Happy Thursday!

New members: Every Thursday morning, we send out the Angles email — in which we take a critical, “overview” look at the slate ahead.

The Lay Of The Land ::

Week: 4

Total Main Slate Games: 12

Slate Overview:

The NFL has put us in whiplash mode to begin the season, with a slate a couple weeks ago in which many of the top teams were missing, a slate last week in which all the top offenses were playing (with many of them playing one another), and a slate this week with…well, we’ll call it “a very unique setup.”

Let’s start with the teams missing from this slate, as this always helps us get a better sense of what the slate actually includes.

Thursday night gives us the Dolphins and Bengals. The Dolphins rank 2nd in early-season offensive DVOA (Football Outsiders), and while the Bengals currently rank 31st(!!!), we know they are capable of performing at a much higher level.

Sunday night gives us Kansas City at Tampa. The Chiefs rank 9th in early-season offensive DVOA, and while the Bucs rank 27th, they are getting Mike Evans back this week, and should start rounding into form over the next few weekends.

Monday night gives us the Rams and 49ers. Both of these teams currently rank outside the top 16 in offensive DVOA, though both ranked top 8 last season.

Teams missing :: Dolphins // Chiefs // Rams // 49ers // Bucs // Bengals. That’s four of the top eight offenses (DVOA) from last season, plus a Bengals team that caught fire down the stretch last season and a Dolphins team that has been on fire to begin 2022.

But if we want to look at “offenses missing” through a different lens…

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::

As you will see below, there are a ton of chalk pieces this week and only one of those (and I stretched my threshold just to include him) is from the expected top game environment on the week (Josh Allen). You also should see some questionable salary-savers (as the field likely hunts for value) and numerous mid-range chalk wide receivers. My general observations from this slate have to do with the field seemingly ready to do backflips trying to outsmart themselves and each other. Strip the names, strip the teams, and focus on the true top game environments and top teams. To me, those teams are very clearly the Bills, the Ravens, and the Eagles, in no particular order. Every one of the three-man primary stacks on those teams is expected to garner low combinatorial ownership this week, and it appears the field is largely neglecting those game environments through the lens of basic roster construction optimal practices. These types of slates are amazing because we can just play the top offenses and not have to worry about ownership. Yay!

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.

JOSH ALLEN

Restrictive chalk. Didn’t quite crack my ownership threshold to be labeled clear chalk, but he’s still expected to garner the highest ownership at the position – and for good reason. That said, there are plenty of leverage possibilities with this one.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS

Expansive chalk. Jamaal Williams’ running opportunity counts in games that D’Andre Swift missed in 2021:

• 15 carries and five targets in Week 11
• 17 carries and one target in Week 12
• DNP (injured) Weeks 13 and 14
• 19 carries and zero targets in Week 15

A tight range of 18-20 running back opportunities on a moderate sample size gives us a good idea of what to expect this week. Hint: if he isn’t scoring twice, you can probably capture better upside elsewhere.

KHALIL HERBERT

Expansive chalk. I could argue he is a better pure runner than David Montgomery but he’s clearly the lesser all-around back. Similar setup to Jamaal Williams but a better shot at cracking the 100-yard bonus (meaning 100/1 will probably get the job done as opposed to Jamaal where he likely needs multiple scores).

SAQUON BARKLEY

Restrictive chalk. Not really much else to say here other than the Giants will have only four wide receivers active on Sunday: Richie James, David Sills, Kenny Golladay, and Darius Slayton. That could/should lead to additional targets on Saquon’s already lofty route participation rate.

JOSH JACOBS

Expansive chalk. I don’t understand this one, to be completely honest. Jacobs has averaged 16.33 running back opportunities per game with only seven targets on the season, on a team averaging only 17.7 rush attempts per game (fewest in the league), against an opponent ranked seventh in the league in power success rate allowed and ninth in the league in stuffed rate.

DIONTAE JOHNSON

Neither restrictive nor expansive chalk. Double-digit targets in 15 of his last 19 games (as in, 79% of his last 19 games he’s seen double-digit looks), and 25 of his last 34 (as in, 74% of the games over the last two plus seasons he has seen double-digit targets). The stability and floor are remarkable but the Steelers are struggling to score touchdowns. 

RICHIE JAMES

Expansive chalk. James should be the theoretical WR1 against the Bears, likely playing 90%+ of the offensive snaps. That said, how many pass attempts are we expecting from a Giants team near league average in pass rate over expectation against a Bears team entrenched in the lowest pass rate over expectation in the league? As in, is there an upside here? Maybe?

BRANDIN COOKS

Neither restrictive nor expansive chalk. The unquestioned alpha in Houston. Has seen 29 targets through three games but Houston is struggling to score the football, averaging just 16.33 points per game and have scored only four offensive touchdowns. All three of David Mills pass touchdowns have gone to tight ends. NFL teams need to score touchdowns in order for their players to score touchdowns for fantasy rosters/teams.

TYLER LOCKETT

Neither restrictive nor expansive chalk. More chalk on a team that has scored only four offensive touchdowns through three games. In the absence of having to repeat myself again here, consider this – a target is worth approximately 1.5 fantasy points on average, meaning a touchdown is roughly equivalent to the value of four targets.

MACK HOLLINS

Hollins is coming off a career week against the Titans where he put up an 8/158/1 receiving line on 11 targets. I watched the entirety of that game because I was covering it for NBC, and Hollins was left in man coverage for the entirety of the game as the Titans doubled Davante Adams. That single coverage boosted Hollins’ PFF grade vs. man coverage all the way up to 11^th in the league. I’ve got news for you – Mack Hollins is not a top 12 wide receiver in the NFL against man coverage. The Denver Broncos have allowed the fewest DraftKings points per game to opposing wide receivers (just 24.2) but have struggled against tight ends in their 3-4 Cover-2 base defense. I personally won’t be chasing here, even with Hunter Renfrow out of the lineup.

T.J. HOCKENSON

Neither restrictive nor expansive chalk. Okay, we’re finally to the range of some chalk that makes sense. I have no issues with the assumption that Hock’s role over the middle of the field is going to grow in the absence of both D’Andre Swift and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

CHALK BUILD::

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Dwprix is a research expert at OWS, with focuses on NFL Edge Matchups and the Relative Value Breakdown

Better Play on Draftkings or Fanduel?

Pricing can change the value of a play between Draftkings and Fanduel. Recognizing what plays are better values on each site based on scoring rules and points per dollar can create a sizable edge when building rosters. Here are Week 4 players that are best utilized on Draftkings or Fanduel.

Week 4

Josh Allen:  FD $8.9k, 14.8% // DK $8.4k, 16.8% // Value on FD

Allen’s price went down on Fanduel $100 but up $200 on Draftkings. He takes up 16.8% of the cap on Draftkings but only 14.8% on Draftkings.

Nick Chubb: FD $9.2k, 15.3% // DK $7.9k, 15.8% // Value on DK

Chubb is the biggest RB value on Draftkings based on his average points this season (23.6) and price this week. He’s the highest priced RB on Fanduel but only the 5th highest on Draftkings. Chubbs hit the 100 yard bonus on Draftkings in two out of three games.

Aaron Jones: FD $7.3k, 12.2% // DK $7.5k, 15.0% // Value on FD

JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat) who is focusing this year on single-entry/three-entry max

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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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Angles Pod

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Bottom-Up Build

Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (above).

Primary Bottom-Up Build
DK Salary Remaining :: $6.1K

Josh Allen
Rhamondre Stevenson
Rashaad Penny
Isaiah McKenzie
George Pickens
Parris Campbell
T.J. Hockenson
Jerry Jeudy
Cowboys

Secondary BUB
DK Salary Remaining :: $6.0K

Marcus Mariota
Rhamondre Stevenson
Rashaad Penny
Drake London
George Pickens
DJ Moore
T.J. Hockenson
Jerry Jeudy
Cowboys

Join The Bottom-Up Build Contest On DraftKings!

Buy-In:
Free

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

Prizes:
150 Edge Points (good for two free DFS Education courses!) + ‘Discord Blue’ color in Discord!

Join Here

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Blue Chips

Josh Allen

If we take away the carries that James Cook banked in the Bills’ blowout win over the Titans, Bills running backs are averaging under 13 carries per game. Said differently: Josh Allen is essentially “the entire offense” for the Bills, and any upside that this offense generates is typically attached to him. The only way Josh Allen “fails” is if the Bills just have an awful offensive showing, and every time they have a big game, this is likely to correlate with a big game from Allen as well. We often talk about giving ourselves fewer things we need to get right in order to win a tourney — and when we talk about this, it’s often in the context of “betting on multiple players from a single offense so that we capture the available upside if that offense hits.” Another way to give ourselves “fewer things we need to get right,” however, is by simply betting on players who have an ultra-high probability of success. If these players land on the positive side of their range of outcomes, that’s one (easy) spot on our roster taken care of, leaving us with fewer things we need to get right from there.

“Light Blue” Chips

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Build-Arounds

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Building Blocks

New this year: these are unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters

Russ + Jeudy + Davante

Cost: $20.5K DK // $21.5K FD

Story:

“Davante beats the Broncos’ secondary and forces the Denver offense to get aggressive early,” OR “The Broncos’ offense finally gets things going, and Davante is able to beat the Broncos’ secondary in response”

Why It Works:

Russ is coming in around 1% to 2% ownership, Jeudy is coming in under 5% ownership, and Davante is currently (Friday evening) projected for 6.5% ownership; if you start your roster here and this one hits, you’re practically in the money already, and you don’t have to worry too deeply about strategy on the rest of your roster.

How It Works:

Look. I get it. The Broncos have been highly disappointing so far this year. But do we believe there will be games this season in which the Broncos score 30+ points? In fact…do we believe that if we played this season four or five times, there would be games in which the Broncos would score 30+ points? Given the massive ownership discount we are seeing here, this play is very obviously +EV (that is to say: if we could play out this slate over and over again with these ownership numbers, there would be enough times in which the Broncos would be the “had to have it” offense — or better yet, enough times in which Russ + Jeudy would score 60+ combined points — that you would make money over time with this setup). The difficult part about pulling the trigger here, of course, is that it’s still a lower-percentage bet than some of the other bets you can make this week. Given where ownership is likely to flow, however, this one stands out as incredibly sharp in tourneys of all sizes — assuming you can stomach the uncertainty that comes with this play.

Note: Darren Waller also works nicely here, if you want to swap him in for Davante Adams.

POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE:

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

Hurts + AJB + Devonta

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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 || Jalen Hurts || Russell Wilson

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 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 ::

Jonathan Taylor

Taylor’s price has decreased quite a bit from its peak of at or around $10k on both sites a couple of weeks ago. He has a great matchup, is playing at home, and has had his best games in games that the Colts are in control of for most of the game. Despite the great start for the Jaguars, the Colts still see the Titans (defending AFC South champs) as their biggest competition in the division and I won’t be surprised at all if Taylor touches the ball 30 times here.

green bay rb

This is a bit of a cop out, but both Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon are in great spots this week as big home favorites in a good matchup. The Packers are likely to give these backs 35 to 40 touches, so it’s really just a matter of picking which back you think big plays or TD’s go to.

Josh Jacobs

As I mentioned in my NFL Edge writeup, Jacobs isn’t necessarily someone I’m actively trying to jam onto my rosters. However, his profile can’t be ignored for his price tag and on rosters where I have unique builds elsewhere and want projectable, “safe” volume for a cheap price, Jacobs will be in strong consideration.

SIDE NOTES::

• CMC – If I *knew* CMC was even 90% healthy, I’d almost certainly be playing him this week. It doesn’t sound that way, however, so I’m looking elsewhere.
• Saquon Barkley – Dameon Pierce just dropped 18.1 DK points on the Bears D on 22 touches. It seems likely Saquon gets at least that many touches here and, well, he’s Saquon.
• Austin Ekeler – I’ll put it like this: 
  • Ekeler has 53 touches this year without a touchdown. 
  • Ekeler has averaged 9 targets per game since Keenan Allen has been out (likely out again this week).
  • The Chargers are 1-2 and need to stop messing around and get their best offensive player on the field.

Tight End ::

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

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Happy Week 4, OWS Fam!

This is easily my favorite week so far. So many viable options to click for large field tournaments, especially if you consider ownership as it relates to potential ceiling outcomes. The problem, which is a common one, is the danger of ending up with a a player pool that is too large to feel like you have a chance to nail the perfect combination. 

I highly recommend taking the time to make the tough decisions needed to trim your pool down and take ownership stands on a decent number of players. This is the “correct” way to play 150 lineups in MME. 

I have no real Dad responsibilities from Saturday am until lock so I’m going to hand build a shitload of lineups and attack this slate in a way that differs from the “tell the optimizer what I want and let it do it’s job” approach. Instead, my focus will be on creating one great roster…150 times. I’ll be mostly fading the RB chalk except on rosters that already have a multitude of low owned players. I’ll be balancing leverage and upside within each individual squad. I won’t really be concerned about overall allocations of my portfolio until I get 100 lineups in and say “I have 78% Darren Waller, WTF?”..and then I’ll likely adjust a little. 

Do things your way. Be in the moment. Do DFS from a place of mindfulness and this world can be yours. 

LFG!

Sonic

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QB:

RB:

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

The intro to this week’s article will be shorter than usual. We had a new addition in my family, a little baby boy born last Saturday, and regardless of what time I finish this writing, it’s a near-guarantee I’ll be up again for the first of many times in a few short hours. Fun times, but sleep . . . who needs it?

Before we jump into the angles, however, I want to talk really briefly about two macro strategies to deploy in large GPPs: team stacks and attacking good rush defenses.

Team Stacks

We’ve talked about team stacks in the past here but yet again it shows as an underutilized strategy. The clear negative is a lack of correlation, but with so much focus on the top Vegas projected scoring offenses each week, and the focus on concentrated teams, I just want you all to think about this some more. Just like a game stack pairing 2+ pieces from one side with say 2+ pieces from the other side of the same game, team stacked rosters are just the same strategy with two offenses from different games. There’s a lot of chatter in 2022 NFL DFS circles about stacking less, but by doing that, we’re lowering the number of things we need to get right on our rosters. By still stacking, albeit with different teams playing in different games, we lose the game correlation but we keep the team correlation. More on this in future weeks.

Attacking good rushing defenses

How many times do we need to see a Ravens opponent end up on the million dollar lineup before I just stack against them every week? The Bucs have been here too; the Saints, Rams, Colts, and now this year Jacksonville, and even Seattle are showing up here. We know the fundamentals . . . stuffed runs lead to less runs which lead to more passes which lead to more incompletions and more clock stoppages and points. But is DFS maybe this simple? Here’s a handy and brief top 10 of both categories, entering Week 3: (Top rush defenses // Opponent pass play %)

Team	Rush Defense DVOA	Opponent Pass-Play Rate
Jags	1st	2nd
Colts	2nd	3rd
49ers	3rd	28th
Rams	4th	12th
Bills	5th	14th
Chiefs	6th	8th
Dolphins	7th	7th
Broncos	8th	5th
Bengals	9th	6th
Bucs	10th	4th

Are you kidding me with this correlation? Eight of the top 10 rushing defenses face the highest pass rates so far this season. I know we can also look at pass rates over expectations, and situation-neutral pace of plays, but maybe I’m old school. Who is good at stopping the run and who will NEED to pass to win the game? There are so many actions we can take off this data. My primary will be to continue to stack against these defenses, and to take the OVERs on pass attempts from the opposing quarterbacks. You do you!

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 4 Topics

1. What makes this particular slate particularly unique?

2. All Aboard The Touchdown Express

3. Diamonds In The Rough?

4. Floating Plays, Week 4

5. “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 throwback to a 2021 staple of The Oracle, what are you seeing that makes this slate particularly unique?

The Answers ::

JM >>

More than any other week this season, this looks like a “Wait until Saturday night (or even Sunday morning!) to commit to anything permanent on our roster(s).” With no “obvious chalk spots” outside the top game environments — and with…well, A) everyone flocking to Stefon Diggs, and B) everyone apparently willing to leave the Philly pass catchers alone, as value is thin and people feel they have limited ability to pay up (and Diggs is apparently everyone’s “happy place” this week) — we are ending up with chalk congregating elsewhere on places that could just as easily have been low-owned this week without the right spin or steam built up throughout the week. Said differently: “Chalk always forms, even on weeks when there is no clear top option” — and that’s what we’re seeing this week in the mid-tier of pricing at the wide receiver position. Finally, we have backup running backs taking over the lead roles for their respective offenses, but priced around other guys who are likely to see similar workloads…and still, somehow, becoming the most popular options on the week. Add it all together, and having that late flexibility on our rosters to play off weather and ownership projections will allow us to build incredibly +EV rosters this week. As always, “+EV” doesn’t guarantee that things work out on the small sample size of a single week; but if we could play out this week’s slate a hundred times, it would be highly profitable for the OWS Fam.

Xandamere >>

This is one of those slates where we have one or two clear “best games” around which we can expect ownership to congregate. BUF/BAL is the only game with a total over 50, and then SEA/DET is getting steam as a popular game with a total of 48. CLE/ATL is right behind with 47.5, but as of right now does seem to be attracting a ton of ownership outside of Marcus Mariota. 

On weeks like this, one of the biggest decision points is this: should you attack the “best” games and try to differentiate your roster outside of your core game stack? Or is it better to look elsewhere for your core game stacks and hope that the 1 or 2 “best” games disappoint? There isn’t a right answer here, but I will note that when there are 1 or 2 “best” games, it’s a lot more likely to find the winning game environment somewhere further down than when we’re on a slate with half a dozen games over 50. 

Hilow >>

There’s a lot going on with this slate. From a macro perspective, there is one game that appears to stand out above the rest – the same as last week. Only one “pivot” game environment appears to be getting any attention as a secondary option, yet we have 3-4 other options with game totals within striking distance of the BUF/BAL game. Even then, and as was covered in the write-up for that game, the Bills and Ravens represents a lower chance of pure failure than the Bills and Dolphins game did last week. Will people try and outsmart themselves utilizing Game Theory Level I thinking (“well the top game environment last week involved these same Bills and it failed, so why can’t this game fail?”). As in, will the field be searching for ways to justify moving away from the top game environment and looking elsewhere – looking for ways to explain how the top game environment can fail instead of how it can succeed?

There are also two very clear backup running back values that are likely to be heavily owned (Jamaal Williams and Khalil Herbert). There are bound to be tons of theoretical moving pieces for this week and it might get to the point of theory overload for some as they battle internally over how to handle the slate. Those are my favorite slates because mistakes are usually made!

Mike >>

There are two very unique things I see about this slate::

First, there are two marquee games on the slate that are clearly set-up to be favorites of the field, which combine to account for the three top QB options in the league at this point. However, those games are also beginning to have severe weather concerns as Sunday approaches. It will be an interesting situation to see how far the field moves off early week thoughts in reaction to late week weather reports, especially after we saw how drastically the 49ers // Bears game was affected by weather in Week 1.

Second, as Hilow mentioned, we have two backup running backs stepping into potential bell cow roles who are simultaneously coming off huge games in Week 3. However, the sites have those RBs priced relatively appropriately rather than how in the past we would often see drastically underpriced RBs in these spots.

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2. All Aboard The Touchdown Express

The Question ::

As we talk about often at OWS, good DFS players focus on creating great rosters rather than just thinking about individual plays. Due to that thinking, we are always looking for team stacks and game stacks to build the core of our rosters around and expand on building the rest of the roster from there. When doing that, ideally, we are always looking to target game environments and favorable matchups that have a realistic chance of breaking the slate open. Something that JM has talked about often over the years is the threshold of “five or more offensive touchdowns” being where you really start to see these outlier offensive performances that end up littering the top of the leaderboards. However, this year has started with extremely low scoring. As Graham Barfield noted on Twitter, league wide scoring for weeks 1-3 is down 8.8 points per game – or said another way, over a touchdown less per game is being scored. With that in mind, some things to consider as we head into Week 4 ::

• Through three weeks, there have only been four such instances of teams scoring 5+ offensive touchdowns::
  • Week 1: Chiefs and Lions
  • Week 2: Dolphins
  • Week 3: Ravens
• Only two of the four teams listed, the Ravens and Lions, are on the main slate this week. Both of these teams also have another game where they scored four offensive touchdowns.
• The Lions will potentially be without their top two offensive players as Amon-Ra St. Brown and D’Andre Swift are both battling fairly significant injuries.
• The Ravens are facing the Bills, who themselves have two games with four offensive touchdowns through three weeks, in the game that will clearly be the main focus (rightfully) for the majority of the field.
• Of the remaining 21 teams on the main slate, there are three who have both scored four touchdowns in a game and given up four touchdowns in a game::
  • Jaguars, Jets, and Browns

The Answers ::

Sunday Crunch is an Inner Circle feature that can be found on the Sunday Crunch Discord channel each week. We also post the Sunday Crunch notes in The Scroll, where non-IC members can jump into a chunk of the content each week.

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Jerry’s World ::

I am very high on the Broncos offense, relative to the field and public sentiment this week. Jerry Jeudy was extremely popular in Week 2 at basically the same salary that he has this week, while Courtland Sutton was the overlooked Denver wide receiver. Jeudy is in a better game environment this week than he was in Week 2 and he’s projecting for under 3% ownership this week. This is the ultimate arbitrage opportunity where we can get a talented player in a good spot at low ownership for the same price. Jeudy is likely to see seven to ten targets and is a big play waiting to happen. 

Getting Defensive ::

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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. 

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 the 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. 

QB Strategy

My guess on the order of QB ownership:

1. Derek Carr 
2. Kyler Murray
3. Russell Wilson
4. Aaron Rodgers 
5. Baker Mayfield
6. Brian Hoyer

• I am very confident about Mayfield and Hoyer being the bottom two in ownership.
• Rodgers seems likely to be fourth as people gravitate towards the GB running backs at home as a favorite in a good matchup.
• I could see the top three ending up in any order but my thoughts for the order listed are as follows:
  • I think Carr will be #1 because Davante Adams will draw heavy ownership since there are only two other flex (RB/WR/TE) players priced above $7k (on Draftkings), and they are CMC (battling injury) and Aaron Jones (who people can pay down for AJ Dillon in the same spot). People aren’t going to want to play Hoyer/Mayfield so those not paying up for Kyler/Russ will lean Carr for correlation with Adams instead of Rodgers (as most people don’t like playing QB and RB from the same game).
  • Kyler is my guess as #2 because as discussed in the last point, there aren’t many high-priced studs to choose from, so it won’t be hard to get up to Kyler, who is coming in as the highest projected player at the highest scoring position. He is higher priced than Wilson, but not hard to find the salary on a three-game slate without many “studs” to choose from.
  • Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers should settle in at #3 and #4 in ownership. I tend to think Wilson outpaces Rodgers on the smaller slate as people will like DEN pass catchers more than those from GB.

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