JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat) who is focusing this year on single-entry/three-entry max
This is, instead, a look at the player pool I’ll be fishing
:: covered in-depth in the Angles Pod (it’s highly recommended that you listen to the breakdown of the roster in order to see the thinking behind it, and in order to understand what we’re talking about when we look at a “bottom-up build”)
:: my “Tier 1” plays: the plays I feel confident leaning into across different types of builds; these players have a high ceiling and a low likelihood of price-considered failure
:: games, offenses, situations, or scenarios I’ll be looking to build around across my rosters
:: unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters
:: players who don’t fit into the categories above — either Upside pieces who don’t have the floor to be Blue Chips (and are not being focused on within my game-focused builds) or players who may not have a strong shot at ceiling, but are worth keeping in mind from a “role” perspective
Permanent Price Bump coming at the end of Week 2!
Lock in the lower price for life!
Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (above).
Jared Goff
Dalvin Cook
D’Andre Swift
Drake London
Greg Dortch
DJ Chark
Travis Kelce
Jamal Agnew
Patriots
Buy-In:
Free
Rules:
Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!
Prizes:
150 Edge Points (good for two free DFS Education courses!) + ‘Discord Blue’ color in Discord!
I’m going out on a limb here and placing two bets: 1) Dortch will play 70% or more of the snaps, and 2) the move from Trace McSorley to David Blough doesn’t make much of a difference.
Feel free to ding Dortch down to a “Light Blue” or even a “Bonus” piece if you want, but in all five games in which he played 70% or more of the snaps this year, Dortch has gone for 13+ DK points, with 15+ in four of those five games and 22.3 in two of five. As noted in several spots this week: if Dortch were 1) guaranteed to see 70% or more of the snaps, and 2) in a QB situation without question marks, he would be viewed as a “free square” this week, and would be one of those massively-high-owned pieces you would be playing simply to ride up with the field while playing 8v8 on the rest of your roster(s). Because of the seeds of uncertainty here, we instead get Dortch at 5% projected ownership (as of Friday evening), creating an opportunity for a guy with “everyone will be playing him” potential to instead function as a genuine low-owned separator. While there is some uncertainty here, I see the uncertainty as a major bonus given the edge it potentially creates. If I lose this week because Kingsbury decides to keep Dortch on the sidelines one week after he once again lit up the box score, I’ll be fine with that, as this risk opens the opportunity for me to instead grab 15 to 22 points for $3k in salary at low ownership.
If you want a deeper dive on this spot, Hilow had a Hall of Fame writeup in the NFL Edge for this game.
No “Light Blue” Chips for me this week.
New this year: these are unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters
“This game plays out as expected, and Fields smashes on the ground”
As explored in a number of place this week, there aren’t a whole lot of ways to “get different” with this game, as the Lions have a three-man rotation in the backfield and — outside of Chark and ARSB (who play pretty much all the snaps) — a messy rotation among pass catchers (with elevated 12-personnel rates the last few weeks, four tight ends in the mix, and three wideouts vying for WR3 snaps), while the Bears are back to a timeshare in the backfield and have seen only a random, unpredictable 17-pointer from Dante Pettis providing any sort of value at the wide receiver position outside of Darnell Mooney (on I.R.). Cole Kmet can be paired with Fields, but Fields can also hit without any one piece from the Bears hitting, while Chark and Swift, at their price tags, can hit without Goff “breaking the slate.” This setup essentially says, “Goff scores around 22 to 26 points and supports a big game from Chark, Swift finally breaks off some long plays, and Fields goes for 35 to 40 while spreading out any passing touchdowns.” This is not “the likeliest way” for this game to play out, but it’s also not a wacky bet, and it’s different enough to get you a unique path to first place around what is the clear top game environment on the slate.
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
This is my narrowest pool, which means it’s the pool likeliest to change a bit as I move deeper into builds. If it changes throughout Saturday night, I’ll add an update in this space.
If I were building for single-entry // three-entry Max, my tightened-up player pool would be:
Patrick Mahomes || Justin Fields || Jared Goff || Gardner Minshew
I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM
