Angles hits inboxes on Thursday mornings throughout the regular season; you can also find Angles in The Scroll on Thursday afternoons.

We made it!!!

If you’re new here — welcome!

Every Thursday during the NFL season we drop the Angles email in your inbox. In this email, we take an early, overview look at the slate ahead, in order to help us get our feet under us before the late-week crunch. As we often highlight: DFS is not a game of “picking players.” DFS, instead, is a game of strategy, game theory, and outmaneuvering our opponents to maximize our chances of a first-place finish. This overview of the week, then, is a great way for us to start our journey toward those rosters that “would make us money over time” (i.e., “If we could play out this slate a hundred times, would we win money with this roster or lose money with this roster?”).

EVERYTHING FREE WEEK 1 ::

Before we dive in, just a quick reminder that — per tradition — everything on OWS is free Week 1.

If you’re an OWS Free member, this means you have access to all paywalled content this week.

But also(!), if you’re an OWS member without access to the Bink Machine optimizer, this is free in Week 1 as well!

Furthermore, Sims have been added to the Bink Machine this year(!!!). Starting Week 2, Sims will be available for purchase to Bink Machine users — but this week (because, you know, everything is free), even our Sims functionality is available to use for free.

I strongly encourage you to check out Sims this week. Even if you don’t plan to use them the rest of the year, they are powerful enough to be worth leaning into while you have access this week. BWoodman made a quick Sims tutorial for you — though really, it’s all pretty straightforward (and pretty unreal). Seriously: whether you’re an MME player or a single-entry player, I strongly encourage you to tap into  free Sims access this week.

JM’S JOURNAL ::

In case you missed it, I am journaling my developing thoughts throughout each week in Discord this year. This is an Inner Circle feature, of course — but (Week 1 & all…) this is available for free this week.

WEEK 1 :: WHERE WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE DON’T KNOW

My entry to DFS content was unique.

I started playing MLB DFS in 2014, and I had a great deal of success that summer. At the time, I was a freelance writer, and I’d had a novel that had been published a few years earlier. The confluence of these factors (“good DFS player” // “professional writer”) put me on RotoGrinders’ radar, and at the DraftKings live final in the Bahamas that summer, they asked me if I would be interested in writing baseball content for them the following season.

“Sure,” I told them. “But honestly, we should think about plugging me into some football content as well.”

RG was gracious enough that year to allow me to come up with my own article premise and angle, and I tackled my first-ever DFS article, in Week 1 of the 2014 season, hammering the idea that there is so much we don’t know heading into Week 1.

The landscape in DFS was unique at the time, as the legality of the game was being called into question, and the argument in favor of keeping DFS legal was that it was a game of skill. When I submitted my article, RG sent it back to me and asked me to change some of my wording. Basically: ‘If we talk so much about how little we know, it sounds like we’re saying it’s not a game of skill.’

So I made those changes, and the article moved forward looking a little bit different than it had looked before. And that made sense, because — on the surface, through a non-nuanced lens — simply saying, “There’s a lot we don’t know” would seem to suggest that we’re just hoping to get lucky.

But the funny thing is :: recognizing and acknowledging gaps in our knowledge is a big part of the edge is in DFS. Yes, DFS is a game of skill (as evidenced by the consistent, long-running success of the top players in the space), but the “skill” is rarely about “knowing more than the field.” Of course, there are times where this angle of the skill comes into play (Josh Allen the second half of his rookie year; early-career Diontae Johnson; rookie-year Puka Nacua and Tank Dell — just to name a few), but more often than not, the “skill” in DFS is about understanding the gaps in our knowledge, and accounting for this in the way we play against others who put too much stock into what they “know.”

To summarize that another way :: a big part of the “skill” in DFS is knowing what we don’t know, and accounting for this accordingly.

Last year in Week 1, the Saints put up 47 points (and then they put up 44 in Week 2). The Patriots beat the Bengals. The Cardinals took a 17-3 lead over the Bills and pushed them to the finish in a 28-34 game. The Dolphins only scored 20 at home against the Jags. Furthermore, Week 1 isn’t enough of a sample size to inform our thoughts for the remainder of the season. The Saints fizzled out quickly. The Patriots only won three more games all year. The Bills reached the AFC Championship Game and stomped much tougher competition along the way. The Commanders lost by 17 in Week 1 and reached the NFC title game. The Broncos lost to the Seahawks and ended up as one of the toughest teams in the NFL. The list goes on and on.

Most of us have done Best Ball drafts or season-long drafts, or have read up on teams and players and formed early opinions. And most of our competition has done the same.

Will there be some edges this week in “knowing more than the field”? Yes, almost certainly.

But also, there’s a pretty good chance that tournaments this week will be won by DFS players who lean into the possibilities of what we don’t know.

I encourage you to keep this in mind this week.

WHAT WE MIGHT KNOW ::

There has been talk this offseason that this feels like the kind of year in the NFL where we won’t have many dominant teams, and where we won’t have many awful teams, either — a season in which the “middle class” will be large, and the difference between a few teams making the playoffs and a few teams missing the playoffs will be a handful of plays throughout the season.

This idea carries over into Week 1, where we have 12 games on the Main Slate, with five games carrying a game total of 46.5 or 47.5, and with no games separating from the group. We also have 12 of the 24 teams on this slate implied to score 22.5 to 25.0 points, with only two teams (the Commanders, at 25.5, and the Bengals, at 26.0) climbing above that range.

It’s a wide-open season.

And it’s a wide-open slate.

Here are the games with the top totals on the slate, along with a snapshot of how we might be able to think about each game for DFS:

47.5 :: Bengals at Browns || The Bengals have struggled against the Browns’ defense for years, and have been notoriously slow starters. But they’ve played in preseason this year in an effort to be more ready for Week 1, and they know what has caused them problems against Cleveland, which might allow them to fix these issue. We know the Bengals are a reactive offense, so the big question, really, is: Can the Browns score points, and push this game into shootout territory?

47.5 :: Bucs at Falcons || The Bucs are fundamentally an aggressive offense, and they always force opponents away from the run, which opens the door, plenty of times throughout the season, for Bucs games to either end up as shootouts or as one-sided affairs in which the Bucs are scoring points and the opponent is running into issues as they become more one-dimensional on the other side. It’s fair to say that if we played out this slate a hundred times, this game would come out on top more times than any other on this slate.

47.5 :: Dolphins at Colts || In a dome, with an explosive Dolphins offense and a well-stocked Colts offense. Are the vibes off in Miami? Maybe. But maybe that won’t matter in Week 1…and given how thin the Dolphins look on the defensive side of the ball, there’s potential for both offenses to do well if this one gets going.

47.5 :: Lions at Packers || The Lions are implied to score only 22.5 points (47.5-point game total; Packers favored by 2.5), which stands out right away as a place where we would expect things to go Over more than 50% of the time. And if the Lions go over, and the Packers are the favored team, this opens the door for both teams to be putting up more points than we’re seeing in most other games on the slate. There is uncertainty surrounding usage on the Packers, and there are high price tags on the Lions, but this could nevertheless prove to be an important game on this slate.

46.5 :: Panthers at Jags || There are plenty of question marks on these offenses, but even more question marks on these defenses — and the upside on each offense is very real. This game total feels like a hedge — i.e., given the unknowns here, early in the year, this game could fall well below this total…but if it skews to the upside, it could skew WAY to the upside.

Outside of these games, we also have the Commanders (25.5), Cardinals (25.0), and Broncos (25.0) implied to be among the highest-scoring teams on the slate, and of course, we have quite a few game environments and individual teams that could play out differently than the field will be expecting Week 1.

“WHAT SHOULD I DO FROM HERE?”

1) Keep up with OWS Content in the NFL Edge, The Scroll, and in Discord. (Also, search “One Week Season” on your favorite podcast player, and keep up with our content there!)

2) Leverage the Bink Machine and Sims to super-charge your decision-making process.

3) Get creative! Think outside the box. And build for first place this week.

KICKOFF PARTY!

We’ll be hanging out on Discord tonight during Thursday Night Football.

I’m excited to see you there.

And of course, I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards on Sunday!
-JM

Hilow is a game theory expert (courses at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Northwestern) and tournament champion who focuses on mid/high-stakes single-entry/three-entry max

MACRO SLATE VIEW::

The Week 1 slate is wide open. There are six games with a game total between 46.5 and 48.0, five games with a game total between 42.5 and 44.5, and one straggler (Steelers @ Jets) chilling with a game total of 38.0. Not only that, but as you will see below, there isn’t a massive concentration of expected ownership. And then there’s the pricing, which, as per usual on the first slate of the season, remains extremely loose. Typically, we see that devolve into heavy ownership at the extremes, but we’re just not seeing that this season for some reason.

My guess here is twofold: 

1. There is no clear and away top game environment on the slate, meaning the general population is less incentivized to enter stars and scrubs rosters built around the studs in that game
2. There is no clear “running back cheat code” after a relatively healthy offseason at the position, which has a compounding effect on No. 1. 

Whatever the reasons, Week 1 of the 2025 regular season feels much different than it has in the past. That is neither a good thing nor a bad thing – it just is, and it is important to have that understanding before we continue.

Even with the rather flat-looking slate on the surface, there are numerous key assumptions we can make about expected field behavior, some of which I have covered in other places already this week. The first is that the perceived value on the slate is at the wide receiver position. That makes sense, in totality, considering the general state of NFL rosters and how they have evolved during the previous two months since pricing was released. This is also the position where the soft pricing does take on a sort of stars and scrubs approach, with elevated expected ownership clumped near the extremes in player pricing. The lack of true running back value (there is value at the position, but it is more in the realm of “this player carries an elite ceiling and isn’t being treated as such”) also compounds at wide receiver because there are simply more bodies that play the position. These aspects come together to create a situation where the field is highly likely to utilize wide receiver in the FLEX, something we will discuss further below.

The next assumption we can make is that the field has no idea which game environments to attack, as evidenced by the spread-out nature of expected quarterback ownership. I absolutely love slates like this – we needn’t make moves away from equilibrium that are as large to generate the same, or more, in some cases, leverage. Chef’s kiss.

The final assumption we’ll make is that the field is not going to know what to do at defense, because they already don’t know what to do with their offensive pieces. These three assumptions will guide our exploration of the slate ahead.

RESTRICTIVE CHALK VS EXPANSIVE CHALK::

Quick explanation :: Restrictive chalk is an expected highly owned piece that restricts the maneuverability of the remainder of your roster while expansive chalk is an expected highly owned piece that allows for higher amounts of maneuverability on the remainder of your roster. Classifying various forms of chalk as either restrictive or expansive allows us to visualize what it means for roster construction on a given slate and how restrictive a certain player might be – meaning more of the field will look similar from a roster construction standpoint with that piece.

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY*

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. McCaffrey comes with a clear asterisk after being downgraded to limited Thursday and sitting out practice on Friday. I get the feeling the field is going to have a rather large knee-jerk reaction here after the similarities to his situation before the 2024 season. We’ll have to check back in on this one Saturday morning on The Slate podcast. Suffice to say, at present, we can safely pencil in a bump to the expected ownership for the other running backs in the upper echelon of player pricing should we get a negative Schefter bomb overnight Saturday. Stay tuned.

DE’VON ACHANE

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Achane traded in his historic efficiency in 2023 for increased volume in 2024, something that worked out to a net negative due to his declining ceiling in what amounted to a predictable and one-dimensional Miami offense. I have beaten the dead horse on the causal factors behind the Dolphins decline last season, so we won’t rehash that entirely here. Just know that Achane ceiling likely goes the way of the Miami season – elite if they return to the top 10 in scoring and quite mundane if they are unable to force teams out of two-high defensive alignments because they can’t run the ball effectively.

CHASE BROWN

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Chase Brown had a monster second half of the 2024 season following the injury to Zack Moss. Moss is no longer in town, leaving the field giddy to enlist Brown’s services in Week 1. Realize this is still a running back that topped 26.3 DK points only once all season while playing for an offense that led the league in PROE, by a wide margin. The matchup on the ground does him no favors against a Jim Schwartz defense, either.

CHALK BUILD::

Kevin Adams is the founder of StatRankings, former founder of Elite Fantasy & FTN, and a longtime DFS player/bettor with countless DFS finals and GPP wins

Welcome to ONE WEEK STATS, a new weekly series highlighting the top three games of the week by Over/Under. Each matchup will be delivered in a stat-driven, bullet-point format, powered by StatRankings.com

Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Atlanta Falcons

• Tampa Bay targeted its running backs at the 4th-highest rate in the league, and while TB has a new offensive coordinator (Josh Grizzard), the offense should operate the same this season. “Grizz knows this system like the back of his hand,” said tackle Tristan Wirfs. “I mean, it’s going to be similar to what we’ve run”, said Mike Evans. 
• Atlanta allowed 6.8 RB targets per game (3rd most). New Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, formerly the Jets DC from 2021–2024, led defenses that ranked in the top-8 in RB targets allowed in three of those four seasons. Bucky Irving averaged 6.2 receiving fantasy points per game over his final 10 games of 2024, up from 3.67 per game across the first eight. With Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan out, Irving (and Rachaad White) should be active again in the passing attack (Irving caught 9-of-9 targets against ATL). 
• Irving (0.94 fantasy points per opportunity, 6th) should also find success on the ground against Atlanta (9th in missed tackles). He ranked 3rd in forced missed tackle rate among RBs with 200+ touches. While the Falcons invested two first-round picks in defensive linemen, both are smaller EDGE rushers unlikely to make a major impact against the run.
• Cade Otton practiced in full on Thursday and should see an increased target rate with Godwin and McMillan out. In his last four games against Atlanta, Otton has averaged 4.8 receptions, 46 receiving yards, and 13.8 fantasy points per game, a 77% increase compared to his per-game average against all other opponents.
• Bijan Robinson finished the season averaging 0.94 fantasy points per rush attempt (last five games). That came on 27.5 carries (2nd among qualified RBs), producing 24 DK points per game. With concern over offensive line injuries, Bijan is projected to be under 10% owned, which is not something you see often for a back who averaged 24 DK points per game (last 5). In addition, Tampa may be without its Pro Bowl Defensive Tackle, Vita Vea. 
• Drake London exploded in his last three games after Michael Penix took over as the starting QB for Kirk Cousins. Over those three games, London was 2nd in first-read target share (33%), 2nd in True Target Share (39.8%), and averaged 7+ catches and 100+ yards for 25 DK points p/g. 

Detroit Lions @ Green Bay Packers 

JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat, King of the Hill/Beach, Spy, etc.) who focuses on the DraftKings Main Slate

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OWS Fam ::

This is not a complete list of all the good plays on the slate

This is, instead, a look at the player pool I’ll be fishing

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Sunday Morning Update ::

I dropped some deeper thoughts on the slate in my Winner Circle podcast (recorded Saturday evening, right before I started building), but here’s where I ended up this week ::

Quarterback

Around 60% of my rosters this week (and probably about 60% of my bankroll, when the dust settles on Sunday morning) is on track to being allocated toward Flacco and Baker, as expected.

Trevor Lawrence and Kyler are my other main QBs.

I rounded things out with 5% or less (mostly less) of Penix // Tua // Bryce Young // Russ // Rodgers.

Penix and Bryce are trail bets on game environments I’m betting on, and Tua is a bet on the Dolphins finding their mojo at low attention from the field. Russ and Rodgers are sub-5% combined, and could realistically be replaced with any number of guys (Maye // Nix // Daniel Jones // etc.). Said differently: nothing sets these guys apart; I just like to have a few large-field shots on cheap, low-owned QBs around whom I can build a story of them going for 25+ points.

Running Back

Unsurprisingly, I am moving toward 30%+ of CMC and Achane, and 20%+ of Jonathan Taylor.

More surprisingly, I’m also tilting toward 20%+ of Chase Brown, who I didn’t talk about much this week. He’s in sort of a weird place of pricing, where he’s almost as expensive as CMC and Achane (each of whom is a slightly better on-paper play), and he’s on the other side of a psychological barrier from Conner // Kamara // Chuba. But that psychological barrier (Brown being “over $6500”; the other three being “practically $6k” (or in the case of Chuba, actually $6k)) obscures the fact that Brown is basically the same price as those guys, and is a better player, in a better offense, with a better role. Combine this with my attraction toward Browns pieces this week, and Chase Brown moved up my list a bit.

Kamara // Conner // Chuba are all angling toward 10%+, as is Josh Jacobs, who was just so consistent down the stretch last year, and on whom I’m starting to come around a bit, realizing he could be a focal point in a spot where the Packers have a lot of question marks at wide receiver. “The matchup isn’t all that great.” True. But this lowers ownership, and if Jacobs goes for 100 yards, he can easily score two of his team’s touchdowns and be a moderately overlooked piece that sets a roster apart. He’s not a staple for me, of course, but he has been added to the pool.

Sub-10%, I have Bucky (primarily on rosters built around this game) and Bijan (primarily on rosters built around this game). Sub-5%, I have Jacory Croskey-Merritt and Tank Bigsby.

Wide Receiver

I decided to go heaviest of all on Brian Thomas Jr. and Mike Evans (no real surprises there), followed by Egbuka. I have over 35% prescribed to all these guys (actually, over 45% on the first two).

I’ve swung all over the place with Deebo, but I’m starting to lean toward taking the swing here, at around 20%.

I’ve also swung all over the place with London, but I think the targets have a good chance of being there this week, and I’m landing on around 20% for him as well (primarily on rosters built around this game, and with all London rosters including at least one piece from the Bucs).

In the 10% to 15% range, I have Marvin Harrison Jr. (almost entirely with Kyler), Ricky Pearsall, Tetairoa McMillan, and a marching brigade of older guys with fresh Week 1 legs who used to command much higher price tags :: Cooper Kupp // Davante Adams // Tyreek Hill // Stefon Diggs.

In the 5% to 10% range, I have a large list :: Renfrow // Tillman // Travis Hunter (with Lawrence) // JSN // Jakobi Meyers // Rashid Shaheed // Chris Olave // Nico Collins (all with Davante) // Jameson Williams // Dyami Brown (all with Lawrence) // Marvin Mims // Josh Downs // Jayden Higgins, and sub-5% I have Boutte // Pittman // Slayton (with Russ) // Waddle // DK (with Rodgers) // Brandin Cooks // Elic Ayomanor.

Tight End

Over 80% of my rosters are on track to have Njoku or Kittle, with another 10%+ going to McBride.

I’ll have a little bit of TE in the FLEX, with ~10% total exposure assigned to a group of Jonnu // Freiermuth // Fannin. Arthur Smith is capable of deploying Jonnu in such a way that he could outscore the guys priced above him. Freiermuth is capable of scoring 15-20 at a very cheap price. My small amount of Fannin exposure is insurance against my Njoku exposure.

DST

I have the Broncos on over half my builds, with the Cardinals the only other defense set up to be 20% or higher. The rest is rounded out by the Steelers // Rams // Bengals (telling a different story than all my Flacco builds) // Bucs (including some with Baker, to bet on an aggressive Bucs blowout win) // Dolphins // Jags.

Notes

Note 1: All ownership numbers mentioned above are my prescribed ownership levels in the Bink Machine, and the Bink Machine is spitting out rosters for me that adhere to these ranges. On Sunday morning, I’ll go shopping through all the rosters I’ve hand-built and created in the Bink Machine and settle on my final set of 150 (as well as my rosters for SE/3-Max), so the specifics of these allocations will obviously change, but I’m at least aiming for everything to fall roughly within the ranges mentioned above.

Note 2: There are plenty of good players on this slate who are not in my pool. We have to give ourselves the best shot at winning by determining specific areas where we will focus, and then building around those areas in sharp ways. If you’re building in ways that are different from me, don’t take any of this as a signal that you should rethink things — and if you’re seeing a lot of matching thoughts with mine, don’t assume this means we’ll both be rolling in money this evening (though if we played out this slate a hundred times, I’m confident we would be making money over this stretch).

Note 3: My Bink Machine rules have been published in the Bink Machine. To find these, go to Player Groups, and select the JMToWin preset. (You’ll also be able to find Mike’s rules for Fanduel if you’re playing there.) If you have built your own rules already, you need to download your rules to save them before clicking over to mine. Flipping through my rules is a cool way to see how I’m putting these players together on rosters this week.

Hi Pete

Pete Overzet is apparently big-time now, which I didn’t know until Friday. Let’s see if he still checks the Sunday Morning Update, or if he’s too busy jet-setting with retired NFL superstars…

That’s it!

I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this evening.

The Grid ::

Bottom-Up Build

:: covered in the Angles Pod (it’s highly recommended that you listen to the breakdown of the roster in order to see the thinking behind it, and in order to understand what we’re talking about when we look at a “bottom-up build”)

Blue Chips

:: my “Tier 1” plays: the plays I feel confident leaning into across different types of builds; these players have a high ceiling and a low likelihood of price-considered failure

Build-Arounds

:: games, offenses, situations, or scenarios I’ll be looking to build around across my rosters

Building Blocks

:: unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters

Bonuses

:: players who don’t fit into the categories above — either Upside pieces who don’t have the floor to be Blue Chips (and are not being focused on within my game-focused builds) or players who may not have a strong shot at ceiling, but are worth keeping in mind from a “role” perspective

Beta

:: players who are not going to be “featured” on my tighter builds (i.e., one could show up on a tighter build, but they are not being prioritized as such), but who I will be mixing and matching across some portion of my MME builds

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Bottom-Up Build

Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (on YouTube, or on the One Week Season podcast feed).

Bottom-Up Build
DK Salary Remaining :: $6.0K

Joe Flacco
Jacory Croskey-Merritt
Christian McCaffrey
Josh Downs
Mike Evans
Hunter Renfrow
David Njoku
Trey McBride
Texans

Find The Bottom-Up Build Details and Contest Link on Discord

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Blue Chips

Baker Mayfield

I could have slotted in this game environment (Bucs at Falcons) as a Blue Chip piece, but my particular focus flows through Baker Mayfield, so I’m isolating him in this space.

Some numbers ::

1. Baker had more DraftKings points per game than Jayden Daniels last year.
2. Baker Mayfield doubled Jayden Daniels’ count of “games with 29+ DraftKings points” (Baker had six; Jayden had three).
3. This game is tied for the highest game total on the slate, and is being played indoors, with two teams that win games through their offenses.
4. Five of Baker’s games of 29+ DraftKings points came in games the Bucs won by 17 points or more, reminding us that the fundamental nature of this team is to attack, and they don’t need help from an opponent in order to do so.
5. When Baker hits, you can cover multiple spots on your roster.

Some additional notes from my JM’s Journal this week ::

:: Godwin played 6 games before getting injured last year. The best WR score between Evans/Godwin in those games:

( note :: where both wideouts performed, the second score is in parentheses )

23.1 (22.3)
27.7
17.3
23.4
23.2
38.5

Evans got hurt the same game as Godwin and came back for eight games down the stretch (playoffs included). Taking away the first game (Evans just returning) — without an elite number 2 — the top Bucs WR score in those 8 games:

28.8
21.9
39.9 (18.5)
16.7
29.7 (23)
19.0 (17.9)
22.2

That’s a 13 game sample with only two games under 20 and none under 16.7.

In this 13-game sample, Baker also hit five times (his score is at the end; the game score — Bucs listed first — is after that) ::

23.1 (22.3) | 29.7 — 37-20
23.4 | 31.9 — 33-16
38.5 | 31.9 — 51-27
39.9 (18.5) | 29.0 — 40-17
29.7 (23) | 37.6 — 48-14

Conclusions ::

1) You could justify playing one of Evans // Ebuka on every roster

2) Mayfield + one or two receivers has a tremendously high probability of top-of-tourney numbers

3) Given the game environments in which these smashes happened last year, you don’t technically even need a bring-back. Bring-backs work, of course, but they aren’t required for the Bucs to smash.

IN SUMMARY ::

In our 13-game sample of “Healthy Mike Evans,” we have three games of a Baker double-stack ($17.8k on DK this week) paying off to the tune of 75.1 (4.2x) // 87.4 (4.9x) // 90.3 (5.1x), and we have another two games of Baker + Evans going for 55.3 (4.2x) and 70.4 (5.3x). In the Building Blocks section, deeper down the Player Grid, you’ll see a breakdown of how to think about the math on something like this (the Cardinals writeup), but in short: this is tremendous expected value. If we could play out this slate a hundred times, Baker singles and doubles would have a shot at making the most money on the slate.

FINAL NOTES ::

You’ll find a Mike Evans writeup in the Light Blue Chips, below, and a brief mention of Emeka Egbuka in the Bonus section. Not highlighted in the Player Grid, but still on my radar, are Michael Penix, Drake London, Darnell Mooney, and Kyle Pitts. These are “trail bets” for me; in other words :: “I’m betting on Baker this week, but this also means I want to bet on some ways I could be directionally accurate without hitting the nail on the head.” If this game environment plays to the upside but Baker isn’t “the way” to play it, I want to give myself some outs.

I would not personally play Drake London as a one-off with no other pieces from this game, as his production (given his specific skill set) will almost always be highly game script dependent. London will almost always need volume in order to hit, and if he’s seeing heavy volume, it’s likely because the game environment demands this, which means others from the game are also hitting.

I am not focused on the running backs this week (I’m sure I’ll have some of Bijan and Bucky in large-field play (Note: after writing this up, Bijan did become a late addition to the Bonus section of the Player Grid), but I’ll also note that I don’t see these guys as poor plays. You can definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent paint a picture of these guys being the way to play this game; that’s just not how I’m personally attacking this spot this week. Said differently :: don’t get dissuaded from playing these guys if you like them. The Player Grid, as always, is not a list of all the good plays on the slate. It is, instead, a look into how I’ll personally be attacking this week’s slate.

“Gunslinger Arc” Building Block

See the Building Blocks section below. The “Gunslinger Arc” block is a Blue Chip option to me.

“Light Blue” Chips

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Build-Arounds

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Building Blocks

“Gunslinger Arc”

Joe Flacco + David Njoku

Story:

“Run it back!”

Why It Works:

On DraftKings, these two cost $9.6k in salary. In six games together in 2023 (in this same offense, with this same coach), they combined for point totals of 34.9 // 48.1 // 46.2 // 52.3 // 52.4 // 20.9.

Think about spending $9.6k in salary on a player. Healthy Christian McCaffrey back in the day? Late-2023 Tyreek Hill or Justin Jefferson? What is the scoring range you would be hoping for? If you looked through their game logs and saw those numbers (34.9 // 48.1 // 46.2 // 52.3 // 52.4 // 20.9), would you be willing to play them, in a good matchup and game environment for production, at the high ownership they would command?

Now take the fact that we get this combination with much lower ownership, and are able to cover two spots on our roster at once.

This block will be a regular feature across my rosters this week.

A FEW ADDITIONAL NOTES HERE ::

1. In MME (and possibly even on a sliver of my SE/3-Max builds), I’ll also have some Cleveland WR exposure alongside Flacco.
2. Chase Brown is my favorite one-off from the Bengals, and I could have him on some SE/3-Max. (I may also avoid Bengals players altogether on tighter builds.)
3. I won’t argue against Burrow stacks, of course (as a general rule, you could play Burrow stacks every week, regardless of matchup, and it would pay off when it’s all said and done at the end of the year), but I also don’t expect this to be a heavy feature on my own rosters this week.

How It Works:

The Flacco + Njoku pairing won’t be totally unique, but it will be unique enough to be a nice separator if it hits (and it can hit at a high enough level to leave the rest of the field chasing you). Continue to target upside away from these two guys, as we would still need to target first place against other Flacco/Njoku builds if this hits to the ceiling outcome, but don’t get too cute or take on unnecessary risks on these builds, either, unless that risk is on a cheap guy who can hit and allow you to collect even more high-certainty upside on other parts of your roster.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:

The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.

“Cool As A Cardinal”

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Bink Machine

A look at some of the rules I’ll be applying in the Bink Machine this week.

VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER :: The Bink Machine is free in Week 1!

• Even if you’re not an MME player, it’s an extremely valuable tool for getting a sense of what the field’s rosters are going to look like on a given week.
• How to do this?
  • 1) Remove one player from your player pool (this can be a backup QB if you want; you just have to make one custom change to “individualize” your player pool, otherwise the optimizer will run afoul of DK/FD rules), then
  • 2) at the top, put in “25” or “50” or whatever you want for total lineups to be built, and hit the big orange “BUILD” button
• From here, you can also hit the “Run Sims” button to check out your ROI distribution for the rosters built
• You can also handbuild rosters in the Bink Machine and run Sims on these
• Let’s go!!!

Bill Tank

In large-field play, I want to have some rosters that pay down for Jacory “Bill” Croskey-Merritt and Tank Bigsby in order for my salary structure and the rest of my roster to look different from what the field is doing. In order to account for this, this rule says, “On at least 50% of rosters that have Jacory Croskey-Merritt (the locked player here), also include Tank Bigsby.”

Ja’Marr No-Solo

If you are spending big money on Ja’Marr Chase, at high ownership, it isn’t going to help you to get 22 to 25 DraftKings points. Instead, you need him to post a big game. So what would that look like? Well, in his monster 2024 season, he went over a mere 26.5 DK points only four times. Three of those games were mega shootouts, with 69 or more total points scored. Could Ja’Marr hit for a big game without game environment cooperating? Sure. But the chances are very, very low, and most of the field will be playing him as a one-off (which would imply that the chances of him doing this are very, very high). There is quite a bit of edge available in only playing Ja’Marr alongside a piece from the Browns. Whether you are hand-building or using an optimizer, you should apply this “rule” to your rosters.

If building in the Bink Machine, this rule says, “If I have Ja’Marr (the locked player),” I should have two to four players from this pool (or: I should have Ja’Marr, plus one to three additional players from this pool).

The next thing to think about here, if building through an opto, is that you probably don’t want Njoku + Tillman (for example) without Flacco. So this next set of rules says that if I have any two-pass-catcher combo from this group, I should also have Flacco.

Finally, of course, my build settings would instruct the Bink Machine to always stack a pass catcher with my QB (which, in this instance, ensures I don’t end up with something funky like “Ja’Marr + Flacco + no Browns pass catchers).

Bonuses

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If Building For Single-Entry // Three-Entry Max

This is my narrowest pool, which means it’s the pool likeliest to change a bit as I move deeper into builds. If it changes throughout Saturday night, I’ll add an update in this space.

If I were building for single-entry // three-entry Max, my tightened-up player pool would be:

QB ::

Baker Mayfield (with some Michael Penix trail bets) || Joe Flacco || Kyler Murray || possibly Trevor Lawrence on tighter builds as well

RB ::

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A Wrap ::

I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!

-JM

Mike Johnson (MJohnson86) has racked up over $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

Welcome back to my (Mjohnson86) Player Grid. The format will vary slightly from JM’s Player Grid, as we each see things slightly differently and play in slightly different contests, but should complement his thoughts and content very well for those looking to build their lineups for the week. The format of this article will vary slightly from my Fanduel Player Grid, which will be more direct in terms of which players I like. Enjoy!!

The Core ::

This is a list of players that stand out to me at each position from using my “Checking the Boxes” criteria outlined in my course you can find in our Marketplace. This list is a starting point, from which I build out lineups using game theory and roster construction concepts (which we will also touch on) with the mindset being to find the best plays with big ceilings. Low ownership is a bonus, but not a must. This section will focus primarily on three positions – running back, tight end, and defense – as the other two positions (quarterback and wide receiver) tend to have more dependent tendencies which I try to attack from other angles (which we will get into in the other sections). I like all of these plays on all sites unless otherwise noted:

Running Back::

• Jahmyr Gibbs –  Gibbs is arguably the best running back in the league and is fully healthy and fresh in a huge game for Week 1. I expect the Lions new offensive coordinator to ride his best player. In a week where we can easily afford Gibbs and he is projecting for single-digit ownership, that is enough for me.
• Jonathan Taylor – JT ended 2024 on a heater and has been saved from the Anthony Richardson experience to start 2025. He should have a massive workload in a good matchup and carries a middling salary for his ceiling.
• Bijan Robinson – Another “don’t overthink it” guy, Bijan is the engine of this offense and provides both a high floor and ceiling. There are some concerns about the loss of the Falcons best offensive lineman, but if they can’t run, then I would just expect his receiving volume to rise as a result. We can afford him, so play him.
• James Conner – The “concerns” around Conner are about durability over the course of the season. For this week, he should have his normal bell cow role in what appears likely to be an above average matchup.
• Alvin Kamara – Similar to Conner, Kamara is a player in a decent matchup for Week 1 and should have a huge role to start the season.
• Travis Etienne // Tank Bigsby – Etienne can be used in a variety of ways and is versatile enough to make plays on the ground or through the receiving game. Bigsby broke a lot of big plays last season and is very cheap. This looks like a great matchup and Liam Coen’s offense generally provides a lot of backfield production. We don’t know for certain where it will come from, but one of these guys scoring 20 to 25 points wouldn’t surprise me at all. I will have some of both of these guys in mid-to-large field contests.
• **Christian McCaffrey** – I may or may not end up playing CMC, depending on the reports around his status/health after being limited in Thursday’s practice (Editor’s note: CMC did not practice on Friday but said his injury was “nothing serious”. Your guess is as good as ours here.) There is a chance he is fine and the concern created by him showing up on the injury report just gives us a nice ownership discount.

Tight End ::

Sonic is a Milly Maker winner and large-field tournament mastermind who focuses on mass-multi-entry play

Let the Madness Begin

The first week of an NFL season is unlike any other. Never will there be more fish in the DFS player pool. The shiny object that draws their attention comes in the form of a $5 tournament that promises life-changing payouts. “Turn $5 into $1,000,000,” they say — said every banner ad ever. Got ’em!

We’ll probably need to flirt with the near-nuts to beat rake and a few hundred thousand friends. In fact, investing a chunk of our bankroll into these lotteries is pretty much a fool’s errand.

I’m in!!!

We’re just going to need to pivot off some of the chalk in our efforts to pass a few hundred thousand rosters on our way to the top. Easy game.

Some of these are not for the faint of heart. These are players I will be mixing into my rosters to differentiate from the masses. Keep this stuff out of your cash games, for God’s sake.

Secondary Core-Relations

Papy is a full-time DFS player, with a focus on high-stakes tourneys, and with hundreds of thousands in lifetime profit

Welcome to Papy’s Process! This article will be a change of pace from Papy’s Pieces, which highlighted six players ranging from low to high in DFS price. This season, my goal is to focus on the lineup building process while giving the OWS family an inside look at how I make my lineups. My typical pattern revolves around my “tighter builds.” For me, that phrase refers to the five lineups where I’ll bet most of my money for the week. My “main lineup” will be in single entry contests, whereas the next four will be spread out in 3-entry max contests. All five of those lineups will also be entered in large field GPPs. My remaining fifteen lineups will be in large field GPPs and 20-entry max contests. I refer to those as “Milly Maker” lineups, which are entered exclusively in large field, small buy-in tournaments.  My betting strategy means that my tighter builds will typically determine my weekly profitability, and most of my focus for the week is on those lineups. With that in mind, here is how I’m breaking down the first slate.

Picking Games

The first step in creating lineups is picking which games to target. On a full slate, I’m typically going to stack five different games across my tighter builds. That can change depending on the week, but it takes a strong game environment for me to stack the same game in my tighter builds. Week One has seven games that pique my interest:

• Car // Jax (47.5)
• TB // ATL (46.5)
• Cin // Cle (47.5)
• Mia // Ind (46.5)
• Det // GB (46.5)
• SF // Sea (44.5)
• NYG // Wash (45.5)

I like them in the above order and will target players in those contests for my tighter builds.

Carolina @ Jacksonville

My favorite game environment of the week. This game pairs two suspect defenses against two ascending offenses. It’s expected to be a competitive contest and has clearly targetable pieces for DFS. All the most desirable game environments have close totals, which could make it fly under the radar, reducing ownership. There is a good chance my main lineup’s primary stack will come from this game.

Tampa @ Atlanta

A close second place with the same logic used for Car // Jax. I suspect this game will draw the highest ownership of the week, which is the only thing that makes it my second favorite game.

Cincinnati @ Cleveland

The Bengals are going to score a lot of points this season, but their defense stinks, which will make their games a regular target. Bengals games will hinge on their opponent’s ability to keep up, and the Browns are projected to have the worst offense in the league. I’ll stack Bengals and look to use a Browns bring-back, but there is more risk here than in the top two game environments.

Miami @ Indianapolis

This game could explode or disappoint. The Dolphins profile as a shootout team because their secondary is awful, but the Colts passing game is one of the worst in the league. The Dolphins should be better than last year on offense, but they’re already dealing with backfield injuries, are on the road, and their offensive line might still be an abomination. This could be the game you need, or the one you had to fade.

Detroit @ Green Bay

This game has “pick the wrong players” risk. Points will be scored, but who is going to score them? Both offenses could be spread out, and nothing is more frustrating than stacking the right game with the wrong players. The Micah Parsons trade might scare people off this game, and if it looks like ownership will be low, I’ll get more interested in players from both sides. This game has upside, but also a clear downside, which puts it below the top three game environments in my rankings.

San Francisco @ Seattle

The lowest total game to make the list, this game features two of the most concentrated offenses on the slate. The 49ers have long provided predictable volume to their stars, and the Seahawks are thin at WR, which narrows their target distribution. This game might not produce as many points as the other games, but we have a better chance of knowing where they’re coming from for DFS.

NYG @ Washington

This game has explosive upside, but much like the Cin // Cle game, the outcome will depend on the underdog’s ability to keep pace. The Commanders are touchdown favorites at home, and if they control this game, there is a good chance that no must-have DFS scores emerge from either side.

Key Values

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.

Week 1 Topics

1. A Tradition Unlike Any Other

2. An Inefficient Market

3. Ahead of the Curve

4. “That was so obvious, how did I not see it?”

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1. What makes this particular slate particularly unique?

The Question ::

We often start out The Oracle with the question, “What makes this slate particularly unique?” Obviously, in Week 1 there are a lot of unique aspects ::

• Pricing has been out for well over a month, leading to many situations where players have far different roles and/or team situations than their pricing from pre-training camp would have indicated. 
• This is in addition to the already soft pricing the sites always have in Week 1 as they try to draw in new customers and give them a great experience. 
• Players and coaches have changed locations, a new crop of rookies entered the league, and the veteran players are a year older and closer to the NFL woodshed. Teams have had months to rethink their approach as they all embark on a journey with a common goal – we have no idea where those internal discussions, plans, reactions to their own situation, and reactions to league trends will take each team. While we saw at least some action from starting units during the preseason, this is the first real game action since the Super Bowl…there are a lot of situations we have strong beliefs in right now that will look silly by Week 4. 

With all of those things as common and clear factors about the “uniqueness” of Week 1 NFL DFS, we will change course from the “standard” tone of this question we have on a weekly basis and instead ask a more philosophical question: Are there any ways in which you approach Week 1 differently or have different expectations than that of a “typical” DFS week? Bankroll management, contest selection, player selection, etc.

The Answers ::

JM >>

So…a programming note.

We ask this same question at the top of the Oracle in Week 1 each year. This year, Mike (who comes up with the Oracle questions) left our 2024 answers in place, in case we wanted to reference those, or just use them — given that they are fairly evergreen answers, with sharp thinking/takes behind them.

Last year in Week 1, I included my 2023 answer, as I felt it had value/relevance heading into 2024, and then also added some new thoughts for 2024.

This year, I read my 2024 writeup and thought, “Funny, I’ve been saying the same thing on podcasts today.” So as has apparently become tradition for me, you can find part of my answer from last year first, and then you can find my “2025 answer” below that ::

MY 2024 ANSWER ::

I’m answering this question on Friday morning, fresh off last night’s Ravens/Chiefs game. In that game, both offenses had to open things up, we had lots of back-and-forth momentum, and we were a shoe tip away from a game total of 53 to 55 (the Ravens were set to go for two, rather than sending the game to overtime, so the game total would have landed in one of those two buckets). And yet, Derrick Henry had only 43 yards, Travis Kelce had only 34 yards, Mark Andrews was invisible all game, Zay Flowers finished under 40 receiving yards on 10 targets, Lamar Jackson ran for 122 yards(!) and still failed to top 30 DraftKings points, and Patrick Mahomes threw only one touchdown pass. Rashee Rice went for 100 yards, but failed to score a touchdown (a solid but unspectacular 20.3 DraftKings points). Which means that in a game that featured both offenses opening things up, and some back-and-forth-momentum, and “a shoe tip away from a game total of 53 or 55,” Lamar’s strong price-considered effort and Isaiah Likely’s 29.1 DraftKings points were the only scores that would have really mattered if this game had been on the Main Slate. (And if this game had been on the Main Slate, Likely’s ownership surely would have been under 3%.)

NFL games are very complex. The way scoring and fantasy production develop and pile up are complex. And yet, we come out of a game like that, and on Friday can still hear people talking about the upcoming games this weekend as if they are all being played on a piece of paper.

Most of the expectations people have for players heading into Week 1 will be wrong!!!

MY 2025 ANSWER ::

There was more to my answer last year than that, but that first part — coming off the Thursday night game, and being reminded of just how much people tend to get wrong in one isolated game — was the same place I found myself this morning.

A.J. Brown had one catch on Thursday Night Football.

Saquon Barkley had 60 rushing yards.

George Pickens had three catches.

Javonte Williams scored two touchdowns.

And the crazy thing is: people can watch that, be surprised by the box scores, and then still think that their edge on Sunday will be “properly predicting the box scores of every game on the Main Slate.”

This is not our edge!!!!

We can absolutely have a strong understanding of who the best on-paper plays are, and of where we could expect to make the most money if we played out this slate a hundred times. And we can gain a strong edge by understanding how to properly build rosters to account for the math that we’re turning in our favor. But we should also expect to be surprised in some places…

…and in fact, we should position ourselves to benefit from places where we might be surprised.

In my 2023 answer, I mentioned that I never personally feel Week 1 is my greatest edge. I consider myself to be an upper-echelon DFS player when it comes to 1) understanding the strategy/math of roster building, and 2) knowing players, teams, and coaches well enough to find a few places each week where my calculation of the math on certain spots is better than the calculation of the math spit out by projection systems.

In Week 1, projection systems will be at their weakest — but if I put too much confidence into my own ability to be better than projection systems in certain spots, I might actually be hurting myself instead of helping.

By the time we get to Week 4/5, I’m usually at my absolute best, as I have enough information to feel confident that I’ll find a few spots each week where projections are off, and that I’ll know what these spots are and be able to add that extra edge to my strategy/roster-construction edge and position myself for high-end results over time.

In Week 1, however, I have to really challenge myself to let go of what I think I know, and more fully embrace the idea that I might have just as many blind spots and suppositional misses as the next person.

Because of all this, I often go slightly underweight my normal bankroll in Week 1 (whereas, for others — depending on their own strengths and weaknesses — it might make sense to go a bit heavier than normal in Week 1 bankroll).

I think my own answer to this question (in terms of my own personal approach) should not be read as a recipe for you to follow yourself, but should instead be read as “a look into how JM sees his own strengths and weaknesses stacking up on this week, and how I can leverage that thinking to identify my own strengths and weaknesses here.” What is your edge in DFS? And is that edge increased or decreased given the unknowns of Week 1?

We should be comfortable embracing a little more uncertainty this week.

And we should acknowledge to ourselves that we might know a little bit less than we think we do.

Xandamere >>

While my 2023 answer is still valid, I want to expand on the variance/chalk piece. I say this every year in some format, generally on a show somewhere, but I want to write it down as well: we know very, very little in Week 1. We THINK we know things, but as JM noted, there are players whose roles may be very different than we think they’re going to be. Offenses may feature players differently, they may be more pass or run heavy, and defense consistency from year to year is very low (i.e. defenses we think are attackable may be good, defenses we think are good may be attackable). We know very little! 

When the field is extremely confident but we don’t actually know things, that’s the time to embrace more variance. Recognize how little we actually know and play into spots where if the variance swings our way, it benefits us in big ways. Always remember “what do you win when you win?” 

I tend to go heavier in Week 1 because it’s a week where the edge is larger than normal. We have the most casual players (the players who will drain their bankrolls early in the year and then stop), we have a smattering of new DFS players in the ecosystem (even though DFS isn’t growing like it used to, there are still new players every year), and we have the most uncertainty around how teams will use their players and how good they will be (but the field sees perceived certainty in, say, games like MIA/LAC). All of that adds up to edge, and so I tend to go heavy in Week 1 to try and capture it.

I’m also more willing to embrace variance in Week 1. As the season goes on, chalk tends to become “better,” because we gain more knowledge about how teams operate. In Week 1, chalk tends to be more fragile because we’re operating off of a lot of assumptions, but assumptions are not the same as knowledge. 

Oh hey answer from back in 2023/2024. Still good! Like I say every year: Week 1 is a good week to embrace variance. If we briefly take a look at a few chalk plays…we have two rookie WRs whose roles could potentially be smaller than their ownership is predicting (can also toss Ricky Pearsall into that bucket as a 2nd year guy) while we have low ownership on some capable-but-not-as-exciting veterans. At running back we have opportunities to take advantage of unknown workload splits (what if the Pats give Henderson…or even Stevenson…a full role in Week 1 instead of a split? What if the Commanders have one main back instead of a split backfield?). And that’s not even including outcomes such as a team being significantly better or worse than projected, or just a team having an unexpectedly good game (remember the Saints putting up 40+ points in back to back games to start last season before falling back to earth?). 

We know a lot less than we think and that makes Week 1 a great spot to lean into the variance and play a more contrarian style. 

Hilow >>

First of all, the basics of DFS play are the basics of DFS play. How we approach this game (read: puzzle) remains the same. Too often players get tripped up early in the year because we don’t have established trends, pricing is loose, rookies enter the fold, and the dynamics of teams are all wonky due to changing personnel and coaching. Simplify things this week – find the game environments, teams, and players in the best position to return usable GPP scores and go from there.

The biggest aspect of roster building that we absolutely must keep in mind in Week 1 is that we can’t account for every outcome, something that gains increased importance when we’re overloaded with potential plays due to pricing structure and uncertainty. We don’t build rosters looking to account for every potential outcome of the weekend, we build rosters as if that roster, with those players, in those game environments, are what you need to be successful.

The final aspect of Week 1 play that deserves mention here is the historical performance early in the season. Per Fantasy Points’ Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield on the X machine), 60.9% of Week 1 games over the previous four seasons have hit the under. Vegas historically wants exactly 50% of the action on the under and the over – they scoop the vig on move on. What that means is that Vegas is getting more action on the over in Week 1, amounting to a psychological play on human instincts (we think teams are going to perform better than they actually do early in the season). In other words, fewer teams are going to score more points than we think in Week 1, meaning fewer players are going to see outlier performances. Capturing the teams and players that manage to outperform expectations is paramount to early-season DFS success.

The rest of the puzzle is still there – variance, DFS theory, game theory, etc. Stick to the basics and focus your efforts on specific teams, or players, that have elite ceilings within their respective ranges of outcomes.

Mike >>

Bankroll – I do generally go a little higher in the amount I play Week 1 for a couple of reasons. First, I play more entries of the super large field stuff (Milly Makers on both sites and the large contest on Yahoo) this week than a normal week because overlay is likely, price points of those contests are lower, and such a large chunk of rosters are basically dead from being very inexperienced players and/or rosters made days/weeks in advance. Second, there is a ton of value in being early on players/teams and Week 1 provides the best chance to get paid off for having unique thoughts and seeing things for yourself – which I believe is a strength of mine.

Contest Selection – As noted above, I adjust slightly to leverage opportunities in the larger field contests.

Player Selection – I want to get in early on guys I think are going to pop and leverage teams who have different outlooks than the last time we saw them – as most people are in a “see it to believe it” mindsets even when they know situations are different.

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2. An Inefficient Market

The Question ::

“Vegas lines” are the basis for so many projections, predictions, and rankings in DFS (and really in all forms of sports betting, etc.), but Week 1 of the NFL season is the time when those lines are likely to be the least efficient and have things that are way off base when we look back at them in a couple of months or the end of the season. Every team has personnel and scheme changes from one season to the next, some bigger than others, and players are changing as well – getting older, recovering from injuries, sustaining injuries, training/practicing to improve. There are just so many variables that are extremely hard to account for heading into the season, which is part of what makes it unpredictable and fun. 

Last year, for example, we saw a Panthers // Saints game with a 41.5 game total where the Saints alone scored 47 points. In the next question, we will talk about being “ahead of the curve” with players….but in this question I want to talk about teams. Last year’s example ended up being an indicator for what would be one of the league’s worst defenses in Carolina. With that in mind, we have six games on the main slate this week with totals under 44 points::

• PIT @ NYJ – 38.5
• TEN @ DEN – 41.5
• LV @ NE – 42.5
• ARI @ NO – 42.5
• HOU @ LAR – 43.5
• SF @ SEA – 43.5

Are there any teams or units (i.e. – if you think a particular offense will be very explosive or one of these defenses is one we will be targeting regularly as the season goes on) from that list that you will be targeting this week as you think the market may be inefficiently pricing what they will look like in 2025?

The Answers ::

Thanks for hanging out with us in The Oracle this week

We’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!

Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries

“You’re going to need to score a lot of points to win this week.”

A direct quote this week from our founder, JM, in his Inner Circle Discord channel, JM’s Journal. There’s nothing complicated about this statement, and maybe it doesn’t ring true. But I couldn’t agree with him more.

Week 1 is unpredictable, unsteady, and unconscious at times because we truly don’t know what will happen. Week 1 is when you get the second and third-year players who show signs of a breakout coming. It’s when you get the rookies bursting onto the scene (I remember Cam Newton’s 2011 debut against Arizona very well, and how about Marquise Brown in 2019 at Miami?). Week 1 is when you get new faces in new places, making an impact (Randy Moss in New England in 2008). It’s when we get some old heads starting to show inevitable decline. It’s when we are greeted by the ugly truth of injuries happening, and at times those leading to roster-winning plays (Elijah Mitchell winning tournaments in 2021 with Raheem Mostert’s injury). To put it simply: Week 1 is the best.

And in Week 1 of an NFL season, the path to success is to find the hidden paths to upside and ditch the conventional thinking. To read the proverbial room and think, “you know what? I don’t agree with that.” Week 1 is when we can be one week early, and it becomes normalized a few weeks later (think David Johnson in his first few seasons in 2015 and 2016). If you see a trend developing in training camps and the offseason, and it seems the sites, touts, and analysts are either late picking it up or not leaning in enough, then there is your opportunity.

So, to justify JM’s quote from earlier this week, there will be a lot of points scored this week and we will need to search for ceiling. We also should use our own thinking to see the paths available, and not worry about our opponent’s lineups on this slate. Why? Because in Week 1, of all the weeks, we have the same limited information as our competition does in building lineups. You ARE going to need a lot of points to win this week. You CAN find those points in just about every game on the slate. And if/when you do find these paths to upside (keep reading for mine!), lean in with all you’ve got because building lineups this week is perhaps the most fun exercise this season.

If you’re new here, Willing to Lose is all about finding the high upside, low likelihood plays (strategies, blocks, players) that can catapult your lineups to the top of the leaderboards. Scroll back up for the best plays on the slate and more, but come here for inspiration throughout the season, and we’ll see what we can uncover in the weeks and months to come!

Russ Wilson // Malik Nabers // Theo Johnson // Commanders pass catcher

It’s been 205 days since the Super Bowl, and I get the opportunity again to write this wonderful piece on this wonderful website. And the first player I am going to recommend is new Giants QB Russell Wilson. Yes, we’re back! Mr. Unlimited himself is now on his fourth NFL team in a job he is unlikely to hold through the duration of the 2025 NFL season, and his first game is a divisional opponent on the road, and one who came a game away from the Super Bowl in 2024. Not exactly a matchup that catches the eye. However, Wilson is the starting QB in this game, and he is just $5,000 on DK. He is likely to need to throw the ball a decent amount, considering the Commanders potential on offense and considering the expected low output of the Giants rushing attack. The Commanders also had the second-worst secondary in the NFL last season, and are again projected to be bottom-five (PFF). Wilson is not a name that will be clicked on by many, but he did pop for a 30.9 DK game with the Steelers in Week 13 last season against Cincinnati. The rest of his performances were mostly sub-par, but the Cincy game sticks out to me here because of the propensity of the 2024 Bengals offense and the possibility of the 2025 Washington offense.

Malik Nabers is no stranger to DFS ownership, and he makes this Wilson play a bit more palatable. To finish the 2024 season and with a cast of characters at QB, Nabers went on a tear of 24.2 // 13.8 // 39.1 // 17.4 DK points to solidify one of the best rookie WR seasons we’ve ever seen. Wilson threw his patented moon balls to George Pickens and Calvin Austin in 2024. He gets to throw them this season to Nabers. At $7,000 on DK, and with limited receiving competition, Nabers should be a lock for 10+ targets in a matchup against a defense that can’t cover him, but he shouldn’t garner the ownership of those he’s priced near with the Giants sub-20 point implied total.

Theo Johnson and a Commanders pass-catcher round out this stack. Johnson is the unquestioned every-down tight end for the Giants, after they released Greg Dulcich. His only competition is Daniel Bellinger and Chris Manhertz, who are known for blocking, not running routes. Johnson only scored one touchdown last season, but flashed upside in a part-time role with four games above 10.8 yards per reception. He also finished his season (Week 13) with four straight games with at least five targets. If Wilson hits his ceiling, three touchdowns are going to come along with him, and a 6/70/1 line is fully in Theo’s range of outcomes.

Finally, in order for the Giants to need to push the score, we need the Commanders to score. My gut says to avoid the hot mess of their running back room, as we won’t be able to predict the present there. So that brings us to the inevitability of Jayden Daniels, Terry McLaurin, and Deebo Samuel as the mostly viable Washington pieces. I am willing to guess that the strong Giants front four, with the addition of Abdul Carter, and the price discount you get will push more players toward Deebo over Terry (not to mention the late August contract negotiations), so McLaurin is my preferred target here.

Jameson Williams // Josh Jacobs skinny

Mike Johnson (MJohnson86) has racked up nearly $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

Strategy Ideas & Things To Consider

Finding An Edge

The whole idea behind this piece of content is that it is unique. Specific content and strategies for the “non-main slate” contests are very rare in the DFS industry and most players who enter them are casual players or doing so on a whim after their main slate entries have had things go wrong and they want something to root for or to chase their losses during the late games. Edges are getting harder and harder to find in DFS as information gets better, projections get sharper, and the field gets more experienced. These smaller slates present a clear opportunity for an advantage for those who focus on them, as most players will just take their thoughts from the main slate and approach these lineups the same way, without considering how much having seven to nine fewer games (depending on the week) changes the strategy. The biggest win of my career came on an “Afternoon Only” slate in January of 2021, and I once again posted the highest score of the “Afternoon Only” slate in Week 15 of 2024, while being in contention late into the slate several times each season. I hope to share some of my insights on the format to help you attack this niche corner of NFL DFS, and have OWS flags littering the leaderboards on this awesome slate.

Ownership Strategy

• Ownership will be higher for pretty much every player on “short slates” just because there are fewer players to choose from. This will be especially true for “chalky” players from the main slate.
• This means getting these players right is even more vital than on a main slate. There are fewer alternatives to choose from, so if they have a big game and you aren’t on them, it is much harder to find other ways to make up those points.
• This also means it is easier for lower owned players to pay off, as there are fewer players at their position that they need to have “fail” for them to be worth the risk.
• Correlation is even more important than on the main slate because the useful fantasy games that pay off for the slate are likely to be clumped up from the same games. I always make lineups with a game stack (QB + at least one pass catcher + at least one opponent) and then one or two “mini-correlations” from other games.

Week 1 Overview

The NFL season is upon us, and the afternoon slate has four games on the docket. Most people will focus only on the Main Slate, only turning their attention to the afternoon games once their main slate lineups are dust or just from boredom/excitement once the games get going. We can put ourselves in advantageous positions if we plan ahead for these smaller slates, an edge that can play out significantly over time.

This week, I want to point out that with the excitement of Week 1 and the overall extremely loose pricing, narrowing a player pool for the Main Slate is something that most people are likely to struggle with. The Afternoon Only and Early Only slates are a great way to help with this, as there are still plenty of tournaments with great structures, and it naturally narrows your focus on a few games. Taking that a step further, throwing a lineup from one of those smaller slates into the main slate can sometimes be a profitable approach as well.

As for this Week 1 Afternoon Only slate, there are two games featuring matchups between 2024 playoff teams, a divisional rivalry game, and a matchup of the number one overall pick from the NFL Draft (Cam Ward) and arguably the best defense in the NFL. It should be highly entertaining. The elephant in the room is the status of Christian McCaffrey, who popped up on the injury report on Thursday and missed practice on Friday. His status will unquestionably alter the state of every slate he is on.

QB Strategy

Quarterback is always an important position but that importance goes to another level on these small slates. There are two main reasons for this. First, on average quarterbacks obviously score the most points of any position, and we can only start one of them. Second, as noted above, correlation is even more important as the slates get smaller and there are fewer scoring opportunities to go around. By choosing the right quarterback, you are also increasing the chances that you are right at two other positions. Again, the shorter slate condenses the scoring across all lineups, making each position more vital to separating and giving yourself a chance to win. This is why quarterback strategy has its own section:

Mike Johnson (MJohnson86) has racked up nearly $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

This is a list of players that stand out to me at each position from using my “Checking the Boxes” criteria outlined in my course you can find in our Marketplace. This list is a starting point, from which I build out lineups using game theory and roster construction concepts with the mindset being to find the best plays with big ceilings. Low ownership is a bonus, but not a must. 

Quarterback::

• Trevor Lawrence – Jaguars double stacks with Lawrence plus two of Brian Thomas Jr., Travis Hunter, and Brenton Strange will be a staple of my lineups this week. I also like the idea of including Etienne with one of the WRs because of his ability in the receiving game.
• Jayden Daniels – We have plenty of salary this week and Daniels is the only one of the “Big 4” QBs on the slate. Sometimes it is that simple.
• Kyler Murray – Initially, I did not have Murray on this list, but then I did the other positions. If I am high on Conner, MHJ, and McBride, then it seems only logical that Murray should also be in some of my lineups.
• Joe Burrow – The Bengals have an elite combination of a very poor defense and an elite passing game. Their offensive line is a concern, but this is one of the only weeks where you can comfortably fit in a “Burrow Double” with Chase and Higgins.
• Salary Savers: Daniel Jones, Brock Purdy, Michael Penix Jr. 

Running Back::

• Jahmyr Gibbs –  Gibbs is arguably the best running back in the league and is fully healthy and fresh in a huge game for Week 1. I expect the Lions new offensive coordinator to ride his best player. In a week where we can easily afford Gibbs and he is projecting for single-digit ownership, that is enough for me.
• Ashton Jeanty – He is wildly mispriced for his role and talent. The matchup isn’t great, but if it was, then he would just be 40% owned. Don’t overthink it. We probably won’t get this salary again for a few years.
• Jonathan Taylor – JT ended 2024 on a heater and has been saved from the Anthony Richardson experience to start 2025. He should have a massive workload in a good matchup and carries a middling salary for his ceiling.
• Bijan Robinson – Another “don’t overthink it” guy, Bijan is the engine of this offense and provides both a high floor and ceiling. There are some concerns about the loss of the Falcons best offensive lineman, but if they can’t run, then I would just expect his receiving volume to rise as a result. We can afford him, so play him.
• Chase Brown – Should start the year with the massive workhorse role he ended 2024 with. Matchup isn’t the best (Cleveland’s defense should at least start out the year playing well), but the salary is way off here relative to Brown’s floor/ceiling combination.
• James Conner – The “concerns” around Conner are about durability over the course of the season. For this week, he should have his normal bell cow role in what appears likely to be an above-average matchup.
• **Christian McCaffrey** – I may or may not end up playing CMC, depending on the reports around his status/health after being limited in Thursday’s practice (Editor’s note: CMC did not practice on Friday but said his injury was “nothing serious”. Your guess is as good as ours here.) There is a chance he is fine and the concern created by him showing up on the injury report just gives us a nice ownership discount.

Wide Reciever::

Mike Johnson (MJohnson86) has racked up nearly $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

This article is specifically designed to give you some ideas on ways that we can use strategy to jump ahead of the field on FanDuel. Touchdowns play an even bigger role on FanDuel than on Draftkings because receptions are only worth half a point. Touchdowns used to be an even bigger deal before they added bonuses for yardage totals, but it’s still something we need to focus on because of the reception difference and how they price their players. Touchdowns have a high degree of variance, and since they carry so much weight on FanDuel, this article will focus on ways each week that we can leverage that variance to jump ahead of the field when things don’t go exactly as expected, as far as who crosses the imaginary line while holding the football.

Bijan Robinson + Jahmyr Gibbs

• Sometimes the correct answer is right in front of us. It is Week 1, and as you will hear a million times in content around the industry, “pricing is loose!” It is also very possible, if not likely, that these two are the best running backs in the league. Bijan will carry some ownership, but Gibbs is likely to be very low owned. Most people who choose to play Gibbs will probably do so as a “pivot” off Bijan, while very few will pair the two together. It isn’t hard to find the salary, and these two leading the slate in scoring would surprise no one.

Bo Nix + Marvin Mims Jr. + Broncos Defense

Maximus (Steve Kleisath) is a Fanduel focused player who specializes in smaller-field contests under 1,000 entries

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Welcome to my inaugural article!

Week 1 is always unique as there is value everywhere, as both sites offer soft pricing on players in the contests to draw as many people in as possible to fill their big “lottery” style, large field contests to start the season. This is the one week where you may find yourself with salary left over still after constructing a balanced team.

Fanduel is offering a “No Sweat” Sunday Million contest for $5 per entry up to 150 teams, where all entries that do not make the minimum cash line get their entry fees returned as a credit to continue playing on the site. You can’t beat high reward and no risk.

Let’s dig into some positions and spots I am gravitating towards as I transition out of drafting Best Ball teams and into the weekly grind of DFS…

QB

Drake Maye – $6,600

The third overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Drake Maye enters his second year with the New England Patriots under new head coach and former Patriots hero Mike Vrabel as well as offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. Maye should have a better offensive line to operate behind, as the Patriots addressed their area of weakness by selecting Will Campbell 4th overall in the NFL Draft and adding multiple free agent signings. New England also added dynamic RB TreVeyon Henderson and free agent WR Stefon Diggs. The Patriots are a home favorite in Week 1 with a healthy 23.5 team total, and Maye is a dual-threat QB with rushing ability, which is another aspect that is ideal on FanDuel.

RB

WR

Ricky Pearsall – $5,300

The 49ers are coming off a disappointing season, which was in part due to a litany of injuries. That beat has continued through training camp and the preseason this year. On the flip side, they have a much easier schedule on paper this season as a result of last season’s struggles, a healthy CMC and George Kittle, and Kyle Shanahan still at the helm. The WR room will be without Brandon Aiyuk (knee) and Demarcus Robinson (suspension), while Jauan Jennings (calf/contract) is also a question mark. This makes Ricky Pearsall, who has benefitted from getting the most reps with Brock Purdy the last few weeks, the de facto WR1 and leaves him criminally underpriced for his role and target potential in this offense for the foreseeable future.

TE

Brenton Strange – $5,000

With Evan Engram leaving for the Denver Broncos and no real competition behind him, Brenton Strange sets up for a productive season under new head coach Liam Coen. Strange should be on the field nearly every snap, which makes him a steal at his price in what should be a bounce back season for Trevor Lawrence. There is sneaky shootout potential in this game against a Panthers team with an improved QB of their own and a defense that still has a lot of questions.

Tony focuses his DFS play on FanDuel single-entry and 3-max contests. He thrives in unique formats and positional twists, always looking for hidden edges that others overlook

This article is designed to complement Mike’s weekly Fanduel Player Grid and other OWS Fanduel scroll content by giving you my view on the slate from my perspective as a Fanduel player who focuses on smaller-field, SE/3-max types of tournaments. My usual process is to build a handful of unique lineups for these types of contests each slate and a majority of my weekly DFS bankroll is dedicated to them.

As you will see as you go through the article, based on the week at hand, I find what I think is the critical starting point I want to use for my rosters. This could be a certain game environment, a specific position or positional dynamics, extreme chalk pieces, or low-owned stacks that I am interested in. Each week is unique, so the “Starting Point” for each week will be dynamic and the rest of my thoughts will build from there, helping you see how I am building my lineups and allowing you to form your own thoughts.

Starting Point

• The incredibly soft pricing overall and number of underpriced players (especially pass catchers) on this Fanduel main slate is my first thought to consider as I start to build my main SE/3-Max lineups for this week.
  • Pricing has been out for a month, there have been injuries, trades, and roster cutdowns since then, and more players than usual appear significantly underpriced based on their assumed role/usage. It is especially exciting that many of these are highly drafted rookies or young veteran players who appear to be stepping into prominent roles in solid offenses.
  • While there appears to be value all over the place, there are only two QBs (Jayden Daniels, Joe Burrow) and eight skill players priced above $8,000 this week to spend all of the theoretical “savings” on. You can quickly build Burrow-Ja’Marr Chase-Tee Higgins lineups (the most expensive single-team stack possible on this slate) with five other reasonable players and a non-min-priced D/ST around them without needing to think too hard or by playing an iffy min-priced punt player. Everyone is going to like the Fanduel lineups they build for Week 1.

When considering contest selection in DFS, there are a couple of prerequisites to consider:

Pre-Req #1: What is your bankroll? For the week, for the season, etc. As a best practice, I’d recommend you cap your weekly exposure to 10% of your season bankroll. For example, if you’ve got $2,500 you’re willing to put into play over the course of the NFL season, I would shoot for $150 -$250 in play each week. Any more than that and you are at risk of going broke or having your play change to a more cautious approach/style. Playing with fear, aka not to lose, is a detrimental mindset, and will likely hinder you from a winning lineup.

Pre-Req #2: What is your goal for the season? Are you playing for fun? Trying to grind out a profit? Trying to hit a big score or have a life-changing win? Being honest with yourself and setting a realistic goal should determine the types of contests you enter.

I want to start by saying that DFS is hard, so much so that a vast majority of players, (probably around 80-90%), are lifetime losers. In order to combat the turnover of players going broke, sites like FanDuel and DraftKings have large advertising budgets to continue to attract new players. One of their key marketing strategies is advertising the ability to turn $20 (or even $5 this week) into $1 million, with their weekly Milly Maker contest. However, in order to win a tournament like the Milly Maker, you have to beat a full city’s worth of entrants, hence why these types of tournaments are referred to as “lottos”, as it’s essentially like playing the lottery. For point of reference, DraftKings’ flagship contest for Week 1, a $5 Milly Maker, will have over 832,000 rosters if it fills. To put that in perspective, that would be just slightly smaller than the population of New Orleans, the 50th-largest city in the US as of 2025!

With that in mind, why make it even more difficult on yourself to be a winning player by playing poorly structured contests? When sorted by prize pool, almost all of the larger-field contests on DraftKings for week 1 have very top-heavy structures, which essentially means, it will take a top .1%, (not 1% but 0.1%) finish to return a strong ROI on your entries. My advice is to avoid those type of contests. Below I’ll outline what you should be looking for and the tournaments to consider at different buy in levels.

So, what should we look for when choosing a contest?

Whether you are playing for fun or to grind out a profit, my recommendation is to seek out contests with the flattest payout structures. Ideally, no more than one eighth (12.5%) of the total prize pool goes to first place. The best GPPs (guaranteed prize pool contests) for sustainability as a player, are structured with 10% to first and 1% of the total prize pool (a tenth of first) awarded to 10th place. Unless there is a decent amount of overlay, I would highly advise against playing in contests like the Milly Maker, where 25% of the prize pool, or even 40% in the $100 Milly Maker in Week 1, goes to first place. It’s unsustainable to play in those types of contests week in and week out, and a leading cause to why many players end up losing players.

Looking at Week 1, what DraftKings contests would I consider / play in?

Lower stakes ::

Weekly exposure: Up to $50

Contests to consider: