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.
A weekly staple of The Oracle: “what makes this slate unique?”
I read through my Player Grid last night, and was struck by how many times I used the word “uncertainty.” I used that word six times in all, and that was before Saturday morning reports (right before I started writing this up) that both Lamar Jackson and Michael Penix are likely to miss this week. Talk about uncertainty!!! The Ravens’ offense was one of the only places where we felt comfort expressing a high level of certainty, and even that’s been taken away from us now.
As noted earlier in the week, the uncertainty — to my mind — doesn’t have to do with bye weeks, or with “the point we’re at in the season,” or even with all the injuries (though that last one is certainly part of things), but instead, it has to do with the way these games set up, and the specific nature of how these teams are likeliest to interact with one another. It’s just a weird slate.
On top of that, we have a pretty weak middle class of wide receiver compared to what we can often lean into at the position, and we have a handful of running backs who are not only carrying the highest price tags we have seen this year, but who are also attractive at those price tags in their matchups // game environments.
Finally, we have our first week of the season with relatively “fragile chalk” across the board. As always, “fragile chalk” doesn’t mean “chalk that can’t hit” (or even necessarily “bad chalk”). Instead, it means — most often — that we have a slate where the chalk is still “the right chalk” in the context of what the slate provides, but where that chalk is weak enough that it wouldn’t be chalk on a typical week. In other words: “Chalk that is less likely to hit than normal chalk would be.”
Throw it all together, and we have a very unique setup this week.
Lots of games/teams to target! There are a lot of high team totals on this slate, with EIGHT teams (out of 20 playing) having team totals of 25 or higher. Most of those come with pretty big spreads, leaving us to question if we need full game stacks with bringbacks (broadly speaking, we don’t, though there are some teams that are exceptions). Overall we just have a lot of choice for how we want to build this week as there are a lot of attractive spots to attack. We also, as of right now, have quite a pile of injury tags that could be relevant: 4 important tight ends are questionable, 8 wide receivers, and 3 running backs…things could get weird depending on what news we get and, importantly, when we get it. Don’t get married to any positions just yet because this slate could change a ton in the next day or two.
There are 10 games on the main slate, with the most teams we will see all season on bye in Week 8. Of those 10 games, seven games currently have a spread of 6.5 points or higher, bringing an interesting dynamic to a slate that has the highest median game total of the season. Within that outlook, are there any games that could play closer than Vegas is currently projecting? Are there any of those games that are unlikely to develop into shootouts? And are there any of those games that could vastly underperform their lofty game totals? I think the answer to all three of those questions is a resounding “yes,” making this an interesting slate to approach from a theoretical perspective. Finally, I would think around 70% of the field is likely to include one of Jonathan Taylor, Bijan Robinson, or Ja’Marr Chase in builds this week, introducing another interesting wrinkle from a theoretical perspective.
The unique thing about this slate to me is how many great spots there are to target, along with how many teams and situations it is very easy to simply eliminate from consideration, and all of it happening on a 10-game slate, which is relatively small by Main Slate standards. The Bengals, Eagles, Ravens, Colts, and Falcons are all in spots where they are highly likely to have offensive success. The real question becomes which, if any, of those spots truly go nuts to where it is the key to winning DFS tournaments. We saw it last week – some spots were really good, but then the Broncos went ballistic and the Chargers racked up a ton of second half points playing catch up. The Bengals should score points this week, but will they feed Ja’Marr Chase like they did in Week 7 when he went nuts in a competitive game? Will Chase Brown and Tee Higgins have “good” games, or will one of them get over 100 yards and score a touchdown, becoming an elite tournament play? Same for the Eagles – they are likely to have offensive success and with AJ Brown out things condense….but will they all just have “solid” games, will Saquon smash while the others post disappointing lines, or will they have a true eruption and score five or six TDs? You can go on for each team, but the point is that even the spots that project the best are no guarantee to truly give us special fantasy scores.
These 10 game slates are pretty fun as it makes it a bit easier to narrow things down and if/when you hit on an elite game environment it becomes less likely that another one will match it (simply due to there being fewer other games). Last week we saw two clear spots emerge that pushed lineups to the top of the leaderboards::
This showed us two separate paths to winning and is a great example of why hard and fast rules shouldn’t apply in DFS – every situation is unique. With that in mind, what is your favorite “Game Stack” this week (a stack built around a QB and one to three of his pass catchers, with one or two players from the opposing team on the roster as well) and what is your favorite “Team Stack” (QB plus pass catcher(s) used without anyone from their opponent)?
