Xandamere is one of the most respected Showdown minds in DFS, and focuses his Main Slate play on mass-multi-entry
Welcome to Week 1 and the first of a new series of articles highlighting the different game formats on SuperDraft. SuperDraft is a relatively new site making an aggressive push in the DFS space, with an excellent $250k flagship tournament to start the season.
Before you read this article, you should read my NFL SuperDraft Primer to get a basic understanding of the site, how it’s different from Draftkings and Fanduel, and the strategy elements that come into play. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can get $100 free with a minimum $100 deposit!!!
First, all the standard NFL strategy about stacking and correlation still applies: it makes sense to strongly consider pairing your QB with a receiver. Game stacks are entirely viable here. The good news is, you don’t have to change your entire approach to be successful on SuperDraft. All you have to do is change your mentality of player selection since the multiplier introduces so many different strategy dynamics (as my primer details).
With that, let’s take a look at Week 1. I’m not going to go game by game here (we have the Edge for that!), but rather, position by position, trying to spot where I think there are good opportunities to leverage attractive scoring multipliers.
I’m willing to toss out the top few. Patrick Mahomes at a 1x and Josh Allen at a 1.1x in a tough defensive matchup doesn’t interest me. The first QB who grabs my attention is Kyler Murray. He’s only at 1.15x, but he’s in a cupcake matchup against Tennessee’s barely-there secondary in the highest total game of the week. I’m ok with some exposure here. But where I’m likely to spend more of my time is farther down. Jalen Hurts at 1.35x feels criminal when he put up over 20 raw fantasy points in all of his full-game starts last season. I’m also interested in all of Jameis Winston, Baker Mayfield, and Joe Burrow at 1.45x. Ryan Fitzpatrick makes sense in a game stack at 1.5x, and then Sam Darnold, Russell Wilson, and Mac Jones at 1.6x or higher feel like tremendous tournament plays.
Like QB, I’m happy to embrace variance and fade the low-multiplier guys entirely. Alvin Kamara is the lone top guy I might want any exposure to as the centerpiece of his offense. Still, running back ceilings are generally around 30 or so raw fantasy points (yes, I know we’ve seen higher scores – I’m talking 90th percentile outcomes here). Guys like Jonathan Taylor and Joe Mixon have similar ceilings – they won’t hit them as often, but their more generous multipliers make up for that. Give me Jonathan Taylor, Antonio Gibson, Austin Ekeler, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, James Robinson, Joe Mixon, Raheem Mostert, Mike Davis, Miles Sanders, and Miles Gaskin as my running back core. Chase Edmonds with a 1.65x multiplier could lose goal-line work to James Conner, but I’m willing to take the chance at that multiplier, and then Jamaal Williams at 1.65x also looks tempting should Swift miss the game.
Let’s start by noting it won’t be possible to list every play of interest here because of how many wide receivers there are in the league. Build your game stacks as usual – but I’d skew my ownership away from the alpha guys with low multipliers (though only the top 3 have terrible multipliers). Receiver multipliers seem to be pretty clumped between 1.35 to 1.6 or so. While I’m confident that Davante Adams at a flat 1x multiplier is unlikely to be in the winning lineup this week, picking out “good plays” at wide receiver is less about spotting individual multipliers and more about building well-correlated lineups with reasonable multipliers that give access to solid ceilings.
Broadly here, I like the Cardinals/Titans game (A.J. Brown and Julio Jones have modest multipliers but are in a highly concentrated offense, while the Cards’ receivers not named DeAndre Hopkins have very attractive multipliers). Jets/Panthers, Eagles/Falcons, Jags/Texans, and Vikings/Bengals also look like a good combination of game environment and access to strong multipliers.
Outside of stacks, upside players who stand out include Jerry Jeudy, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Randall Cobb, Marquez Callaway, Jakobi Meyers, Tyrell Williams, Parris Campbell, Emmanuel Sanders, Elijah Moore, and Rondale Moore. I’d expect Callaway and both the Moores to be pretty popular, but that’s just a guess right now without looking at ownership projections. Keep this in mind if you decide to utilize these guys heavily. I expect ownership is going to be tough to figure out on SuperDraft in the early going, but after the first couple of weeks of the season, we should get a sense of it.
Tight end is a somewhat unique position on SuperDraft. On other sites, we’re generally looking to roster one of the top guys who can get us a legitimately “big” score (say, 25 or more fantasy points on Draftkings). Or we’re looking to punt the position with a guy who can get us 10-12 points as a ceiling performance. This wide disparity of expectations makes the tight end position a bit trickier on SuperDraft. We’ll see how the season shakes out on SuperDraft, but my initial thoughts are that you’re going to need to be able to get 30-40 SuperDraft points (after the multiplier) from every position except tight end. At wide receiver, we can see guys who have clear paths to that. Same with running back and quarterback. At tight end, it’s trickier. Most of the 2x multiplier guys have realistic ceilings of roughly 20 SuperDraft points. Given this, I’m much more willing to play a lower-multiplier stud at tight end. It gives my roster a lot more certainty without really sacrificing ceiling. So, I’m happy to play Travis Kelce as my primary tight end in Week 1. George Kittle is also in play, and you can make arguments for T.J. Hockenson and Mike Gesicki.
The guy I expect to be the clearest chalk at tight end, though, is Kyle Pitts with a tasty 1.5x multiplier. This guy has seen tremendous amounts of hype throughout the summer, and for good reason. He’s a massive talent and should have an amazing career. Overall, I think Pitts is a fine play. Just recognize that he will be massively owned as a rookie in his first game at a typically difficult position for college athletes transitioning to the NFL. If you want to fade him, I wouldn’t argue with you. If you want to play him, likewise, I wouldn’t argue with you. Just make sure that when you play highly chalky plays, you’re doing so intelligently with differentiation at other points in your roster. Personally, for me, I expect Kelce to be my highest-exposure tight end in Week 1.
