JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat, King of the Hill/Beach, Spy, etc.) who focuses on the DraftKings Main Slate
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
Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (on the One Week Season podcast feed).
Dak Prescott
D’Andre Swift
Jonathan Taylor
Noah Brown
Chris Olave
Brandin Cooks
Dallas Goedert
Michael Gallup
Giants
Free
Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!
1st Place = 250 Edge Points + Rare Blue Name Tag in Discord
2nd Place = 100 Edge Points
3rd Place = 75 Edge Points
4th Place = 50 Edge Points
5th Place = 25 Edge Points
*1 Edge Point = $1 in DFS courses on OWS
*must use an OWS avatar (found on your profile page) to be eligible to win
The matchup against the Bears is interesting, as most of our competition will see “home against the Bears” and think, “soft matchup!” In reality, the Bears rank 10th in DVOA against the run, and 31st in DVOA against the pass, which has led to teams throwing the ball in this matchup at the seventh highest rate in the league (in spite of teams typically playing from in front against the Bears). If Kamara were uninvolved in the passing attack, this would be a massive trap for the DFS field, and we would be able to exploit it by staying away.
As things stand, however, this is more a note of “something interesting” than “something actionable,” as the Bears not only face a high opponent pass play rate, but also rank 30th in DVOA against running backs through the air. Kamara leads the NFL in expected fantasy points per game (in PFF’s expected fantasy points per game, his mark of 25.4 is 4.0 points better than the guy who ranks second, in Ja’Marr Chase, and only two other players in the NFL are averaging more than 20 expected fantasy points per game), and in terms of pre-touchdown PPR production, Kamara is miles ahead of all other running backs on this slate (he’s averaging 18.8 pre-touchdown PPR points per game; the next highest running back on this slate is D’Andre Swift, who is averaging 13.9 pre-TD PPR points per game if we remove his Week 1, pre-lead-role game).
Does any of this guarantee that Kamara hits? Absolutely not. But all of this guarantees he has the best shot of any running back on this slate, by quite a large stretch.
“The Bucs have a solid game”
From my DFS Interpretations for this game:
If Mayfield has a tourney-viable game in this one, it’s actually White who is likeliest to be the optimal stacking partner. Add in the fact that most people won’t play this game in this way, and we have a really nice setup.
This setup doesn’t have enough raw ceiling to be “all you needed to have in order to win a tourney,” but it’s a nice floor-starter for a roster, and it has enough paths to the upside to potentially be a nice little separator as well.
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
A look at some of the rules I’ll be applying in the Bink Machine this week.
Because of the unique shape of this week, my strategy is going to come together deeper into the week than normal. As such, I don’t have any rules I want to highlight just yet — but as always, Bink Machine users will be able to download my entire list of Player Groups on Sunday morning, and Bink Machine users AND Inner Circle members will be able to hear my breakdown of these Player Groups on the Bink Machine page. (All of this is typically live no later than 8 AM Eastern on Sunday mornings.)
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:
Lamar || Geno || Dak || Hurts || Watson || Baker || Stroud || Carr || Mac
I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM