Afternoon-Only 10.23

Mike Johnson (MJohnson86) has racked up nearly $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

FINDING AN EDGE

The whole idea behind this piece of content is that it is unique. Specific content and strategies for the “non-main slate” contests are very rare in the DFS industry and most players who enter them are casual players or doing so on a whim after their main slate entries had things go wrong, and they want something to root for or to chase their losses during the late games. Edges are getting harder and harder to find in DFS as information gets better, projections get sharper, and the field gets more experienced. These smaller slates present a clear opportunity and advantage for those that focus on them, as most players will just take their thoughts from the main slate and approach these lineups the same way without considering how much having seven to nine fewer games (depending on the week) changes the strategy. The biggest win of my career came on an “Afternoon Only” slate in January of 2021, and I hope to share some of my insights on the format to help you attack this niche corner of NFL DFS.

This Week’s Slate

• Only 10 games on the Main Slate, but we are back to four games on the afternoon slate and three of them have shootout potential while the fourth game features the team (Dallas) most likely to score 40+ points this week.
• It feels like I’ve suggested this several times this year, but once again have a situation where playing lineups entirely from the afternoon games on the main slate makes sense. Only six games on the “early” slate and the two highest total games are SF // JAX (a game with two elite defenses) and HOU // CIN (a game with two good defensive coaches facing offenses that have injury issues). I won’t be surprised if winning scores from the afternoon slate are very close to winning scores from the main slate.
• There don’t appear to be any injury issues we are waiting for word on and the weather looks great in three of the four locations (Seattle will be somewhat chilly and may have a little rain).
• The Lions backfield feels like the best leverage spot for tournaments on this slate, as the elevated price tags for Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery while sharing the workload makes them difficult to project well. However, on a shorter slate with several other situations likely to limit RB production there is a good chance that one of these Lions RBs ends up on winning rosters.
• Overstacking the Cowboys seems very viable on this shorter slate. If they have a dominant performance and you can get all their pieces together you can separate yourself quickly. Most people will likely try to bet on one area getting the majority of the production with Pollard, Dallas passing game, or Dallas defense. Playing multiple or all parts of that together may be underutilized relative to the likelihood of Dallas smashing.
• The Commanders are almost certainly going to have a high volume of pass attempts again and their receivers are relatively cheap. Other than Terry McLaurin, none of the other WR/TE options are likely to be near the top of their positions in ownership but at least one of them is likely to post a solid to great DFS tournament score.

Ownership Strategy

• Ownership will be higher for pretty much every player on “short slates” just because there are fewer players to choose from. This will be especially true for “chalky” players from the main slate.
• This means getting these players right is even more vital than on a main slate. There are fewer alternatives to choose from so if they have a big game and you aren’t on them it is much harder to find other ways to make up those points.
• This also means it is easier for lower owned players to pay off, as there are fewer players at their position that they need to have “fail” for them to be worth the risk.
• Correlation is even more important than on the main slate because the useful fantasy games that pay off for the slate are likely to be clumped up from the same games. I always make lineups with a game stack (QB + at least one pass catcher + at least one opponent) and then one or two “mini-correlations” from other games.

QB Strategy