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
J.D. McKissic
D’Andre Swift
Amon-Ra St. Brown
Breshad Perriman
Scotty Miller
Irv Smith
Elijah Moore
Seahawks
Joe Flacco
Josh Jacobs
J.D. McKissic
Ja’Marr Chase
Garrett Wilson
Elijah Moore
Juwan Johnson
Breshad Perriman
Seahawks
“If it ain’t broke…”
I mentioned this in the NFL Edge this week, but I want to highlight it again to emphasize how “head and shoulders above the competition” Kupp is in terms of consistency:
Cooper Kupp not only scored 20+ DK points in 14 of 17 games last season, but he also scored 29.6+(!) in eight of 17 games.
To put that in perspective: Justin Jefferson scored 20+ in nine of 17 (if my math is right — and be sure to double-check me here, of course…but “nine minus eight”? — that means Jefferson scored 20+ only one more time than Kupp scored 29.6+!), and Jefferson topped 26 DK points only three times all season. Similarly, Ja’Marr Chase topped 25.3 points only three times all year. Again: Kupp went for 29.6+ eight times in 17 games.
Kupp has the ceiling to match anyone on the slate, and he’s more consistent than anyone else at his position. We talk about certain player blocks as “a block of guaranteed points.” Kupp is “a block of guaranteed points” on his own.
New this year: these are unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters
“Lions continue to do what they have already been doing”
Amon-Ra St. Brown should draw some ownership this week, but this block as a whole (Goff + Swift + Amon-Ra) will go underowned compared to its chances of hitting.
This one is about as straightforward as it gets, as this block costs $20.2k in salary on DK and has averaged over 75 points per game so far.
In the bucket of “fantasy upside comes from touchdowns,” it’s worth noting that Swift/Amon-Ra have combined for an unsustainable five touchdowns through two games, and there will certainly be games this year in which neither of them scores. But there will also be additional games this year in which these two combine for two or three touchdowns — and in a game environment such as this one, this upside is particularly attractive.
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
“The Jets’ offense concentrates on Wilson/Moore, and these two account for 160+ yards and a pair of touchdowns”
Very few people will play these two together, instead viewing them as an “either/or.” If someone does play them together, it will almost certainly be with Flacco.
This pairing would be highly unconventional, but we should recognize that a combined line of 12-160-2 would get this block of salary to over 4x on DraftKings (40 DK points, with a high likelihood that one of these two players is adding a three-point bonus on top of that), and it’s not as if “Flacco producing 12-160-2 for these two” means “Flacco becomes a must-play as well.” Both of these players are strong individual options this week, given the monster upside each player has within his range of outcomes, but the $10.4k block of salary on these two is especially interesting as an add-on to a stack from a different game (either using a cheap QB such as Goff who could outscore Flacco in spite of Flacco allowing this block to produce, or using a higher-priced QB who might be “the guy you had to have” this week). This block is best paired with a piece from the Bengals, though it isn’t 100% necessary to push that final button.
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:
Jared Goff || Kirk Cousins || Patrick Mahomes || Jalen Hurts
I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM
