Angles hits inboxes on Thursday mornings throughout the regular season; you can also find Angles in The Scroll on Thursday afternoons.
OWS Fam…
Wow!!!
What a week we have ahead of us.
The NFL is working to not only become a global sport, but to also become a sport that dominates the entire week during parts of the season — with this week giving us a great example of their efforts in this direction, as we have zero teams on bye…and yet — with a game on Thursday, two games on Saturday, a game on Sunday night, and three games on Monday — we have a Main Slate of only nine games(!), our smallest of the season.
Generally speaking, smaller slates give us a bit of an edge, in a pair of key ways. Firstly, the OWS community tends to be better than the field at identifying who the TRUE top plays are on the slate, while also identifying which chalky plays are “only chalk because of the slate they are on” (i.e., chalk that is more fragile). With a smaller slate, there is less to sort through, and it becomes easier to correctly identify these components. Secondly, the OWS community tends to be much better than our competition at the strategy side of DFS, and the fewer options there are, the more condensed ownership tends to be — and thus, the easier it is for us to pull strategy levers that move us up the leaderboards.
We also have a unique setup, however, in that this deep into the season — between injuries that lower the ceiling of a number of teams and pricing that has generally become somewhere between “efficient” and “too high” — having a few more games available to choose from can be beneficial. Said differently: a 12- or 13-game slate at this point in the season typically feels similar to a 10- or 11-game slate in the middle of the season. With that, this nine-game slate feels like a particularly “small” slate, in terms of attractive spots and viable options, creating a really unique setup.
On top of all of this, we have a massive convergence of available edges, in that A) this is a busy week for a lot of people with Christmas coming up on Monday, B) much of our competition is already dealing with the mental fatigue of plugging away at a new slate (or a new set of slates) week in and week out throughout the entire season, and C) much of our competition is dealing with the additional emotional fatigue of “not having had the season they wanted to have” — and while they might be aware that it only takes one week to transform the story of their season, the baggage they are carrying can often lead to them playing sub-optimally in order to “not lose any more,” when they should be positioning themselves to attack that much more aggressively (embracing a “willingness to lose”) in order to maximize their chances of that asymmetric payout they are chasing.
Of course…this massive convergence of available edges is only valuable for you if YOU are not part of the pool of players providing this edge(!). If you are feeling overwhelmed with how busy this week is, or are dealing with too much mental fatigue to play at your best, or are carrying too much emotional baggage to be truly “willing to lose” with your rosters, it’s critical that you recognize this and scale back your play (or even be willing to take the week off entirely!) rather than leaning too heavily into a spot where you might be part of the edge others have. These are critical things to be thinking about on a week such as this.
As for the games themselves, we have a set of stories being told to us by the Over/Unders and the implied team totals, but as we dive into the week (NFL Edge // Angles Pod // Scroll // Slate Pod // etc.), there are some spots with available upside masked by lower totals.
As we have gotten used to this season, we have only five teams on this slate implied to score more than 22 points, and only three teams implied to score more than 23.5, with Taylor Heinicke (oh boy…) and the Falcons implied for 22.75 at home against the Colts, Justin Fields and the Bears implied for 23.5 at home against the Cardinals, Jared Goff and the Lions implied for 25.0 in a tough matchup against the Vikings, and the Cowboys (24.75) and Dolphins 26.25) squaring off in the late window in one of the “games of the week” between Super Bowl hopefuls who still have a lot to prove.
While we’ll save the deeper dives for later-week content, I’ll note a few of the spots that don’t stand out by the totals but could nevertheless stand out when all is said and done on Sunday, as this provides a good snapshot of just how wide-open this slate really is:
Opposite the Falcons, we have an aggressive Colts team that has a tendency to either A) create shootouts or B) put up plenty of points themselves — with 27+ points scored in six of their last eight games, and with 34+ points allowed in four of their last nine games.
Opposite the Lions, we have a beat-up Vikings team that has weapons that can win through the air against a Lions defense that has allowed 26+ points in six of their last eight games.
The Browns have played five consecutive games without Deshaun Watson, and they have thrown the ball 42+ times in all five of those games with a concentrated set of weapons, creating plenty of opportunity for fantasy goodness in their game against the Texans.
The Seahawks have scored 20 or fewer points in four of their last five games, and only four teams have topped 24 against the Titans…but the Titans have also allowed 31+ in two of their last five games, and the Seahawks have three games on the season of 35+ points.
And the Jags are likely to be without Trevor Lawrence (concussion), but it’s tough to run against their opponent (the Bucs), and it’s also tough to run against the Jags, which should create a pass-centric game with clear paths to the upside.
Put it all together, and in spite of the many obvious drawbacks to this slate, there are some pretty interesting pathways along which this slate could develop.
If you have the time, mental energy, and emotional balance to take advantage, it could develop into a really nice week!
NFL Bink Machine is now $39 for the rest of the regular season + playoffs(!).
NBA Bink Machine is now $119 for the rest of the NBA season (was $179!).
If you’re an OWS Free member, we also have a special deal on rest-of-season Inner Circle ($200 off!).
Finally, just a reminder that Props Insider is now up to nearly $17,000 in profit(!!!!). Week passes are only $39.
That does it for this week.
See you at the top of the leaderboards!
-JM
