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
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
:: a new category for 2024! — these are players who are not going to be “featured” on my tighter builds (i.e., one could show up on a tighter build, but they are not being prioritized as such), but who I will be mixing and matching across some portion of my MME builds
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Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (on the One Week Season podcast feed).
Andy Dalton
Chuba Hubbard
Jeremy McNichols
Diontae Johnson
Xavier Legette
Tim Patrick
Brock Bowers
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Giants
Free
Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!
1st Place = 150 Edge Points + Rare Blue Name Tag in Discord
2nd Place = 75 Edge Points
3rd Place = 40 Edge Points
*1 Edge Point = $1 in DFS courses on OWS
I don’t have any True Blue Chips this week (though all four players listed in the Light Blue section are closer to true Blue Chip status than is often the case for those guys; said differently, my Light Blues this week are all on the Blue // Light Blue border)
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“Pass-heavy”
The Vikings have controlled all five of their games so far — jumping out to a huge lead each time — and as such, they have yet to have a game with heavy passing volume (31 or fewer attempts in all five games; 28 or fewer in four of five). But this is still Kevin O’Connell, who likes to build his offense through the air, and the Vikings’ top-four ranking in pass rate over expectation reminds us that this team likes to throw. Now they are taking on a Lions defense that faces the second highest opponent pass play rate in the league, and that should be able to keep pace (or even control this game from in front).
The Lions, of course, prefer to build their offense through the ground game, but the only team in the NFL forcing a higher opponent pass play rate than Detroit is Minnesota (with both teams ranking top four in opponent pass rate over expectation as well). In short, both teams should be passing more than normal in this one.
In two games between these teams last year, ARSB and JJ combined for DK scores of 62.0 and 68.1. As we always say: “if you can get 30 points from a player, it often doesn’t matter what you paid for it.” The same goes for averaging 30+ points between two players.
The best part about this pairing is that A) if one of these guys is succeeding, it elevates the chances of the other guy succeeding, and B) both guys are expensive, which should lead to very low combinatorial ownership here. If both of these guys hit, ARSB rosters are unlikely to benefit from the JJ score, and JJ rosters are unlikely to benefit from the ARSB score. Positioning yourself to benefit from both can create clear opportunity for separation from the field.
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
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A look at some of the rules I’ll be applying in the Bink Machine this week.
Travis Kelce and Brock Bowers are sure to be two of the more popular tight ends on this slate.
Assuming we get JuJu Smith-Schuster playing and Jakobi Meyers missing, JuJu and Tre Tucker are sure to be two of the more popular value plays on this slate.
The idea here, then, is to go out of my way to pair JuJu with Bowers and with Tucker, and to go out of my way to pair Tucker with Kelce and JuJu. I’ll also then go out of my way to pair Kelce and Bowers together.
If Jakobi Meyers plays, he can step in for Tucker in these rules (while Tucker can also be included in this approach, albeit at a lower rate of exposure than he would be if Meyers were out).
If JuJu misses, I probably won’t replace him with another Kansas City wideout, and this overall strategy angle will lose some value, but I’ll still aim to have some “Raiders WR” with Kelce.
The idea here is as follows ::
Because we’re waiting on news here, I’m not building out these rules on my end quite yet, so there are no screenshots for these ones. But whether you’re using the Bink Machine or hand-building, this is a strategy angle worth seriously considering this week.
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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:
Sam Darnold (with trail bets on Goff) || Andy Dalton || Daniel Jones || Geno Smith (with DK & JSN; I’ll likely isolate these WRs on Geno rosters and otherwise largely avoid them) || Anthony Richardson
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I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM
