Hilow is a game theory expert (courses at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Northwestern) and tournament champion who focuses on mid/high-stakes single-entry/three-entry max
The Week 1 slate is wide open. There are six games with a game total between 46.5 and 48.0, five games with a game total between 42.5 and 44.5, and one straggler (Steelers @ Jets) chilling with a game total of 38.0. Not only that, but as you will see below, there isn’t a massive concentration of expected ownership. And then there’s the pricing, which, as per usual on the first slate of the season, remains extremely loose. Typically, we see that devolve into heavy ownership at the extremes, but we’re just not seeing that this season for some reason.
My guess here is twofold:
Whatever the reasons, Week 1 of the 2025 regular season feels much different than it has in the past. That is neither a good thing nor a bad thing – it just is, and it is important to have that understanding before we continue.
Even with the rather flat-looking slate on the surface, there are numerous key assumptions we can make about expected field behavior, some of which I have covered in other places already this week. The first is that the perceived value on the slate is at the wide receiver position. That makes sense, in totality, considering the general state of NFL rosters and how they have evolved during the previous two months since pricing was released. This is also the position where the soft pricing does take on a sort of stars and scrubs approach, with elevated expected ownership clumped near the extremes in player pricing. The lack of true running back value (there is value at the position, but it is more in the realm of “this player carries an elite ceiling and isn’t being treated as such”) also compounds at wide receiver because there are simply more bodies that play the position. These aspects come together to create a situation where the field is highly likely to utilize wide receiver in the FLEX, something we will discuss further below.
The next assumption we can make is that the field has no idea which game environments to attack, as evidenced by the spread-out nature of expected quarterback ownership. I absolutely love slates like this – we needn’t make moves away from equilibrium that are as large to generate the same, or more, in some cases, leverage. Chef’s kiss.
The final assumption we’ll make is that the field is not going to know what to do at defense, because they already don’t know what to do with their offensive pieces. These three assumptions will guide our exploration of the slate ahead.
Quick explanation :: Restrictive chalk is an expected highly owned piece that restricts the maneuverability of the remainder of your roster while expansive chalk is an expected highly owned piece that allows for higher amounts of maneuverability on the remainder of your roster. Classifying various forms of chalk as either restrictive or expansive allows us to visualize what it means for roster construction on a given slate and how restrictive a certain player might be – meaning more of the field will look similar from a roster construction standpoint with that piece.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. McCaffrey comes with a clear asterisk after being downgraded to limited Thursday and sitting out practice on Friday. I get the feeling the field is going to have a rather large knee-jerk reaction here after the similarities to his situation before the 2024 season. We’ll have to check back in on this one Saturday morning on The Slate podcast. Suffice to say, at present, we can safely pencil in a bump to the expected ownership for the other running backs in the upper echelon of player pricing should we get a negative Schefter bomb overnight Saturday. Stay tuned.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Achane traded in his historic efficiency in 2023 for increased volume in 2024, something that worked out to a net negative due to his declining ceiling in what amounted to a predictable and one-dimensional Miami offense. I have beaten the dead horse on the causal factors behind the Dolphins decline last season, so we won’t rehash that entirely here. Just know that Achane ceiling likely goes the way of the Miami season – elite if they return to the top 10 in scoring and quite mundane if they are unable to force teams out of two-high defensive alignments because they can’t run the ball effectively.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Chase Brown had a monster second half of the 2024 season following the injury to Zack Moss. Moss is no longer in town, leaving the field giddy to enlist Brown’s services in Week 1. Realize this is still a running back that topped 26.3 DK points only once all season while playing for an offense that led the league in PROE, by a wide margin. The matchup on the ground does him no favors against a Jim Schwartz defense, either.
