Welcome back to another edition of DFS with Doug. We have a lot to get to on this slate, but I do want to take a minute to enjoy some flowers. This past Monday Night, I was able to take down an 89.2K lineup Showdown GPP, resulting in a 7,650% ROI for the contest. I will post the screenshot of the aforementioned lineup at the bottom for those wanting to enjoy my moment with me. For now, we have a Week 14 slate that we need to attack full of some fantastic game environments and great value plays. So, let’s get to it!
Week 13 Report Card
Cash Lineup
H2H ITM%: 12%
H2H ROI: (-77.5%)
Double Up Cash Line: 155.26
After talking about how well I did on a Showdown on Monday Night, I will have to eat crow from last Sunday’s main slate. This should have been a swap, but when grabbing lunch on Sunday afternoon, I lost track of time and was locked into my late window plays. The fatal decision was playing Steveson over Rashaad White and having Stevenson go down right away, and White scored a touchdown in the late window right away. I’m not sure if any of my swaps would have helped, but this lineup did not get there for cash.
Single Entry
ROI: (60%)
Cash Line: 146.44
Winning Score: 212.46
The cash line and winning tournament scores were all lower this week than in previous weeks on our main slate. The Zack Moss chalk reaching obscene proportions meant most tournaments had him in the winning lineup despite his poor performance. The amount of space it opened up on the roster allowed for more options for the rest of the lineup. The core of Achane, Samuel, and ABJ carried this lineup across the cash lineup for a min-cash.
MME
ROI: (-40%)
ITM%: 30%
Top Lineup Payout: 2x
Cash Line: 141.96
Winning Score: 217.98
Once again, you can see the core of Achane, Samuel, and AJB, which is where I found most of my points. I played 40% Tyreek Hill, but none of those lineups had the right other pieces around to make it to the top. I liked my distribution of players and even the structure of my lineups; I just didn’t get the exact configuration to fully get there.
Highest Totals
Bills @ Chiefs (48.5)
Seahawks @ 49ers (46.5)
If we step away from fantasy football for just a minute, this game is massive for both teams. I think it may disappoint from a scoring perspective. The Chiefs’ offense is not what it has been in previous seasons, while their defense is much improved. I could see this being a more defensive game than the total would suggest, and I even already have some money down on the under. The other game, I feel, could be a lot more interesting. The 49ers went through a three-week skid but corrected the ship in recent weeks. Of the two games near the top in totals, I prefer the ‘9ers and ‘Hawks game. Monitor the Seahawks QB and RB injury situation with Geno Smith ($6.7K), Kenneth Walker III ($6.3K), and Zach Charbonnett ($5.4K), all questionable at this time. DeeJay Dallas ($4.7K) and Drew Lock ($4.5K) become the most likely beneficiaries of any absence, with Dallas likely becoming quite chalky despite the bad matchup.
Top Stacks
Josh Allen (BUF): $8,300 @ Kansas City
Last week we had our first ceiling game from Josh Allen that we have had in years. I may have already buried the lead by mentioning my belief that this game might go under, but I expect to underweight the field on both quarterbacks unless ownership gets too low by the time we get to Sunday. Allen does have a truly unique ceiling, but finding the exact pieces to pair with him this week will be tricky with the potential return of Dawson Knox ($3.0K). Now that Kincaid has had a couple of weeks as the lone tight end and played well, we are not exactly sure what the snap share and target share will look like. Khalil Shakir ($3.9K) seems to be the most likely to lose some of his snaps and targets.
Lamar Jackson (BAL): $7,700 vs. Los Angeles (N)
Lamar hasn’t been super dominant this year from a fantasy football perspective. Much of that is due to Gus Edwards ($5.9K) vulturing many touchdown opportunities on this team. Still, daily fantasy is scored from a one-game sample size, so we just need one ceiling game from Lamar. We know it is in his bag, and the Rams’ defense does not scare me, especially against such a unique threat as Lamar Jackson. His weapons are also pretty cheap to stack due to the Mark Andrews injury so you can still squeeze in some studs without completely punting your primary stack.
Justin Fields (CHI): $6,800 vs. Detroit
The play calling in Chicago has been hard to stomach recently. As I’m writing this, Matt Eberflus just called another bubble screen. The Lions’ defense has been very shaky as of late, and Fields had a nice game against them just two weeks ago where he cost $100 more. The FPTS/$ here is going to project well, so expect him to be fairly highly owned, but his reasonable price tag gives you some options to get different at the other positions.
Top Plays
Christian McCaffrey (SF): $9,200 vs. Seattle
I am running out of ways to tell you all that Christian McCaffrey is really, really, really good at football. Until he reaches $10K, I am going to be overweight and force him into a ton of lineups. There is enough value on the board that he will likely be very popular despite the $9.2K price tag. He is the only player over $9K this week and is projecting as one of the best VALUE plays on the slate. Great in any format of fantasy football from Daily to Dynasty.
Keenan Allen (LAC): $8,600 vs. Denver
Another frequent flier of the Top Plays section is here. Allen did have a bit of a letdown last week with only five catches on nine targets, but that is his absolute floor. We have seen some ceiling games from him this season. You do not have to worry about the PS2 (Pat Surtain II) treatment since he lines up in the slot over 55% of the time. Allen currently has a huge target share (32.2%) on a team that likes to just drop back and throw the ball at the 8th highest rate in the NFL.
Kyren Williams (LAR): $7,300 @ Baltimore
This is the third week in a row for Kyren in the DFS article, but he is no longer going to be in the low-owned plays section. He has made the top plays. In the two games since returning from IR, Williams has had 11 targets, which he has converted into nine receptions for 85 yards and 2 TDs on top of the rushing volume. That passing game utilization gives me confidence that even if the Ravens handle business as a 7.5-point favorite, Kyren can still get there.
Value Plays
*Click image above to view full tweet
Zack Moss (IND): $5,900 @ Cincinnati
This reflects how poor the luck was last week for him to only manage 7.7 DK points despite all that opportunity. This week, do not be afraid to fire him back up. The ownership should be down a bit, but even at $5.9K, this is a ton of value that you should not ignore in your builds. I am very much a process-over-results guy, so I’m willing to eat it if things go sideways. He is gonna pop in projections quite a bit, so even after a poor performance last week, people will still probably roll him out there.
Jerrick McKinnon (KC): $4,800 vs. Buffalo
Clyde Edwards-Helaire (KC): $4,200 vs. Buffalo
From Jonathan Taylor‘s backup to the guy the Chiefs took over Jonathan Taylor. Isiah Pacheco was ruled out on Friday afternoon, opening up around 20 opportunities for the other backs to divide between them. I would approach the backfield with McKinnon as my high-ceiling option with lower ownership and CEH being the higher floor, safer, and cheaper option. Both are tournament-viable, but CEH probably has some cash game viability that McKinnon does not.
Jonathan Mingo (CAR): $3,500 @ New Orleans
The Dynasty community feels out on the rookie wide receiver as a whole. While he may not have been particularly efficient, he managed to earn ten targets last week and put up a very respectable point total for his $3.3K salary. The matchup isn’t great, but at least it is indoors, so it can avoid all the weather we are dealing with this week. If he can manage to fall into the painted area, he would be a complete smash at this price tag.
Value Stacks
Brock Purdy (SF): $6,500 vs. Seattle
The efficiency that Purdy is playing with right now is unreal. He completed over 70% of his passes in each of the last six games and some of the best weapons in all of fantasy football. He gets the benefit of being able to do a little dump-off pass to any of these weapons, and it could potentially result in a big play or a touchdown. He has a nice, juicy matchup against a very beatable Seattle defense in a game with a higher total. He will be popular, but for good reason.
Jake Browning (CIN): $5,200 vs. Indianapolis
Have yourself a day, Mr. Browning. It was a fantastic showing on Monday Night Football from the backup quarterback for the Bengals. He showed excellent poise, decision-making, and accuracy while putting up nearly 30 DK points on the Jacksonville Jaguars. The only thing that worries me is how much ownership he is already starting to get. Sometimes, everyone will chase the new thing just for it to revert to the mean. That being said, the Colts are a matchup we like to exploit in DFS, and this matchup does have some shootout potential.
Low-Owned Guys
Puka Nacua (LAR): $7,100 @ Baltimore
We are banking on people being afraid of the matchup. You should be afraid of the matchup, but Nacua had a bad matchup last week and managed to put up 26.9 DK points. Granted, most of it is on the back of a 70-yard touchdown, but if that is an added element to his game, then the rookie could bring the hammer down on the back half of the season.
James Cook (BUF): $6,000 @ KC
This is leverage in quite a few different ways. Leverage off of Josh Allen, leverage off of CEH, and he falls right in between two of the chalkiest RBs on the slate in Joe Mixon ($6.1K) and Zack Moss. You can gain access to the highest total on the slate in a very different way while you stack the Seahawks and 49ers or Colts and Bengals.
Gut Play of the Week
Justin Jefferson (MIN): $8,500 @ Las Vegas
It’s Justin #$%&ing Jefferson. I will try to convince myself that people won’t play him because he hasn’t played with Joshua Dobbs ($5.9) or because it’s his first game back, but come on, it’s Justin Jefferson. AT SUB $9K! Josh Dobbs has shown the ability to come into a new situation and figure it out very quickly. I’m sure he can figure out that Jefferson is just different. Give him the ball.
Conclusion
This is more of a game theory discussion I want to have here for a moment. Recently, Sims tools have been growing in popularity, resulting in lineups with a lot more chalk and just a couple of leverage spots. We are also seeing more lineups with less correlation because of this. With last week’s best lineups having naked quarterbacks with no correlated pieces, we may see the metagame slowly begin to shift. My advice is to be one step ahead at this stage. I will be ensuring maximum correlation in all my builds for this week. It is a tricky thing trying to predict a tournament field, especially when people are all trying to pivot from there. Also, look back at the roster percentages of your players post-tournament and see if your estimates were correct. It is tough; don’t feel discouraged, though. All the big DFS sites have been struggling immensely with ownership projections recently. Good luck in Week 14, everybody!
Bonus Section
There are good finishes, then there is winning the tournament. Granted, we had a 5-way chop for 1st place, resulting in a slightly lower cash out. It is really difficult in Showdown to avoid since it is only six players, and all from the same game. This tournament was a 20-entry max GPP where I did enter the full 20 lineups. Even if this lineup did not win the whole thing, the rest of my lineups were successful enough to have been profitable, but this one put it way over the top.
The process of building lineups for mass multi-entry GPPs is hard to squeeze into this article. I use an optimizer to help streamline my process. I begin by defining what percentage of lineups I want each player in, then begin defining rules and settings forcing certain players to be in lineups together for correlation. I look at the lineups, see what doesn’t work, define why it doesn’t work, then force a new group or rule and build another set. I probably went through about 20 iterations on Monday night before I finally settled on this build. I was building from a game script of the Bengals covering the 10.5-point spread. By being a bit different, all my lineups shot to the top when the Bengals were doing better than most lineups would have suspected. The rule combination that helped this lineup happen was forcing one player with ownership under 25% at RB/WR into a FLEX spot, coupled with capping all those guys at different percentages. This forces my lineups to grab a wide range of these guys, including the key to unlocking the whole lineup here in Parker Washington at minimum salary.
If there is any interest in me fully breaking down my process, I would be happy to write it but be warned, it will be deep in the weeds of what mass multi-entry is and is more for experienced DFS players only.
Thanks so much for reading. If you want to discuss more, you can reach me on Twitter. You can find me @DougHarrelson on there. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our Dynasty Football Factory Membership to get all things Dynasty, DFS, Sports Betting, Devy, and IDP. Annual Subscribers also get access to our discord server where you can get access to our entire staff!
