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?
Firstly, this is a weird week in that I don’t even know what the game totals look like. That simply hasn’t been a part of my process this week, given what is truly standing out to me this week.
Secondly (attached to that first item), there are spots where the chances of a team or player “disappointing at their salary” are relatively low, but where their chances of going well above that solid production (reaching “had to have it” range) are also relatively low. (I.e., “high floor // narrow range of outcomes”)
And thirdly, there are spots where the chances of a team or player “disappointing at their salary” are somewhat evident…but where their chances of going well above that solid production (reaching “had to have it” range) are also somewhat evident. (“I.e., “low floor // wide range of outcomes”)
Most DFS players tend to swing all the way in one direction or all the way in the other in setups like this :: either taking on way too many players who don’t have a high chance of producing at a had-to-have-it level, or taking on way too little floor for everything to truly come together on a roster (i.e., they get a couple of these high-volatility spots right, but because they are chasing so many high-volatility spots on one roster, it never fully comes together).
This week, I’ll be looking to find the balance between those two sides :: building in confident floor, then mixing in pieces with a greater chance of failing, but a higher chance of turning into “the pieces you had to have.”
This week actually feels quite similar to last week to me in a couple of ways in that we have:
But there are also some key differences…
So we have a week with a fair number of high total games, one “big” game, and a lot of expensive players in good spots…but we don’t have the same degree of value that we’ve enjoyed in the first three weeks. I expect we’re going to see people trying to jam in stars and scrubs builds – and they certainly are viable this week – but they aren’t as obviously strong as we’ve seen so far this year. That creates some interesting dynamics in which people might play thinner value options to try and make the stars/scrubs construction work, which creates an opportunity to approach the slate from a more balanced build perspective.
Look guys and gals, scoring is down across the league – so we’re going to continue seeing these slates with not many game environments carrying massive game totals as compared to just a few short years ago. As we’ve touched on in the past this year, this makes finding those game environments that can pop of utmost importance until further notice. For those keeping track at home, we’ve had two weeks to start this season where a 230-point roster was shipping major GPPs and just one with winning scores in the 290 range. Two years ago, it was an outlier to see 230-point rosters shipping anything. Seven years ago, you were shipping tournaments with a 200-point score. The NFL is a cyclical, copycat league. Teams figure out something that works on offense and it takes three to five years for the defenses to figure out something to counteract those tendencies. We’re smack dab in the middle of the defensive side of that cycle, with Mike McDaniel leading the way in the surge forward for offenses. All of that to say – these slates are going to start to become more of the norm instead of us up here saying “man, another slate with one elite game environment and then everything else.”
As for this particular slate, there are numerous game environments with wide ranges of outcomes and low expected ownership, which is the theoretical promised land for constructing GPP rosters. Relentlessly finding, and then attacking, those spots is going to lead to profit over time. More on this thought process in the End Around and on The Slate podcast!
There are two things that stand out to me about this slate from a DFS perspective::
Sometimes when evaluating matchups and game environments it is relatively easy to see how things are going to play out. For example, last week we had a few great offenses facing defenses that are struggling. The decision points around those situations are more about *how* you want to bet on those teams scoring their points than *if* those teams will have success. This week, we have some “battles of the extremes” and it comes on both ends of the spectrum::
What are your thoughts on those specific games? Also, do you have any general thoughts on how you like to approach and handle these “extreme” matchup situations?
