature role and become an excellent play.

Now, let's run through some of this week's top plays on the FanDuel main slate.

Quarterbacks

Philip Rivers ($7,800 on FanDuel): With the red-hot Mahomes off the main slate, we can feel less compelled to pay all the way up at quarterback this week, and Philip Rivers checks in at a fairly reasonable price, leading the Los Angeles Chargers at home against the San Francisco 49ers with the board's highest implied total (28.75). The 49ers were, of course, Mahomes' latest victim in Week 3, and according to numberFire's Adjusted Defensive Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) per play metric, their defense ranks just 27th against the pass this season. Furthermore, San Francisco ranks 10th against the run, making it even more likely that the Chargers' scores will come through the air. Rivers has thrown for multiple touchdowns in all three games so far and looks likely to keep that streak going on Sunday. Melvin Gordon ($8,700) and Keenan Allen ($8,100) lead all other Chargers pass-catchers in targets by a wide margin, making them ideal stacking partners with Rivers.