Angles hits inboxes on Thursday mornings throughout the regular season; you can also find Angles in The Scroll Thursday afternoons
OWS Fam!!!!
Week 1 is in the books.
Was it profitable for you?
Was it unprofitable for you?
Either way: it doesn’t matter. Put it behind you! It’s a new week.
Not every week in DFS is going to yield profit — and to some extent, that’s what the sharpest NFL players and coaches would call an “uncontrollable.” What you can control is putting in your best week of play, and positioning your rosters in such a way that you would make money in Week 2 if we could play out this slate a hundred times.
One of the things I’ve always loved about OWS is that — while most other sites focus on the big wins from their content providers — we focus on the big wins from our users.
We had a number of big wins from the OWS community this last week, but I want to particularly single out 1) avonsuge (an OWS OG) for cashing nine out of 15 rosters in the Milly Maker and popping one of these rosters into the top 100(!), and 2) CouldBeTravis, who scooped a $10,000 first-place finish on a $2 entry in the $100k mini-MAX.
Who’s next!?
OWS user jdatlas also dropped 197 DraftKings points and landed a “0.1% finish” using the Bink Machine this last week (and he wasn’t the only one to land a top finish with the Bink Machine; in fact…if I had trusted my favorite roster from the Bink Machine a bit more instead of “knowing better” and making a few changes for my Game Changer build, I would have scooped a $100k finish myself; as it was, I finished second place and seventh place in a couple other tourneys with the roster in question), and I’m also going to start dropping some of my Player Rules for the Bink Machine into the Player Grid each week. (Within the next few weeks, I’ll also be able to publish my Player Rules directly to the Bink Machine, for any of you who want to apply these yourself without any additional work.)
I’ve described the Bink Machine as the “Mac” of optimizers. It’s extremely intuitive, and extremely intelligent. I’m starting to open up some Showdown play with the Bink Machine myself (it finally buys me time to fire bullets into those contests during the busy NFL week), and throughout the season I’ll be sharing tips and tricks on how I get the most out of the optimizer.
If you didn’t try it last week when it was free, just a friendly reminder that a week pass is only $19.
Before we get to the overview of this week’s slate, just a quick reminder that our Props Insider package last year finished at over $9,200 in profit (92 units!), with almost all of that money coming from NBA. This year, we added extra sports, and we’re already at $4,781 in profit with NBA still yet to tip off. Week passes are available here as well, though given that Props can be relatively streaky, the sharpest move is to simply grab the full package (either with the monthly payment setup, or all at once). Even if you’re working with smaller unit sizes (say $20), the opportunity is there to make really nice money over the next nine months, by simply placing the bets that the Props Insider team drops into Discord.
It’s no secret that scoring has been down across the NFL. In fact — in spite of all the rules created to make life easier on the offense, and in spite of all the elite young quarterbacks and wide receivers who have entered the league — last year marked the lowest scoring numbers we had seen in half a decade. There is plenty that goes into this, but the end result is what impacts us the most as DFS players :: lower-scoring games means fewer opportunities for DFS goodness. And while this isn’t necessary a “bad” thing, it sure is fun when we have games where points could end up piling up.
Same as most Main Slates throughout the season, we are missing a few teams with big names and significant firepower, with all of the Vikings, Eagles, and Dolphins playing in prime time games (the Saints — who have potential to be a more explosive offense than most realize — are also missing in action, as are the Browns, who have the pieces to become a high-scoring offense if they can get their act together).
But this week also gives us five games and an additional “bonus offense” with serious potential to play to the upside.
Jacksonville has its sights set on dethroning the other top dogs in the AFC this year, and a playoff rematch against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs is a perfect place for them to try to show what they can do. Travis Kelce appears likely to return for Kansas City this week, and the Jags have five different weapons who are capable of putting up a tournament-winning score. This game will provide a critical decision point for our rosters this week.
Three games between these two teams (including playoffs) played to the downside last year, with Joe Burrow failing to crack 220 passing yards in any of those contests (and with Anthony Brown and Tyler Huntley starting the last two of these games for the Ravens), but in 2021, the Bengals showed what can happen when these teams meet, as they put up 41 points in both contests. The likeliest outcome here is a competitive, physical game in which neither team lights up the scoreboard…but given the weapons available on either side of the ball in this one, you can’t help but ask, “What if?”
This game has a lower total than KC // Jax, but the Bills are implied to score more points than any team on the slate. The beauty of this game? Buffalo is coming off a somewhat embarrassing, self-inflicted loss on national TV, and they are exactly the type of team that will be looking to right the ship in an emphatic manner. Will Buffalo be happy if they come away with a win, regardless of the score? Probably. But their goal will be to hang as many points on the scoreboard as they can. The Raiders’ defense is better than it was last year…but it almost certainly still isn’t good. “Not good” is good enough for angry Josh Allen to put up a signature game.
Last year is not this year. To illustrate this fact :: in 2022, the Chargers held the Dolphins to 17 points, and held Tua Tagovailoa to 145 yards through the air. Players change. Teams adjust. Et cetera, et cetera. But we also can’t overlook the fact that these teams played to a 48-45 shootout last season, and each team is capable of scoring points in a hurry. More to the point :: the Lions are capable of scoring points in a hurry, and the Seahawks are capable of keeping pace when their defense gives up points. With high-scoring potential and a pair of concentrated offenses, there is plenty to consider in this spot.
Yes, only 44.5…but look me in the eye and tell me the 49ers can’t score points here. Okay — so we know the 49ers can score. We also know the 49ers’ defense is ferocious. But what if…what if…what if the Rams’ offense genuinely looked good on Sunday? Maybe that game will prove to be a total fluke, but this is an offense I was very impressed with, and I would rather be early on them than late. The 49ers have a concentrated offense and “do it all for your roster” potential — and if the Rams are able to keep this game competitive, they could yield one or two viable pieces themselves, while pushing the 49ers (who scored 30+ points in six of their final eight games last year) to put up even more points than they typically have to.
The Titans are an enigma — as often explored on the site — as they give up a ton of production to quarterbacks and wide receivers and don’t have anyone who really scares offenses, and yet their opponent-specific approach typically throws just enough difficulties in the way to keep games generally low-scoring. But “generally low-scoring” is not the same as “all the time low-scoring,” and after the Dolphins all but forced the Chargers to try to win on the ground last week, LA will be facing a Titans team that is impossible to run on, and that faced the highest opponent pass play rate in the NFL last season by a wide margin. Herbert pass. Herbert pass. Herbert pass. We’ll likely see a lot of that this week — and when Herbert is passing a ton, there are opportunities for fantasy goodness to arise.
It’s a new week.
Think through all the angles.
Build rosters that take advantage of the unique puzzle presented to us.
Put another +EV sample into the bucket.
I’ll see you on the site throughout the weekend.
I’ll see you in the Bink Machine.
And I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards on Sunday.
-JM
