Thursday, Oct 3rd
Bye Week:
Chargers
Eagles
Lions
Titans

The Scroll Reflection Edition. 11.21.

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    One Week Season

    Where Sharp DFS Players Hang Out


    Early Bets

    Why does Vegas set lines? What is their goal? Well, Vegas sets lines in an attempt to get exactly half of the action on each side of every line they post. In this case, they take the rake, guarantee a profit, and move on. So, does that mean Vegas lines are perfectly set? Furthermore, does it mean they are always perfectly set early in the week? No! Every week this season (starting Week 2), we’ll be jumping into early-week betting line inefficiencies to take advantage of before they move. This line movement can be caused by a number of factors, but the primary reasons for movements after initial line release are public sentiment and recency biases (shark money typically doesn’t come in until later in the week, when bettors have more complete information). With that, let’s jump in!

    If you are looking for referral codes to get those juicy sign-up bonuses (and free money that come with them), follow the link here for referral codes to various books partnered with OWS.

    +EV LINES (Week 11)::

    ARIZONA CARDINALS (-2.0) @ SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (-105 BET MGM):

    This one is quite simply a case of a line that would likely move in favor of the Cardinals should Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins return to action for Week 11. We currently don’t know the statuses of each respective player for the coming weekend, but both appeared to be nearing a return in Week 10 but couldn’t quite make it back. If, or when, they are removed from the injury report this week (could happen as early as Wednesday), this line is sure to move in favor of the away favorite, and once it does, it will enter the dreaded “magic spread with the hook” range. Get it now before that happens! 

    WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM @ CAROLINA PANTHERS OVER 43 (DK):

    I have this line a full four points too low at open (assuming a healthy CMC), which is likely being held down by Christian McCaffrey’s modest involvement in the second half of the Panthers Week 10 game. CMC paid a visit to the medical tent in the second half and appeared to be working out the same hamstring that caused him to miss five games this season. The reason I like this early week over so much is we are presented with multiple outs. The first relates directly to CMC’s health. If he proves healthy as the week progresses, we should see this line jump three to four points fairly quickly. Even if he’s not, this Panthers offense is going to look very different moving forward with Cam Newton back at the helm. The threat of what he can do with his legs really opens up the intermediate areas of the field, providing additional space for CMC or Chuba Hubbard and DJ Moore to work.

    GREEN BAY PACKERS ML @ MINNESOTA VIKINGS  (-135 BET MGM):

    As opposed to fighting a spread that lands in the “magic spread with the hook” range (current line is GB -2.5), hunt for the best odds on the money line for this one. Currently, that resides on BET MGM with -135 juice. The Packers complex zone defense is really coming together over the previous five weeks, during which they have surrendered zero points to the Seahawks (with a healthy Russell Wilson), 13 points to the Chiefs on the road, 21 points to the Cardinals in Kyler Murray’s last healthy game, 10 points to Washington, and 14 points to the Bears. The line and juice are likely being held down by Aaron Jones, who picked up an injury in Week 10. AJ Dillon should be considered one of the top three or four “backup” running backs in the league, as he put on full display in Week 10 once Jones left. Continue to ride the “Aaron Rodgers F-U tour” here.

    HONORABLE MENTIONS::

    SAN FRANCISCO 49ers @ JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS:

    The line on this one opened at SF -6 but they have yet to play their Week 10 game, which comes at home against the Rams. The Rams are currently instilled as 3.5-point favorites for Week 10 Monday Night Football, but I have them winning that game comfortably. Should that transpire, we’re likely to see this line tick down half a point or more, which makes waiting to bet the 49ers the +EV move. There is an obvious risk to that plan of attack, making this an “honorable mention” for me this early in the week. The absence of the hook is a big deal with a line set at six points, so if you want to avoid the unknowns of MNF and take this one now, I won’t talk you out of it.

    Wired to Waivers

    How do you consistently beat opponents in dynasty and season-long settings when you all start with the same amount of FAAB (Free Agent Auction Bidding) dollars, a rotating waiver priority, or a standings-based waiver system? Are some people just luckier than others in nabbing their guy? How do some managers seem to have triple the FAAB budget? If you’ve played dynasty or season-long fantasy football, you’ve probably found yourself wondering these same questions at one point or the other.

    The reason some managers seem to assemble stacked rosters is twofold: they draft for ceiling and fill in the gaps through waivers, and they are early to the party on “hidden gems” off the wire. That last point is the whole reason we are here. In order to consistently beat dynasty and season-long fantasy football, you have to not only be aggressive on the waiver wire, but you have to know where to look to find the players your opponents will be looking for NEXT WEEK. Successful waivers do not involve simply scooping as many replacement running backs as possible after an injury occurs. It takes knowledge, planning, foresight, and a little bit of gusto. You don’t need another talking head to tell you to grab Devontae Booker after Saquon Barkley was injured, or to grab Chuba Hubbard after Christian McCaffrey went down, or to grab Elijah Mitchell after the 49ers lost three running backs. So, that is exactly what we will be doing in this piece for the remainder of the season. We’ll scour the league to find the players in the best position to be difference-makers should one thing work in their favor, and we’ll do so weeks before our competition. Your opponents can’t blow their waiver priority or FAAB budget on players already on your roster!

    Oh, and since there are enough analysts in the industry telling you who the obvious pickups are, we won’t waste our time with those players here (which isn’t to say they aren’t worth an addition, it simply means those are typically the players you should expect to spend significant FAAB, or waiver priority, in order to acquire them). With that quick introduction into what we will be doing in this space for the rest of the season out of the way, let’s dig in!

    FORWARD-THINKING WAIVERS (Week 11)::

    WAYNE GALLMAN (ATLanta falcons):

    Half of the backfield puzzle in Atlanta appears to be out of the picture for the foreseeable future with the injury sustained by Cordarrelle Patterson (seriously, can’t we have anything nice this year?), leaving behind a significant void in snaps. We have to read the tea leaves a bit here because although Gallman paced the backfield in snap rate in Week 10, he did so in an extreme negative game script against the Cowboys. That said, I would tentatively expect Gallman to roughly equal Mike Davis’ snap rate for as long as C-Patt remains out. The upside is not great here, but consider Gallman a viable bye week/injury fill-in. Of note, the Falcons are in rough shape with Calvin Ridley still out, C-Patt injured, and rookie Kyle Pitts forced into extra defensive attention on a weekly basis. If Tajae Sharpe is still out there (likely), he also makes a floor addition to rosters in competitive/deep leagues.

    ROBBY ANDERSON / CAM NEWTON (Carolina panthers):

    These two are extremely closely related as far as waivers go due to the recent reunion tour by Cam Newton in Carolina. I was chuckling to myself as Robby caught his touchdown this past week, as the way this season is going, it only made sense for it to be Cam freaking Newton that unlocked Robby. We know Robby is on the field almost every offensive play so any boost to the offense overall is a significant boost to Robby. With Cam, we saw his knack for the end zone on full display in Week 10 as he parlayed only nine offensive snaps into a rushing and passing score. High weekly floor play on a now-healthy offense (please be healthy CMC).

    MARLON MACK (INDIANAPOLIS COLTS):

    Likely scooped already in deeper or more competitive leagues, but all it would take is an untimely injury to Jonathan Taylor (who is on top of the world currently) for Mack to step into a featured role behind a top-five offensive line (assuming Quenton Nelson avoided a major injury last week).

    QUEZ WATKINS (PHILADELPHIA EAGLES):

    I mentioned Quez before and he returns to the article this week. Watkins’ snap rates the past three weeks: 89%, 96%, 89%, which lead the team over that time. I keep waiting for Quez to pop for more than three freaking targets, which just might not ever happen. That said, this team clearly trusts the youngster with blocking assignments (the three weeks where his snap rate has jumped into an every-down role corresponds to the Eagles shift to a more run-balanced approach on offense) so if the Eagles find themselves in neutral-to-negative game scripts, Quez could be relied on more through the air. Here’s to hope!

    RAY-RAY MCCLOUD (pittsburgh steelers):

    The “why behind the how” with Ray-Ray has to do with his role. McCloud stepped directly into the short area, safety blanket role on this conservative Steelers offense in the absence of both JuJu Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool, which is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future. He played on a solid 70% of the offensive snaps for the Steelers in Week 10, which is a viable expectation moving forward. He’s not going to see double-digit targets every week, but a bankable seven to nine looks as Big Ben’s safety outlet seems highly reasonable, providing a nice weekly floor option moving forward. Although closer to a mainstream add, I can’t imagine people dropping heaps of FAAB or burning a high waiver priority on Ray-Ray, which is why he is included in this piece.

    Process|Review

    In this weekly video, Xandamere reviews his roster-builds & process.


    Maximize Your Builds With OWS + FantasyLabs


    Week 10 Review

    Process Points

    MJohnson86 looks back at the week behind us: breaking down his rosters and results through the lens of process.

    No Process Points this week. Instead Mike is putting together a team by team mid season recap!!!

    Bottom-Up Breakdown

    Dwprix breaks down the top lineups in the OWS Bottom-Up Build challenge.

    Week 10 Review

    Each week, I’ll review the Bottom-Up Build contest. I’ll look at how the winners got to the top of the leaderboard, the game environments used, and how we can use this tournament to become better players. The purpose of the Bottom-Up Build is to roster players that you would feel comfortable rostering in a regular contest (solid price considered floor and high ceiling) so when you’re building for other contests, you don’t find yourself struggling with the last couple spots and jamming in someone that you’re not comfortable with.  Studying these players may also put you on a game environment that others may be overlooking.

    Overview

    Rules :: Max $44k Salary (exceeding $44k salary will disqualify entry); must use OWS avatar to be eligible for prizes

    Total Entries :: 147 (129 eligible since 18 were disqualified for not using an OWS avatar and/or went over salary and didn’t enter a lineup)

    Prizes (Edge Points) :: 1st = 100 Edge // 2nd = 50 // 3rd = 25

    Highest Owned Player :: D’Ernest Johnson – 80.3% (priced at $4,700)

    Highest Owned Stack :: Carson Wentz (21.77%) + Michael Pittman Jr (28.57%) = 17.66% Combined

    See All The Entries :: Contest Link

    Winners:

    1st Place: ericdc20

    2nd Place: LBDTitan

    3rd Place: Andkristopher

    Analysis

    First-place winner, Ericd20, built their lineup around the Browns/Patriots game. They rostered Mac Jones, stacking him with Hunter Henry plus Rhamondre Stevenson, and they brought it back with D’Ernest Johnson. Vegas had this game as only the eighth-highest total on an 11 game slate, with the Patriots favored by 2.5 points. There was plenty of value to be had in this game. Johnson was projected to get all of the running back work for the Browns with Nick Chubb out. It didn’t really matter if the Browns were ahead or behind because Johnson is involved in the pass game. The Patriots (favorites) were without Damien Harris which led to Stevenson getting 20 carries and scoring two TDs. Mac Jones ($5.3k) has been a cheaper QB all season and had his first three TD game of the season. Ericd20 stacked Jones with Hunter Henry which paid off as Henry caught two TD passes from Jones. This stack wasn’t owned by anyone else in the field. EricD20 got on the right side of this game by rostering three players from the Patriots who put up 45 points, tied with the Bills for the most in Week 10. Finding value in this game environment allowed Ericd20 to pay up for another mini-correlation in the second-highest total game going into the week, the Vikings vs. the Chargers.  Although Mike Williams (7.3 pts) didn’t pay off, Justin Jefferson did (25.9 pts). 

    Lbdtitan chose to build his second-place lineup around the Bucs without a run back. The game had the third-highest total and the Bucs had the third-highest implied point total with Vegas projecting the Bucs for over four TDs (30.25 pts). The double stack of Tom Brady, Mike Evans, and Tyler Johnson didn’t really pay off but being able to get three players on a team projected for that many points, and being able to stay under the $44k salary max was sharp. He was able to get into the second-place spot by rostering the same three RBs as Ericdc20 did (Johnson, Mark Ingram, and Stevenson).  

    Congrats to Andkristopher who placed third this week and was also our Week 6 winner!  From a lineup construction standpoint, there were a lot of similarities with the second place lineup. They also had a double-stack with no bring back and were using the Cowboys, who like the Bucs, had a large implied team total (31.5, highest on the slate), and were in the highest projected point total game on the slate. They found enough value in other spots to pay up for Dak Prescott ($6.9k), Amari Cooper ($6.2k), and Ezekiel Elliot ($7k) who were in the highest total game.  This was a great lineup with the only real dud being Cooper.   

    Putting It Together

    This was a week where you didn’t need to roster a WR in the Flex to win the BUB or GPPs because we had so many good plays at the RB spot. It was also a week where a run back wasn’t necessary because the teams with the highest implied point totals were also large favorites. The Cowboys projected for 31.5 points and were favored by eight, the Bucs projected for 30.5 and were favored by 9.5, and the Bills projected for 31 and were favored by 13. With injuries, and several teams with high implied point totals and huge spreads, there were a bunch of RBs in play. The top three lineups in the BUB all rostered Johnson and Ingram, and the top two lineups in the BUB also had Stevenson. These same RBs were used in the Millionaire Maker and Redzone winning lineups. Johnson and Ingram were major chalk and in a bunch of winning lineups, but they were chalk for good reason since both were expected to get huge workloads for their price.

    Tournament of Champions

    We are pumped to announce we will be having a Bottom-Up Build Tournament of Champions! The TOC will take place Week 18 and first place will win an OWS Inner Circle-For-Life ⭕️ membership with additional prizes to other qualifiers! All weekly first-place finishers will be eligible. Congrats to those who have already qualified: Sgmain18, Spastictoaster, Swench1919, Mikeall65, abright8, Andkristopher, Sklarma72, Aothomas42, Jaymz_10, and Ericdc20.

    Week 11 :: Bottom-Up Tourney

    Every week, you can click here for the newest contest link for the upcoming Bottom-Up Tourney.

    Rules

    1. Must be using an OWS Avatar to be eligible to win. This can be found on your profile page, or at the top of this week’s NFL Edge!
    2. Single Entry // 200 Entries
    3. Max $44k Salary (exceeding $44k will automatically disqualify your entry)
    4. Prizes (Edge Points) :: 1st = 100 / 2nd = 50 // 3rd = 25
    5. Winners please email [email protected] with your DK Screenname

    Missed Opportunities

    Larejo123 takes a look at some of the overlooked plays and “missed opportunities” from the week behind us, identifying the thought processes and approaches that could have led us to those plays.

    The great thing about 10 weeks of football is we actually have a statistically significant sample. 10 games are the equivalent of when the NBA turns the calendar to November, or MLB moves to its two-week mark in mid-April. We can debate just how statistically significant the NFL season has become, but we can draw some conclusions that should not be stemming from random variance, and we can lean into trends we’ve seen as the NFL begins to normalize. Every week is still going to be pure chaos, don’t get me wrong, but the fun part about coming into Week 11 is learning from all we’ve consumed so far this season. We should be building our best lineups yet.  

    Week 10 was a fairly boring week from a DFS perspective. Most of the best price-per-dollar performers at running back were the obvious values on the slate (D’Ernest Johnson and Mark Ingram), while the studs at wide receiver led the position (Stefon Diggs and CeeDee Lamb), and Josh Allen and Dak Prescott were atop lineups in many tournaments. DFS is easy, right? Not so fast, sometimes in hindsight, we can look back and say why not just play the obvious value, and differentiate in only one or two roster spots. Well, more times than not, that’s a really sound strategy. Since I’ve been playing DFS over the past eight years, I have found the pendulum swing back and forth constantly. Sometimes we have those weeks where the chalk hits and we slam ourselves for overthinking, and other weeks the chalk flops and we commend ourselves for being contrarian and thinking differently. It won’t be the first time nor the last time you’ve read this, but the important thing is consistency, and not swaying with the wind when it comes to DFS. Find your swim lanes, be bold in your strategies, and let it rip. Our best weeks yet are right around the corner. What did we miss in Week 10?

    Lineups for All

    Welp, this is going to be controversial but can I let you guys in on a little secret? (side note: as I’ve provided more and more DFS content, I’ve realized that revealing my own biases should be mandatory, as it helps the reader put my comments in context). I’ve never subscribed to the theory of building different lineups for different contests. I definitely understand the need to eat more chalk when building a cash lineup, but it’s slighter in my opinion, than what lends itself to popular belief. Now, I don’t play cash games and I’m also a lifetime negative cash game player, so if you want to take this paragraph and throw it in the trash, be my guest.

    But for all the discussion of how much risk you need to take on in large GPPs, small GPPs, MME, SE/3-max, single entry, cash games, and more, if you’re like me, it can just tie you in knots. So while the lineup building process differs dramatically across those strategies, at the end of the day, the lineups produced can be very similar. If you’re willing to put a player on 2/150 rosters because you think there’s a slim hope they can crush it, why not play them in a single entry tournament? Maybe it’s my style only, but if I’m not confident in a play, I don’t even want to waste $20 on that player. And lastly, when we make our lineups and scan them up and down to see which ones we are most confident in, what is that grounded on? That’s why I personally struggle with this. I’m not saying you do, it’s likely you’re much better than I am at contest selection (disclaimer: I really suck at that), but if you spend even five minutes looking at the lineups that won tournaments this past weekend, those were cash game lineups (Allen, Johnson, Ingram, Lamb, Diggs, Henry, Stevenson, fill in the rest).

    Taking Chalk One Step Further

    I really struggled on a good label for this paragraph so I’m being direct. You can’t just build the chalk lineups and also play for first place. Even in my criticism above, Rhamondre Stevenson was less than 5% owned in most tournaments. He could have been considered a cash game player but he was not chalky. Nor was Hunter Henry, the top tight end on the slate. But these were sharp plays not only because of their high floors, but specifically Stevenson, because he took the chalk one step further.

    Hilow and Xandamere did a tremendous job on Saturday’s Inner Circle pod going deep on both D’Ernest Johnson and Mark Ingram III. Once I tuned in, I was hooked on both, as it was clear as much as we want to poke holes in chalk (that’s what I love most about OWS!), they were both good chalk, immune to game script, with really no clear backups. But why did some lineups just cash while others made top-tens? Because of the presence of one more value running back. 

    We’ve seen this work before. A stud WR is going to be chalk so we pair him with his quarterback and add in his running back. Or, we take off his quarterback and replace him with the opposing QB-WR stack instead. Or, we overstack to expose ourselves to this play (and others in the same game) to be different than our roster counterparts. I hope this gets us thinking. We don’t have to refute any chalk plays, but we can take slightly (not drastically) different angles in how we add those plays to our rosters.

    Team Stacks // Different Game Player Blocks

    I alluded to this in The Oracle this past week, but my execution of it was poor. My basic premise was to replace the word correlation with concentration in our lineup building process. My thinking was, with the high-total offenses and large point spreads in play in Week 10, what if we could team stack (three or more players from two offenses) as a substitute to game stacking in the chance that we do get some blowouts on Sunday. If we get those outcomes, and the points come with concentration on a few plays, the way we built those rosters would differ from the field so significantly that I could see it being viable.

    Nobody does this, of course, because there’s actually zero percent correlation between how many points the Bucs score and the Bills score. But as the Falcons and Browns could tell us, sometimes there’s also zero correlation between how many points their defenses give up with how many points their offenses score! So maybe we overrate game stacking? Just a thought. I’m here to stimulate your brains.

    I did lean into this strategy but I say I executed it poorly because I blindly only combined my stacks across the top four projected offenses on the slate (Bucs, Bills, Cowboys, Colts). What I failed to account for was the Patriots with their 23.5 projected point total. Some weeks, a different strategy (team stacking/player blocks) is enough to literally be different than the field. But we need to limit our blind spots. So while we can hope for concentrated offenses, it may be necessary to look into the second and third tiers of team projected points (most likely it’s 24-29 team points). In Week 11, I’ll be looking to deploy this same strategy but including the offenses which have the potential to stack points in a concentrated manner, even if their point totals aren’t among the top three or four on the slate.  

    Above The Field

    Lightning in a Bottle 

    Apologies in advance if this appears a bit thin on the side of positivity and levity. Illness and a cumbersome to-do list have lowered my effectiveness to a suboptimal level. But we must persevere. We must continue to use the data from the past week’s slate to improve our knowledge of how tournament-winning lineups are built. 

    My doctor has informed me that I’m suffering from an affliction called Schistosoma Diphylidium Treponema, which roughly translated, means “Showdown Tilt.”

    Schistosoma Diphylidium Treponema (SDT) often occurs when all you need for a three-way chop of $1,140,000.00 is a Myles Gaskin touchdown and you get this:

    Yes, runouts like these are the leading cause of SDT, which is kind of like an STD, only it was less fun acquiring it. 

    But you didn’t come here for my bad beat stories, so onward we go. 

    This week we’ll examine two players that managed significant success in the Millionaire Maker tournament on DraftKings. Each got there in their own ways. Each with their own strengths and potential weaknesses.  

    Congrats to the Milly Winner, eppy99, who ran 150 lineups into 1st, 410th, and then nothing else in the top 27,000. Wow. That is difficult to accomplish. 

    sliderss also ran 150 lineups but managed 21 lineups in the top 2,000, including 7th, 22nd, 50th, 93rd, and 108th. 

    eppy99 used a large pool of 115 players across their lineups, while sliderss employed a super-tight pool of only 47 players. 

    eppy99 was clearly cognizant of cumulative ownership. They had no lineups that were duplicated by the field and no lineups that were projected to be over 118% owned. spiderss went overweight on the chalk with no concern over cumulative ownership. He locked D’Ernest Johnson, had 86% Mark Ingram and 52% Mike Evans. A whopping 28 of their lineups were duplicated by the field, including three that were duped five times!

    With the majority of their successful lineups being the all-important skinny stacks of Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs, here’s how their stack sizes broke down: 

    eppy99

    Stack Size – number of lineups

    6 – 1 (a Matt Ryan/Kyle Pitts stack with FOUR Cowboys coming back)

    5 – 2 (double stacks with two opponents)

    4 – 28 (Mixed between standard double-stack/opponent and single-stack/two opponents)

    3 – 88 (87 single stacks with one opponent, one Josh Allen Double with no opponent)

    2 – 30

    0 – 1 (a Mike White naked lineup. Ok then)

    sliderss

    4 – 3

    3 – 47 (only 15 of all 150 lineups utilized a bring-back)

    2 – 82 

    0 – 18 (a blend of Mason Rudolph, Matt Ryan, and Carson Wentz. Not particularly conventional)

    Here’s eppy99’s winning lineup

    Of their 150 lineups, this is the only one that ran Hunter Henry at tight end. 

    I’m not even sure if this was intentional, but I like the Browns/Patriots secondary stack. Diluting Johnson’s massive ownership with two low-owned Pats that had a strong chance at capturing their team’s touchdowns was pretty sharp…I think…I guess…I mean, their implied total was 23.5, so we were kind of betting on an outlier here, but then again, the Milly isn’t usually won with a standard stack surrounded by a bunch of “why didn’t I think of that?” plays. Henry is a TD-dependent tight end, which is fine when he literally scores one every week. 

    So, my question to you is: are you more of an eppy99 player? Or does your style fall more in line with sliderss?

    Also, where would you put the over/under on the amount of Microsoft Word’s attempts to correct “sliderss” to sliders or spiders?

    Time for ol’ Sonic to get some rest. The weekend will be here before you know it, and these Milly’s don’t win themselves, you know!

    LFG!

    Underowned UD

    Lex Miraglia takes a look under the hood of the Underdog Battle Royale tournament: identifying what works, what doesn’t, and what provides our best path to first place in this top-heavy, but ultra-soft tourney.

    Underowned Underdog Can Be Found In The Reflection Scroll Tuesday Nights

    Deconstructing The Slant

    In this weekly video, TodFromPA breaks down his ownership in The Slant against top players in DFS.