FanDuel advice: A shallow position in a deep field

Some weeks, when setting my FanDuel fantasy football lineup, I can scroll around among quarterbacks. Maybe a crappy quarterback is facing the Saints. Maybe a middling quarterback has one great weapon, and that weapon is in a dream scenario. Maybe the best of the best quarterbacks are facing tough defenses. Add all of it together, and you can justify half the league's quarterbacks as a tournament play.

This will happen sometimes. The top five running backs will all be either banged up or facing the Steelers/Seahawks defenses, and so you're limited on who you can choose. Byes and Thursday games knock out a handful of premium receivers. That sort of thing. Some weeks, even in a full field of games, you don't have a large group of palatable options.

• Tom Brady, who, even without Rob Gronkowski and Dion Lewis and Julian Edelman, should get Danny Amendola back and faces the uber-generous Philadelphia defense.
• Cam Newton going against the Saints, which is enough words about that.
• Ben Roethlisberger facing Indianapolis; he put up 20-plus against Seattle last week, and the Colts ain't the Seahawks.
• The week's only palatable (to me) discount option, Ryan Fitzpatrick, throwing against the Giants with Eric Decker and Brandon Marshall.

That's really the list. Maybe, with Darrelle Revis likely out again, you're in on Eli Manning. But Drew Brees faces the Panthers, and Carson Palmer faces the Rams, and Andy Dalton has slumped of late, and Matt Ryan has been awful, and the bottom-rung quarterbacks all have risky matchups, and ... Look, the point is that the quarterback pool is tiny.

I went with Brady this week, because I'm a fan of pairing a quarterback with one of his top receiving options, and Scott Chandler, filling in for Rob Gronkowski, is a very affordable tight end. Also, having a cheap "top target" makes the high price of Brady far more appealing.

• I'm not a big Martavis Bryant guy for regular fantasy. I think his game has historically had far too much boom/bust potential to be reliable week-to-week. Well, for tournament games in FanDuel, you love the boom-or-bust types. If he strikes out, well heck, you weren't likely to make millions anyway. But if he has one of those Bryant big games? Woohoo, y'all.
• Jarvis Landry catches a load of passes, and that number should only rise with Rishard Matthews out. Against a generous Baltimore defense, that should go well.
• I tripled (and then quadrupled) down on the Patriots with Amendola and the New England defense. I don't think the Eagles' defense can possibly be as bad as it has looked of late, but it certainly isn't good, and the Patriots are likely to share the wealth.
• I'm back in on C.J. Anderson, and think the Broncos should be able to run all over the Chargers.
• The marks against LeSean McCoy earlier in the season were his injury worries, a suspect offensive line and Karlos Williams taking away his touches. Well, McCoy has been basically healthy for a month now, both he and Williams have had success behind that line and Williams ... well, he had all of two carries last week. McCoy is my No. 2 running back this week.