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 talked about the restrictive factor of time last week as one of the themes of the slate. That is only amplified this week as we had Thursday Night Football, two games on Saturday, a nine-game slate Sunday, three games on Monday, Christmas, the holiday season, travel, family, sickness (at least for my house, these kids are Petrie dishes, man) … the list goes on. All these factors decrease the time, energy, and effort we can dedicate towards the Sunday main slate. Add that to a unique and interesting slate and we’re likely to find the field struggle with the basics of identifying the top plays, thinking through roster construction, and generating leveraged rosters. We also have a very interesting dynamic invoked through the fact that this is the smallest main slate of the year, making chalk that much chalkier (spoiler, the chalk on this slate is shaky, at best).
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. The Jets are a solid, not great, on-paper play this week. Their defensive scheme does better at suppressing offensive production than it does create opportunities to be disruptive (sacks and turnovers). Any defense expected to be amongst the highest-owned singular entity on a slate deserves fade/underweight consideration.
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Yes, Ty Chandler saw a robust workload a week ago against the Bengals, handling 27 running back opportunities in the overtime thriller. Three things – that game went to overtime, that was the first instance of a Minnesota running back eclipsing 100 yards on the ground this season, and it was against a Bengals team allowing 4.7 yards per carry this season (second worst).
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Excuse my sense of hilarity with this situation. First off, Rachaad White is the most expensive running back on the slate. Then, you’re telling me he’s going to be one of the highest-owned backs on the slate, to boot? I don’t understand this one iota.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. I’m not sure why the field would consider Justin Jefferson a better objective play than, say, Tyreek Hill, Amon-Ra St. Brown, or CeeDee Lamb on this slate, all of whom are playing with their starting quarterback while Jefferson is catching passes from the fourth starting quarterback utilized by the Vikings this season.
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Breece Hall is objectively a solid on-paper play this week. That said, I slightly prefer his teammate, Garrett Wilson, after the latter saw six of the first 12 Trevor Siemian passes directed his way last week (two were negated by penalty; the box score shows only four targets for Garrett Wilson after Zach Wilson didn’t target him in the first half and he was removed from the game late in a blowout).
NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Trey McBride is an objectively solid on-paper play in the absence of Marquise Brown, against a Chicago defense that naturally filters production to opposing tight ends. The biggest theoretical dynamic involving McBride this week is the presence of five other tight ends that also carry elite ceiling.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. DJ Moore has elite underlying metrics against man coverage this season but sees his target rate (19.9 percent), targets per route run rate (15.5 percent), and air yards share drop precipitously against zone. This is important considering the Cardinals are in zone at the fourth highest rate in the league this year.
RESTRICTIVE CHALK. A similar discussion to the one above can be had for Justin Fields. Fields is at his best when he’s able to remove the need to read and diagnose a defense. He now gets a matchup with the shallow Cover-2 shell of the Arizona Cardinals, which aims to force the exact things that Fields struggles with.
