JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat) who is focusing this year on single-entry/three-entry max
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
With sickness running me ragged this week, I’m going to be doing a “cliff notes” version of the Player Grid this week — focusing on critical “how to best play these guys” components, while largely leaving player/game-focused analysis to the NFL Edge. (As always, you can find analysis on any of these players/games there, and can also find expanded thoughts of mine in the DFS Interpretations.) (POST-“GRID WRITTEN”-UPDATE :: true to form, I wrote more than I expected to write in most spots, but I’m still a bit light compared to what I would normally pile in here.)
I’ll expect to be back to my normal self (and my normal routine) next week.
Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (above).
Justin Fields
Travis Etienne
Dameon Pierce
Kalif Raymond
Amon-Ra St. Brown
Marquez Valdes-Scantling
Evan Engram
Robbie Anderson
Vikings
Buy-In:
Free
Rules:
Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!
Prizes:
150 Edge Points (good for two free DFS Education courses!) + ‘Discord Blue’ color in Discord!
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* With the BUB becoming more popular, we’ve set up two contests. ONLY ENTER ONE. The best score between the two contests will be credited with the win! *
We’ve made it! The road from “don’t throw stones at me, but playing Justin Fields right now reminds me of when we were playing Josh Allen in 2018” to “hey, this guy is a Blue Chip and no one is arguing about that” has been much shorter than expected. But Justin Fields is a Blue Chip option this week (a high “price-considered” ceiling; relatively low chances of price-considered failure), and no one is really arguing about that.
As noted above (under the heading, “Important Week 10 Note (Please Read)”), I’ve been far under the weather this week, and will be leaving most of the player-based analysis to the NFL Edge (where you’ll find expanded thoughts on all these players in the game breakdowns and in my DFS Interpretations). We’ll also be digging deeper into this game environment (and ways we can approach other pieces from this game) in the Build Arounds. So for now, we’ll leave things here. Fields at home against Detroit = good.
New this year: these are unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters
“Kenny Pickett plays a clean game”
Current ownership projections on these guys are 8.7% Diontae // 4.5% Pickens // 3.5% Pickett. With Mike Tomlin making an off-hand comment in a press conference this week about Pat Freiermuth handling a lot of the middle-of-the-field targets that Claypool was handling, and with this quote being blurbed by news outlets (while neglecting to mention the full context of the quote, in which Tomlin also talked about increasing roles for other guys), we’re seeing Freiermuth projected for nearly 10% ownership, and we can expect that a lot of people who play Pickett will include Freiermuth as one of their stacking pieces. There will also be some “Pickett with only one pass catcher” builds, leaving this complete stack extremely low-owned. On a week in which it could be difficult to score 200+ DK points, you only need about 60 points from this stack to keep you on a 200-point pace, and this stack is capable of producing at a much higher level.
Kenny Pickett’s average intended air yards sit at a middling 7.2, but his starts have come at Buffalo, home against Tampa, at Miami, and at Philadelphia, which is quite the tough stretch for a rookie signal caller thrown into the fire with very few first-team reps before he became the starter. Mitchell Trubisky has the third deepest average intended air yards in the NFL in this same offense, and Pickett is coming off a bye that will have allowed Pittsburgh to further adjust this offense to account for their new starting QB, while giving Pickett himself more time to study and get acclimated to what this team is wanting to do. The tape through Pickett’s early appearances shows a guy who is willing to move around and take aggressive shots while adding two to three points with his legs most games. (Pickett also posted a pair of rushing touchdowns in his abbreviated appearance against the Jets.) The risk here is high, of course; but with the Saints having only two(!) interceptions all season, there’s also a good chance that Pickett has his “coming out party”; and if he hits the high end of his range, 25 to 30 points is very much within reach. If he’s hitting that type of score, it’s not unreasonable to think Diontae and Pickens will be combining for around 50.
This can be played with Kamara, with Olave, or with no bring-back. I’ll have fringe consideration for this stack on my Main Build (where I would probably use Kamara), and I’ll be mixing this stack throughout my large-field play, with variations of “no bring-back” // “Kamara bring-back” // “Olave bring-back” mixed in.
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
“This game plays out the way it’s expected to play out”
With the way pricing is set up this week, it’s very difficult to build “a roster you feel good about” around a Mahomes // Kelce stack. No one would argue that this is a strong set of plays; and yet, this stack will be lower-owned than most people will expect, simply by virtue of the tight pricing available on this slate.
Etienne will be leaned on throughout this game by the Jags, with a ground-based role in the early-going, a dynamic role if/when the Jags start to fall behind, and a pass-catching role if/when Kansas City takes firm control. The easiest way for the Chiefs to “take firm control” will be through Mahomes and Kelce, but because of the tight pricing on this slate, this is a stack that won’t appear on as many rosters as one might think. There’s plenty of upside at low expected ownership here, and in order for this to hit, all you really need is for “this game to play out the way it’s expected to play out.”
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
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:
Justin Fields || Tua Tagovailoa || Patrick Mahomes || Kenny Pickett
I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM
