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

OWS Fam!!!

Welcome to Week 10! The officially unofficial start of the second half of the NFL season. 

With an 18-game schedule, the NFL season is a grind. Other than the actual playing of the games (kind of big difference…), DFS is no different.

Just like each week in the NFL could write its own story, each of you could likely write chapters about each week of your daily fantasy slates. You could write about how you prepared, built, and deployed lineups into your contests, and how you rode the waves over a few hours. You could tell tales of your wins or your ‘what could have beens’. 

Going further, these chapters would encompass narratives around each NFL game within a given week. “I expected X to happen…and then Y happened instead”…or “I saw the field was going a certain way, and I zagged the other way instead”…or, the best, “I identified what was likeliest to happen, and leaned into this in my own unique way.”

Looking back at any slate in hindsight can be an exciting or painful exercise. Stating the obvious, but when you do reflect, it’s always interesting to see where your thoughts lined up pre-slate, whether those thoughts were popular or even grounded, and of course, how the results played out. This is why DFS is a game of human psychology, as much as it’s a game of skill, and a game of chance. Each week presents a unique blend, where we are all vying to find the right ingredients. We will rarely be perfect, which is why playing single entry/3-max can be frustrating. But we won’t be wrong all the time either.

There’s a popular saying: Life is a journey, not a destination. With each week and each new slate, remember to grow and try new things. Remember that using the past week(s) to predict the next one is lazy, and remember to separate yourself from the outcomes. Whether you binked, got close, or didn’t cash a single entry last week, the important thing is we are back! 

Bring that same energy this week. With the trade deadline passing, we have some new faces in new places, along with the possible returns of injured stars. Excitement abounds! Let’s dive in.

Week 10 :: Angles

A manageable 10-game slate returns this week, with the Raiders, Browns, Packers, and Seahawks resting up, and the NFL (kindly) sending the Giants and Panthers to Munich, Germany. We’re getting later into the season now, so the primetime island games will get a bit more interesting with the NFL deciding to flex a few. This week the Bengals and Ravens will play on Thursday night, Sunday night is the Lions and Texans, and Monday night features the Dolphins and Rams. This may be the biggest impact to the player pool on the Sunday Main Slate since Week 1. But hey, we may get Christian McCaffrey back this week!

Before going into the slate here, I want to highlight why we start the week at the top. There are really two kinds of high confidence or “+EV” plays if we look at either the quarterback position (where we can only play one) or stacking an offense. The QB is either cheap (i.e. high point-per-dollar outcome) or the QB has a compelling implied team total. Over the long haul, committing to playing QBs under either of these scenarios will make you the most money. It’s not to say that we can’t see a team implied to score 18 put up more than 28 points, it’s just that it won’t happen enough, or you won’t be on the spot when it does line up to make you profit. 

Simply looking at Week 9 is a great example of this, where Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, and Geno Smith were the top three QB scorers on DK. All three of these QBs had a favorable implied team total (24+ points) and soft matchups. Additionally, in terms of a tournament-winning pace, we also had rosters built around cheap guys like Daniel Jones (fourth-best QB last week) and Justin Herbert, who performed above expectations and put your lineups right there with your competition. I could go into other previous weeks, but the point remains…don’t swim upstream. Let the data show us the paths and then use your mind to navigate to where you want to go… 

The Cream Should Rise (SF, BUF)

I love when I get a chance to look at The Workbook before writing the Angles email, because it’s such a simple tool that gives such powerful results. And whenever we get the highest Vegas total game in sync as the top game environment in The Workbook, it’s probably worth paying attention to.

That game this week is the 49ers (28.25) at the Buccaneers (22.25). The obvious factor here in play is the rest advantage. San Francisco just had its bye week, while the Bucs lost an overtime thriller in Kansas City on Monday night. CMC could return, while Deebo Samuel and George Kittle should be past their nagging injuries/illnesses, Jauan Jennings should be back in the lineup, and Ricky Pearsall should continue to get more integrated into the game plan. And now you know what it feels like to be Kyle Shanahan this week. The 28.25 implied total is the highest on the slate. Tampa Bay will still be down Mike Evans but has formed a nice running back committee and will want to play through them. But their defense has still yielded 30, 31, 41, 27, and 36 points in the last five weeks. Pricing aside, getting Brock Purdy and the Niners right in this game seems critical.

It seems like the Colts (22) will stick with Joe Flacco as they host the Bills, who are projected to score 26 points this week on the road. The public will be conflicted with what to expect from Flacco in this game after his poor performance in a loss on Sunday night. Remember, the Vikings defense ranks first in pressure rate in the NFL, while Buffalo is 24th. Even better, the Vikings rank first in blitz rate, while Buffalo ranks 31st. Flacco quite literally could not ask for a more different matchup this week. On the other side of this game, Josh Allen should have no problem moving the ball on Indianapolis and its bottom-five unit in terms of total yards allowed.

The Lookalikes (PHI, ATL, MIN, KC)

After the 49ers and Bills, the Eagles, Falcons, Vikings, and Chiefs are all hovering around 25 expected points. Dak Prescott’s injury brings down the overall game environment, but the Eagles are now a team committed to the run (with a banged up A.J. Brown) matching up with Dallas, who has a hard time stopping the run. Hurts has really gotten going the last few weeks, but maybe this is the week Saquon gets more turns at the goal line? // Atlanta is rolling into New Orleans where a home game and a new head coach may give the Saints the bump they need. We’ll have to see if Drake London plays, but the Falcons are feeling good at the moment after rolling through the Cowboys last week.

Coming off a Sunday night win, Minnesota is traveling to Jacksonville with a questionable Trevor Lawrence and questionable team motivation for the Jaguars. Nobody has stopped Justin Jefferson yet this season, and that likely won’t change against a Jags team that ranks 31st in passing yards allowed // And finally, the Chiefs will look to continue their historic run (haven’t lost a game since Christmas 2023) against the Broncos at home. Last season, the Chiefs scored nine and 19 points in their two games against Denver, one of which was a loss. Before that loss, the Broncos had not beaten KC since 2015. They play in the same division. Mahomes and DeAndre Hopkins may be more popular than they should be this week, but the KC train isn’t showing many signs of slowing down right now.

Worthy, Not Worthy, and Noteworthy

The Commanders (24) and Steelers (21) match up in another decent game expectation, with the total sitting at 45 points. Jayden Daniels has seen better matchups than the Pittsburgh defense coming off a week of rest, but they still play fast (highest no-huddle rate on the season). You have to believe in Russell Wilson to think this game can take off, but it won’t garner much attention with the actually good Steelers defense and the coming-on-of-late Commanders defense.

The Jets (23) and Cardinals (23) sit at nearly a pick’em and is a game already drawing sneaky discussion. The Jets are condensed in their approach on offense, with Davante Adams now in town and Mike Williams out of town (and Allen Lazard on IR). The Cardinals looked better than expected at home vs. the Bears last week. There will always be something about the dome in Arizona that seems inviting for DFS players, but remember this is still Aaron Rodgers at the line of scrimmage. 

We didn’t mention the Titans // Chargers or Patriots // Bears because, well…but if you want to get frisky, go right ahead. From the eight discussed above, there is always the case to flip the game on its head. Those are the angles after all, right?! 

Could the Bucs show up as the sharper team on shorter rest, and the Niners are slow to integrate CMC (if he even plays)?

Could the Colts choose a pass-heavy game plan against a passive defense and march the field time and time again with Flacco?
What will this new version of the Saints look like under Darren Rizzi, who wants to change everything?

And what about Jacksonville, potentially led by former Pro Bowler Mac Jones, or Denver playing at a fast pace against a tired Chiefs team, pulling an upset?

As always, there are many lanes to explore. And we’ll do just that in depth on the site this weekend. We’re looking forward to seeing you on the site, in Discord, and at the top of the leaderboards in Week 10!

~Larejo

Majesstik is one of the most respected Slate Breakdown artists in DFS

Pro Tip: For optimal viewing, use the “download” button

Learn how to Use The Workbook

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

NINE players on the Week 10 main slate are expected to garner 20% or more ownership, with five of them being running backs, one defense (lolz), and one cheap tight end (lolz). Josh Downs is also knocking on the door, and I expect him to jump up into the 20%+ category come Sunday morning. That is a whole lot of certainty for a slate that is probably the most uncertain all season. Think about the ramifications of those ownership levels. One-third of the field is certain that Aaron Jones, a player that has hit a 3x multiplier once in eight games, let alone a GPP-viable 4x multiplier (also once, from the same game), is the top play on the slate. Because what, he is maybe $300 underpriced relative to his role and the matchup. A single defense is currently projected to be on 25% of rosters in play this weekend. WHAT? A banged-up Deebo Samuel, who has not seen more than seven targets since Week 2, is projected to be on 20%+ of rosters in play in a game where the 49ers get back Christian McCaffrey. Is a $3,100 tight end with three games all season over three targets where we want to place our money?

The field is spending up at running back, which has been a shift in the meta after numerous years where the goal was to spend as little as possible at the position following the age of the workhorse – and almost every running back is priced up relative to their median expectation. With low game totals and tight pricing with no relative value, we can start to see fairly quickly how Will Dissly and the Chicago defense and Ladd McConkey start to garner ownership. Ownership always congregates, but good Lord, not like this.

As we said earlier, this is the slate of uncertainty. It is what defines it, shapes it, and influences our decisions. So, instead of gravitating towards the players who project slightly better than those around them, stick to the basics, attack some game environments (or teams), find value in ways the field is not (more on this below), and get comfortable being uncomfortable!

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.

AARON JONES

NEITHER EXPANSIVE NOR RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Aaron Jones has hit a 3x multiplier on his Week 10 salary once and a 4x multiplier once (same game) through eight games played. Jones projects for the second highest point-per-dollar median on the slate, which is likely what is driving his ownership here.

ALVIN KAMARA

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. I was really hoping Jamaal Williams came back this week so we could watch 30% of the field play Kamara, but alas, Kamara is the only back of note on the roster yet again. Kamara carries a solid expectation of 18-22 carries and has seen seven or more targets in six consecutive games.

BEARS D/ST

EXPANSIVE CHALK. I get it, the Bears rank seventh on the slate in pressure rate while the Patriots have ceded the highest pressure rate in the league. I personally refuse to play any defense at ungodly ownership, particularly so when said defense contributes so heavily to the chalk roster construction.

DEEBO SAMUEL

NEITHER EXPANSIVE NOR RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Deebo is clearly not fully healthy after failing to log a full practice in the week coming off the team’s bye. He has also seen no more than seven targets in every game since Week 2. Oh yeah, and some dude by the name of Christian McCaffrey is back this week. I personally don’t see this one.

D’ANDRE SWIFT

NEITHER EXPANSIVE NOR RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Swift has been as consistent as they come of late. That said, you have to go all the way back to his rookie season to find a game in which he went for 100 yards and multiple scores. The state of this slate is such that he doesn’t necessarily need that level of production to be viable, but it’s an interesting data point, nonetheless. I believe Swift’s inflated ownership levels to be highly influenced by the ownership on his defense.

WILL DISSLY

EXPANSIVE CHALK. Come on, guys.

BREECE HALL

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Hall has seen his borderline workhorse status ebb and flow, but he currently appears to be back in a demi-workhorse role. That said, he still has only one game all season over 22 running back opportunities.

JAMES CONNER

NEITHER EXPANSIVE NOR RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Conner is the steady engine that could this season, but he faces an uphill battle each week to return a usable GPP score. He has a high hit rate of 3x on his Week 10 salary (four of nine), but he has yet to return a 4x multiplier, has yet to score multiple touchdowns in a game, and has just one game with more than three receptions.

LADD MCCONKEY

NEITHER EXPANSIVE NOR RESTRICTIVE CHALK. McConkey is highly likely to see six to eight targets and highly unlikely to see many more than that range on a weekly basis. On a modest 9.3 aDOT, that is a mighty fine needle to thread for GPP upside.

CHALK BUILD::

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

---

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

---

The Grid ::

Bottom-Up Build

:: covered in-depth 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

:: a new category for 2024! — these are 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

---

Sunday Morning Update

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 the One Week Season podcast feed).

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

Russell Wilson
Saquon Barkley
Najee Harris
Calvin Austin
Noah Brown
Rakim Jarrett
Hunter Henry
Jordan Addison
Bears

Join The Bottom-Up Build Contest On DraftKings!

Buy-In:

Free

Rules:

Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!

Prizes:

1st Place = 150 Edge Points + Rare Blue Name Tag in Discord
2nd Place = 75 Edge Points
3rd Place = 40 Edge Points

*1 Edge Point = $1 in DFS courses on OWS

<< Join Here >>

*must use an OWS avatar (found on your profile page) to be eligible to win

---

Blue Chips

None.

But…

I recommend starting here ::

From my first DFS Interpretations writeup of the week ::

• There are weeks in DFS when it is difficult to narrow down your player pool because there is just so much to like. Last week was a good example of this, and we saw this play out in the games, as 30-point scores were being posted left and right. And then, there are weeks in DFS when it is difficult to narrow down your player pool because there really isn’t much to like. Nothing really separates from the pack, so while everything worth considering is “just sort of average,” we also know that someone will win tourneys that week; and with nothing really standing out from anything else, it can become easy to just mix-and-match everything worth any consideration. From my perspective, this week lands in that second category.
• I’ll use the Angles Podcast this week to dive a bit more deeply into “why” things are setting up this way, but the end result I’m currently reaching is that the research (i.e., my Interpretations prep and writeups) are, generally speaking, not pointing me too strongly toward any specific direction. Said differently :: not a lot is standing out to me in tourneys this week.
• With that in mind, I’m going to attack my DFS Interpretations in the same way I always do: highlighting the plays that can have a strong case made for them as “potential tourney-winners,” and mostly leaving alone fringe plays that might require something fluky or lucky happening in order to contribute to a tourney win. At the same time, I want to emphasize that this is a unique type of week, in which it’s more likely than normal that “plays that might require something fluky or lucky happening in order to contribute to a tourney win” will actually, in fact, end up contributing to tourney wins.
• While I don’t want to waste your time in DFS Interpretations highlighting every play that “could have a fluky path to providing a tourney win,” I do want to use my later-week content (Friday podcasts // Player Grid // Player Grid Update) to explore the unique bets I might be isolating myself. I’ll also note that I would expect my Player Grid Update (usually posted around 4/5 AM Eastern on Sunday mornings) to hold more weight than normal this week, as Friday night and Saturday will be days on which I’ll be playing around with the slate more creatively — asking “what if” questions.
• Summing all of this up :: the path to a first-place finish this week is likely to be less logical/predictable than normal. Our edge this week is probably not “our ability to be better than the field at predicting what will happen,” but is instead likely to lean more toward our ability to apply game theory // strategy, or to embrace uncertainty in search of ceiling. My DFS Interpretations and initial Player Grid will still lean into logic/research in the same way they always do; but I also think some level of creativity and imagination will be required to win a tourney this week, and I’ll pass along my own creative/imaginative pathways/approaches as they develop through the weekend. (And in the meantime :: I STRONGLY encourage you to use the research/logic-based content available to you to build a foundational understanding of this slate, and to use this foundation as a springboard to develop some creative/imaginative thoughts of your own.)

In summary :: my Player Grid, right now, is primarily filled up with the players who look good to me from the research/logic. If creativity leads me down some unexpected paths, I’ll let you know in my Sunday Morning Update what I’m chasing. My Sunday Morning Update is usually posted around 4/5 AM Eastern, and you can always check the OWS Content channel on Discord for updates when new content (including the Player Grid Update) is posted.

“Light Blue” Chips

---

Build-Arounds

---

Building Blocks

“Tennessee Lite”

Russell Wilson + Najee Harris + George Pickens

Story:

“Steelers do it”

Why It Works:

Russ // Najee // Pickens is a “lite” version of the old Tannehill // King Henry // A.J. Brown setup Arthur Smith developed in Tennessee :: players with similar skill sets, but (at least in the case of Najee // Pickens) without quite the same individual ceiling. “Lite” is okay, however, when that Tennessee stack found its way to 90-100+ DK points several times in a season. This is not “the best spot” for this trio to hit; but it’s also not an awful spot for it, and I feel comfortable saying it’s relatively likely we get at least one game this year in which these three combine for 75+. If it comes this week, at no ownership, on a slate that probably won’t produce many high-end scores, it’ll be smooth sailing to a tourney win.

How It Works:

With how unique this stack will be, and with the high-end upside it has, I don’t see the need to get too terribly/intentionally different with other spots on a roster with this block. That said :: chalk is generally shaky this week, so it’s also totally fine to stay off-the-board on Tennessee Lite builds.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:

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

“67.4”

---

Bink Machine

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

Wrapping My Head Around…

I’m still trying to wrap my head around strategies for this unique slate (or, I should say: I’m still trying to discern how I’ll go about building out the strategies I want to build out), which has me not yet exploring any unique Bink Machine rules. Rather than forcing something in here, then, I’ll skip this section this week; but as always, Bink Machine users will be able to see all my rules when I publish them around 4/5 AM Eastern on Sunday.

Bonuses

---

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 ::

Brock Purdy || Russell Wilson || Josh Allen || Jalen Hurts || Baker Mayfield || Sam Darnold || Justin Herbert

RB ::

---

A Wrap ::

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

-JM

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

---

Welcome back to my (Mjohnson86) Player Grid. I am changing up the format of my Player Grid this year to be more direct about the players I like at each position and keep myself from casting too wide of a net. We have plenty of strategy talk and full game write-ups on every game here at OWS, this year I’m going to use this article to give direct answers on who I think the best tournament plays are each week. Also, note that just because a player isn’t on here doesn’t mean they are a bad play, I’m just intentionally trying to limit the players I list to about 3 QBs, 5 to 7 RBs, 6 to 8 WRs, and 2 or 3 TEs and that means that some plays don’t make the cut – we can’t play everyone. Feel free to drop me feedback in Discord or on Twitter about the new format and if you like this better or last year’s. Enjoy!!

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. 

(Side note:: You’ll notice at the bottom of this article that Fanduel will have its own Player Grid this year)

Draftkings Player Grid

Quarterback ::

• Brock Purdy – The return of CMC brings this 49ers offense back to the forefront of teams we want to build around and they play a Bucs team this week that has given up 33 points per game over the last five weeks. Elite weapons and matchup.
• Josh Allen – Usually I don’t like spending up for quarterback on Draftkings, but the situation this week with the Bills makes sense to me. The Bills have some WR values that have opened up which makes putting Allen in your lineup much easier.
• Patrick Mahomes – Mahomes has been a guy that I’ve been ignoring for a while as his price was way above his expectations. This week he has his lowest salary in quite some time and faces a Broncos defense that looks good on paper but was just shredded by the Ravens. Mahomes clearly benefited from the addition of DeAndre Hopkins and there are now clear stacking options as well.
• Salary Savers: Justin Herbert, Caleb Williams, Joe Flacco

Running Back :: 

• Saquon Barkley – The Eagles are running the ball and doing it well. They face a porous Dallas run defense and are in a great spot to rack up the points. I expect Philly to score 4 or 5 TDs in this spot and Saquon can soak up 2 or 3 of those easily.
• Alvin Kamara – The engine of the Saints offense, Kamara had 38 opportunities last week and has a great chance to touch the ball 30 times again this week against a not terrible, but very generous Falcons defense.
• Bijan Robinson – On the other side of the Saints game, Bijan continues to somewhat quietly have a terrific season. He has scored 20+ DK points in 4 straight games and his usage tells us an eruption is coming at some point.
• Breece Hall – The Jets offense has suddenly become very condensed and Hall is one of a trio of Jets that combine for roughly 75% of the team’s offense. High volume for an elite talent will pay off at some point.
• D’Andre Swift – Swift has opportunity counts of 22, 18, 21, 23, and 23 over the last five games. He is a talented player who can break long runs and catch passes and he has a great matchup against the Patriots.
• James Conner – Conner has had 100 rushing yards or a touchdown in six of nine games this season and has a matchup with a relatively mediocre Jets run defense in a game with a quietly high total.
• Salary Savers: Austin Ekeler, Jaylen Warren, Tyler Allgeier, Tyjae Spears

Wide Receiver :: 

---

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

The Obstacle Is the Way

Marcus Aurelius lived almost 2,000 years ago so I’m 90% sure he never played DFS. I mean, they may have rostered some contrarian Green Team chariot racers at the Circus Maximus but those scrolls, much like modern-day FanDuel results, are lost forever. 

His famous quote about how frustration can be the catalyst for achievement was a wise one. This brings us to the Week 10 slate on DraftKings. This week will challenge us. We’ll be forced to click submit on some rosters that are less attractive than the Mona Lisa (overrated, right?), but if we can embrace the chaos and resist the paths of least resistance, we can emerge victorious. 

Are you not entertained?!

These are contrarian moves I’ll be mixing into my rosters to differentiate from the masses. Sometimes we’ll miss, but the ones that do hit will help us lap the field.

Secondary Core-Relations

We’re always hunting for those high-ceiling combinations to add to our existing game stacks. It’s better to aim at getting four things right instead of trying to hit a nine-way parlay. I’ll lean on a handful of core secondary stacks that will be finessed into lineups whenever feasible.

George Pickens/Terry McLaurin

JM made a great point on the Winner Circle podcast this week about how two players from the same game don’t always correlate. That’s why, in this space, I focus on players who could be the catalysts if a game erupts.

Take McLaurin, for example. His game log is filled with solid-but-not-spectacular performances — good enough to stay on your radar but never quite a slate-breaker. A deeper dive shows he’s either racking up catches and yards or scoring touchdowns, but he hasn’t put both together in the same game.

If this matchup turns into a shootout, it might be sparked by Russell Wilson connecting deep with Pickens (6% pOWN), forcing Jayden Daniels and McLaurin to respond. At just 1.1% projected ownership, I’m more than willing to take a few shots and see if this is the week McLaurin finally puts it all together.

*If salary savings are what you’re looking for, try Calvin Austin ($3500 at 1.7% pOWN) instead of Pickens.

Evan Engram/Justin Jefferson

It’s unlikely that Justin Jefferson sees enough volume to post a must-have score unless the Jaguars offense can keep pace. The Vikings boast a formidable defense and aren’t shy about sending the house to speed up the quarterback’s decision-making process. This scenario suggests that Mac Jones, with his limited arm strength, may lean on his tight end, Evan Engram, to make plays. At $5,300, Engram serves as a price pivot in the flex position, offering an alternative to DeAndre Hopkins, who is projected to be three times as owned and is facing Denver with Pat Surtain in shadow coverage. I’m also interested in Brian Thomas and Parker Washington, as both are low-owned and possess the potential to deliver 4x+ value. However, I’m banking on Mac’s Hunter Henry-esque attraction to Engram the most.

Engram is projected for just 4.4% ownership, while Jefferson’s hefty price tag—on a slate starving for reliable cheap options—has him sitting in the 8-9% range.

LOWER-OWNED TREASURES

Running Back

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

The Board

• Week 10 has only one top-tier game as SF/TB (50.5) stands above the rest in projected scoring.
• There is a robust six-game middle tier in ATL/NO (46.5), BUF/IND (46.5), MIN/JAX (43), PIT/WAS (45), NYJ/AZ (46.5), and PHL/Dal (43.5), all of which have a wide range of possible outcomes.
• Three games round out the bottom tier in DEN/KC (41.5), NE/CHI (38.5), and TEN/LAC (39). All three have less than exciting game environments.

Pawn – WR Mack Hollins ($3,300)

There isn’t much value on this slate. When scouring the player list below $4,000, I was shocked at just how barren the landscape is this week. Hollins (rightfully) doesn’t sound very exciting. He saw a combined three targets between Weeks 6-8, yikes. So why am I recommending him? Injuries. Keon Coleman is set to miss this game and Amari Cooper ($5,800) looks truly questionable. Without those two, Hollins targets spiked last week (if we can call 5 targets a spike). He’s on the field a lot even without injuries and he’s been used as a red zone target. BUF/IND has one of the highest totals of the week, which gives hope that Hollins can sneak into the end zone. It’s tough to love the sight of Hollins in your lineup but if you’re looking for value, he’s your guy. Curtis Samuel ($3,300) is the same price and would also benefit from both Coleman/Cooper sitting out. If they’re both out, you can make a similar argument for Samuel, that I made for Hollins, without the locked-in playing time but with more of a chance to get the ball when he’s on the field.

Knight – WR DeAndre Hopkins ($5,300)

Hopkins was on the field for 60% of the snaps last week and saw nine targets. He turned those into an 8/86/2 line, and because it happened on Monday night his price didn’t move. Had that game been Sunday, it would have been hard to see Hopkins being priced below $6,000, even in a less than ideal matchup. Patrick Mahomes ($6,600) has not been the fantasy asset that he’s been in years past, but he’s still a great real life football player and by far the best quarterback Hopkins has ever had throwing him the ball. Hopkins is past his prime but he’s still good enough and his skill set fits well into the “Rashee Rice” role. That role is so valuable that even a washed-up JuJu Smith-Schuster managed to have a 23-point DK game. The matchup is difficult, but I’ll take my chances against the Broncos D for a guy who could see 8-10 targets from the best QB in the league for a cheap price. I’m not a huge fan of this game, which means I’ll mostly use Hopkins as a one-off to save salary on lineups that focus their main stacks elsewhere.

Bishop – QB Aaron Rodgers ($5,700)

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 10 Topics

1. A Tradition Unlike Any Other

2. Changing Tides

3. Running Back Dilemma

4. Value Plays

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

---

1. What makes this particular slate particularly unique?

The Question ::

A weekly staple of The Oracle, what makes this slate particularly unique?

The Answers ::

JM >>

I covered this at the top of the Player Grid and throughout the Angles Pod, but to summarize it here :: the most unique component of this slate, for me, is that the chalk pretty directly reflects the player pool I landed on in my bubble…and yet, “the player pool I landed on in my bubble” is far less confident/robust that my player pool typically is. Said differently :: I think the chalk is “sharp,” in terms of “being among the strongest on-paper plays on the slate,” but I also think the chalk is more fragile than normal. It will succeed less often (in many cases, far less often) than typical “sharp chalk” would; and if a lot of these plays were on a better-looking slate, they wouldn’t be drawing much attention at all. This is already the rare week, then, in which I actually agree with most of the chalk. It’s also, however, a week in which that won’t necessarily mean I’ll be playing a ton of that chalk, as it’s “likelier than normal” that “attacking away from the top handful of on-paper plays” proves to be the most +EV way to build.

Xandamere >>

It looks likely to be a lower-scoring slate than we’re used to seeing. There are only 10 games and just 4 teams are projected for 25+ points…and 3 of those are under 26. Most of those teams are also significant favorites (PHI -7.5 over DAL, SF -6.5 over TB, MIN -7 over JAX, BUF -3.5 over IND). So, stacking game environments is less likely to be viable this week – which is fine with me, I’m generally on board the “game stacking is viable and can be +EV but doesn’t need to be forced” train. But, since so much of the field is locked into using “every roster starts with a QB, 1-2 of their pass catchers, and a bring back from the other team,” I think that gives us an edge if we can identify good teams to target for points that don’t necessarily need a bringback from the other side. 

Hilow >>

This slate has thrust us directly back to “Valueless town with poor game totals on top.”  That brings two fundamental truths to the table for Week 10: (1) There are likely to be fewer 25+ scores and fewer 30+ scores on this slate, which makes accounting for those scores paramount, and (2) There are fewer players that can put the slate out of reach at the onesies positions (QB and TE), which brings “value primary stacks” to the forefront of consideration. These will be the two primary tenets that I will be building around this week. 

Mike >>

The nature of this slate is such that we have five teams (MIN, PHI, SF, ATL, and BUF) in great spots to put up a lot of points. However, all of their opponents (JAX, DAL, TB, NO, and IND) are dealing with injuries at QB and/or their skill positions. Considering that all of the teams in the first group have good to great defenses, it creates a situation where it is hard to see any of these game environments taking off when viewed on their own. That being said, across those five games it seems likely that one of them does in fact turn into a high scoring game that becomes the “had to have it” spot on a relatively small main slate. To me, that is the unique aspect of this slate. No games that jump out as clear spots to attack, but with that many on the verge of it one is likely to break through. 

---

2. Changing Tides

The Question ::

We are at the midway point of the season, the trade deadline has passed, some coaches are getting fired (or are on the brink of it), we’ve dealt with many injuries and now are seeing players who have been out weeks or months coming back. Suffice to say, a lot is changing. The deeper we get into the season, the more reliable a lot of our data becomes. We can see who teams are, how they will use players, identify trends, etc. However, all of the dynamics listed in the first sentence also present situations where the “data” becomes somewhat irrelevant as changing situations will often turn teams into something different than what their statistics and trends say.

With that in mind, are there any teams that you are seeing right now who you think the makeup and outlook of who they are – and by extension, what their player usage and game environments will look like – is unlikely to be accurately reflected by the traditional things we look at to evaluate a team or game?

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!

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 and 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 that 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 hope to share some of my insights on the format to help you attack this niche corner of NFL DFS.

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 10 Overview

A three game slate this week, which frankly, I’m not a fan of. I like the three game slates on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the random Saturday in December because of all the Game Theory aspects of the games starting at different times. On the Afternoon Slate where all the games basically start at once, the three games make it feel a little too close to a Showdown situation for my taste. Not that we can’t win on this slate, but the margin for error is lower (particularly in somewhat larger field tournaments) and we need to be close to perfect in order to win. Slates like this make a little more sense to take a swing on a lower projected player, because if they hit a big play or surprise with a higher volume game they can easily become the X-Factor.

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:

StatATL has a math degree and a background as a financial analyst, and has blended an analytical, numbers-driven approach with an “OWS mindset” to rack up over $100,000 in lifetime DFS profit while maintaining low weekly buy-ins

Need more late swap education? Read this free educational article on Late Swap

OUTLOOK

Coming off 12- and 13-game main slates, week 10’s DK contest’s revert back to a smaller 10-gamer, with only three games in the afternoon window. Despite many unappealing/unexciting games, ownership appears to be pooling on a few players and we’ll discuss how we can leverage this knowledge more below.

Important Early Outcomes To Watch:

Aaron Jones – The past two weeks the Jaguars allowed Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs to each rush for over 125 yards as well as score multiple touchdowns. They are likely starting Mac Jones this week with Trevor Lawrence injured and the field is expecting the Vikings to win this game easily. Jones leads the slate in projected ownership at over 30%.

Alvin Kamara – The Saints are going to be severely shorthanded again this week, playing without Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, Cedric Wilson, Kendre Miller and with Jamaal Williams listed as questionable. Last week, Kamara saw 38 (!!) opportunities in the same situation and is projected for another massive workload. Like Aaron Jones, Kamara is also projecting for over 30% ownership.   

Chicago Bears DST – It’s rare we see a defense project for over 25% ownership, but that’s what we have this week with the Bears hosting the Patriots. The Bears have scored double-digit points twice all season, and while DST is tough this week, the position is so volatile that this doesn’t feel like great chalk. 

Slate Breakers – Such as Ja’Marr Chase’s 58.4 DK-point performance on Thursday Night Football. 

Price Range Breakdowns (Late Games):

The Props Insider team has helped the OWS Fam profit over $35,000 the last 2 years!! And the best part…

WE ALL GET TO WIN AT THE SAME TIME!

To get all the bets each week, subscribe with a Week, Month, or Year long Subscription

---

Within the Scroll each week, we will share our early week bets and the thesis behind them. Our hopes are that this article will help the OWS Fam become better prop bettors as we teach you to fish.

Caution: Odds in the prop’s streets move fast, and it is likely these odds will have changed by the time you read this. With that in mind, we have left a “good to” mark to help you decide if the bet is for you.

(Feel free to DM Xandamere or JReasy on Discord with any feedback)

Kareem Hunt (KC) UNDER 1.5 Receptions

Hunt is seeing around 15 routes a game and is being used in the slot/wide very little. Perine has the passing game roll and the addition of Hopkins leaves less short yardage stuff available in regular game scripts. The Chiefs are 7.5 home favorites, putting us in a great spot for the under.

The bet is good to: -120

Justin Jefferson (MIN) UNDER 6.5 Receptions

Right line, wrong odds. This bet will end minus money for the 6.5 or a juiced 5.5 to the over. The Vikings are 4.5 point road favorites vs a team with injuries across their offense. Hock and Addison’s roles are expanding making this look bet look great in all game scripts except the Jags scoring early. With Trevor Lawrence being ruled out, that scenario is a lot less likely.

The bet is good to: -110

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

The feeling comes back once every year. When it does, it’s the same feeling I’ve felt for the last twenty years or so of my life. It’s the feeling of . . . I can predict a perfect bracket. March Madness is a one-of-one. 64 teams playing 64 games over three to four weeks. One game matchups . . . survive and advance. The end of the college basketball season is truly a one-of-a-kind experience for the players, coaches, schools, fans, and alumni. It’s called madness for a reason. And every year, when I stare at a blank bracket I have the same thought: “this is the perfect bracket.” I know the reality is that this will never happen, as it truly never does happen with the probability so infinitely small that’s impossible. But you don’t have to look far for any website offering a substantial prize to the best bracket every year, so perfect or not, if you can get close, you can be rewarded handsomely.

My approach, like many of you, applies logic and randomness. All trying to get the perfect blend of rationality with chaos. But yet, before I set forth on my inputs to how these matchups will turn out, and which teams will continue to advance, I know that sometimes my own preparation just doesn’t matter. I’ve done this so many times in my life that I’ve had years when I filled out a bracket in five minutes, and others where I took five hours, and the output is mostly the same. But every year, when the calendar turns to March again, the feeling comes back to me – the overconfidence, the irrationality. Because in my mind, despite my efforts some years to trust my instincts, my confidence comes from trying to break down each matchup, some real and some hypothetical, to tell the stories that can emerge, to sharpen my predictions with rationality mixed with chaos. Who knows, maybe one of these years it will all come together.

Back in the NFL world, in assessing this easily digestible ten-game slate filled with real matchups, I’m getting that feeling again. I can do this, we can do this, we’re going to go through and attack with a rational approach infused with a little bit of chaos. We know these teams by now, we have a sense of what the public will expect, and we also know tendencies, trends, regressions, and more. So let’s jump in and get the perfect bracket this week!

Colts Stack with Jonathan Taylor and James Cook

Prich has won over $300k the past 3 years and has found an edge in understanding the field biases and more importantly his own biases when building rosters.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” I lived in a college dorm for four years while my wife and I, and eventually our daughter, served as Resident Heads. Beyond the main role of trying to establish community between individuals living in a shared space, we were also responsible for responding to emergencies or activities that upset the communal rules. The rules were not as strict as those I was expected to follow during my Freshman Year at Boston College, but to allow for sleep and studying we had to cut down on noise complaints that were usually associated with parties being held during quiet hours or parties that got too large. During our training, the question was asked, “How do I identify if it’s a party or just students hanging out?” That is when the phrase was uttered, “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a party.” If we didn’t all know intuitively what a party was, we would figure it out pretty quickly.

It is now week 10 of the NFL season and we need to start trusting the obvious indicators that are telling us which teams, players and matchups are good for DFS in 2024 and which ones are not. For some teams and spots (i.e. Dallas) if it looks like a really bad team, it’s okay to finally label that as a bad team. On his weekly “Winner’s Circle” podcast, JM quoted a former DFS genius, Saahil Sud, who said something to the effect of, “It’s DFS so we don’t know exactly what will happen, but we kinda do.” Look at how I started my DFS interpretation of DAL last week with the following paragraph:

It did look and quack like a bad team, and I wanted to first recognize that before trying to add any analysis. Week 10 is the time when we need to start trusting the data and stop trying to capture the remote chances that a team may “snap out of it” or “finally put it all together.” It doesn’t mean that outlier circumstances won’t happen but the people we need to beat at the top of the leaderboards are not taking wild swings trying to hit home runs. They are focusing on the data and what they know, and trying to build the best lineups to take advantage of that data. It’s time to let go of the hopeful biases and dig deeper into what we do know. 

“Are you really winning?”

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, while on DK receptions are worth a full point. Touchdowns used to be an even bigger deal before (this year, FD added bonuses for yardage totals – more on this below), 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.

Week 10

Block Party – JM & Peter Overzet

Searching for Ceiling – Mike Johnson & Hilow

Solo Ship – Squirrel Patrol & JM

DFS LABS DK – Papy & Cheeseman

DFS LABS DK – Statatl & Cheeseman

DFS LABS FD – Mike Johnson & Maximus

DFS LABS DK – Hilow & Cheeseman

Week 10 Look Ahead – STATATL