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
I started digging into the slate a bit last night, and the first thing that stood out to me was the QB setups // matchups, so we’ll start there, going game by game and allowing thoughts to flow.
I’ll save thoughts on Washington till we know who is playing.
After watching the Falcons’ game from this last week, I recorded a voice note that went something like this: “First off, the Falcons looked like they didn’t show up to play against the Panthers. They looked disconnected and sloppy, and Penix looked not fully engaged. But then, also, Penix looks not too different from Tua. It makes me wonder how much the excitement and perception around him matches the reality. He has a fine arm, but there’s been talk about how much the ball zips out of his hand, and it just doesn’t look like that to me. And obviously, they’re both left-handed, and I watched these games back-to-back; but just his movement, the checkdowns he’s taking. He had these checkdowns with clear opportunity to jump the route because he was just slinging the ball into the flat kind of lazily.”
There was more I recorded, but that’s the bulk of what I was getting at in my notes to myself. Again: it looked like the Falcons didn’t totally show up to play, and we can feel confident that won’t be the case against Washington; but between the lack of creativity in this offense, the lack of separation from Falcons pass catchers not named Mooney, the willingness to too quickly abandon the run, and Penix himself, I’m not high on this offense at the moment.
At the same time, Penix is cheap this week ($5.1k), and he’s the kind of player, in the kind of offense, that can get things on track and put up a big game — and if the public is down on this offense, there is definite EV in this play, especially in large-field tourneys.
The health of Jayden Daniels probably makes a notable difference here, as the Commanders are less likely to force the Falcons into the type of posture that would lead to a big game from their passing attack if Mariota is under center. I don’t think the Falcons are tremendous on defense, but I do think they’re solid (and possibly even good). Lots to still wait out and sort through in this one.
Easy pickings for Josh Allen here. The Saints shouldn’t be judged by their trip to Seattle. The crowd noise very clearly got to the offense early, and they were in a deep hole against a team that had all the answers for them. They looked like a much tougher unit vs the Cardinals and 49ers. But “tough” isn’t the same as “good,” and Josh Allen — especially at home — against a team that isn’t good on defense, is not a recipe for that team to suddenly look good. Of course, the issue with Allen is opportunity. As we know, Allen had 25 or fewer DK points in 11 of 16 regular season games played last year (six games under 21.0), which isn’t what we’re looking for at his salary; and the common denominator in most of his games north of 25 was the effectiveness of the opposing offense :: the Cardinals scored 28 and forced Allen into comeback mode in Week 1 of last year // the Rams pushed Allen to a 42-44 score // the Lions scored 42 and Allen led the Bills to 48. Only in blowout wins over the 49ers and Jags did Allen top 25 without being pushed…and against the 49ers he threw for under 150 yards while contributing three touchdowns to put up 28.4. The game against the Jags, then (30.9 DK points), was the only time he put up a score that was really useful at his Week 4 salary without getting pushed— and that came on the back of a four-touchdown game through the air (263 passing yards; 44 rushing yards). The chances of Allen putting up a score you “couldn’t win without” in this spot are very low.
On the other side of this game, Rattler has looked surprisingly above-average, and the Bills aren’t “good” on defense. That said, Buffalo is good at using scheme and gameplan to take away what an opponent wants to do. You’re the Dolphins, and you want to throw downfield over the middle? Okay — you have to win a different way. What’s interesting is that the Saints want to win with the quick passing game, which isn’t something a team like the Bills would usually “scheme to take away.” The old Belichick approach was, “If you make a team put together 12-14 play drives over and over again, they will rarely be able to do it.” There will be a holding penalty, a dropped pass, a sack — something that puts them behind on a set of downs and ultimately wrecks their drive. That’s similar to McDermott’s default stance, and the Saints are essentially attacking games that way. Last week vs Seattle, the Saints’ first drive was derailed by a third-down drop (followed by a failed fourth down conversion). Their second drive was derailed by a false start on a fourth down sneak. Their third drive started with a false start, then there was a second false start two plays later, then there was a holding call after that, another holding call a couple plays after that, and a blocked punt to end it. I could keep going, but you get the point: new-look offense, on the road, playing a good team, making mistakes that kill themselves.
In the vast (vast) majority of timelines on which this game is played, the Saints can’t overcome this setup enough to push Allen into a tourney-winning performance, but there are timelines on which the Saints handle the Buffalo crowd better than they did the Seattle crowd and ultimately produce a solid offensive showing (two or three touchdowns). If those scores come through the air — on top of the heavy volume Olave and Juwan Johnson, in particular, are seeing — we could see Rattler stacks make a difference this week (price considered). Something like 225 passing yards, 30 rushing yards, and three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing?) is not “likely,” but it is completely within the realm of reasonable possibilities. That’s 26 DK points, with a clear understanding, on our end, of where the volume is flowing through the air, and where those touchdowns are likeliest to come from.
I actually expected these QB writeups to be MUCH shorter, because my point in all of this is that there isn’t a ton that really pops at the position (which could also, ultimately, mean there isn’t a ton that pops at pass catcher positions either) — and in that context, I do actually think Rattler can be viably kept in consideration this week.
And here’s a chance for a shorter writeup…
So here’s what was so cool about the Lions’ game against the Ravens in Week 3 :: every time Lamar tried to run, he had nowhere to go. This is tremendously difficult to achieve, and it’s a credit to Kelvin Sheppard’s gameplanning that he was able to take away the open pass catchers the Ravens are always able to scheme up while getting enough pressure to speed up Lamar’s clock but also finding a way to close off his rushing lanes and make sure his legs were always accounted for. Roll that over to this week, and it just seems likely, to me, that the Lions will be able to come up with a gameplan to trip up the Browns’ offense.
Swinging over to the Lions’ side, then :: the goal is to win the game. We know the Lions want to exert dominance // break an opponent’s will // keep their foot on the neck of their opponent when they can; but also, in a spot like this — against a defense this great and an offense this low-powered — it would make sense for the Lions to play this as more of a chess match, removing all opportunities for mistakes and taking control of the game as it develops. Said differently: the opportunity for a Goff blowup looks slim.
I do think the strategy of “always play the angle of the Lions putting up a ton of points” is viable with a sliver of large-field entries; but it’s tough to make the logical case for that one here.
Not only does Houston rival the Titans as the most conservative offense in the NFL (in terms of plays called on long down-and-distances, fourth-and-short aggressiveness, etc.), but they also, quite genuinely, look like one of the worst offenses in the NFL. I took notes on each play and gave a grade to every drive from 14 different teams this last week, and Houston earned my lowest overall grade (average of all their drives) by a pretty wide margin (D+, 69.5; the Bengals were next-worst at 74.1, bunched up with eight teams in the 74-79 range).
In a non-loud Jacksonville stadium, these were some of the Texans’ drives:
Nico Collins remains playable, because A) he’s really good, and B) C.J. Stroud (in spite of looking lost behind this horrible offensive line in this poorly-schemed and poorly-called offense) can still get him the ball on occasion; but I don’t think anything else in this offense can find its way onto my rosters at the moment. Is it possible the entire turnaround comes in the span of one week? Sure. But I’ll personally wait until I see signs of things starting to get better — knowing that most of the time, these signs come before a true turnaround takes place.
On the other side, we have the still-awesome Texans D taking on an overwhelmed rookie in Cam Ward who is in a terrible situation with a scheme that is doing him zero favors and a head coach who is trying to save his job by giving up play-calling duties (which…you know, if you were hired as a head coach from the offensive side of the ball, is never really a good sign).
