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
We’ve had slates where pricing was tight, we’ve had slates riddled with fragility, and we’ve had slates with no clear game environment we wanted to attack – the Week 12 main slate combines all of those into one snarling animal for us to tame. And I couldn’t be more excited. The fact that the field doesn’t appear comfortable in where to go with game and team stacks means we can generate immense leverage without straying from optimal theory, the fragility in the chalk means we can generate immense leverage by going elsewhere, and the field’s recent tendencies with an aversion to wide ranges of outcomes through value give us yet another opportunity to embrace additional variance with our salary savers. Talk about a game theorists’ dream!
Beyond that, there are numerous strength-on-strength and weakness-on-weakness matchups in key games this week, invoking a wider range of outcomes not only for those games, but for the slate, in total. Less certainty, more fragility, wider ranges of outcomes, and suffocating chalk – you know what to do!
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.
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Brown is in a similar situation to the one we shit on last week, where I said, “The Bengals are averaging a league-low 18.8 rush attempts per game, so, what, we’re expecting 16-18 carries and a handful of targets against a pass-funnel opponent?” Except this week, the expectation for his carry total is much lower, the opponent is much better, and the offense could struggle much more to sustain drives. I struggle to see the paths to ceiling here.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. From the write-up of this game:
“Also notable was the fact that the Giants played from man at a 58.6% frequency in the first game without Brian Daboll, with them now leading the league in man utilization at a robust 42.4% rate. St. Brown has some ridiculous splits against man this season, with a 0.39 TPRR, 3.10 YPRR, and 0.91 FP/RR in 2025.” Looks legit on paper.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Jacoby Brissett has started five games for the Cardinals, during which time McBride holds a 0.26 TPRR (targets per route run), 2.12 YPRR (yards per route run), 0.59 FP/RR (fantasy points per route run), 24.5 FP/G (fantasy points per game), and 22.3 XFP/G (expected fantasy points per game). The FP/G and XFP/G would rank first in the league for the whole season. No reason to expect that to slow down against the opponent, allowing the second most FP/G to opposing tight ends. Looks legit on paper.
EXPANSIVE CHALK. Week 11 was the first time Wilson had commanded targets in this offense all season, so I’m a bit hesitant to expect a repeat performance here. That said, there is merit to including him in Jacoby Brissett doubles for the salary savings this week.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. The big play threat gets a matchup against a Giants defense allowing the highest explosive run rate (9.1%) and the most yards per carry (5.5) this season. I am not brushing off the fact that he might see more muted volume than some of the other backs in his pricing tier, but it simply might not matter. Let us not forget, Gibbs returned DK scores of 41.2 and 39.8 in the games immediately following the Lions’ previous two losses, seeing opportunity totals of “only” 20 and 19 in those two games, respectively.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Jacobs has just two games over 20.7 DK points this season and has yet to hit the 100-yard bonus. Expecting Wilson to do so is a fool’s errand, keeping his true ceiling rather low here.
