Make lineups for the “Afternoon Only” or “Early Only” slates and then also use them in Main Slate contests. This gives you a very unique construction (not many main slate lineups will be built with only players from one window, and almost none will be entirely players from the late window). It also helps you naturally condense your player pool from the 14 games. There are usually a few weeks per year where most of the good games for DFS production come from one of the early window or late window, it isn’t crazy to think that the games in one window could disappoint with the one or two key games for the day both being on the other. I had a big win in Week 17 of last season on the “afternoon only” slate that would have won most of the main slate contests as well.
Ownership Strategy
Ownership will be higher for pretty much every player on “short slates,” but especially for “chalky” players from the main slate.
This means getting these players right is even more vital than on a main slate. There are less 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.
