DraftKings & FanDuel NASCAR DFS – Ruoff Mortgage 500 – March 13, 2022 – FantasyCruncher.com DFS Articles & Insights – fantasycruncher.com

Core Plays

Ryan Blaney – DK: $9,600 | FD: $11,000 – Starting 1st

This week it is a little tougher to land on just one core play at the higher-priced tier because there are really a lot of ways we can go, but salary also plays a big factor. Kyle Larson would be my top pick here, but at $11,800 we absolutely need him to dominate this race to end up paying off that salary. Denny Hamlin is a guy who has had a ton of success at Phoenix, with five top-5 finishes over his last six races, including one win. But a slow start to Hamlin’s season makes him a little riskier than normal right now. When it comes to leading laps, Joey Logano has been a menace here, with 60 or more laps led in four of his last five races here, including 143 in 2021 and 125 in 2020. I really think any of those three names could be slotted in here, but for salary sake, I think Ryan Blaney can offer us an equal upside at a cheaper price. Blaney has finished in the top-10 here in his last seven races dating back to November of 2018. Through that stretch his has finished top-5 five times and has led 33 or more laps in each of his last two races here. Blaney is starting from the pole here but has also had routinely one of the fastest cars overall this year. There is always risk starting someone on the pole but if Blaney’s quick car can hold the front he can rack up a ton of dominator points early. There is risk here, but Phoenix is a flat tri-oval that isn’t the easiest to pass at.

AJ Allmendinger – DK: $7,200 | FD: $7,000 – Starting 29th

While the only Cup race Allmendinger has run this year so far was the Clash, he is a top-3 Xfinity driver who has seen success across all levels of tracks. The last time Allmendinger ran a Cup race in Phoenix was way back in 2018 when he started 24th and finished 12th. At the Xfinity level, Allmendinger has finished 12th and 4th in his last two runs at Phoenix in ’20 and ’21. I also think going back to the Erik Jones well makes sense here as if it wasn’t for a very late accident last week at Vegas we would be looking at back to back weeks of 8x value on his salary.

Cheat Sheet