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

OWS Fam!!!!

Week 1 is in the books.

Was it profitable for you?

Was it unprofitable for you?

Either way: it doesn’t matter. Put it behind you! It’s a new week.

Not every week in DFS is going to yield profit — and to some extent, that’s what the sharpest NFL players and coaches would call an “uncontrollable.” What you can control is putting in your best week of play, and positioning your rosters in such a way that you would make money in Week 2 if we could play out this slate a hundred times.

With That Said…

One of the things I’ve always loved about OWS is that — while most other sites focus on the big wins from their content providers — we focus on the big wins from our users.

We had a number of big wins from the OWS community this last week, but I want to particularly single out 1) avonsuge (an OWS OG) for cashing nine out of 15 rosters in the Milly Maker and popping one of these rosters into the top 100(!), and 2) CouldBeTravis, who scooped a $10,000 first-place finish on a $2 entry in the $100k mini-MAX.

Who’s next!?

Bink Machine SZN!!!

OWS user jdatlas also dropped 197 DraftKings points and landed a “0.1% finish” using the Bink Machine this last week (and he wasn’t the only one to land a top finish with the Bink Machine; in fact…if I had trusted my favorite roster from the Bink Machine a bit more instead of “knowing better” and making a few changes for my Game Changer build, I would have scooped a $100k finish myself; as it was, I finished second place and seventh place in a couple other tourneys with the roster in question), and I’m also going to start dropping some of my Player Rules for the Bink Machine into the Player Grid each week. (Within the next few weeks, I’ll also be able to publish my Player Rules directly to the Bink Machine, for any of you who want to apply these yourself without any additional work.)

I’ve described the Bink Machine as the “Mac” of optimizers. It’s extremely intuitive, and extremely intelligent. I’m starting to open up some Showdown play with the Bink Machine myself (it finally buys me time to fire bullets into those contests during the busy NFL week), and throughout the season I’ll be sharing tips and tricks on how I get the most out of the optimizer.

If you didn’t try it last week when it was free, just a friendly reminder that a week pass is only $19.

Props SZN?

Before we get to the overview of this week’s slate, just a quick reminder that our Props Insider package last year finished at over $9,200 in profit (92 units!), with almost all of that money coming from NBA. This year, we added extra sports, and we’re already at $4,781 in profit with NBA still yet to tip off. Week passes are available here as well, though given that Props can be relatively streaky, the sharpest move is to simply grab the full package (either with the monthly payment setup, or all at once). Even if you’re working with smaller unit sizes (say $20), the opportunity is there to make really nice money over the next nine months, by simply placing the bets that the Props Insider team drops into Discord.

Week 2 :: A Gift From The Football Gods

It’s no secret that scoring has been down across the NFL. In fact — in spite of all the rules created to make life easier on the offense, and in spite of all the elite young quarterbacks and wide receivers who have entered the league — last year marked the lowest scoring numbers we had seen in half a decade. There is plenty that goes into this, but the end result is what impacts us the most as DFS players :: lower-scoring games means fewer opportunities for DFS goodness. And while this isn’t necessary a “bad” thing, it sure is fun when we have games where points could end up piling up.

Same as most Main Slates throughout the season, we are missing a few teams with big names and significant firepower, with all of the Vikings, Eagles, and Dolphins playing in prime time games (the Saints — who have potential to be a more explosive offense than most realize — are also missing in action, as are the Browns, who have the pieces to become a high-scoring offense if they can get their act together).

But this week also gives us five games and an additional “bonus offense” with serious potential to play to the upside.

Kansas City at Jacksonville :: 51.0 total

Jacksonville has its sights set on dethroning the other top dogs in the AFC this year, and a playoff rematch against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs is a perfect place for them to try to show what they can do. Travis Kelce appears likely to return for Kansas City this week, and the Jags have five different weapons who are capable of putting up a tournament-winning score. This game will provide a critical decision point for our rosters this week.

Baltimore at Cincinnati :: 45.5 total

Three games between these two teams (including playoffs) played to the downside last year, with Joe Burrow failing to crack 220 passing yards in any of those contests (and with Anthony Brown and Tyler Huntley starting the last two of these games for the Ravens), but in 2021, the Bengals showed what can happen when these teams meet, as they put up 41 points in both contests. The likeliest outcome here is a competitive, physical game in which neither team lights up the scoreboard…but given the weapons available on either side of the ball in this one, you can’t help but ask, “What if?”

Raiders at Bills :: 47.0 total

This game has a lower total than KC // Jax, but the Bills are implied to score more points than any team on the slate. The beauty of this game? Buffalo is coming off a somewhat embarrassing, self-inflicted loss on national TV, and they are exactly the type of team that will be looking to right the ship in an emphatic manner. Will Buffalo be happy if they come away with a win, regardless of the score? Probably. But their goal will be to hang as many points on the scoreboard as they can. The Raiders’ defense is better than it was last year…but it almost certainly still isn’t good. “Not good” is good enough for angry Josh Allen to put up a signature game.

Seahawks at Lions :: 47.0 total

Last year is not this year. To illustrate this fact :: in 2022, the Chargers held the Dolphins to 17 points, and held Tua Tagovailoa to 145 yards through the air. Players change. Teams adjust. Et cetera, et cetera. But we also can’t overlook the fact that these teams played to a 48-45 shootout last season, and each team is capable of scoring points in a hurry. More to the point :: the Lions are capable of scoring points in a hurry, and the Seahawks are capable of keeping pace when their defense gives up points. With high-scoring potential and a pair of concentrated offenses, there is plenty to consider in this spot.

49ers at Rams :: 44.5

Yes, only 44.5…but look me in the eye and tell me the 49ers can’t score points here. Okay — so we know the 49ers can score. We also know the 49ers’ defense is ferocious. But what if…what if…what if the Rams’ offense genuinely looked good on Sunday? Maybe that game will prove to be a total fluke, but this is an offense I was very impressed with, and I would rather be early on them than late. The 49ers have a concentrated offense and “do it all for your roster” potential — and if the Rams are able to keep this game competitive, they could yield one or two viable pieces themselves, while pushing the 49ers (who scored 30+ points in six of their final eight games last year) to put up even more points than they typically have to.

Bonus :: Chargers at Titans

The Titans are an enigma — as often explored on the site — as they give up a ton of production to quarterbacks and wide receivers and don’t have anyone who really scares offenses, and yet their opponent-specific approach typically throws just enough difficulties in the way to keep games generally low-scoring. But “generally low-scoring” is not the same as “all the time low-scoring,” and after the Dolphins all but forced the Chargers to try to win on the ground last week, LA will be facing a Titans team that is impossible to run on, and that faced the highest opponent pass play rate in the NFL last season by a wide margin. Herbert pass. Herbert pass. Herbert pass. We’ll likely see a lot of that this week — and when Herbert is passing a ton, there are opportunities for fantasy goodness to arise.

It’s a new week.

Think through all the angles.

Build rosters that take advantage of the unique puzzle presented to us.

Put another +EV sample into the bucket.

I’ll see you on the site throughout the weekend.

I’ll see you in the Bink Machine.

And I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards on Sunday.
-JM

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

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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

Similar to last week where we had just three games with a game total north of 47.0 points, Week 2 shapes up the same way. That said, we have an additional two games on this slate that bring a game total just under that threshold, providing five total game environments where we expect the field to be focused on in Week 2. We are also already into the “backup running back thrust into a lead role” realm of the season with Austin Ekeler ruled out and Joshua Kelley the expected lead back. That is going to fundamentally alter how people build rosters this week. Finally, the old (as in, like a few years old) adage of “you know nothing, Jon Snow” gains increased magnitude this week after recency biases and misunderstood team tendencies were introduced a week ago. The macro theoretical perspective of the slate is to embrace additional variance through well-constructed builds!

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.

Before we get into the expected chalk on this slate, it is important to annotate just how condensed the field seems to be in Week 2. Typically, on a standard slate, we see seven to eight players garner more than 15 percent ownership, which is my personal threshold for classifying a play as chalk. On the Week 2 slate, there are 17 players expected to be on more than 15 percent of rosters in play. We are not going to list every single player expected for more than 15 percent ownership, so we’ll focus only on the top seven to eight plays.

JOSHUA KELLEY

Yes, Austin Ekeler is out. That said, we shouldn’t fall victim to thinking Kellen Moore’s run-heavy ways will carry forward from Week 1. The Chargers boasted the league’s most valuable backfield a season ago, but the matchup is the worst on the slate on paper, meaning Joshua Kelley will likely need to score multiple touchdowns to return value, even at a low price of $5,000 on DraftKings. Did we not learn our lesson last week with a chalk running back against this Titans defense?

PUKA NACUA

The rookie slot man did his best Cooper Kupp impression in Week 1 and I’m of the opinion it was not a fluke. Puka Nacua remains an intriguing volume play for as long as Kupp remains out of the lineup.

LUKE MUSGRAVE

Aaron Jones and Christian Watson are presumably out. One of the primary pieces of tight end coverage for the Falcons in Troy Anderson is out. I can’t make a negative comment about Luke Musgrave as far as expected workload is concerned. The biggest knock to the rookie tight end is expected game environment. The Packers and Falcons might combine for under 120 offensive plays run from scrimmage on Sunday through slow pace of play and heavy rush rates. The Packers also carry a Vegas implied team total of under 21 points. I’m okay looking elsewhere on low-volume chalk at the tight end position.

CALVIN RIDLEY

Calvin Ridley immediately proved that his preseason was no fluke. He is back – and with vengeance on the league. Ridley commanded an elite 34.4 percent team target market share and 33.3 percent targets per route run rate in Week 1 and plays in the top game environment on the week. Again, I can’t really make a negative remark directed at his expected volume here. The biggest path to failure for Ridley is for someone else on the Jaguars to succeed as opposed to Ridley “failing.”

DAVID MONTGOMERY

David Montgomery held a solid 77 percent snap rate in Week 1 but reports from head coach Dan Campbell indicate higher involvement from rookie Jahmyr Gibbs moving forward. The matchup on the ground against Seattle is fine, but not what it was last season considering the presence of Bobby Wagner and Uchenna Nwosu in the linebacker corps. Does Montgomery have a path to 100 yards and two or more scores? Maybe?

DAVANTE ADAMS

Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers combined for 73.1 percent of the team’s available targets in Week 1, highlighting the same level of concentration that was found in this Josh McDaniels offense in 2022. Meyers will now miss Week 2 with a concussion, leaving Adams with one of the higher projected volumes on the slate. The biggest knock here is a Bills defense with a clear run-funnel nature (wink, wink) after playing absurd levels of nickel Cover-3 in Week 1.

DEEBO SAMUEL

I was honestly shocked to see the field exhibit extreme confidence in Deebo Samuel being the player to erupt from the 49ers this week. We can say, with a high level of confidence, that one of Christian McCaffrey, Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, or George Kittle is likely to have a GPP-worthy score against the Rams, the problem is we have no clear indication of which player that is likeliest to be here. Could it be Samuel? Sure, it could! Does the percentage chance of it being Samuel match the field’s expected interest in Deebo? No, sir or ma’am.

JA’MARR CHASE

The Ravens continue to be a pass-funnel defense through the presence of nose tackle Michael Pierce and their defensive scheme. They will also be without cornerback Marlon Humphrey and safety Marcus Williams, meaning Rock Ra-Sin and Brandon Stephens are likely to enter the starting lineup in the secondary. While not to the same extreme as in previous years, this presents a slight boost to the pure matchup for all Cincinnati pass-catchers.

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

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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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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

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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 :: $6.2K

Josh Allen
David Montgomery
Zack Moss
Tank Dell
Stefon Diggs
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine
Dalton Kincaid
Puka Nacua
Jets

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Blue Chips

Bills

(see Build-Arounds)

49ers

(see Build-Arounds)

“Light Blue” Chips

Mahomes + Kelce

Over the last two seasons, Travis Kelce has (only…) nine games with 23+ DraftKings Points. Patrick Mahomes has scored 28+ DraftKings points in eight of those nine games (with 30+ in seven, and well over 30 in most). We talked about this last year, but if you are getting the Travis Kelce bet correct, you are almost certainly getting the Patrick Mahomes bet correct as well, which means that almost all of my Kelce builds will include Mahomes. Mahomes is also a Light Blue chip on his own, and is only kept from being a Blue Chip by the lack of certainty around stacking partners. I.e., Kelce doesn’t hit quite often enough to be a true Blue Chip at his price…and if Kelce isn’t the one hitting, it’s essentially impossible to know who (if anyone) will “hit” instead. I’ll take swings on other Kansas City pass catchers in large-field play, but my tighter builds will likely focus primarily on pairing Kelce and Mahomes together.

Jags

(see Build-Arounds)

Amon-Ra St. Brown

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Build-Arounds

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Building Blocks

Gabe+

Gabe Davis + Stefon Diggs + Josh Allen

Story:

“Gabe Davis hits”

Why It Works:

In all four games last year in which Gabe Davis went for a score between “acceptable” and “excellent,” Diggs and Allen also hit. While this isn’t predictive, it does indicate to us that when Gabe is hitting, it’s likely coming in a game in which the Bills as a whole are hitting. Thus: “getting Gabe right almost certainly means you’re also getting Diggs and Allen right,” allowing you to take full advantage.

How It Works:

Because Gabe’s ceiling is so high and his ownership is likely to be so low, a big game from him automatically sets your roster apart. Add in the fact that most who play him won’t complete the bet, and this becomes the sort of high-upside stack that we’ll probably see on less than 1% of tourney builds. If you get one thing right (Gabe hitting), you’re probably getting three things right with a lot of upside and a good chunk of your salary, putting you well ahead of the field, and allowing you to pretty much play your favorite plays across the rest of your roster.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:

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

Purdy Anchor

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Bink Machine

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

Gabe Davis Anchor

Every time Gabe Davis hit last year, Diggs and Allen hit as well. I.e., “Gabe hitting” likely means “Bills as a whole hitting.” Because of this, I like a rule where every Gabe Davis roster includes both Diggs and Allen as well. This rule looks like this (Gabe Davis Anchor; include all 3 in this pool; i.e., “If Gabe gets put on a roster, the other two in this pool have to be on there as well”) ::

“1 49er per”

I don’t know for sure if I’ll have this rule, but it is certainly viable (“at least one of CMC // Deebo // Aiyuk // Kittle on every roster”). We can force this in the Bink Machine by narrowing our player pool to the 49ers we want, making sure we have a rule that Purdy has to be paired with a pass catcher (eliminating potential for “Purdy naked” rosters), and then changing the following box to “1” in the Team Constraints section of Team Stacks (i.e., “at least one 49ers player on every roster”) ::

If Seahawks Wideout…

As we know, “ceiling games” from Seahawks pass catchers almost always require an opponent to put up points. If I have Lockett or Metcalf, I want to also have at least one piece from the Lions, and I’ll be willing to have as many as two. This rule looks like this (anchor Metcalf; at least two players from this pool; as many as three; i.e., “If we have Metcalf, make sure we have one to two of these others” // run this same rule for Lockett) ::

Large-Field Special :: Mike Evans Anchor

If Mike Evans hits, this opens an opportunity for one of the three main pass-catchers on the Bears to hit as well. As such, I want my Mike Evans (large-field) rosters to include one of DJ Moore, Darnell Mooney, or Cole Kmet. This rule looks like this (Mike Evans anchor; include exactly one of these others) ::

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 ::

Josh Allen || Patrick Mahomes || Trevor Lawrence || Justin Herbert || Brock Purdy || Jared Goff || Geno Smith || Anthony Richardson || Daniel Jones

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

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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 likely evolve as the season progresses but should provide a lot of value. Enjoy!!

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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 Checking The Boxes course. 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 ::

Josh Kelley

Kelley had a larger-than-expected role in Week 1 and we have now removed Austin Ekeler from the equation. Tennessee is best attacked through the air, but the Chargers offensive line is legit and Kelley’s volume in a very good offense is too much to ignore at his price tag.

Josh Jacobs

The Bills are playing on a short week after being gutted by the Jets on the ground. Jacobs showed in Week 1 that he still has one of the biggest RB roles in the league and now Jakobi Meyers will be out, leaving Jacobs and Davante Adams to account for the overwhelming majority of the Raiders offensive usage.

AJ Dillon

My hope for this game is that Aaron Jones does play, which will keep Dillon’s ownership very low. The Packers offense is built around their running backs first and Aaron Jones missed practice all week, so even if he does play, I would expect him to have limited touches while also being at high risk for aggravation.

Travis Etienne

Etienne may end up as one of my bigger misses this year in Best Ball. I didn’t draft much of him, but he looked terrific in Week 1 and this game projects as the most likely to shootout on the Week 2 slate. Etienne’s usage was also very encouraging, as his role in the passing game appears to have grown from last year. The Chiefs have traditionally been more vulnerable to running backs than wide receivers and struggled with the Lions RBs in Week 1. Decent matchup, elite usage, talented back, great game environment, middling ownership, and price.

Kenneth Walker

Walker is an explosive back who can break off long runs. He played just under 65% of snaps last week but handled 17 of 23 RB opportunities. His price tag doesn’t match his talent in a potentially explosive game environment.

Tight End :: 

George Kittle

Kittle scored seven touchdowns in the last four regular season games of 2022 with Brock Purdy as his quarterback. A player with his weekly ceiling at a modest salary and low ownership is a smash button play for a team that has scored 30+ points in six of their seven regular season games with Brock Purdy as the starter.

Chig Okonkwo

Last season, Okonkwo was an extremely efficient player and showed off his athleticism and explosiveness when given the opportunity. This week, the Titans figure to be pushed by the Chargers offense, and DeAndre Hopkins will likely be out or limited. Okonkwo played 83% of the snaps in Week 1 and ran a route on 82% of the dropbacks. That’s the type of usage we were begging for in 2022 and now we have it.

Dalton Kincaid

It’s going to take me more than one disappointing game to give up on Kincaid. This is a guy who played over 80% of the snaps and ran a route on 93% of Josh Allen’s dropbacks. A rough debut against one of the top defenses in the league doesn’t scare me off.

Defense :: 

Cowboys

 Zach Wilson + Nathaniel Hackett

Jets

 It’s not often you get a top-5 defense at only $2,700. This is a “bet on talent and fade Week 1 reactions” play that is not for the faint of heart.

LIONS

My intuition is that this game could be very high-scoring (see below), but the Lions defense should have plenty of chances for sacks and interceptions against an undermanned offensive line.

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GPP Stack Of The Week

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

Welcome OWS fam to Papy’s pieces! I’m extremely excited to share a whole slate article with you guys and hopefully provide a useful tool in lineup building. My background in strategy games comes from chess, and building off that, I’m going to talk about “pieces” that like in chess, create a team. The player I highlight as each “piece” will make my condensed builds, with a real chance to make my single-entry lineup (where most of my money is bet each week). They’ll be categorized into pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings (the pieces on a chess board). I’m not going to create ridged standards (like a salary bracket for each piece) but pawns will generally be the cheapest, with pieces working their way up in price to Queens/Kings. The article will start with “The Board” where I’ll give a brief overview of a way to think about the slate, before going into Pieces.

The Board

Welcome to Week 2 DFS! Week 2, like Week 1, is typically still abundant in value, and this week is no different. Players who were clearly mispriced in Week 1 still haven’t increased enough in salary, and players who had a tough Week 1 have been decreased in salary in what looks like an overreaction in many cases. There are also several lead backs (Joshua Kelley // Kenneth Walker // Rachaad White // Gus Edwards // Zach Moss // Brian Robinson) either due to injury or low valuations who are grossly underpriced for their projected workloads. While they’re all “correct” plays, they won’t be featured here, as I suspect all the RB value and relative lack of WR value will lead to builds spending more at RB being unique. With that idea in mind, let’s check out the pieces for Week 2!

Pawn – Dalton Kincaid ($3,200)

Kincaid falls into the category of a player whose price hasn’t adjusted to the usage we saw in Week 1. The Bills hardly ever ran two TE packages last year but decided to use 12-personnel the most in the league to open the season. That is a telling change in philosophy, and it seems directly linked to Kincaid who they traded up for in the draft. Kincaid was in almost every route, but the part of his week one usage that really stood out was that he took 59% of the snaps from the slot. That means Kincaid is closer to being the Bills slot WR, rather than a traditional in-line TE. It’s tough to fade a TE with a large team total, priced like a punt, who is seeing slot WR usage in a potent passing game. As a bonus, the Bills are likely to try and “get right” this week and will have no qualms about hanging 40 on the Raiders.

Knight – Dallas D ($4,000)

I hate recommending an expensive defense (especially one everyone just watched look incredible on primetime), but the truth is that sometimes the “donkey” plays are correct. I have never been on team Zach “Frightened Child” Wilson and my evaluation of him hasn’t changed because he looked okay coming off the bench Monday night. I’d rather bet on the Dallas defense being as ferocious as it looked Sunday night. The Cowboys are the second most expensive defense, but to me, they’re by far the best play. Early ownership projections have them around 13%, but people tend to be allergic to pricey defenses, and I could see it being lower. I could also see them being the type of play that is more owned in lower stakes tournaments, whereas high stakes players “know better” than to pay $4,000 for a defense. It’s generally correct to pay down at defense, but if a defense explodes, you still need to have them to win. The Cowboys could run the Jets out of the gym, and I’ll be looking to fit Dallas into my lineups. As a bonus, they are a nice pairing with Tony Pollard ($7,500).

Bishop – Jahmyr Gibbs ($6,300)

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

Flop Lag

Things should have gone a certain way in Week 1. Many things didn’t. Why? Humans. Humans are weird. We’re flawed. We’re inconsistent and unpredictable. 

The trick in navigating the 2^nd week of any season is deciphering whether our offseason notions were better informed than our first true data point of the year. I’ll be carefully balancing my prior knowledge with the small sample of Week 1. Some of those games just didn’t fall in the fat part of the range of outcomes. 

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.

Christian McCaffery/Puka Nacua 

We’re betting on Week One data here. If CMC is going to outsnap Eli Mitchell 58-10 in a blowout…holy shit. 

If Puka sees even 60% of the looks he got last week, he’s a smash at $4900. 

Both will be owned so if you’d like a more contrarian secondary stack, simply replace CMC with George Kittle or swap Puka out for Tutu Atwell.

Travis Kelce/Calvin Ridley

Unless we’re betting on a price-considered flop of a game, we’ll have to account for this game in our non-Chiefs/Jags builds. 

Both will be owned but the slate-breaking potential is undeniable. Given price and ownership, this pairing works best with the lower-owned and cheaper quarterback stacks. Daniel Jones, Baker Mayfield, and Sam Howell come to mind. 

Josh Jacobs/Gabe Davis (without Josh Allen)

What? If Gabe Davis has a ceiling game, wouldn’t he bring Josh Allen with him?

Gabe’s ownership projection has been rising all week due to an approximate 90% mention share among DFS touts. He’s gone from .5% to 5% in the last 48 hours. Stacking a popular Allen with a micro-owned, high-upside receiver makes way too much sense. Therefore, Gabe Davis’ rise is directly tied to his QB. If you play an Allen/Davis stack in the Milly, you’re going to be competing against roughly 11,000 rosters, which is fine. But how many rosters will have Davis and Jacobs without Josh Allen? Probably more like 700. Imagine the Bills/Raiders game going slightly under the total because Josh Jacobs was able to get things going on the ground. He racks up points on a couple of sustained touchdown drives in the first half. Josh Allen, playing from behind, has a good, but not great game with a couple of successful TD shots to Gabe Davis. This leaves the door wide open for someone other than Josh Allen to be the cost-considered best QB play on the slate. Sliding in a lower-owned, less expensive QB that still offers a decent ceiling, allows us to pay up a bit at another position and that could be enough to unlock a path to first place. 

Give me this pairing in some lineups that feature Trevor Lawrence, Joe Burrow, Anthony Richardson, or Jared Goff.

Lower-Owned Treasures

Running Back

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

Take your expectations for Week 2 and lower them. That’s your first move this week. Your next move should be going back to your initial thoughts at the outset of the week in looking at this upcoming slate. What games jumped out at you? Matchups? Players? Who did you think would bounce back from a poor Week 1 performance? Who did you think would continue his poor or great play?

I say all of this to stress that this week’s slate looks low scoring . . . again. So, when you get set up in building lineups this week (you computer warrior you), feel free to take what the slate is giving to you. Even if it’s not that much. With low totals all around, we should take our expectations and lower them, take our projections and lower those as well, and instead of forcing our action, look at where points are likely going to come from and dive right in. And when a slate sets up like this, with all the DFS training you already have, your initial reactions were likely the best ones ya got to work with.

It’s not that you can’t game stack an environment like the Giants and Cardinals, Colts and Texans, or Bears and Bucs, it’s just that the projected outcomes here are so razor thin to hit a tournament-winning player block. So, like last week we can again look to correlate with smaller groups to hope the volume funnels through them instead of betting on that 70+ point outcome.

Week 2

Week 2 is fascinating to me. It’s probably the most fun week of the season, to be honest. You have all this reacting and overreacting to Week 1’s results, while we’re all simultaneously trying to not be too early nor too late on players and teams this season. In my opinion, many of us lose our DFS identity during this week. We studied many of these guys for weeks in the summer preparing for Best Ball and Season-long drafts. Then Week 1 happened, and now we’re second-guessing ourselves, our rosters, and our strategies. Don’t do this. You know ball. And better yet, you know what first-place tournament lineups look like. And better, better yet, you have access to the Bink Machine (if you don’t, stop reading and do this now). Build lineups this week with the same confidence you had in Week 1.

Trevor Lawrence

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 2 Topics

1. Week 2: It’s All Clear Now

2. Touchdowns?? Are you there??

3. Buyer Beware // Buying Low

4. Value Plays

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

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1. Week 2: It’s All Clear Now

The Question ::

In Week 1, we talked about the uncertainty around things and how there are so many situations that we just don’t know about yet. After one week of real football, the natural tendency for many is to think we have it all figured out and what we saw on the field is a crystalized view of teams, players, and coaches. Obviously there is a lot of football left and, despite the name of this website, we know that the season is a marathon and one week is a small snapshot of the big picture. With that in mind, what are some things that stood out to you in terms of team approaches or player usage that you found interesting, surprising, or useful going forward?

The Answers ::

Hilow >>

The Las Vegas Raiders remained extremely concentrated in Week 1, with two wide receivers accounting for 73 percent of the team’s targets (Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers) and Josh Jacobs accounting for 88 percent of the team’s available running back opportunities. And now Meyers appears to be trending towards a missed contest with the concussion he suffered at the end of the game.

The Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders were largely unable to generate pressure in the backfield in Week 1, both finishing in the bottom three in pressure rate (against each other and less than stellar opponents). Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills and Sam Howell and the Washington Commanders should have much more time in the pocket after being relentlessly pursued in Week 1.

The Arizona Cardinals defense looked… good. I attribute most (all?) of that to new head coach Jonathan Gannon, who utilizes a shallow 2-high shell with his defense. That basically means that his shell incorporates safeties that are 10-12 yards in depth instead of the natural 18-22 yards that we see around the league from 2-high looks. That was able to generate mass confusion for Sam Howell in Week 1 and could continue to mask the relative lack of top-end talent on the roster moving forward. This week, the Cardinals take on a Giants team that had some significant offensive struggles in Week 1.

The field might misinterpret the trends and data from Kellen Moore’s first time out in Los Angeles calling plays for the Chargers. Was his game plan a product of a newfound love to run the football or was it simply a plan and reaction to their opponent in the Dolphins? My money is on the latter, meaning we should expect them to alter their course against the most extreme pass-funnel defense in the league.

Xandamere >>

What I say every year is that we know very little in Week 1, but we know even less in Week 2. That’s because it’s super easy to overreact to what happened in Week 1 and assume that’s going to be the case going forward, when in many cases player usage in Week 1 was about individual matchup, trying to ease a new player in gradually, reacting to injury situations (including players who didn’t get a lot of camp time even if they’re now healthy), or other factors we just don’t know about. For example, does anyone really think Tyler Algeier is going to play roughly split snaps with Bijan Robinson and handle more touches? Will the Lions continue to use Jahmyr Gibbs as they did D’Andre Swift, or will his role grow over the season? Is Christian Kirk really the WR3 in Jacksonville now behind Zay Jones? The answer is that we don’t really know…and for me, I will look to ownership to help me make decisions about how I will approach those situations week to week. 

One thing I found extremely interesting is that Christian McCaffrey was used like a bellcow, playing 85% of the snaps vs. Eli Mitchell’s 15% and handling 27 opportunities (!) to Mitchell’s 6. Last year after CMC joined the team, the 49ers used him lightly in games in which Mitchell was active, and he only got the kind of workload we saw when he was on the Panthers in games Mitchell missed. If we continue to see bellcow CMC on the 49ers (a MUCH better offense than the Panthers!), he could have an absolutely monstrous season.

Otherwise I’m less interested in individual player usage and more interested in looking at offenses as a whole. Hilow already mentioned the Raiders elite concentration. The Vikings have also been incredibly concentrated – through two games, only three wide receivers have played any snaps. That’s wild. On the other hand, the Dolphins were a bit less concentrated than last year – out of 45 Tua dropbacks, Hill and Waddle “only” accounted for 20 targets, whereas last year it was generally over 50% of the targets going to the two primary wideouts. A lot of this was driven by Waddle only seeing five looks, so I don’t want to read too much into this yet….could just be that Waddle was struggling to get open in this matchup but I expect that won’t continue all season.

JM >>

We learned that Jordan Love looks young, but honestly impressive (albeit in a soft matchup, on a team that doesn’t like to throw the ball a ton). We learned that the Cardinals have a well-schemed offense and defense and are going to play hard and give opponents a tougher time than expected, in spite of the talent deficit they have. We learned that the Texans and Colts are similar to the Cardinals: lower in talent than most teams they’ll face, but high in discipline and effort. We learned that Puka Nacua can get open. And that’s about it. The Bengals looked awful in Week 1. Who cares. The Seahawks and Giants didn’t look great. Who cares. The Bears look like they haven’t taken a step forward, and the Titans’ offense looked all out of sorts. Who cares, who cares, who cares. I’ll borrow Xandamere’s quote: “We know very little in Week 1, but we know even less in Week 2.” I would venture to say that OWS members know more than most of our competition, simply because A) we are nuanced thinkers in this community (therefore, we know that there is a lot we don’t know), and because B) we have so many content providers who are actually watching the games, paying attention to what’s being said by the coaching staff and the team, etc. But the main thing we “know” is that there is a lot we don’t yet know. Early in the season, it’s important that we identify the spots where quick adjustments in thinking/expectations should be made, but it’s equally important that we let the rest of the spots (the majority of the spots) develop, and our thinking around them to develop gradually along the way.

Mike >>

• The Colts are going to play fast and Shane Steichen is treating Anthony Richardson like his new version of Jalen Hurts.
• The 49ers offense is going to finish top-3 in the league in scoring with four players accounting for almost all of it.
• Calvin Ridley brings the Jaguars offense to a completely new level.
• Detroit’s offense has major upside and untapped potential.
• The Green Bay offense is going to be much better than last year when fully healthy.

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2. Touchdowns?? Are you there??

The Question ::

The excitement heading into Week 1 of the NFL season is something special. It has been seven months since we had real, meaningful NFL games and eight months since we had a full slate of games on a Sunday – there really is nothing like it. Then the games start and what we see is often disappointing. Scoring was very low in Week 1 as offenses didn’t interact well and only three of the 16 games had more than 45 points of total scoring. According to Rich Hribar of Sharp Football, in Week 1 the NFL had 61 total offensive touchdowns – 12 less than Week 1 of 2022 and 27 LESS than Week 1 of 2021. As a matter of fact, only one other time since 2015 has the league had fewer than 70 offensive touchdowns in Week 1. Talk about raining on our parade.

Scoring should bounce back to a certain extent – regression is real. But still, last week was a perfect example of how one game can quickly become the key to a slate – as the Dolphins // Chargers game combined for 70 points and was absolutely a “had to have” game if you wanted to make money last week. Which game or two stand out to you of having the best chance of stealing the show in Week 2? And are the touchdowns going to come out to play?

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

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 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 and 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.

This Week’s Slate

• The NFL is bringing us back down to earth with only four late games this week.
• All four games have totals under 45 and three of the four games have totals under 40.
• Dallas and San Francisco are heavy favorites, while the other two games have close spreads but low totals.
• DFS pricing is pretty efficient relative to spreads and totals, which means in order for one game to separate we will need one of the closer spread games to be higher scoring than expected or one of the big underdogs (NYJ or LAR) to play above expectations.
• The 49ers offense easily projects as the best on the slate. Most people will have a couple of players from their team. That doesn’t mean you have to avoid them, it means you have to find the right combination.

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 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.

QB Strategy

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 – Late Games:

Four of the twelve total games fall into the late window this weekend, with only the 49ers surpassing a 24-point Vegas implied team total. Outside of two San Francisco pieces (CMC and Deebo Samuel), I don’t expect much ownership around any of these four games except for Rams WR Puka Nacua potentially being the only other exception, however, I feel his ownership will come in under current projections as he is a player who was completely unknown to a vast majority of the field until last week.

Overall, ownership should congregate around a few spots this week as there are a handful of clear best game environments. The two main decision points of the week will be around accounting for Kansas City at Jacksonville and the Buffalo Bills offense (more on this below). The Chiefs and Jaguars game carries a 51 implied point total (four points more than the next highest) and features several strong on paper plays. That said, if your main stack on a roster is from the early games, such as the Chiefs and Jaguars or Bills and Raiders, I suggest a construction with at least two spots, preferably one being the Flex, saved for the afternoon games. This will allow you to block the most popular players if your early plays smash, or get contrarian with some of the options outlined below if your roster needs to play catch up to get over the cash line.

Important Early Outcomes to Watch:

• Joshua Kelley. With Austin Ekeler ruled out, Kelley is underpriced for his likeliest role, however, the Titans have historically been a tough matchup for RBs. At $5,000, Kelley is projected for around 25% ownership and will likely be the highest owned player on the entire slate.
• AJ Dillion (if Aaron Jones is inactive). At $5,900, Dillion figures to garner high ownership, despite a road matchup and low team total for Green Bay (currently in the teens).
• Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs. Allen is projected as the highest owned QB and will be most often stacked with Diggs. This is a very expensive pairing ($15,900), and while raw points are looking to potentially be more important than usual on this slate, a 3x-4x combined output will likely need to be accounted for.
• Chiefs vs Jaguars, but specifically Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Mahomes and Kelce are likely to be the highest or second highest owned at their respective positions and are just as expensive ($15,900) as the previously mentioned Allen and Diggs stack. Trevor Lawrence, Calvin Ridley, and Zay Jones each also project for double digit ownership, making this game environment one to monitor and account for as a whole. The same explanation as above applies to Mahomes/Kelce.
•  “Slate Breakers” such as Tyreek Hill’s 47.5 DK point performance last week.

Price Range Breakdowns (Late Games):

$7,100 and up:

Lex is a matchup researcher who focuses his play on Underdog’s Battle Royale contest

The goal of this article is to present you with information and strategy about a different-style DFS tournament that is not currently as strategically optimized as traditional DFS due to its infancy as a contest style.

If you are new to this contest or just want to get a bigger picture of the first two years of the contest, I will show you how to access my article reviewing 2021 and 2022 top rosters:

OWS → Archives → The Scroll Archives → Week 1, 2023 → Battle Royale (at bottom)

This was an atypical weekly preview as it was more of a primer for the contest than about anything Week 1 specific; so if you’d like to access it then that is the easiest way to do it.

For this week, I’ll be reviewing the top roster of Week 1, updating some trending stats, and hitting on some of my thoughts on each position. Let’s get started!

Reviewing Week 1

Score	QB	RB	FLEX	WR	WR	TE
137.74	Tua	A Jones	Bijan	Tyreek	Ridley	Hockenson
137.24	Tua	A Jones	Etienne	Tyreek	Ridley	Pitts
135.94	Tua	CMC	Etienne	Tyreek	Ridley	Pitts
133.34	Tua	A Jones	Henry	Tyreek	Ridley	Hockenson
132.72	Herbert	A Jones	Ekeler	Tyreek	Olave	Hockenson

Let’s take a look at the strategy employed by the winning lineup:

• Draft Order: Tyreek Hill – Bijan Robinson – Calvin Ridley – TJ Hockenson – Aaron Jones – Tua Tagovailoa
• 1st: Hill was one of the top options on the slate (almost always went from picks 2-4) in the best projected game environment.
• 2nd: Robinson, a home favorite and recent top-10 draft pick, projected for high volume in a favorable matchup.
• 3rd: Ridley was starting the year as Trevor Lawrence’s new #1 against a projected weak secondary, a role that yielded high scores to lesser players Christian Kirk and Zay Jones in 2022.
• Note: Now has rostered two of the highest projected volume WRs and an RB with a projected role on the ground and air. No correlation yet, but Tua and possibly Lawrence are still available to this point.
• 4th: Hockenson projected as the highest-scoring TE on the slate with the injury to Mark Andrews. With Hill being taken in the Justin Jefferson range, any Hockenson points that take away from JJ benefit Hill and the roster as a whole.
• 5th: Jones was going late in drafts due to the uncertainty of the GB offense as a whole, but the absence of Christian Watson opened up extra receiving work (similar to the boost Jones would get when Davante Adams missed time).
• Note: Finishes off the flex spots with a second RB, something that had been successful in 69% of top-5 lineups to this point. Lawrence is almost assuredly gone by this point, but Tua had been going late or undrafted the entire week. Drafter likely aiming for a Tua-Hill stack or Kirk Cousins-Hockenson stack at this point.
• 6th: Tua is selected to pair with Tyreek Hill, a combo that yielded high totals of 77.4, 54.7, and 47.9 in 2022.
• Drafter took advantage of a lower-scoring week overall for a big win. Driven by the skinny Tua-Hill stack, the rest of the roster was surrounded by players who projected for some of the best volume at their respective positions.
• Note: Brandon Aiyuk, Christian McCaffrey, and Austin Ekeler combined for only two appearances across the 20 possible spots despite outscoring every player on the slate save Hill and Jones. Doesn’t require the optimal lineup to win this contest.

Notable Stats

Average 1st place performance (Half-PPR Points):

• Roster: 156.24
• QB: 32.45
• Low Flex: 19.02
• High Flex: 34.16
• TE: 19.09

1st place performance:

• 25 of the 37 teams had at least one flex player score 30+ half-PPR fantasy points
• 15 of the 37 teams had all flex players score at least 20+ half-PPR fantasy points
• 33 of the 37 teams had all flex players score at least 15+ half-PPR fantasy points

FLEX usage:

• 129 of 185 top-5 rosters have had two RBs (69.7%), meaning they chose RB at FLEX over WR and TE.
• The other 56 top 5 rosters all used WR at FLEX, meaning there was not a single roster to place top 5 using double TE.

Stacking and Correlation:

• 22 of 37 had a QB paired with just one teammate
  • WR (17), TE (3), RB (2)
• 4 of 37 had a QB stacked with two teammates
  • WR-RB (3), WR-WR (1)
• 4 of those 26 QB stacks had a runback (Opposing player)
• 36 of 37 had at least one game correlation
• 13 of 37 had two different game correlations

Looking at Week 2

QB:

Notable QBs missing from slate: Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, Deshaun Watson, Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, Aaron Rodgers

Top 6 by ADP: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow

Notes:

• Based on recency bias and injuries, QBs are slipping this week. Mahomes with Travis Kelce and Josh Allen with Stefon Diggs are both possible stacks right now, which is notable since both have typically been rare over the years due to ADP.
• Lamar and Burrow both had poor Week 1 outings for different reasons, but both obviously come with slate-winning ceilings and are going in the last rounds. This game environment (BAL @ CIN) has a wide range of outcomes.
• Justin Fields and Anthony Richardson are often going undrafted, despite two of the highest floors and ceilings at the position with their abilities rushing the ball.
• Jared Goff is going undrafted despite the 4th highest team total on the slate in a team matchup that has finished 48-45 and 51-29 in the last two years of Dan Campbell vs. Pete Carroll.
• Daniel Jones is going undrafted in a far softer matchup than last week, can be easily paired with Darren Waller, and has showcased a high ceiling with Daboll (4 games of 27+ points in 2022).

RB:

Notable RBs missing from this slate: Nick Chubb, Rhamondre Stevenson, Najee Harris, Alexander Mattison, Raheem Mostert, Jamaal Williams, Miles Sanders

Top 10 by ADP: Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Bijan Robinson, Tony Pollard, Austin Ekeler, Derrick Henry, Travis Etienne, Josh Jacobs, Jahmyr Gibbs, Kenneth Walker

Notes:

• Ekeler is Questionable and is slipping in drafts. Not the easiest matchup on the ground, but can score through the air as well. He will only rise with positive news on his ankle injury.
• Jacobs is going too low for the kind of volume he can get, and Buffalo is more susceptible on the ground than through the air. Should positively correlate with a Josh Allen ceiling game.
• James Conner is going undrafted and had one of the highest snap and route involvement rates at the position in Week 1. (He is now questionable with a calf injury).
• Rachaad White is going undrafted because he’s been mostly terrible to this point in his career, but gets a soft matchup at home against a weak defense and team overall. He got 17/24 rush attempts and 2/4 targets for Tampa Bay RBs in Week 1.

WR:

Notable WRs missing from this slate: Justin Jefferson, AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Chris Olave, Amari Cooper, Diontae Johnson

Notes:

• Keenan Allen and Ceedee Lamb both continue to be overdrafted for this style contest. Allen is in a better spot this week at least against a pass funnel defense, with Lamb playing a tough defense in a game projected to be heavily controlled by Dallas’s defense.
• Diggs has been easily stacked with Allen all week long, so make sure to differentiate at other spots.
• Amon-Ra St. Brown is most frequently paired with DK Metcalf, so ways to get different are to take him with Goff or an undrafted Lockett or 3 together.
• Aiyuk is going much higher than Deebo Samuel after last week due to reactionary bias. Deebo has just as much explosive potential in this offense and has historically dominated this Rams defense.
  • Can the Rams push enough to make two 49ers viable together (i.e. CMC + WR/Kittle)? It worked just last week even in a blowout of PIT.
• Mike Williams has explosive potential against a bad pass defense and will be much less owned than Allen.
• Gabe Davis has explosive potential against a below-average pass defense and can differentiate your roster from all the Allen-Diggs teams.
• Mike Evans and Justin Fields should be positively correlated in this matchup.
• Puka Nacua has 1 NFL start so let’s not get ahead of ourselves in his evaluation, but he crushed his first opportunity filling in for Kupp’s shoes. Kupp has dominated this matchup in 5 straight games, and we know offenses generally pass more frequently against SF. A bigger game for him should positively correlate with the SF studs on the other side.
• DJ Moore is averaging 88.3 yards/game in his last 8 matchups with Tampa and is likely frustrated coming off a low-usage game in his first start with the Bears. Tampa under Bowles will always push offenses to the air over attacking on the ground.

TE:

Notable TEs missing from this slate: TJ Hockenson, Dallas Goedert, Juwan Johnson, David Njoku, Pat Freiermuth

Top 6 by ADP: Travis Kelce, Darren Waller, Mark Andrews, George Kittle, Evan Engram, Kyle Pitts

Notes:

• All four of the big dogs are here this week, but all come with injury concerns to start the year. 
• Kelce has been steadily climbing all week due to positive news, so just know a lot of early rosters were more easily able to achieve stacks with Mahomes, and maybe Ridley as well.
• Andrews has typically feasted in this matchup and is going much later than he typically would without a Q tag. Burrow/Lamar + Chase/Higgins + Andrews are still easily draftable combos.
• Waller has a hamstring concern, but facing Arizona after Dallas is like going from All-Madden to Rookie mode. New DC and players, but AZ has most recently been an extremely TE-friendly defense. Waller is NYG’s #1 pass catcher.
• Cole Kmet is easily stackable with Fields and received 7 targets in Week 1. Kmet made it on top-5 rosters in multiple weeks in 2022.

Underowned Combos:

• Justin Fields + DJ Moore/Cole Kmet + Mike Evans/Chris Godwin
• Jared Goff + Amon-Ra St. Brown + DK Metcalf/Tyler Lockett/Kenneth Walker
• Josh Allen + Josh Jacobs/Davante Adams + Gabe Davis
• Christian McCaffrey + Puka Nacua + (Deebo Samuel/Brandon Aiyuk)
• Daniel Jones + Darren Waller + (James Conner)
• Anthony Richardson + Nico Collins

Hope this helps you get started with the contest and ship that first place! Good luck everyone!