JM’s Player Grid 9.24
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
OWS Fam ::
This is not a complete list of all the good plays on the slate
This is, instead, a look at the player pool I’ll be fishing
The Grid ::
Bottom-Up Build
:: 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”)
Blue Chips
:: 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
Build-Arounds
:: games, offenses, situations, or scenarios I’ll be looking to build around across my rosters
Building Blocks
:: unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters
Bonuses
:: 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
Beta
:: 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
Sunday Morning Update
Bottom-Up Build
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).
Bottom-Up Build
DK Salary Remaining :: $6.4K
Matthew Stafford
Bijan Robinson
Tyrone Tracy
Puka Nacua
Jalen Coker
Cedric Tillman
Mike Gesicki
Taysom Hill
Bills
Join The Bottom-Up Build Contest On DraftKings!
Buy-In:
Free
Rules:
Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!
Prizes:
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
<< Join Here >>
*must use an OWS avatar (found on your profile page) to be eligible to win
Blue Chips
Rams
Two or three weeks ago, I listed the Ravens up here for “mix and match” purposes. In other words :: “We’re unlikely to get many scores of 25+ on DK this week, and we’re highly likely to get one such score from the Ravens; as such, mixing and matching Ravens pieces is a +EV way to build.” That week, we got paid off multiple ways by the Ravens, and I completed my research this week thinking I would put the Rams in the Blue Chip category with the same thinking :: mix and match Kyren // Kupp // Nacua, and either A) benefit with solid scores from two of these three, or B) benefit with a big score from one of these three. As explored in my DFS Interpretations, these three have played only 10 games together since the start of last year, with the following production ::
- Kupp 22.8 // Puka 20.1
- Kupp 30.8 // Kyren 24.8
- Kyren 41.4
- Puka 23.9 // Kyren 20.2
- Kupp 25.5
- Kupp 28.1 // Kyren 27.5
- Puka 33.0
- Kyren 30.1
- Puka 35.9
- Kyren 22.6 // Puka 21.1
Breaking that down ::
- In six of 10 games, we have gotten 28+ from one of these guys
- In two of THOSE games, another one of these two scored 24+
- There was one game in which Kupp scored 25.5, and neither of the other two cracked 20
- And then there were three games in which none of these three went for 25+; but in all three of those games, two of these three went for 20+
With how hard it has been to scoop 25+ point scores of late, and with how likely it is that we get 25+ from one of these guys, mixing and matching these guys is extremely +EV.
But then I realized, it’s not just mixing and matching these three that’s a Blue Chip approach. We also have Matthew Stafford, who averaged 17.9 DK points per game last year, and is averaging 12.9 DK points per game this year. That’s “decent” for last year, and “not good” for this year. That’s why he’s priced at $5.7k. But what the DraftKings pricing algorithm is not accounting for is how much of a difference it makes to have all three of these weapons on the field at the same time.
When we look at the 10 games Stafford has played with all three of these weapons, he has scored 23+ 60% of the time. In fact, his first two games with all three weapons were his two worst games with all three weapons. Across his last eight, he has scored 23+ 75% of the time(!). For the sake of comparison :: Hurts has scored 23+ in two of seven games this year // Jordan Love has scored 23+ in 36% of his games as a starter (which is excellent, albeit not necessarily for his price tag) // Joe Burrow has scored 23+ in 25% of his games this year // Dak Prescott has scored 23+ one time this year // and Geno, on the other side of this game, has scored 23+ once as well. Across Stafford’s 10 games with all three weapons, he is averaging 21.3 DK points per game, which is better than every quarterback on this slate (2024 numbers) except for Lamar and Hurts. If we take just Stafford’s last eight games with all three weapons, he is averaging 22.8 ppg, which is better than every QB on this slate except Lamar.
To be clear, the guys priced above $7k have 30-point games within their range of outcomes, which is not really the case for Stafford (outside of fluky outcomes); but given that the relevant sample size for Stafford effectively has him as the second- or third-best QB on the slate from a points-per-game perspective, and that he costs only $5.7k, he’s an extremely sharp way to build around this slate.
“Stafford + one piece from the Rams” will feature heavily across my builds this week, and I’ll be making my other quarterback decisions on this slate through the lens of how they stack up against Stafford (no other affordable QBs would be expected to produce 23+ DK points as often as Stafford would in this spot, so what I want from other QBs is 30-point ceiling, or a dramatically cheaper price tag). I also may have one Rams piece on every roster. Individually, these guys are not Blue Chip plays; but collectively (with a mix-and-match approach), they are.
“Light Blue” Chips
Build-Arounds
Building Blocks
“5.567”
Stafford + Puka + Taysom
Story:
“The most obvious thing happens; + Taysom”
Why It Works:
As explored throughout this week (and as laid out in the Blue Chips section, in detail), Stafford “with all three of his alpha weapons” has been a very different quarterback than he’s been without these weapons. The first part of this bet, then, is straightforward and obvious: “Stafford does what he’s consistently done with these weapons; and Puka is the guy who benefits.” Adding Taysom (explored in more depth in the “Joker” Building Block, below) lowers the average salary spent here to $5.567k per player, giving you tons of flexibility across the rest of your roster.
How It Works:
If Stafford and Puka hit, you’ll ideally have one of the top point-per-dollar quarterback scores and one of the top raw scores at wide receiver. Taysom hitting would really separate your roster from the field, and you would have massive amounts of salary flexibility, allowing you to have a different roster construction than the field. The raw ceiling on this play doesn’t quite “win you a tourney on its own,” but it does set you up on a clear pathway to the tops of the leaderboards.
POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
“Koker”
Bink Machine
A look at some of the rules I’ll be applying in the Bink Machine this week.
Cheap TEs
I have a long list of cheap tight ends I’m interested in this week (see tight ends in the Bonus section, below), then I also have Bowers // McBride // Taysom // Gesicki isolated as core tight ends. As noted in my “Cheap Tight Ends with Upside” writeup :: I’m comfortable playing any of the tight ends on the list below alongside Bowers // McBride // Taysom // Gesicki, but I don’t want to play two tight ends from the list below on a roster together.
This rule says, “If I’m playing Mark Andrews, don’t play any of the other tight ends on this list.”
I have this same rule built nine times :: once for each of the tight ends on the list below.
If you use the Bink Machine, you can leverage these rules of mine yourself.
If you don’t use the Bink Machine, this is a “rule” you can consider implementing in your hand-builds. “Willing to play tight end in the Flex, but not willing to play two guys from this list together.”
Bonuses
If Building For Single-Entry // Three-Entry Max
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:
QB ::
Matthew Stafford || Dak Prescott || Caleb Williams || Jared Goff || Bryce Young
RB ::
A Wrap ::
I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM
