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
I’ll be working a bit backward this week.
most weeks, i open my journal entries with pricing // combo // slate-level thoughts first, and then usually around wednesday or sometime thursday, i work through some game-level thoughts.
with travel // settling in // christmas decorating at the front end of this week, we’ll open things on wednesday afternoon/night with game-level thoughts, and we’ll start getting deeper into slate-level stuff on thursday.
i opened the slate for a bit on sunday night and will be diving into it for the next couple hours tonight, but i’ll wait to put together more comprehensive thoughts through that lens until i have a more complete understanding of what i’m looking at.
should be a fun week.
see you tomorrow 🤝
As I mentioned last night, I’m going to go through some game-level thoughts to kick things off. (I have both kids under my watch right now, while Abby is at the grocery store, but they generally do well not interrupting unless it’s “important.” With that, I expect to be digging into game-level research/thoughts over the next 3/4 hours, and then come back after bedtimes tonight to wrap up all my thought on this level.) Tomorrow, I’ll start hitting slate-level notes.
But before I go into games, I just wanted to drop a few abbreviated notes I left for myself while working my way through the slate last night ::
‘Houston should score 20-27.’
‘The Jags are going to score close to 30 at home against the Jets.’
‘I don’t see a lot of points in the KC // LAC game. 20-23 type of game.’
‘Buf // NE as a 26-23, 27-23 type of game.’
‘5 of Dart’s last 6 games have had 48 or more combined points — and if he gets hurt, Jameis comes in. There will be points in this one.’
‘Ertz was soaking up legitimate targets. Small boost to all.’
‘JSN + Barner have scored basically 35-45 combined points in six of their last seven against “not Minnesota or Houston” — and Indy is very much not Minnesota or Houston. Great use of $11.8k.’
‘DST list might just be Seattle // New Orleans // Cincy.’
‘Jayden Higgins 2.11 pre-touchdown points per game across his last five, with a touchdown added in two.’
‘Giants RBs ($10.5k) in their last 4 — 23.5 // 20.7 // 36.6 // 18.4.’ (Just running some numbers here. This is not an attractive game log for that price.)
‘Panthers RBs ($11.2k) in their last 5 — 30.3 // 19.7 // 18.8 // 17.8 // 32.8.’ (Just running some numbers here. This is not an attractive game log for that price.)
These are initial notes, of course, and I’m sure I’ll play around with some upside scenarios in the games where I quoted scores // ‘ways the game will play out’ above.
Macro, this week looks full of possibilities.
Running back is thin outside CMC, but there are options in the bucket of, “Yeah, I can see it — I can get a solid score for the price, and can get lucky with something bigger” at basically every price point.
WR has Puka and JSN in good spots (with the game environment for Puka standing out), a strong case to be made for Ja’Marr Chase and ARSB, big ceiling in the high-$6ks with A.J. Brown and Nico Collins, opportunity to the upside in the low-$6ks with Olave and Jamo, plenty of attractive plays in the $5ks (Devonta Smith, Terry McLaurin, Ricky Pearsall, etc.), and even some perfectly fine salary savers (Jeudy, Slayton, Adonai Mitchell, Higgins, etc.).
McBride and Bowers are in tough spots, which probably lowers the eye level to $5.4k (Kittle) and below at TE. There are so many attractive price-considered options at the position, from Kittle to Warren to Kincaid to Strange/Schultz (and others in this range) to Loveland/Theo Johnson/Likely/Barner/etc. down low.
Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson (if we think he’s healthy) can all have stories told of their game taking off in such a way that they post a “had to have it” score; but in addition to these stories that can be told, we have plenty of sub-$6k QBs who look like solid bets for 3.5x to 4.5x salary.
Again: this week looks full of possibilities.
Let’s get to it.
I’m not necessarily looking at Bills // Pats as a fantasy gold mine.
The Pats rarely produce useful fantasy scores — and even when they do, our chances of correctly guessing where they’ll come from are low.
It’s unlikely to be Hunter Henry this week (we can usually pinpoint the spots where he’s likelier to pop for a big game, and Buffalo’s strong TE defense is not one of those spots), and with the Patriots back to a split backfield against the Giants (with Rhamondre taking the bigger share of early-game work, but obviously being the far less efficient back as well), it’s tough to get too excited about the backfield as well.
This leaves us hunting through Pats wideouts; but as we explored last week (and saw play out with Ja’Marr Chase) :: Buffalo has gotten really strong against WR1s since getting worked over by WR1s in three of their first six games. Last week, I ended up with Tee Higgins on my Josh Allen build (basically thinking: ‘If the Bills successfully scheme away Chase, but Burrow still plays well, as expected, it’s likely that Tee Higgins gets opportunities to shine.’ But with the Patriots, things are even less straightforward, as they don’t even have a true “number one,” let alone a clear “number two” we can shift attention to if working our way down the line. If someone from the Patriots pops, I imagine it’ll be a wide receiver with a nice price-considered score, but I don’t know that I’ll be chasing.
On the Bills’ side, James Cook looks more attractive than the matchup would make it seem, as the Patriots (who famously didn’t allow a 50-yard rusher through the first couple months of the season) have not been nearly as scary since Milton Williams went down — but at cost, I’m still not sure I feel confident here. He fits into a big bucket of running backs where I’m saying, “Yeah, I can see it happening; but I won’t feel confident placing the bet.”
Wide receivers are obviously a complete dart throw on the Bills.
And all of this means, ultimately, two things stand out to me in this game:
1) Dalton Kincaid
2) Josh Allen
Kincaid was back to his normal snap share last week (which, unfortunately, is just over 50% of team snaps). At $4.5k, he has scored 14+ in five of eight games, including games of 19.8 and 25.1. Compared to wideouts priced similarly, he’s a steal; and as we know, tight ends are one of the best ways to attack the Pats.
As to Allen: same as last week, it’s about making a comprehensive game environment bet. Because the Pats spread the ball around, you don’t technically need a Pats bring-back in smaller-field contests. (That is to say: if Allen is hitting for a tourney winner, it’s highly likely that SOMEONE from the Pats is hitting; but because it’s a guessing game, the math is still probably in your favor in smaller-field contests to NOT try to guess. In large-field play, you have to shift over to the thinking if, “I don’t know who will hit; but if Allen is hitting, someone on the Pats is hitting, and someone else in this tournament will have that player, so I have to guess and try to have that player as well.”) But even without a bring-back, you should be thinking about how this game plays out in such a way that Allen is asked to be Superman, and is putting the slate out of reach at his price tag.
Ultimately, for smaller-field play — especially in a game that I think is likelier to have both teams scoring in the 20s than in the 30s — I’ll probably be off this spot outside Kincaid. But of course, A) you should pull in thoughts from others // yourself as well, as you may be seeing this spot differently; and B) if I find other thoughts as I get deeper into building rosters on Thursday, I’ll let you know those changes.
I’m probably not going to be on the Browns // Bears game.
I expect the Bears to lean run-heavy, and while production could concentrate on one guy against a Browns defense that (embarrassingly) got gashed by Tony Pollard last week, this has been a true split, and it’s not a bet I want to place. On the Browns’ side, Jeudy is in play as a cheaper option with a low floor and a decent price-considered ceiling. Fannin is in play as a heavily-targeted tight end in a good matchup. It’s still tough to get behind the Browns as a confident bet for team touchdowns, however (15.75 implied team total), which will probably tilt me a different direction myself.
