Fantasy Football Dating App, Week 6

Every Sunday morning, fantasy owners face similar choices to the ones "dating" app users do on Saturday night. When faced with lots of options, do you want to swipe left and pass on potential opportunity or do you want to swipe right and open the door for exciting possibilities? Each week, we'll talk about specific players and what you should do with them (particularly when setting your daily fantasy lineups).

Swipe Left

Cam Newton

There is a certain level of comfort that accompanies investing in a QB with running skills. Yards racked up on the ground can level the playing field rapidly against pure drop-back passers and provides a diversified avenue from which to derive fantasy value. However, that talent is substantially less useful when you are running for your life behind the line of scrimmage. Seattle is murder on QBs at home, giving up only 11 fantasy points all year to opposing signal-callers. Since Carolina lacks a playmaking wide receiver to keep the Seahawks honest, expect that defense to make Newton's Sunday a long, painful experience.

Eddie Lacy

Lacy will potentially be a popular play this week considering that San Diego's run defense puts up about as much resistance as Ron Burgundy does against scotch. However, Lacy is shaking off an ankle injury, and with James Starks performing well and a bye week coming next week, there will be little incentive for Green Bay to play him if it pulls ahead early as expected. Also, Lacy tends to peak late in the year, averaging over a 100 total yards and a TD per game after October. So wait until those pumpkins disappear before forking over big bucks for this big back.

Keenan Allen

Allen is enjoying an excellent bounce back campaign and now finds himself among the most expensive wide receivers in daily fantasy. However, he put up most of his points with Antonio Gates occupying a rocking chair on the sidelines. Now that's he's back, I'm not willing to part with such a huge chunk of my budget until there is more evidence he will still be the primary focus of the Chargers passing game. If Philip Rivers was Linus, Gates would be his ever present blue security blanket. If Gate is the primary receiver, Allen is going to have a hard time earning a return on money that could be spent instead on A.J. Green, DeAndre Hopkins or Julian Edelman.

Swipe Right

Carson Palmer

Carson Palmer is like fantasy deviled eggs. We've all tried them at some point thinking it was a good idea, but quickly tired of them. People tend to discount Palmer because they're conditioned to think he can turn bad at any moment. This has led to an exploitable gap between perception and performance, as his price continues to lag behind his production. His per game average is only a point behind Aaron Rodgers', but he costs over a cool grand less. The Steelers secondary provides little reason to think that Palmer won't continue to surge, so forget all the times he's burned you before and grab him while he's still cheap.

Allen Hurns

Hurns has become an extremely popular fantasy pick-up after scoring in each of his last three games. While his ownership percentage is skyrocketing, his daily fantasy value remains a meager $5,000. Hurns has been particularly good on the deep ball, catching six of his nine targets. This weekend, he lines up against a Houston defense that has really struggled to cover secondary receiving options. Guys normally considered second bananas have scored a half-dozen times against the Texans in the first five weeks, including Andre Johnson's two touchdown performance last Thursday. If A.J. can do that to the Texans after playing most of the season like he was wearing the "Face/Off" magnet prison boots, I like an in-form Hurns' chances to turn a nice profit on Sunday.

Julian Edelman

Given the excitement we've seen in the first five weeks and the new storylines that have emerged, Deflategate is a distant memory to many fans. However, I can assure you that it's still fresh in the minds of the New England Patriots, who now come face-to-face with their accusers. To make matters worse for the Colts, their D has been giving up an average of 317 yards passing over their last four games without facing a QB better than Blake Bortles. Absent the implementation of an emergency mercy rule, Sunday night could get historically ugly and you want to have as many Patriots as you can in your lineup. With other top receivers struggling, Edelman seems like the best big-ticket guy this week. But if you wanted to go with Tom Brady, Gronk, Dion Lewis or practically any other Pat instead, it would still be a wise investment. They might not leave any air left in the balls at all this time after New England spikes them repeatedly on pay dirt.