The Greatest “Cheat Sheet” In DFS
Each week in The Oracle, OWS team members will take on the key strategy questions from that week’s slate :: sharing their thoughts on how they plan to approach these critical elements from a roster-construction, game theory, and leverage perspective.
A weekly staple of The Oracle: “what makes this slate unique?”
I’ll speak through the lens of how this slate shapes up for me ::
It’s a very straightforward week.
Now. That does not mean that it will be a profitable week.
Last week was NOT a straightforward week, and it was a great week for me // for us.
We’ve had other straightforward weeks that were hugely profitable (the first “Brissett without MHJ” week, for example), and we’ve had other weeks that were straightforward and unprofitable, too.
Also, just because this week is straightforward for me — i.e., straightforward based on how I attack a slate, and based on what makes the most sense to me — doesn’t mean it’s straightforward for everyone. But for me, this week has been “easy.” This week has made sense.
I’ve spent a lot of time digging into what this means, and my Player Grid and Winner Circle pods are the best place to go for a deeper dive; but in short, I think salary allocation will be a big part of this week. I think stacking as many high-confidence plays as possible onto a roster will be a big part of this week. And I think there are clear/straightforward ways to do this.
I don’t know if things will break my way. But I know I’ll be happy with the way I played.
I’m not sure about unique, but after what felt like a gross slate this one feels more “normal.” There are a few higher-total spots to consider attacking, some interesting lower-confidence but also lower-owned pivots…I feel like we’ve had a couple of icky slates and now we’re back to normal.
One other thing is we’re now far enough into the season that I think it’s time (or even past time) to start questioning what we know from past years. Are the Ravens a good offense? Well, this year with Lamar at QB they’ve only reached the 30 point mark….twice. Last year they did so ELEVEN times. It’s always tricky trying to figure out when something is different and it’s just a small sample size, just variance that will normalize with time, versus when something is different and it’s a real change that is likely to be lasting…and I’m not saying the Ravens are now terrible or anything (they’re not!), but we should probably start thinking “hmm, maybe they WON’T bounce back, maybe this isn’t just variance?” Same applies to the Eagles offense. There are other spots we could talk about, too.
I’m probably on the slower end of the curve when it comes to adjusting my prior beliefs. I tend to immediately go to “variance,” and maybe that’s not always correct – but that’s just me. You should consider where YOU fall on this spectrum – just variance? Real change that’s likely to be sticky?
To me, this slate carries far less directional certainty than the previous few slates, at least as far as team and game environments are concerned. The directional certainty I’m seeing on this one is instead confined to individual players, which sets up a different avenue of attack than I have utilized in recent history. Instead of my primary stacks being the anchors of my rosters, as was the case the previous few slates, it’ll likely be a select core of players that I will then build various stacks around. There are two primary theoretical concerns when a slate like this one pops up: (1) how we generate our leverage takes on a new form, and (2) are we missing anything in our diagnosis of where the most certainty comes from.
To me, the feeling I get the closer we get to Sunday is that there are some spots that will likely play a large part in deciding the slate where talent will overcome a perceived difficult matchup and/or a game environment will turn into something unexpected as opposing offenses interact and compete. We also have some spots where talented players may have expanded roles and whether or not they make the most of those opportunities will change the outlook for everything. Finally, the Arizona passing game is a spot with very high expectations and certainty from a likely game script perspective and will be a very popular spot (especially Michael Wilson). Whether that spot just ends up as a “solid” one or the Cardinals drop an avalanche of fantasy points will likely determine the slate.
We have had some wildly high scoring slates this season. Some have been somewhat predictable due to value, mispriced players, and/or multiple crazy game environments. Others have been a bit surprising but were spurred by elite individual ceiling performances. On the flip side, we are coming off the lowest scoring slate of the season, “winter is coming”, and this is an 11-game slate with eight of those games having totals of 45 or less. The challenge, and beauty, of DFS is that every week we are solving a different puzzle. Part of that means that understanding what the puzzle is likely to look like when we are finished is just as important as finding the right pieces. There were players on winning rosters last week who would never give you a shot to win in other weeks. Likewise, there have been performances in some higher scoring weeks this season that were “meh” within the context of that slate, but if you dropped them into Week 13 they would have been “must have”.
With all of that as a backdrop, the question here is what kind of slate do you expect this to be? And following up, how does that expectation affect your thoughts on roster construction and/or player selection (if at all)?
