Angles hits inboxes on Thursday mornings throughout the regular season; you can also find Angles in The Scroll Thursday afternoons
Happy Thursday!
New members: Every Thursday morning, we send out the Angles email — in which we take a critical, “overview” look at the slate ahead.
1. Rest-of-season Price Drop(!)
2. Week 15 macro view
3. New Podcast(!)
If you are not yet a member of OWS DFS or Inner Circle, you can now take 70% off rest-of-season access. (New prices :: OWS DFS: $53.70 // Inner Circle: $68.70). This includes access for the last four weeks of the regular season and all four weeks of the playoffs ($6.71 a week // $8.59 a week).
OG OWS members, you can find even bigger discounts on the Cancel OWS page.
I am going to be doing a daily Roster Building podcast/show throughout the remainder of the season. The first episode is live on the OWS YouTube channel, with new episodes set to be released this week on Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. Weeks 16-18, a new episode will be available each afternoon Tuesday through Saturday. (I’m really excited about this addition. Daily roster builds are a great way to get a clearer sense of how the slate shapes up.)
Week: 15
Total Main Slate Games: 10
Slate Overview:
The more the weeks change, the more things stay the same.
Fifteen weeks into this season, this shouldn’t be a surprise; but “surprise or no,” we’ll lay out the numbers — once again:
Twenty teams on the Main Slate.
Sixteen teams implied to score fewer than 24 points.
Some people may call it an “ugly slate” — and maybe it is; but as I pointed out last week (not for the first time this season), all of our competition is working with the same slate. And what’s more: “an ugly slate” typically means fewer clear pathways to a first-place finish…and since our competition is generally mediocre at identifying the BEST paths to a first-place finish, these “ugly weeks” often put us in position for our highest expected value over time. With that in mind, I encourage you to quickly release any “labels” you’re inclined to assign to this slate (“Ugly,” “Low-Ceiling,” etc.), and to instead shift over to the question we should be asking: “Given what this slate provides, what is the clearest path to a first-place finish?”
We don’t have any teams on bye this week, but with three Island Games and three games on Saturday, we are still dealing with a small, 10-game slate; and with the Dolphins (3rd in offensive DVOA), Bills (4th in offensive DVOA), Ravens (6th in offensive DVOA), Browns (8th in offensive DVOA), Seahawks (9th in offensive DVOA), 49ers (10th in offensive DVOA), and Packers (11th in offensive DVOA) all missing, this slate feels even smaller than it is.
Further tightening up the feel of the slate are the matchups that some of the other top offenses are facing, with the Bengals (5th in offensive DVOA) facing the Bucs (11th in defensive DVOA) and the Lions (7th in offensive DVOA) facing the Jets (6th in defensive DVOA).
Which brings us back to our starting point :: 20 teams on this slate; only four implied to score more than 24 points.
The first of these teams is the Chiefs (1st in offensive DVOA) implied to score a whopping 31.75 against the Texans (20th in defensive DVOA).
The second of these teams is the Eagles (2nd in offensive DVOA) implied to score 28.75 against the Bears (32nd in defensive DVOA).
The third of these teams is the Cowboys and their low-volume passing attack and split backfield implied to score 25.75 against the Jags.
The fourth of these teams is the Chargers (24th in offensive DVOA!!! // 14th in points per game // only three games all season north of 25 points) implied to score 25 against a Titans unit that just got pasted by the Jags, but has still allowed only the Jags, Eagles, and Bills to top 22 points against them on the season.
Going a layer below the “team level,” we also have most of the players capable of scoring 30+ DraftKings points in either difficult matchups, lesser game environments, or poorer game-flow scenarios ::
Davante Adams is taking on a New England defense that has been above-average against wide receivers all season, and — most importantly, from a ceiling perspective — has allowed the fourth fewest wide receiver touchdowns in the NFL. Josh Jacobs is in the same matchup, against a New England Defense that is on track to finish top three in fewest RB rushing touchdowns allowed for the seventh time in the last eight seasons.
