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

OWS!!!

In searching for inspiration of what to write about this week, I looked back on last season’s Week 12 Angles email. That’s when I found it: not only my inspiration, but something very interesting.

Entering Week 12 last season, the AFC playoff “picture” looked like this: 1) Chiefs, 2) Bills, 3) Steelers, 4) Texans, 5) Chargers, 6) Ravens, and 7) Broncos. Upon completion of the 2024 regular season, the AFC playoff seeding looked like this: 1) Chiefs, 2) Bills, 3) Ravens, 4) Texans, 5) Chargers, 6) Steelers, and 7) Broncos.

They played seven more games between Weeks 12–18 last season, and the same seven teams slated to make the playoffs the Sunday before Thanksgiving actually made the playoffs when it was all wrapped up. The lone exception, of course, was the Ravens and Steelers swapping positions. And you said the NFL isn’t predictable?

On the NFC side at this point last season, five of the seven teams in the picture before Week 12 made the playoffs at the end of the year, as well. If you haven’t guessed (or looked back in your inbox), we talked about the long-term predictability of the season and used the playoff pictures as the proxy in this space in 2024. What’s remarkable to me in looking back is that 12 of the 14 teams continued, over the course of the next seven weeks, to maintain their positions, and the AFC was basically stagnant across the same time period.

That brings us to 2025. Here’s the obvious question: should we expect more turnover from what the standings look like today, or should we expect that we’ll see a similar dynamic to 2024? Well, it depends on A) what the preseason consensus looked like and B) what we think of the current teams leading divisions and conferences.

A quick glance (fun to look at playoff pictures, why not?) gives us the AFC of 1) Broncos, 2) Patriots, 3) Colts, 4) Steelers, 5) Bills, 6) Chargers, and 7) Jaguars. Just outside are the Texans, Chiefs, and Ravens. The NFC right now lays out as 1) Eagles, 2) Rams, 3) Bears, 4) Buccaneers, 5) Seahawks, 6) Packers, and 7) Niners, with the Lions and Panthers knocking on the door.

I’m not going to tell you what you should think about how these standings may change between Week 12 and 18, but I am going to give you confidence that you can predict these things. Where teams finish in the standings becomes way more predictable now than it was back in the preseason, but on the whole, the playoff teams should have been fairly predictable. Each conference has a few “belles of the ball” that have surprised this season (like the Cardinals and Falcons through Week 11 in 2024), and it’s likely we see one or two teams fade. It’s also likely we see more than 10, and possibly even 12 or 13, of these teams finish similarly to where they stand right now.

Season-long — or, in this case, seven-week — stretches of games over the course of what feels like Thanksgiving through Christmas are far more predictable than the game-by-game outcomes each Sunday. However, we’re at the point in the season where the long-term predictions should pull through the short-term ones. For instance, the Ravens and Lions both seem probable to make the playoffs, despite where they currently stand. The sportsbook odds also heavily favor these outcomes. As they prepare for their next few games, keep that in mind (despite what seem like “gimme” wins for these two teams this week). Teams like Patriots, Colts, Jaguars, and Bears may not have been in everyone’s preseason predictions, but since they are here, I think it’s going to be fascinating to overanalyze their next few matchups for the reason that we should expect at least one of them to fall out of current positions.

As you’re searching for tributary outcomes and big-time upsets in the wild this week, keep these thoughts in mind. A lot will change between Weeks 12 and 18, but not many outcomes will be a true surprise. Those surprises, instead, will continue to show themselves inside each week, and that’s the fun of DFS.

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Week 12 :: Fewer Angles Available Than We Think

With an 11-game slate upcoming — but Browns and Raiders being one of them — we find ourselves in a manageable roster-building situation: four teams on bye, and the Bills, Texans, Bucs, Rams, Panthers, and 49ers in primetime. At a high level, with many teams now looking listless (Titans, Jets, Vikings, sadly; Falcons with Cousins; and Giants), this slate feels more simple to me, at least. But that’s what they (the NFL) want us to think!

These could be the more difficult slates we face, where it all shapes up as predictable, but in reality there are unseen outcomes brewing. Any of these teams could produce DFS-worthy scores, so don’t write them off completely, but as we always talk about, the game environments at least don’t jump off the screen, and anything more than a typically priced QB + 1 + a bring-back feels like you’re doing too much for eight teams (Raiders, Jets, Browns, Giants, Falcons, Saints, Titans, Vikings). I say typically priced because the lone exception may be Tyrod Taylor and the Jets, with the news of his starting coming out after salaries were released.

What we do have to target are at least four games that rise to the top of the week:

Eagles (25.5) at Cowboys (22) is indoors and features immense talent on both offensive sides of the football. That’s the good. The not-so-good is that both defenses are playing much better recently, with Philadelphia’s unit looking like the best in the NFL. The Eagles’ offense may have a few episodes left in the soap-opera drama, and matching up with Dallas post–trade deadline reinforcements doesn’t scream points. But this is still Jalen Hurts. It’s Dak Prescott. Divisional matchups carry wide ranges of outcomes. We can talk ourselves in and out of this game environment like many did last week in the Bucs // Bills matchup, but the macros here are enticing.

Patriots (28.25) at Bengals (21.25) immediately brings me back to the ugly Week 1 matchup in 2024 where New England upset Cincy on the road in a shocker. Another visit to Cincinnati just 14 months later looks a whole lot different — especially considering the state of the Patriots (leaders in the AFC East, Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye clicking) and this Bengals team not deploying Joe Burrow nor Ja’Marr Chase here for unrelated reasons. New England will score points, but will they be condensed on a few players? Cincinnati, with Joe Flacco, will throw the ball, but will they find any success without Chase?

Colts (23.25) at Chiefs (26.25) is the best IRL game of the week on this slate, with Kansas City being favored — a slight surprise given how these two teams have played over the first 11 weeks. Patrick Mahomes feels like he’s just lulling us to sleep with these performances in 2025; is this the game he throws for 350+ yards after he’s fallen down the MVP ladder? Jonathan Taylor may be in the midst of an all-time season, and it doesn’t seem to me like matchups should matter if that’s the case. This is a game worth overanalyzing this week, as it will likely impact this “sliding doors” section of the season over the next seven weeks. Indianapolis off a bye; the Chiefs off a divisional loss. What gives?

Jaguars (25.5) at Cardinals (22.5) with the ho-hum, three-point spread this week. Two teams that have played better recently but still have plenty of doubters. A convincing win for Jacksonville would silence many of those critics, and without Brian Thomas Jr. and now Travis Hunter for the season, they’ve told us exactly who they will try to be. Over the past three games, Jacksonville has rushed the ball at a league-leading 58% rate. We’ll see if BTJ plays, but Arizona and Jacoby Brissett just set the NFL record for completions in a game and will want to throw the ball a lot here again, given the state of their running backs room. Jacksonville wants to run the ball and grind the clock.

Lions (30), Ravens (28.5), and Seahawks (26.5) are the other notable offenses on this slate, as all are favored by more than 10 points in their matchups. How these teams choose to attack becomes the question. Detroit and Seattle had rough losses in Week 11, and Baltimore almost suffered the same fate in Cleveland. We don’t know what will happen, but we have fun elements to dive into this week!

No matter how you build or what you dive into, know you can predict these games. Think “long-term” — or, in this case, just seven weeks. These teams have shown us who they are. The standings likely won’t change too much outside of a handful of adjustments. For those adjustments to take place, we need to pick out the micro events (specific games) that will drive them — games like Colts // Chiefs and Jags // Cards this week.

The beauty of DFS is, of course, we just never know. Go out and crush Week 12!

Your next “comma” win is right around the corner.

~Larejo

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

JM’s journal will be live ON FRIDAY BUT AVAILABLE BEGINNING WEDNESDAY ON DISCORD FOR INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS

TUESDAY, NOV. 18 ::

JM’S JOURNAL PLAN FOR THIS WEEK ::

What to expect from me this week ::

TUESDAY ::

I have a bunch of notes and thoughts from digging into the slate on Sunday night and Monday night, but none of these notes are in a presentable state.

Up next for me :: going through these notes, in order, and turning them into journal entries, which I’ll drop into here.

I’m still a bit behind on watching games, so I’ll probably use this evening/night to watch games from Week 11. Late tonight, I’ll get back to practice builds, which leads to deeper dives in my mind through various ideas, options, approaches, etc. I’m sure I’ll drop a few more notes into here (late) tonight as I hit that point in my day.

WEDNESDAY ::

I have a pretty full list of “work” on Wednesday, and will also be packing, etc., as we fly out on Thursday for Thanksgiving. I probably won’t have many (if any) posts during the day on Wednesday.

Wednesday night, I’ll continue working through the slate and dropping additional thoughts in here.

THURSDAY ::

We fly on Thursday. During that day, I plan to work through thoughts on a game-by-game level and see if there’s anything I feel I’ve been overlooking while working through the slate, while also digging deeper into my thoughts in areas where I’ve already spent time and developed thoughts. I imagine most of these thoughts will be posted on Thursday night, after we’ve landed and settled in (though if I have a chance to drop some thoughts throughout that day, I’ll obviously do so).

This will bring us to Thursday night, where I’ll be crafting the initial shape of my Player Grid, and to Friday, where I’ll have my normal content schedule (podcasts + Player Grid).

In all, we’ll have the normal flow of thoughts // angles // ideas from my end, with slightly different sequencing/timing. All said and done, it’ll all come out the same, but I just wanted to lay out the expected sequencing/timing, for any of you who like to know what to expect.

WEEK 12 BETTING PREVIEW ::

One final item before I start sorting through the early notes I have in my phone ::

Through 7 weeks of betting (Weeks 5-11), we’re sitting on +14.5 units after a “basically break-even” Week 11 (-0.09 units). I’m also up an additional 22.3 units in live betting, though that stuff moves too fast for us to ever really be able to ride that stuff together.

I’ll be in Oklahoma and Missouri Weeks 13 and 14. That means no betting on my end Week 13. Week 14 seems to be up in the air, as sports betting is supposed to go live in Missouri December 1, with DraftKings among the sportsbooks that will be operating from the start. As such, I may have some bets in here Week 14. We’ll see.

Until then, here’s what I currently have for Week 12 — several of which were dropped in here last week ::

2.5 units on the Seahawks -12.5 at Tennessee (dropped in here last week). This one is now -13.5, but at -105 odds, so I still like the bet. The bet, of course, is not that the Seahawks barely get to this mark, but that the Seahawks have one of their games in which the offense and defense are cooking and they’re up by three scores in the first half.

A half unit on the Ravens -14.5 against the Jets (dropped in here last week). I liked this one more before Tyrod Taylor was announced as the starter. The line is now -13.5, and while I’m not cashing out the original bet, I don’t know that I would take it again.

A half unit on Browns // Raiders under 37.5 (dropped in here last week). If I could go back in time, I would have put a full unit here, but with the total now at 36.5, I’m not adding to the bet. These low-total unders can tilt on a razor’s edge as is, so I’ll stick with the early value at 37.5 without pushing things further.

A four-pick parlay at +143 (dropped in here last week) of Miami to win vs Washington in Week 11, plus the Seahawks, Ravens, and Lions to win this week. These “high-confidence bets rolled into one parlay” are now at +2.6 units for me. I’ll continue to track them specifically to assess whether or not I think there is edge for me on these over time.

A new bet :: a half-unit on Falcons // Saints under 39.5.

GOFF + PASS CATCHERS ANGLE ::

I am going to keep coming back to the “Goff + pass catchers” stack.

My track record on this so far ::

1) Nailing it perfectly against the Bears in Week 2, but ultimately leaning on the running backs in spite of having highlighted the potential for this to be one of those “Goff throws a bunch of touchdowns, and the Lions score a ton of points” types of games. Goff ended up throwing five touchdowns in a 52-point game for the Lions.

2) Highlighting this spot heavily against Cincinnati, where Goff ended up throwing only 23 passes, Gibbs (who I had a lot of exposure to) having a disappointing game, and Montgomery getting all the goodness in a 37-point game from the Lions.

3) Going back to the well on “Goff + 3 pass catchers” against Washington, where Goff threw three touchdowns and the Lions scored 44 points, but where Gibbs was the guy you needed (and I was instead on Jamo // ARSB // LaPorta).

Basically, the Lions have scored 52 // 37 // 44 the three weeks I’ve been heavy on them, and I have yet to benefit. Which is kind of crazy…and which also highlights the value of something like Brissett + McBride (a staple for us the last two weeks), where you know you have an extremely high chance of getting those two spots correct. With the Lions, you can be directionally right and still be wrong — which is not something we typically want to waste a ton of time with in smaller-field contests, in particular…except that in the case of the Lions, the scores they can post are big enough that it actually becomes worth the risk.

Anyhow, we now have “angry Lions” playing at home against the Giants. This feels more like a game of 30-40 Lions points than 44-52; and again :: I love to pack as much certainty as I can onto smaller-field rosters (where most of my focus has been this year; also, packing certainty into the core of our rosters for large-field play is extremely valuable, and is something the field neglects to do as often as they should, or in the ways they should — with certainty that covers multiple spots and/or still gives you tremendous price-considered upside), but I still like the idea of considering this stack on tighter builds.

Against Washington, Goff + Gibbs + Jamo + ARSB ($28k in salary; target score of 112+) scored 112.7.

Against Chicago, Goff + Gibbs + Jamo + ARSB scored 120.4.

LaPorta is not around to steal away work from these guys.

This is definitely a spot where we could see 110+ from this group again. (Or maybe Goff only throws it 25 times, and Montgomery and Brock Wright score touchdowns to sink my Lions rosters once again.)

HURTS + A.J. BROWN + DEVONTA ANGLE ::

Speaking of spots where the ceiling is high but the confidence is low ::

Hurts + AJB + Devonta cost only $18.1k this week — giving us a target score of ~72.

Against Minnesota, this trio scored 94.4.

Against the Rams, this trio scored 75.9.

This issue, of course, is that a matchup against Dallas doesn’t guarantee anything for us at this point, with this offense.

One of the issues with the Eagles, as you know, is that they are wildly uncreative. They basically run a vanilla offense predicated on being bigger bullies up front than whatever defense they are playing, and having weapons that most defenses can’t stop. “Our guys can beat your guys.” And in the case of a matchup with Dallas, Philly’s guys can beat their guys…but also, sometimes Philly beats themselves. And also, Eberflus is going to throw zone coverage at the Eagles all day and say, “Okay, you have to be precise in the short areas of the field if you want to have success through the air” (which is not really the Eagles’ game). Coverage busts can (and probably will) happen — but will that be enough for fantasy goodness to pile up?

With Quinnen Williams added up front, DeMarvion Overshown added to the second level, and Malik Hooker now back on the field at safety, the Cowboys are also, at the very least, a better unit than they’ve been to date. To be clear: the Eagles still have a large talent edge here; but the simplicity of their scheme and their unwillingness to take the reins of a game on offense do create some opportunity for this offense to disappoint.

Basically, the straightforward “Hurts + 2” stack makes a ton of sense on paper, and the ceiling is there — but there’s also a reason this stack has only hit twice this year; and it obviously won’t be a total shock if it underwhelms here.

EARLY WEEK 12 QB THOUGHTS ::

Moving away from my notes a bit here, but worth touching on :: It’s early, of course; but so far, I’m not in love with much at quarterback this week. (Or, I should say: so far, it hasn’t been difficult for me to get down to a tighter pool.)

Lamar should score 25-28 against the Jets (he has scored 25.6-29.4 in four of six healthy games, with the exceptions coming against Minnesota and Cleveland), and is very much in play — but I don’t think the Jets are likely to push this enough for a “had to have it” game to come from Lamar. Of course…we do have Tyrod likely to make the Jets more competitive. Maybe I should be rethinking this one a bit.

Tyrod at only $4.3k is also viable, though it’s fair to question the ceiling against an improving Ravens defense, with limited weapons for Tyrod to throw to.

Caleb Williams has only hit against Cincy and Dallas, and is playing a Pittsburgh team that has improved on defense and doesn’t generally push games on offense.

Trying to take advantage of the Chicago defense will be either old-man Rodgers or Mason Rudolph.

We’ll circle back on Drake Maye in a bit.

Joe Flacco is facing a tough defense without Ja’Marr Chase (suspension — which is being appealed, but we’ll operate under the assumption he’ll miss).

Jameis has no weapons and is taking on a tough Lions defense. (Though if it’s Dart returning…well, the excitement/ceiling are certainly there.)

Jordan Love has only topped 20.9 DK points in a shootout vs Dallas and a comeback win vs Pittsburgh. He’s playing a tough Minnesota defense with J.J. McCarthy unlikely to push the scoring on the other side.

It won’t be surprising if Daniel Jones has another solid game, but a tourney-winner is a tough ask in Kansas City against what’s still a good defense.

Mahomes can absolutely hit against Indy, but the math rarely works in his favor, with this offense spreading the ball out too much for points to concentrate the way we like, and with his alpha target in Rashee Rice priced higher than his role really justifies.

Sam Darnold could easily end up with fewer than 25 pass attempts against the Titans.

Trevor Lawrence’s best games have been 28.2 vs KC with two rushing touchdowns and 22.2 vs LV with two rushing touchdowns, which isn’t something we typically want to tie our weekend to in our core.

Geno vs the Browns?

Shedeur or Gabriel quarterbacking the Browns?

Dak against this ferocious Philly defense?

Cousins with a dying arm and no Drake London against a physical New Orleans defense, or Shough against the quick/aggressive defense of the Falcons?

The quarterbacks I’ve been focused on in my early practice builds have been ::

Hurts

Goff

Maye

Brissett (another good matchup vs Jacksonville; another team that stops the run and is soft against the pass; even with price tags creeping up, it’s only $12.1k for Brissett + McBride, which has averaged 49.4 points per game since Brissett took over — a 204-point pace, on average, across a five-game sample!).

I think Pat and Lamar are interesting options as well, as is Dart if he plays.

And of course, you could go cheap and hope for the best with Tyrod. (Though if you’re going cheap…I mean, Brissett is $5.3k. He’s done it five consecutive weeks. He can do it again.)

Maye thoughts coming up next. (Actually, thoughts on that game…)

PATRIOTS-BENGALS THOUGHTS ::

I’ve scattered some thoughts around the Patriots // Bengals game throughout my early notes, but I’ll try to pull them all together here.

First off, we need to acknowledge that the thesis around the Bengals changes without Chase — potentially in dramatic fashion. The Bengals do not do a good job scheming their players open, keeping a defense off-balance, etc. We’ve talked about this for years, and nothing has changed. They basically go out there and say, “Our guys can beat your guys.”

With a poor offensive line and an immobile QB, the Bengals have used Ja’Marr as an extension of the run game, peppering him with short-area targets to keep their drives on track. When teams have taken this away, the Bengals have been able to counter by focusing on Fant (more on him in a bit) and hitting Higgins in one-on-one opportunities.

But unless the Bengals are actively scheming Tee open (which is unlikely), he’s going to be facing either tight coverage from Christian Gonzalez or double-teams (or both). He’ll still see targets, and he’ll still probably have a solid game; but as we talk about all the time :: the NFL is a game of picking up first downs and putting together drives. It takes only one sack, one big penalty, one missed connection, etc., to disrupt a drive; and if the Patriots are able to make life difficult enough on Higgins, the chances of the Bengals consistently putting together drives in this spot aren’t all that high.

Working in our favor here is that we know the Bengals will throw. They can’t run, and it’s impossible to run against the Patriots, so passing volume should be there.

Furthermore — importantly — the Patriots have faced the third most tight end targets in the NFL, and have allowed the most catches and fifth most yards to the position. At $3.1k, Noah Fant has averaged 9.3 DK points per game with Flacco under center, and he’s now playing without Ja’Marr Chase. At minimum, he’s about $700/$800 underpriced, in a great matchup. He’s a strong option this week.

Also, at $10.2k, Fant + Tee have game logs with Flacco of ::

22.9
46.9
18.5
36.0
17.9

Chase is vacating 22.5 points per game (with Flacco under center), so while this offense as a whole takes a notable hit, it’s still fair to say we probably get an extra ~10 points flowing to the floor of this block, which would give us an expectation of around 28-33 points even if things don’t break the right way here. That doesn’t win us a tourney, but in the same price range as Jonathan Taylor, we have an easy comparison to say, “Yeah, we’d be happy with that production.”

If we remove the game against the Jets, the combined game logs for Fant + Tee have gone ::

8-99-1
9-146-3
10-140-2
9-89-0

That’s basically Puka’s floor, but with a much higher ceiling for touchdowns.

With Chase out, something like 13-160-2 isn’t a particularly difficult hill to climb, and there is more upside above that (albeit in a tough matchup for Higgins, who will need the scheme to be more creative than it often is).

If picking one, I prefer Fant; but both have ceiling — and if you’re looking for a pairing to consider in smaller-field contests, this gives you a really nice range of expected scoring.

Swinging over to the Patriots’ side ::

The expectation is that Rhamondre Stevenson is returning this week. The standard party line among DFS content providers is to say they like it when uncertainty shows up in spots like this, but my instinct is the opposite. At what rate would TreVeyon Henderson have been played this week without Rhamondre? 50%? 60%? Not high enough. Even though ownership in spots like that can seem outrageous, I’m happy to lean into mega-high-certainty spots at high ownership, knowing that there’s still a big chunk of the field likely to be falling behind me.

Across their last six games, here’s what the Bengals have given up to backfields ::

39.7 — PIT — 28 touches
35.5 — CHI — 34 touches
53.8 — NYJ — 32 touches
26.3 — PIT — 25 touches
33.7 — GB — 27 touches
34.9 — DET — 34 touches

Across their last four games, Patriots top two backs have had touch counts of 28 // 27 // 35 // 35, and while TreVeyon has had some big plays of late, we can also comfortably say that the Pats are, at best, a middling rushing offense, which means that with similar touch projections to the offenses above, we should expect similar production — something like ~35 points for $11.9k in salary between TreVeyon and Rhamondre.

If the split of points breaks the right way, one of these guys gets 25 or so, which is nice; but this comes with question marks on workload split (and given things the Patriots have said throughout the season, I expect Rhamondre to get the start — and then it’s also tough to envision him getting a full 75% of snaps, which starts to really muddy this spot).

The Bengals, of course, have also been pasted by tight ends this year, with recent point totals of ::

13.6 — PIT
34.8 — CHI
17.8 — NYJ
52.1 — PIT
14.0 — GB
29.1 — DET

Where things get interesting is combining backfield scoring with tight end scoring against the Bengals.

Rhamondre + TreVeyon + Hunter Henry + Austin Hooper cost $18.3k — giving us a target score of ~73.

Here are the combined backfield + TE scores vs the Bengals across their last six games ::

53.3 — PIT
70.3 — CHI
71.6 — NYJ
78.4 — PIT
47.7 — GB
64.0 — DET

Are we playing all four of these guys together? Probably not. But it’s at least worth highlighting that this four-player block would have kept you on a tourney-winning pace in three of the Bengals’ last six games (which is absolutely remarkable).

Where things get even more interesting is that the games of 70+ for “RBs + TEs vs CIN” came in barn-burning shootouts, where the Bengals were pushing the scoring (or keeping up with the scoring) throughout. With that in mind, this block of four works best with Tee + Fant — as these two will be the primary engine of the Bengals’ passing attack. If we have the type of shootout that leads to the four-player Patriots block scoring 70+, Tee + Fant are almost certainly scoring 40+.

Because we don’t necessarily expect the Bengals’ offense to look the same this week, we have to lower expectations on that full block — but the short of it is, there’s a very good chance some two-player combo from that Patriots block performs well. Hunter Henry is also really attractive (the Bengals have faced the most targets and allowed the most yards to tight ends; they have also allowed 12 touchdowns to the position, which is five more than any other team has allowed to tight ends this year). If you want to bet on the Pats leaning on both tight ends heavily, you can also think of Henry + Hooper at $6.4k, thinking of them as a $6.4k player with a grab-bag of the following game logs available ::

13.6
34.8
17.8
52.1
14.0
29.1

$6.4k is the Rome Odunze // Jaylen Waddle // Chris Olave range. That would be a pretty good set of production.

Finally, Maye ::

I prefer Maye on a roster that really loads up on Pats and Bengals (say two or three Patriots from that bucket of four, plus both Bengals), and I probably prefer some other QBs to Maye (though if Chase had been available to keep the Bengals’ offense as scary as they can be, my outlook would probably be different). But if the Patriots (uncharacteristically) keep their foot on the gas here, or — a better bet to make — if the Bengals show up with a big game on offense in spite of missing Chase, Maye will have pathways to his first game of the year with legitimate, difference-making ceiling.

JAMESON WILLIAMS // JAHMYR GIBBS THOUGHTS ::

Swinging back over to the Lions ::

Across his last five games, Jamo is averaging 16.9 points per game…with a zero included in this stretch. Pricing-wise, the first wide receiver averaging more than 16.9 ppg is Pickens at $6.9k.

Also, a note I made on Gibbs for myself :: gibbs — tier 1; basically hoping for a big game on 17/18 expected touches, so betting on efficiency, which means the confidence isn’t as high as a Light Blue play; but the ceiling is as high, or higher.

EMANUEL WILSON // JACOBS // RHAMONDRE // TREVEYON THOUGHTS ::

This is the type of matchup where you would expect Josh Jacobs to score around 20; so if Jacobs misses and Emmanuel Wilson fills in, ~14 points in a similar role with a downgrade in talent is a reasonable expectation. Of course, 20 is still possible here, and 14-20 is a solid/comfortable scoring range for the price. A bigger game than this would be surprising, but we also can’t ignore the fact that weird things like that obviously do happen.

Running back is pretty thin (from a confidence/ceiling standpoint), and my initial practice builds had TreVeyon and Wilson. Since then, it looks like Rhamondre will play, and I’ve realized Wilson doesn’t quite have the ceiling I would typically chase — but given what this week provides, we still might find ourselves heading down a path like this.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19 THOUGHTS ::

SUNDAY, NOV. 23 ::

PLAYER GRID UPDATE ::

My Sunday morning update is live :: https://oneweekseason.com/the-scroll/week-12-2025/#scroll-article-jms-player-grid-12-25

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::

We’ve had slates where pricing was tight, we’ve had slates riddled with fragility, and we’ve had slates with no clear game environment we wanted to attack – the Week 12 main slate combines all of those into one snarling animal for us to tame. And I couldn’t be more excited. The fact that the field doesn’t appear comfortable in where to go with game and team stacks means we can generate immense leverage without straying from optimal theory, the fragility in the chalk means we can generate immense leverage by going elsewhere, and the field’s recent tendencies with an aversion to wide ranges of outcomes through value give us yet another opportunity to embrace additional variance with our salary savers. Talk about a game theorists’ dream!

Beyond that, there are numerous strength-on-strength and weakness-on-weakness matchups in key games this week, invoking a wider range of outcomes not only for those games, but for the slate, in total. Less certainty, more fragility, wider ranges of outcomes, and suffocating chalk – you know what to do!

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.

CHASE BROWN

NEITHER RESTRICTIVE NOR EXPANSIVE CHALK. Brown is in a similar situation to the one we shit on last week, where I said, “The Bengals are averaging a league-low 18.8 rush attempts per game, so, what, we’re expecting 16-18 carries and a handful of targets against a pass-funnel opponent?” Except this week, the expectation for his carry total is much lower, the opponent is much better, and the offense could struggle much more to sustain drives. I struggle to see the paths to ceiling here.

AMON-RA ST. BROWN

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. From the write-up of this game:

“Also notable was the fact that the Giants played from man at a 58.6% frequency in the first game without Brian Daboll, with them now leading the league in man utilization at a robust 42.4% rate. St. Brown has some ridiculous splits against man this season, with a 0.39 TPRR, 3.10 YPRR, and 0.91 FP/RR in 2025.” Looks legit on paper.

TREY McBRIDE

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Jacoby Brissett has started five games for the Cardinals, during which time McBride holds a 0.26 TPRR (targets per route run), 2.12 YPRR (yards per route run), 0.59 FP/RR (fantasy points per route run), 24.5 FP/G (fantasy points per game), and 22.3 XFP/G (expected fantasy points per game). The FP/G and XFP/G would rank first in the league for the whole season. No reason to expect that to slow down against the opponent, allowing the second most FP/G to opposing tight ends. Looks legit on paper.

MICHAEL WILSON

EXPANSIVE CHALK. Week 11 was the first time Wilson had commanded targets in this offense all season, so I’m a bit hesitant to expect a repeat performance here. That said, there is merit to including him in Jacoby Brissett doubles for the salary savings this week.

JAHMYR GIBBS

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. The big play threat gets a matchup against a Giants defense allowing the highest explosive run rate (9.1%) and the most yards per carry (5.5) this season. I am not brushing off the fact that he might see more muted volume than some of the other backs in his pricing tier, but it simply might not matter. Let us not forget, Gibbs returned DK scores of 41.2 and 39.8 in the games immediately following the Lions’ previous two losses, seeing opportunity totals of “only” 20 and 19 in those two games, respectively.

EMANUEL WILSON

RESTRICTIVE CHALK. Jacobs has just two games over 20.7 DK points this season and has yet to hit the 100-yard bonus. Expecting Wilson to do so is a fool’s errand, keeping his true ceiling rather low here.

CHALK BUILD::

Kevin Adams is the founder of StatRankings, former founder Elite Fantasy & FTN, and a longtime DFS player/bettor with countless DFS finals, GPP wins, and a Top-20 BBM3 finish

Welcome to ONE WEEK STATS – a new weekly series designed to give you an edge using advanced data from StatRankings.com.

Each week, we’ll go position by position, breaking down 2-4 players at QB, RB, WR, and TE through the lens of advanced stats, helping you spot trends, matchup edges, and hidden value for the upcoming DFS main slate. 

QB

By The Numbers is a weekly matchup visual created using public data from NFLverse. For more understanding of each metric, use By The Numbers Guide.

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

Here’s a look at my exposures on the weekend, and how I’m attacking this slate ::

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

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

Jared Goff
Jahmyr Gibbs
Rhamondre Stevenson
Amon-Ra St. Brown
Jameson Williams
Adonai Mitchell
Austin Hooper
Mike Gesicki
Saints

Join The Bottom-Up Build Contest On DraftKings!

Buy-In:

Free

Rules:

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

Prizes:

1st Place = $100 paid out to the winner(!) (OR free Bink Machine access!)

<< Join Here >>

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

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Blue Chips

Trey McBride

I prefer to play McBride with Brissett, because (as we’ve been saying for weeks, and as has held true for weeks) if McBride is hitting at his price, Brissett is almost certainly hitting at his price. But there are enough other ways to go at quarterback this week (and while nothing is guaranteed, McBride is a high-confidence enough bet that you may want him on rosters with other quarterbacks as well) that I don’t think you have to stick to that rule. McBride can be played any which way.

I’ll touch on McBride + Brissett in the Building Blocks, but to keep this tight and neat ::

Per Lord Reebs (Sharp Football), the only players with more fantasy points per game than McBride since Week 6 are Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey.

McBride remains underpriced.

It’s as simple as that.

“Light Blue” Chips

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Build-Arounds

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Building Blocks

“Six for Six”

Jacoby Brissett + Trey McBride

Story:

“This block hits for the sixth game in a row”

Why It Works:

At $12.1k in salary, our target score for this pairing is 45-50 DK points.

In five games so far, this pairing has gone for scores of 45.9 // 50.2 // 41.3 // 52.1 // 57.4.

That’s absolutely remarkable.

That’s also the same way I started this writeup last week, except that I changed “five for five” and “fifth game in a row” to “six” // “sixth,” and I’ve updated the salary, the target score, and the fifth game in the game log. You get the picture: this block just keeps on clicking. The Cardinals can’t run the ball, and you can’t really run against the Jags. The Cardinals can throw the ball, and you can throw against the Jags. Let’s keep this wagon train a-moving.

How It Works:

Starting here doesn’t win you a tourney. But it does have a high likelihood of starting you out with a nice haul of points.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:

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

“KC Throwback”

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Bink Machine

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

“Down The Drain”

A little something different this week in this section.

I’ve mentioned quite a few times throughout this season that I’ve been using the Bink Machine differently this year. In Week 9 of the 2022 season, I played MME using an optimizer for the first time, and throughout 2023, I was deep in the MME streets. In 2024, I started getting burned out on MME, but I kept at it for a while (primarily because I had finished second place in the Slant three times in 2023 without winning it(!), and I wanted to get that first-place finish). This season, I’ve found joy in shifting back over to SE/3-Max, and have shifted back over to primarily hand-builds. This means that instead of using the Bink Machine to take a comprehensive set of rules and build most of my rosters for me, I’m using the Bink Machine this year for idea-generation. Sometimes I’ll run a set with very little input. Sometimes I’ll run a bunch of sets using only my pool. Sometimes I’ll lock in a group of players and run a set with a broad pool of players, and then with my pool of players. (And a lot of weeks, I’ll do all of the above.)

The screenshot below shows a locked-in set of Tyrod + Metchie + Mitchell (click the “Handbuild” button to open that pop-up with the roster, lock in the players you want, then run a set of rosters), on which I ran 100 rosters.

This is a really fun way to see some of the powerful things you can pull together with this block, and to get ideas for hand-builds off this block on your end.

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 ::

Drake Maye || Lamar Jackson || Patrick Mahomes || Jalen Hurts || Jared Goff || Jacoby Brissett || Tyrod Taylor

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 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. 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 – Elite talent on an explosive offense facing arguably the worst run defense in the league.
• TreVeyon Henderson – The genie is out of the bottle. Rhamondre is back, but this is the best possible matchup for a running back and TreVeyon is that dude in the New England backfield.
• Kenneth Walker – The schematic matchup with the Titans defense fits Walker’s explosive skill set on outside runs perfectly. Walker has been outplaying Zach Charbonnet and it is time for that torch to be passed.
• Bhayshul Tuten // Travis Etienne – The Cardinals have given up over 40 points in consecutive games while the Jaguars lean heavily on their running game since their Week 8 bye and have scored 29+ points in all three games during that time.
• Saquon Barkley – The Cowboys have made improvements to their defensive personnel and the Eagles are without Lane Johnson….but Barkley has explosive ability and this sets up as a spot where he could really take off.
• Chase Brown – More of a median play than a ceiling one, but in a potentially high scoring game (like all Bengals games are) Brown could post a big score thanks to his high volume role. Prefer him in game stacks.

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

The Week of Connected Ceilings

This slate rewards anyone willing to link their plays together, leaning into correlation, ceiling, and salary efficiency to build lineups that hit in harmony instead of hoping for isolated miracles.

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

*Ownership projections are subject to change before lock. Check OWS projections on Sunday morning. 

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 a few 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.

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

*Ownership projections are subject to change before lock. Check OWS projections on Sunday morning

DK Metcalf (8.0%), D’Andre Swift (9.5%)

Swift is essentially a bet on the Bears playing from behind, which makes using a Steelers piece across from it the logical move. And if Aaron Rodgers misses, we can at least hope Mason Rudolph has more of an affinity for pushing the ball downfield to Metcalf.

Justin Jefferson (2.0%), Christian Watson (4.3%)

The J.J. McCarthy situation really is a bummer for everyone involved. This had all the makings of a road script against a good team where JJ could form a cosmic bond with JJ, and we’d all be stuck with an annoying new nickname like “JJ Squared.” Watson is still priced really well for his ability to score from anywhere.

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

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 lineup building process, while giving the OWS family an inside look at the way I make my lineups. My typical betting 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 slate.

Picking Games

Week 12 has four games that pique my interest:

• Giants @ Lions (50)
• Patriots @ Bengals (51.5)
• Jaguars @ Cardinals (48.5)
• Colts @ Chiefs (50.5)

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

Giants @ Lions (50)

This game is a potential blowout spot, which isn’t typically the game environment I want to target. The difference between this game and the NYJ/BAL game is that we know Dan Campbell never takes his foot off the gas. If the Lions can hang 50 on you, they’re going to hang 50 on you. This is a game where the Lions could score 50, and that makes all their offensive players extremely viable. I don’t think you need to play a Giant as a bring-back, since this isn’t a game environment that will rely on the Giants keeping up for the Lions to keep scoring. If you want to use a Giant, Wan’Dale Robinson is the obvious choice. Darius Slayton is also set to return, and with Jameis Winston confirmed to be under center for another week, I could see a lot of downfield passing. The obvious stack in this game is Goff + Gibbs + ARSB + Williams + Robinson or Slayton. That stack uses almost all your salary, and you’ll have to save at almost every other position (I’ve not been able to make this stack work with McBride), but it’s the stack that has the highest chance to break the slate. I’m leaning towards playing that group on my main lineup.  

Patriots @ Bengals (51.5)

There was a lot of speculation that Joe Burrow was going to return for this game, but news broke that he is going to sit out one more contest. His absence (along with Ja’Marr Chase) hurts the entire game environment, but it doesn’t kill it, since Joe Flacco has been serviceable enough to keep games close. The Bengals defense has been historically bad this season. They can’t stop anyone, and the Patriots offense has been humming. If Rhamondre Stevenson was going to miss, TreVeyon Henderson would be turbo chalk. With Stevenson playing, people are shying away from Henderson, but there is a chance he still dominates the backfield touches after looking far better over the past few games than Stevenson has looked at any point this season. I’m going to use Henderson on my tighter builds. Hunter Henry also looks like a great play since the Bengals have been absolutely torched by TEs. Chase “every down” Brown is back to the role he had at the end of last season. It’s nearly impossible for him to fail with how much he’s on the field, and he’s one of the premier isolation plays on the slate. I’m probably not going to stack this game, but I’m going to have a lot of rosters that use one or two players.

Jaguars @ Cardinals (48.5)

Jacoby Brissett has turned around the Cardinals offense and exposed what an anchor Kyler Murray has been for years. The entire Cards passing game has exploded, even without Marvin Harrison, who it now looks like might have been unfairly labeled a draft disappointment based on Murray’s inability to get him the ball. The Jags offense hasn’t had Brian Thomas for most of the season, and Trevor Lawrence looks like a bust, but that hasn’t stopped them from consistently scoring points. They always find a way. The Cards defense is dealing with injuries, and even when healthy, it is not that strong. The Jags are going to score, and the Cards are going to fight back through the air. There is also a chance that Bam Knight ends up being one of the better values at RB on the slate with almost everyone else injured. I’m going to run back the Brissett + Wilson + McBride stack from last week, and I might also include Knight and one of Travis Etienne or Bhayshul Tuten.

Colts @ Chiefs (50.5)

This game has a wider range of outcomes than the three listed above, but if this game breaks to the upside, it could be the highest scoring game on the slate. The issue for DFS is that there is a lot of risk involved, as all the players are expensive, and there is a chance that even if it explodes on the scoreboard, that production ends up spread out. Jonathan Taylor has been the best RB in fantasy this side of Christian McCaffrey, but he has been priced up to a ridiculous level, and this isn’t an easy matchup. If I’m going to pay for Taylor at his current price, it would have to be a smash spot as a home favorite. If stacking this game, I’ll likely do it from the KC side with Mahomes + Rice + Kelce + Pittman or Pierce. It’s not my favorite game stack of the week, but it’ll probably make one of my tighter builds. 

Key Values

Jacoby Brissett ($5,300)

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 12 Topics

1. A Unique Slate

2. Pre-Thanksgiving Feasts

3. Value Plays

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 ::

A weekly staple of The Oracle: “what makes this slate unique?” 

The Answers ::

JM >>

When I build a roster that doesn’t start with Goff // Gibbs // ARSB // Jamo, I quickly reach a point where it feels like, “Wow…I really don’t have any remaining high-confidence options at the final running back and wide receiver spots.” (Honestly…even when I start with Gibbs, I feel that way about the remaining running back spot.) But of course, when I start a roster with Goff (and the full block), I don’t have as much confidence in my quarterback output. If I go with Lamar + Andrews, I’m pretty confident I’m getting there with my starting point. If I go with Brissett + McBride, the same. Even Mahomes + Kelce gives me that feeling of, “Okay, I know what I’m getting here; now let’s do that with the rest of this build.” I have a high degree of confidence in more tight ends than I can play; I have a high degree of confidence that one of the Lions is going to have a strong game (and that there’s a runout in which all the Lions get there). I feel great about the floor I’m getting from JSN when I can get him onto a roster. But outside of these — to me — this slate feels wide, wide open.

Xandamere >>

Well I guess what’s weird to me is that we have spots where players are STILL mispriced. Trey McBride and Jacoby Brissett, for example, are still too cheap considering the consistent production they’ve delivered for FIVE straight games now. Which…doesn’t make the slate unique, because it’s been this way for several weeks in a row, but it still really stands out to me.

What makes it unique is that outside of those few spots, pricing is much tighter and we don’t have a really clear “best spot” attack. The aforementioned JAX/ARI game has an only-decent total and a game environment where the Jags could just really slow it down and choke the life out of it. Meanwhile we have multiple 50+ total games for…I think the first time this season? It feels like it, at least. We have THREE games with totals over 50, which is pretty wild….except they’re all tough to stack for. The Patriots are tough to play in DFS because of how unpredictable the passing is. The Lions are great (but expensive), but are the Giants viable? The Colts and Chiefs have good defenses and expensive players. There’s no spot that really jumps out as “game stack me!” which means there are a whooooole lot of viable ways to attack this slate.

Hilow >>

We’ve got another slate of tight pricing, with DraftKings finally pricing players up for the matchup after three months of play. I mean, look at the salaries of the Patriots as they prepare to face off against the Bengals. That adds an interesting wrinkle to this slate that we haven’t necessarily had to deal with yet this season. We’re also lacking much in the way of directional certainty, with the Lions standing out the most. There are numerous spots where we’re waiting on injury news that could open things up (Josh Jacobs, Jaylen Warren, Jaxson Dart, the Jacksonville backfield) and we’re missing some key contributors (Ja’Marr Chase, Drake London, Marvin Harrison Jr, potentially Darius Slayton), all of which change the dynamics of the slate. That leaves a lot of uncertainty in the main slate, setting up a scenario where embracing additional variance in our builds likely carries a significant boost to EV. Slates like this one are my favorite!

Mike >>

The first thing that stands out to me is we have a couple of players (Trey McBride and Jonathan Taylor) whose salaries are so far above everyone else at their positions. McBride at $6,800 has only Brock Bowers within $1,300 of him and Bowers is in an extremely difficult matchup. Taylor is still priced up at $10k (he’s earned it) and is $1,500 and $1,700 more than Bijan and Gibbs. The ceilings for these players are massive, however, and they can put up scores that you have to have fairly easily. That aspect of the slate is lurking in the background ready to trample the dreams of those building elsewhere. Obviously JT’s salary in particular is hard to fit or justify, but he has scores of 40.4 and 52 in his last three games and is fresh off a bye in a competitive game and matchup that isn’t great but isn’t tough by any means.

The other aspect of this slate that is unique is the three clear spots that stand out at first glance but it isn’t quite clear how to attack them. The Cardinals have been smashing in the passing game but have a tough matchup against a team that isn’t likely to build a huge lead forcing massive volume like they’ve seen in recent weeks, while their salaries have risen significantly. The Eagles face a Cowboys defense that seems to have improved. The Patriots face the Bengals, but there is uncertainty in their RB and TE usage – which is where the Bengals get roasted – and it is hard to trust any Pats WRs. Finally, we have the Lions who seem likely to dominate the Giants, but play again on Thursday in a huge divisional game which makes it hard to see some of their guys (especially the expensive ones) getting much work down the stretch. All of it makes it that much more important to have a great feel for the context of the slate and build with conviction – which is what we are here for!!

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2. Pre-Thanksgiving Feasts

The Question ::

This week we have a lot of spots where we could see extremely high team point totals::

• Three teams (SEA, BAL, and DET) who are massive favorites facing overmatched defenses.
• A Patriots offense that is averaging 29 points per game over their last eight games and faces the Bengals 32nd ranked defense.
• An Eagles offense that has been struggling but faces the lowly ranked Cowboys defense.
• A Jaguars team that has scored 29+ points in every game since their bye week and faces a Cardinals team that has given up 40+ points in consecutive weeks.
• A Chiefs team playing at home with a 27-point implied team total and their season potentially on the line.

Some of those spots are more fragile than others, but the fact remains that there are enough situations this week that have high scoring potential for specific teams that we could easily see a couple of these teams go over 40 points. When that happens, the feasts can come in a variety of ways. Sometimes, “everyone eats”. Other times, a couple players hog the production and become dominant plays that week.
Which TWO teams this week do you think are the most likely to get up into that 40-point range? And if it happens, do you think it will result in massive individual performances or just solid production from everyone?

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

Instincts. We can’t fight them. Like you, I enjoy following the NFL. There is so much content to consume, so many storylines that emerge and latch onto, and countless trends to watch over the course of a few weeks or an entire season. Right around this time, (Week 12 or so and Thanksgiving) is where the predictability rises. We are well into the season, so we know what these teams are and what they want to be. We can see where underperformance keeps showing up and justify why it may not go the other way at any point during the remainder of the games. Similarly, we can see which coaches play a certain way and which players have earned their trust. We are also entering the phase of the NFL season where the games matter more. Not that any specific game doesn’t matter on a team’s schedule, but as we talked about in the Angles Email earlier in the week, if teams are going to make moves (Chiefs, Lions, Ravens), it has to start now. What does this all have to do with instincts, you ask?

As the weeks and slates flip, it becomes harder and harder to fight our instincts on how to build rosters. By now, hopefully, you’ve seen some “up” weeks of profitability, and surely you’ve experienced “down” weeks as well. Our feel for roster building at this point is second nature. So when those slates flip by, like it did from Week 11 to Week 12, I couldn’t fight my first instincts of the week, which will inform some of this article.

1. The Lions need to re-establish what they do best (and how the Giants defense is very accommodating).
2. Cheap quarterbacks in DFS just make sense when there are guaranteed points (and why salary always matters on a point-per-dollar basis).
3. Why we shouldn’t talk ourselves out of “game of the week” potential just because we have more data around it (i.e., Bucs/Bills, 49ers/Cards)?

Lions Running Backs

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 12 Overview

There are several things about this week’s Afternoon Only slate that drive the context by which this slate must be evaluated and approached::

• We have a four game slate this week (nice), with all four of the games taking place in a dome (also nice), which removes at least one level of uncertainty from what we need to consider. 
• There are two very clear tiers between the four games, with PHI/DAL and JAX/ARI both having 47.5 point totals and spreads within a field goal, while CLE/LV and ATL/NO both have point totals below 40
• That second tier of games combines to have four of the bottom-8 current NFL starting QBs. 
• The best defense on this slate (PHI) faces the best offense on this slate (DAL).
• The Jaguars are a bit of a “pass funnel” defense, and Arizona leads the league in pass rate over expectation (PROE) with Jacoby Brissett as their starter.
• Arizona is a bit of a “run funnel” defense, and Jacksonville is 30th in the NFL in PROE since their bye week.
• Only three “Flex” players are priced at $7,000 or above, while only two QBs are priced above $5,300 – this will drive ownership and roster constructions into somewhat predictable lanes.

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, QBs 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 over $500,000 in DFS profit as an NFL tournament player with success in all styles of contests

Quarterback ::

• Drake Maye – The matchup against the Bengals is terrific and Maye’s consistent production is bound to lead to a blowup spot one of these days. No reason it can’t be today.
• Lamar Jackson – Baltimore is likely to put up a big number on the scoreboard this week and we know Lamar can do the heavy lifting in those spots. 
• Jared Goff – Detroit is going to score a ton of points in this game, and I’m getting the same vibes as last year when the Lions faced the Jaguars and kept throwing all game while preserving their running backs.

Running Back::

• Jahmyr Gibbs – Elite talent on an explosive offense facing arguably the worst run defense in the league.
• TreVeyon Henderson // Rhamondre Stevenson – The genie is out of the bottle. Rhamondre is back, but this is the best possible matchup for a running back and TreVeyon is that dude in the New England backfield. The spot isn’t all that different for the Patriots RBs than it is for the Lions, yet the Patriots RBs are priced at $7,500 and $5,700 compared to $9,300 and $6,700 for Detroit’s guys.
• Bhayshul Tuten // Travis Etienne – The Cardinals have given up over 40 points in consecutive games while the Jaguars lean heavily on their running game since their Week 8 bye and have scored 29+ points in all three games during that time.
• Jaylen Warren – Warren has another incredible matchup this week and practiced fully on Friday after his ankle issue had him watching the second half with his helmet on in Week 11.
• Derrick Henry – Fanduel’s salary structure and scoring settings make Henry more appealing here than on DraftKings. Regardless of settings, however, Henry has a clear path to one of his smash games this week against a skeleton crew defense.
• Jonathan Taylor – We can actually afford him on Fanduel and his team is likely to lean on him in a big way in this spot, as he is fresh off his bye and this is a huge game with AFC playoff implications.

Wide Receiver ::

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.

Bhayshul Tuten + Rhamondre Stevenson

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 Week 12 FD slate includes 11 total games. It’s the second week in a row with seven early kickoffs and four in the late afternoon. The early seven games include the slate’s five highest implied team totals but only two games projected to be within a 6.5 point spread:
  • Giants (18.75) at Lions (31.25)
  • Patriots (29.25) at Bengals (22.25)
  • Jets (15.5) at Ravens (29.0)
  • Colts (23.25) at Chiefs (26.75)
  • Seahawks (26.5) at Titans (13.5)
  • Vikings (17.5) at Packers (24.0)
  • Steelers (21.75) at Bears (24.25)
• While the four games in the afternoon are all projected to be close games with spreads of 4.0 or less:
  • Browns (16.0) at Raiders (20.0)
  • Jaguars (25.25) at Cardinals (22.25)
  • Eagles (25.25) at Cowboys (22.25)
  • Falcons (19.0) at Saints (21.0)
• The starting point for my main SE/3-max FD rosters this week is focusing on the Eagles at Cowboys game from the late afternoon slate.
  • I plan to approach this game from a few different angles, but am almost certainly playing at least one Jalen Hurts to DeVonta Smith team as a main small-field roster.
  • No one is especially cheap from this game, so it certainly won’t be a rule to have a Cowboys or Eagles player in every small-field lineup, but I’ll consider one-off players or even one of their D/ST units (likely the Eagles) in lineups that feature larger stacks/correlations of other games.

Running Back Approach