JM’s Player Grid 4.25

JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat, King of the Hill/Beach, Spy, etc.) who focuses on the DraftKings Main Slate

---

OWS Fam ::

This is not a complete list of all the good plays on the slate

This is, instead, a look at the player pool I’ll be fishing

---

Sunday Morning Update

Here’s a look at my exposures on the weekend, and how I’m attacking this slate ::

The Grid ::

Bottom-Up Build

:: covered in the Angles Pod (it’s highly recommended that you listen to the breakdown of the roster in order to see the thinking behind it, and in order to understand what we’re talking about when we look at a “bottom-up build”)

Blue Chips

:: my “Tier 1” plays: the plays I feel confident leaning into across different types of builds; these players have a high ceiling and a low likelihood of price-considered failure

Build-Arounds

:: games, offenses, situations, or scenarios I’ll be looking to build around across my rosters

Building Blocks

:: unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters

Bonuses

:: players who don’t fit into the categories above — either Upside pieces who don’t have the floor to be Blue Chips (and are not being focused on within my game-focused builds) or players who may not have a strong shot at ceiling, but are worth keeping in mind from a “role” perspective

Beta

:: players who are not going to be “featured” on my tighter builds (i.e., one could show up on a tighter build, but they are not being prioritized as such), but who I will be mixing and matching across some portion of my MME builds

---

Bottom-Up Build

Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (on YouTube, or on the One Week Season podcast feed).

Bottom-Up Build
DK Salary Remaining :: $6.1K

Caleb Williams
Omarion Hampton
Cam Skattebo
Quentin Johnston
Adonai Mitchell
Jakobi Meyers
Cole Kmet
Rome Odunze
Texans

Join The Bottom-Up Build Contest On DraftKings!

Buy-In:

Free

Rules:

Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!

Prizes:

1st Place = $100 paid out to the winner(!) (OR free Bink Machine access!)

<< Join Here >>

*must use an OWS avatar (found on your profile page) to be eligible to win

---

A Note On Week 4

Before we get started…

If you’ve been keeping up with my Journal entries (in Discord) this week, you’ve seen me talk about this already, but I just wanted to lay out a quick note on my own play this week.

William (my six-year-old) has his first go-kart race on Saturday, and while most of these races take place on Sundays, this week’s race is a special night race on Saturday. Against this backdrop, I decided to allocate my full Week 4 bankroll to single-entry/3-max, and didn’t reserve any MME spots when I flew to Oakland this week to reserve my Week 4 entries.

Of course, I always think through the slate in the same way, so MME thoughts are included below; but in my own play, I’m more specifically focused on how I want to build for SE/3-Max…which may not ultimately be relevant information on your end, but it did at least feel worth sharing.

If you’re a Bink Machine user ::

On weeks when I play MME (usually around 10 weeks out of the year), I publish my own Bink Machine rules; and on a lot of weeks when I don’t play MME, I still take the time to build a set of rules for those of you who have gotten used to having those in there. It’s one of those things that I do often enough that it starts to feel like “part of what we get with that subscription,” though it’s technically a bonus that we had built into the optimizer as a cool way to shop through my own rules for any that might fit your play that week. This week, I won’t have time to think through, create, and build out a set of rules, as I won’t get home until late Saturday night, and I’ll need to turn my attention directly to building my SE/3-Max rosters. I’m expecting that we’ll get back to published rules on my end next week.

With that, let’s get started!

Blue Chips

Christian McCaffrey

Christian McCaffrey (surprise, surprise) has been central to both the offense and the passing attack for the 49ers through three weeks, with receiving DK scores of 16.3 // 17.2 // 18.8 to start the season. He has scored 22.7+ DK points in each game to start the year in spite of scoring only one touchdown.

To be clear: “Blue Chip” doesn’t mean “You have to start your roster with this guy.” When we have high-priced Blue Chips, we’re mostly just establishing that the consistency, floor, and ceiling are all there. But I’ll be happy to find CMC on any roster of mine where he makes the final cut.

Puka Nacua

From what I’ve picked up, it seems one of the industry discussions this week has been, “Is Puka the WR1 the rest of the way?” Here’s what I said in my Journal this week ::

“…with a lower likelihood this week that we see a ton of players putting up huge scores, we could say 26+ is a good target score for Puka to be worth his price tag this week, and it’s looking like it will be fair to say, at minimum, that’s a 30%-of-the-time proposition on this season. (There is a world in which we discover over the next few months that Puka was still a bit underpriced at this point.)”

Same as CMC, he’ll be popular this week; and same as CMC, I’m not saying I “have to start my rosters here.” (His chances of a strong-to-excellent game are high, but his chances of a game that “buries you for not having played him” remain somewhat low.) But also same as CMC, I’ll be happy with Puka any place where he fits.

“Light Blue” Chips

---

Build-Arounds

---

Building Blocks

“It Could Happen”

Drake Maye + Treveyon Henderson

Story:

“Coaches lie”

Why It Works:

Mike Vrabel apparently said on Friday that Rhamondre Stevenson’s fumbles won’t impact his role/usage this week. But sometimes, coaches lie…and if Vrabel is lying here, we could see Henderson start this game for the Patriots. Given the matchup on tap, “Henderson starting this game” could easily turn into “Henderson playing well enough that the Pats keep rolling with him.”

Maye will be popular this week, but it’s not easy to successfully guess on the right stacking partner in the Patriots offense. If the Pats had one lead running back, “Maye plus his running back” would be a very sharp way to handle the Pats, as A) this is an offense that involves running backs in the schemed passing attack, and B) this would give you exposure to all the Patriots touchdowns. Of course, we don’t have one lead running back with the Pats…but I don’t mind taking at least one SE/3-Max swing on the possibility of Henderson being that guy this week.

How It Works:

Depending on tourney size, you don’t have to do a ton “differently” once you’ve started with this stack. This should lead to unique salary construction and low-owned upside if it hits, setting you a step ahead of your competition.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:

The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.

“You Can Do It Twice”

---

Bink Machine

A look at some of the rules I’ll be applying in the Bink Machine this week.

Rams Rule

I expect the Rams to do well in a competitive game this week. The Rams have one of the most concentrated offenses in the NFL, so if they do well, we know who is going to benefit. In SE/3-Max, I’ll probably end up with a Rams piece on every roster. If I were playing MME this week, I would probably scale that down to 70% of rosters. This rule, then, would look like the picture below (no locked player; so this says, “On 70% of ALL rosters, include at least one, and as many as two, from this pool”).

Bonuses

---

If Building For Single-Entry // Three-Entry Max

This is my narrowest pool, which means it’s the pool likeliest to change a bit as I move deeper into builds. If it changes throughout Saturday night, I’ll add an update in this space.

If I were building for single-entry // three-entry Max, my tightened-up player pool would be:

QB ::

Patrick Mahomes (probably with some Lamar trail bets) || Caleb Williams (potentially with some Geno trail bets) || Justin Herbert || Daniel Jones || >>—<< || Drake Maye

RB ::

---

A Wrap ::

I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!

-JM