The Greatest “Cheat Sheet” In DFS
Each week in The Oracle, OWS team members will take on the key strategy questions from that week’s slate :: sharing their thoughts on how they plan to approach these critical elements from a roster-construction, game theory, and leverage perspective.
Bringing back a weekly staple of The Oracle, what makes this slate particularly unique?
There has been a lot of variation in early-season data points provided by a lot of the teams across the league. The Saints were unstoppable, and the reasons they were unstoppable lined up perfectly with the reasons the Eagles had been unable to stop anyone — and then, the Eagles adjusted and shut down the Saints. The Panthers were uncompetitive in every facet of the game, and after making a switch at quarterback, they dominated a Raiders team that had just beaten the Ravens on the road. The Jaguars should have beaten the Dolphins and could have beaten the Browns, with their defense showing up for relatively solid performances in each spot, before being unable to slow the Bills down at all in Week 3. The Broncos looked like a get-right matchup for most opponents, and then they beat a Bucs team that was coming off a win over the Lions. The list goes on and on. There are a number of unique components to this week — the high supply of low-total games combined with the small number of game environments with separator potential; the injuries that we not only entered the week with but have continued to add to throughout the week; the lack of early-season value that’s so different from past years (last year around this time, we had all of Thielen // Dell // Puka still significantly underpriced for their roles!) — but perhaps the most unique component, to me, is how much we’re having to wonder, “Which version of this team will show up this week?” There are some obvious spots I’ll be building around in Week 4 — but I’ll also be looking to lean into some of the spots where “what we think we know” might prove to be different from “what we end up seeing this week.”
How about injuries? We don’t know where it will land by, say, Saturday night or early Sunday morning – maybe we’ll get clarity on every one of these situations – but right now I see a whoooole lot of questionable tags on important players who, should they miss, would meaningfully change the slate. Some of these are just simple player maintenance from early-week practices, but wow, if some of these guys get ruled out by surprise 90 minutes before lock it could be a real scramble to build. Those situations favor people who are prepared and know what they want to do ahead of time.
Beyond uncertainty and what might happen Sunday morning, let’s just say “there are a LOT of injuries on this slate…we thought there were a lot last week, but wow, this week there are even more.” That means people will get lost amongst a lot of plays that project really well because there are just so many, and it should mean some really strong plays end up going really overlooked from an ownership perspective.
I called Week 1 the slate of uncertainty, Week 2 the slate of overconfidence, and Week 3 the slate of the injuries. Week 4 is not the slate of information and trends. A three-game sample is not a lot when taken in the context of time, but when you look at it as a percentage of the season, it starts to mean a whole lot more. These teams have all now played 17.6% of the games they will play this season, giving us valuable insights into some trends, observations, and fact-checking moving forward. Who saw the Rams ceding almost 430 yards of total offense per game? Who saw the Colts yielding almost 180 yards of rushing per game? Who saw the Jaguars playing 61.3% man coverages through three weeks? Who saw Malik Nabers to be on pace to break a rookie receiving record set just last year (okay, maybe some of us saw this coming)? Who saw the Colts limiting Anthony Richardson to just an 8% scramble rate when pressured (take the training wheels off!!!!)? My point is there have been enough total games played to start reassessing our prior convictions, adjusting how we know teams to behave in certain situations, and formulating new theories and hypotheses moving forward. This is our first period of true transition. Let’s welcome it with open arms instead of being stuck in prior convictions.
Mike’s answers will be live later Saturday
This week’s main slate has 12 games on it (13 for the Fanduel crowd). Only four of those games have a total of 45 or higher, as NFL passing efficiency and scoring continues to be limited. We haven’t really seen back and forth, high scoring games yet this NFL season (at least on the main slate), but that means that if/when we do see one it is likely to rock the entire slate. Are there any games this Sunday that you think have that potential to be the “gem that unlocks the slate”?
expires end of 12/2!
