Building A Winner 14.25

Tony focuses his DFS play on FanDuel single-entry and 3-max contests. He thrives in unique formats and positional twists, always looking for hidden edges that others overlook

This article is designed to complement Mike’s weekly Fanduel Player Grid and other OWS Fanduel scroll content by giving you my view on the slate from my perspective as a Fanduel player who focuses on smaller-field, SE/3-max types of tournaments. My usual process is to build a handful of unique lineups for these types of contests each slate and a majority of my weekly DFS bankroll is dedicated to them.

As you will see as you go through the article, based on the week at hand, I find what I think is the critical starting point I want to use for my rosters. This could be a certain game environment, a specific position or positional dynamics, extreme chalk pieces, or low-owned stacks that I am interested in. Each week is unique, so the “Starting Point” for each week will be dynamic and the rest of my thoughts will build from there, helping you see how I am building my lineups and allowing you to form your own thoughts.

Starting Point

• Week 14 is the final week of byes, leaving a FD main slate consisting of 11 games. There will be eight early kickoffs and three games starting in the later window. One game stands out immediately, the Bengals at Bills, with its whopping implied total of 53.0 points, with Buffalo favored by six. This looks to have all the makings of a shootout, with two elite QBs leading teams desperate for a late-season win. The issue, from a FD perspective, is the price tags of some of the key players here:
  • The previously mentioned QBs come with the 1st and 4th highest QB salaries on the slate
  • This game features three of the eight players on the entire slate with price tags of $9k+
• The Bengals do offer some more affordable pieces in the $7k range, and every Bills pass catcher is easily attainable, but to get into this game in a serious way will be costly. While I’ll certainly be looking to play some mini correlations and some of the key one-off plays from that key game in Buffalo, it’s a different AFC game, the Colts at Jaguars, that is the starting point I’m considering as I build my main SE/3-Max teams this week:
  • IND (24.0) at JAX (22.5) is the closest point spread of the FD main slate
  • While the 46.5 game total has come down a point since the opening line, it’s still the slate’s third-highest total after the Buffalo game and the Rams at Cardinals (47.5)
  • While this game does admittedly feature another of the premium-priced $9k options, everyone else in this game is affordable, including several of my favorite pass catchers in the ~$6k range.
  • I intend to play a full game stack here and probably one with each QB. I’ll also be featuring different mini correlations of the skill players from this game across most of my other lineups to allow me access to some combinations I’m looking to play from the other games.

Running Back Approach