NFL Week 3 – Leverage Lane | DraftKings & FanDuel DFS Strategy

And then Alex always talks about, it's not just who you play, it's also who you don't play. And then when you can put those things together, he's talked a lot about combinatorial ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ and people being paired together, conditional ownerships, things like that. So I'm going to kick it over to you first. Obviously, Alex, you've been working on a ton of fun stuff when it comes to that and more on that later on when we get to our leverageLeverageLeverage is the edge you gain by rostering a play the field is underweight on, compared with how often it ends up in winning lineups. When that play outscores the popular option most lineups chose instead, you gain ground on those lineups, though the rest of your roster still decides where you finish.Look for leverage on players connected to the chalk, like the other side of a popular game or a teammate who can steal the popular player's touches.Full explanation ↗ lanes, guys. But last week is a prime example.

We saw, oh, man, I can't believe it. I was on Dak. I was on Lamb. I was on all this stuff, but they got there and I didn't have it. Well, you didn't have Ferguson. You didn't have a double tight end. You didn't have JSN with CD Lamb, which was what kind of ended up in a lot of places. So give us your thoughts here on this stuff and how you want to start this off today to break it down.

Yeah, I think where I'll take this, because I don't want to jump right to the leverage lane, is I'm going to talk through the Washington and Dallas stack, because I think that had a really good balance of like, it's not just who you play, it's how you play them. And it's not just who you play, it's who you don't play. Because if you played...

That game, either in a Dak, Lamb, Ferguson, Diggs way, or a Jane and Daniels, McLaurin, McLaurin, Diggs, and then Lamb way, both of those would have been really, really good had Jane and Daniels not gotten hurt. And I think the Jane and Daniels side was clearly going to be the better side, simply because he was going to run for over a hundred yards and it looked like he was going to kind of tear them up through the air. So that was an enormous bummer.

You know, McLaurin almost had a long touchdown too before the injury even happened. So like the run out there was so clear and so obvious once the game started and a couple key points there, I think. The reason why I think the it's also who you don't play aspect of that was really strong is if you played that stack, there really wasn't another game that felt super threatening.

That like, hey, if this game hits, if my Dallas-Washington game hits, regardless of how I stacked it, there's no other game that I'm worried is going to out produce it. There were some others that could, like, you know, maybe get close or produce a single stack that could get close. But in terms of the upside of both sides of the stack and the correlationCorrelationCorrelation describes how two players' fantasy scores move together. Positively correlated players tend to have big games at the same time, usually because one player's success directly adds points for the other.When you build a tournament lineup, ask which of your players need the same thing to happen. The more of them that do, the higher your lineup's ceiling.Full explanation ↗ of the stack, there wasn't anything that I was really afraid of. And so I thought that was a really nice argument for playing it because, like, for example, if you instead played, you know, a San Francisco stack, or you tried to go cheap with like a Jet stack or, you know, whatever it was.

Right. And you got it right. You would still then have to hold your breath and hope that that Dallas Washington game didn't go off in the afternoon. And it was on its way to really, really, really going off. I mean, CD lamb still was an absolute slate breaker and he wasn't pushed at all in the second half, the way he would have been if Jane and Daniels was in. So like that, that stack had enormous upside.

And then in terms of it's not just who you play, it's how you play them. There were also some unique combinations that you could get to within that game, as you mentioned, whether it's double stacking Washington when the only double stacks from that game were really coming more from the Dallas side, or skipping a chalky Pickens to go to a contrarianContrarianA contrarian play or lineup is one built around choices most of the field will not make, such as low-owned players, unpopular teams or an unusual salary structure.Pick one or two contrarian spots per lineup and ground each in a real reason. The rest of the roster can look like the field.Full explanation ↗ Ferguson and then try and use Ferguson to leverage some of the cheap tight end chalkChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗.

There were a lot of really cool options to both play that chalk stack in a contrarian way, but then also recognize the fact that, like, one of the reasons why it's so okay to lean into a chalky game like that. And I remember last year you made your leverage lane, like over stacking the Rams-Colts game pretty early in the season when I was trying to pivot off of it.

And of course, like the game just hit in a huge way and, and you took down everything that day. And, and it just reminded me that sometimes playing the clear and obvious game, is a good strategy.

It wasn't quite as clear and obvious as Detroit-New Orleans from week one in the sense that it didn't have the ownership, but I actually felt like it was even more of a clear and obvious game in terms of this is the game that if one separates from the rest, it's most Likely this one. Because in week one, there were other games that I really liked, like that Cincinnati-Tampa Bay game that we just didn't have last week.

It was like this one was kind of so far above the rest in my mind. Yeah. A couple of things stood out there too, just to add on one would be like, that's also the benefit of the, and I know a lot of Ship It Nation members. I know a lot of people I'm sure in your Discord are talking about.

You've actually got stuff now up as well for these alternate slates in some cases is that that's sometimes the power of the early only slate. It's like, look, I don't know if the Dallas Washington game is going to go off completely, but I think it really could. And I like it already for that much. I'm going to have a ton of exposure on the main slate to it because of that.

If it fails me though, it's, man, I got a couple of lineups that I really like that are, you know, eight out of nine guys are in the morning and I can easily convert that. It's one play that I got to move around. It's, it's fine. It's the most fantasy points wins a slate.

So on a classic slate, there's all, all the time you see someone will hit the, you know, at the very top of the board, you'll see them because it's over when the afternoon hits and they have the best lineup after the morning. And they're really up. They're up forty points or something. But now we call it the anti-sweat. Right now, the anti-sweat begins. It's like, all right, but now I got to fade the entire Dallas Washington game. That was last week as the example.

Right. So you see that quite a bit. But that's the power of those other slates. The other thing, like you said, is just like the one where there's a game stackGame StackIn the NFL, a game stack usually combines a quarterback, one or two of his pass catchers and one or more players from the opposing offense.Target games where the spread is close as well as the total high. A high total with a lopsided spread can turn into a blowout where only one side keeps scoring.Full explanation ↗. And look, we're on here. We're talking a lot of single entrySingle-EntryA single-entry contest allows each user exactly one lineup. It can be a cash game or a tournament.In single-entry, one or two contrarian decisions are usually enough. Pair a strong, popular core with a lower-owned piece instead of fading everything the field likes.Full explanation ↗. And I appreciate it because you gave the credit to last year. Like it was an example where I was like, I'm over stacking it and I'll just look to get different. And you were like, I'm just going to move away from it.

When you're playing single entry, you do have to decide that. It's not, there is no two options. Now, you don't always have to play single entry. Alex has done a good job of this and even adapting in his own game and telling you guys along his journey, like I might play three lineups this week as a single entry where I'm going to cover different angles within that concept.

Or now he's saying as many seventy dollar qualifier, qualifier, sorry, as there is, I might adapt my stuff for that because I want to have more shots of this. That's my goals. And so these things we always talk about from just a process perspective. But it's like, if you really think it's the game, you don't always have to move away. And that's what I think is going to be so cool.

I've obviously already get the privilege and very lovely setup where I get to see Alex's stuff beforehand and he shows me sort of what he's working on, what's going on. But you guys are going to love the leverage lane at the end because of this. And it's literally how you can play I'll just use the popular game as the example. It's really for anything, but for the popular game, it's the best way to find how you could play it differently. And in a way others are not.

And it brings in not just the game at hand, but also positions and position scarcity and roster construction, how people are actually composing their lineup and putting it together to see some different examples there. So I'm excited for that later on. We'll get to the Chalky build here in a second.

Before I do that, just want to remind everyone, if you go over to ShibbitNation.com, you can see at the top, we're the only site in the industry giving away $45,000 plus in cash and prizes. It is called Shibbit Games. There's even a new Wiley Wonka Netflix special right now where they're doing like redoing the Wonka games. And so just bringing me back to this. But any... All access or NFL only member is eligible.

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Check out the player profiles to see how people played. I used this example yesterday, Alex, with somebody just to go through it with them. But if you are in anything else in the world, like if you're a pro golfer, if you want to get golf lessons, it'd be nice to know like... How Scott Scheffler played and be able to see a bunch of his shots in practice.

If you're a professional poker player, it'd be nice to know what every hand people played and how they played it and be able to learn as much as possible. There's like nothing else in the world unless you're paying the highest fees possible to be able to sit down with some of the pros and find out exactly how they play and what they do in chess, poker, golf, cooking. I don't care what it is.

You're not getting in the kitchen with the top chefs unless you're paying to be there to find out how they do this stuff. But in DFS... You actually can go back and see exactly how somebody played and what their entire portfolio was and what their exposures were. And, you know, not just the winning lineup, but the optimals. But, you know, looking at the winning lineup, it's like, that's just a winning lineup.

What about what the best players did with their portfolio that gave them the chance to get there and the consistency and all that. So on DFSOS.com, you can use code SHIPIT, get half price over there. But when you go to a slate review and you say, okay, for Thursday night, I want to see the showdown slate where Knowlesman, by the way, won the outright prize with a forty nine point $5,000 lineup. That's just crazy to see.

Sturdivant obviously helped stand that thing up. But having, you know, it was Bijan in the captain with Brian Robinson Jr. and Drake London in the flex. And then you just had the stack of love, Golden Sturdivant in there to round it out. And it ended up shipping five hundred thousand. But you can actually go in and say, OK, That's the winning lineup. But how did he play his hundred and fifty lineups? He had twenty four unique players.

Here's where the ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ was and what his exposures were. There's the Delta. What did the portfolio of lineups look like outside of that? So I'm not going to do it all here, but you guys can do that. Go to ShipItNation.com. Check it out. Go to DFSOS.com. Use code ShipIt. Where do you want to start today on the chalkyChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ build? Because I think this week is a little bit different from that perspective.

But give me your thoughts here as we get into the next segment.

Yeah, first and foremost, like, there definitely isn't a clear game stackGame StackIn the NFL, a game stack usually combines a quarterback, one or two of his pass catchers and one or more players from the opposing offense.Target games where the spread is close as well as the total high. A high total with a lopsided spread can turn into a blowout where only one side keeps scoring.Full explanation ↗ this week that that people are going to. I would also say, um, well, actually, on that note, like, I only have one quarterback even at ten percent single entrySingle-EntryA single-entry contest allows each user exactly one lineup. It can be a cash game or a tournament.In single-entry, one or two contrarian decisions are usually enough. Pair a strong, popular core with a lower-owned piece instead of fading everything the field likes.Full explanation ↗ ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗. It's Tyler Shuck, and I don't necessarily think that people are, like, really stacking that whole game so much as they just like his price tag. And, uh, you know, you can go to a cheap Valet or you can go to a cheap Juwan or you can use Olave. So there are, uh, there are ways people are going to play the game, but it's nowhere near New Orleans, Detroit from week one or anything like that.

The second unique thing is we don't have the fifty percent expensive running back this week. I do think Gibbs is going to be pretty popular, but I only have him at thirty percent in high stakes. And then you have a number of other popular running backs. I think Ken Walker is going to be around the thirty percent number.

You have some quote unquote, cheaper guys who are all the way up at like fifty seven, fifty nine, sixty one in Warren Hubbard, Aaron Jones that have a chance to be popular. It's just a kind of an odd slate in that, like at the moment, I think the the player that I have at the highest single entry ownership is actually the Tennessee Titans. $2,400 defense. So very odd slate in that regard.

But it lets us talk through some fun stuff as a result. Yeah, I agree. That's what's interesting about this week. The week one, totally different scenario. Obviously, everybody knows the price has been out for a month. You get mega chalk going into that week across all positions. Week two, you see, like you said, there's a game stack or something that people are getting to. But even then, it was like, oh, well, I'm kind of in on this guy.

And again, like Jaden stacks, not many people were flipping it as we thought. And if they were, it was only to a single stack. With the Dak stack, it was kind of like... Pickens, Lamb, and then pick someone from the other side, sure. But it wasn't that crazy besides some of the other positions like Bijan last week at running back definitely stood out. Now, I think you could make a case here.

I don't know, maybe just me, but it feels like I think Kenneth Walker is going to be the guy that I would still feel very comfortable plugging in. A lot of people are interested. You can't, you know, Walker rhymes with Chalker, Kenneth Chalker III. We definitely could see him pick up steam even in the higher stakes single entry stuff. But there is things that are going on like with Dowdle injury and with Chubb in his spot.

Like there is some of the cheaper guys there too. I also wonder, this is the fun stuff for me is like finding this out.

Does the extremely nice price of $6,900, and I call it Best Buy pricing, it's like not quite whatever, like, this to me is going to steam up a lot more on James Cook. I, at least I think, because I thought at first it might be Kincaid who people go to, and he's getting some. But the problem is when you have, like, Schultz, LaPorta, Kelley, Andrews, McBride, all these other dudes. Well, maybe it's not going to be him.

I do think people are saying, hey, if I can't get to Josh Allen or figure him out, maybe it's James Cook. And I think that would actually, surprisingly enough for me, I think that cuts more into Jameer Gibbs and CMC than it does the guy that's just five hundred bucks more in Kenneth Walker. I think we could actually see more of something like this and then pick your poison. And that's why I think you're going to see Gibbs stay in check.

Plus there's the Bijan effect, not the Bijan effect from Thursday night football, where he smashed after hurting everybody's feelings the week before on classic slate, but the Bijan effect from last week in classic, where it's like people got overconfident. What'd we say? Week one, people are going to get very overconfident in these spots. And then what ended up happening? It just wasn't a good week for Bijan. It completely flipped and you wanted Hubbard and the Carolina D instead on the other side.

Yeah, real quick, I think that that's something we did very well last week was talk through what people were overconfident about, both on a team level where the Carolina run defense isn't going to be anywhere near as bad as they looked like They were against Chicago. They clearly showed that last week as part of why Bijan failed.

And then the other aspect was that people were just going to be a little bit overconfident in running backs as a whole because all of this late-breaking performances in week one were running backs. Well, they were all wide receivers last week, and running backs as a whole were really, really underwhelming. And so I thought we did a nice job talking through that. Obviously, there were some things we missed, like Mike Evans was not anywhere near as good as we wanted him to be.

Another injury, by the way. Yeah. And not only was it another injury, but he got hurt, like hurtling a defender at like the three. And if he hadn't tweaked his hip while hurtling the guy, he probably would have the presence of mind to reach out across the goal line and score the touchdown. It was, it was unfortunate for sure.

But, um, But yeah, so obviously there are always going to be things that we get wrong, but I really liked the way we talked through those overconfident parts and definitely have some instances this week that I think people are overconfident into. Yeah, I'm just trying to see just randomly here what this kind of plays out like, and this probably is close to... Accurate again.

I don't, I don't think there's like a clear chalkChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ build, but there's some clear chalk pieces that I feel confident in. And this is just the most random example I could give. That's like somewhat hovering in those areas. Um, Alex, like if you've got shock to all of a, You got Cook, Walker, and I put Warren in because Warren at $5,700 is popping.

The Sims are also pushing him, which is important to note because we always like what is the industry pushing and what's getting pushed by the industry and the projections? Where is that leaving people? So I think that's important. And then you've got I just put Bateman. Now, we did get information this morning that Zay Flowers could still play. It'll Likely be on a pitch count if active. But Bateman did enough last week.

And look, the price went up, but I don't think it went up enough for what some people are thinking. But there's there's room to move. Like, like how much is, um, they lay real quick. I mean, that's, that's the other thing about this slate, right? Is that there's, there's still, I mean, for week three, especially like this is early in the season.

We already have like a week, kind of list of game time decision guys or guys that maybe hopefully we learn about a little bit more this afternoon and, and can make those changes for tonight. But yeah, Right. There's, there are probably like six to eight scenarios still that we need information on because whatever information we get is going to like significantly change the slate.

And, and obviously, you know, most projections in the industry are going to project things one way already this week. We're like, I think most of us are probably projecting the Zay flower sits. But now as of this morning, it's like, okay, well maybe he is going to play and maybe it's going to be a pitch count. So now we got to figure out, okay, if he is playing, like what's the verbiage that they're using?

Are they saying, okay, he's, he's good, but they're going to be careful with him. And if he, if he, you know, it doesn't look right, then maybe they'll let him rest a little bit. Or is it like very strict? Hey, we're only going to play you in these scenarios where you don't need to go out in a full sprint and we can just use your route running in short yardage or in the red zone, things like that. Like we have no idea, but point being.

It's really hard to... If you're building lineups this morning and you think, oh, this is what I'm playing tomorrow, I think it's an important note to say you shouldn't get too attached to anything yet because chances are something is going to change in a way... That dramatically affects the slate.

And if you're not thinking through how that should affect your process and your lineups, I think you're making a mistake, which doesn't mean that, like, no lineup that you build now can be the lineup that you play. But you should at least go through the process of thinking through, okay, what changed since I built this lineup? And, and, do I actually want to make any changes here or does this line of still hold up as, as something that's really good and worth playing?

Uh, that's obviously fine, but try not to get too attached because then it's really hard to make the adjustments you need to make. Yeah. And I will say too, this is a good call out last week. So wide receiver in the flex was indeed the leverage lane. There was a, there was a bunch of different lineups at the top across different tournaments, but it was all, there was no three running back lineups. I can assure you of that.

That was the main point that Alex was bringing up last week. So even if it ended up being in some places, you know, Kittle with Schultz.

Versus other places, it was like JSN getting in there and just breaking the slate completely on top of Lamb and Chase and those guys just flipping the build that way. But it was just so much conviction in three running backs that nobody, not as many people had these builds. And those that did really gave themselves an opportunity to get to the top. Ferguson, Schultz, Kittle, Schultz, uh, you know, a bunch of different versions of that. And then obviously the JSN, Chase stuff and Lamb forcing it. So, like, there was a way to afford that if you thought about it. So that's pretty interesting as well.

I want to ask you, as a guy who builds projections over there on your own, are you baking the possible field conditions with the the bumpy, um, Brazil field conditions and people complaining about this already of, like, you know, international games and when they go over there and these fields suck and all this stuff? How do you bake this into your Dallas-Baltimore projections? Yeah, it's a hard question.

I think this is one of the things that's getting talked about way more than it needs to. I don't think it affects ranges of outcomes for basically any player a whole lot. When field conditions are slick like this, multiple things happen, right?

So, like, is it true that, you know, a running back, like, let's say, or even, you know, if it was Zay Flowers on the field, is Zay Flowers going to try to make a cut that he usually is able to make and get by the defender and run for forty more yards, but this time his foot goes into the ground and he just slips?

Yeah, there's a chance that that happens, but there's also a chance that, like, Zay Flowers makes a subtle move, the defender makes, tries to make a pivot that ordinarily he would make, and now he slips and it's a walk-in touchdown. The other big thing is pass rush. The pass rushers have a lot less traction.

We saw that in the Super Bowl with the Eagles and the Chiefs a few years ago where the Eagles had this record-breaking pass rush coming into that game and they weren't able to get anything because they just kept falling every pass rush. The field conditions work in both directions.

They make things a little bit more unpredictable, but they don't Make it so that we can predict how that's going to affect things, including we can't even make a blanket statement that, okay, that means it's bad for scoring. It might be. It also might be good for scoring because the defense might be more affected than the offense. It also means that one team might have... Might be wearing better cleats than the other team.

And that second team is trying to, you know, make a clean adjustment throughout the game. And they just never do it that well. Like we, we have no idea in terms of like, is it baked into the projections? The answer is yes. It's baked in as much as the market breaks it in. I don't know how much the market is doing that, and I don't know how much the market should be doing it.

Generally, my thought here is that people are thinking too much about it. But if it's a thing and it's baked into the market already, which if it is a thing, I'm pretty sure it is, then it's also baked into the projections. Yeah. And also, too, like I think it's important. The part you nailed is like about all this, whether it's wind, snow, rain, field conditions, whatever.

It's always it's almost always better to be either leave it out of your mind or be on the opposite side, really, because people just get way too messed up with it. It's like if it's snowing out, a guy can lose his footing. It's no different than when I talk about cornerback and wide receiver.

Matchups, like, oh, but this guy's gonna lock him down. Or it takes one foot movement in the wrong direction or one coaching call or one audible or anything, and that guy's now wide open. You're like, oh, thought this guy was gonna lock him down. It doesn't matter. Like, it's one spot, one game, one thing. And I'll give you an example right here in this very game. I bet you most people asking about the field conditions are thinking that that should negatively affect it.

It's bumpy. It's going to hurt them. It could hurt the defenders as well. And let me tell you this. The total has gone from fifty and a half up to fifty three point five. So if anything, it's what's baked in is going to be more points.

Going around because they're saying there's gonna be more scoring. Like, the number doesn't mean it's right. I'm just saying, for what the general public's consensus is, when I'm seeing the negativity around, it's like, oh, but the field conditions might hurt them. Well, why does the number keep going up then? Why is it, you know, why is it being thought of as the other way? It's not always the be all end all. I'm just explaining concepts, but do you think that that line movement might be the books expecting Zay Flowers to play? If it is, that's insane because he's still... Look, I'm the Ravens fan over here that is the advocate for like Zay Flowers and think he's awesome.

When he got paid and people shit on the guy, I was like, okay, you're totally missing how underrated this guy is. Also, crazy stat, just of note, I know I'm going off topic and I'll let you go back in a second, but like Scott Barrett posted from Fantasy Points Data about... A really interesting stat was like Lamar versus Mahomes and throwing passes or instead of like the check down bullshit that you always see at him home. It's like it's the Delta's massive.

It's like seven touchdowns to twenty seven or something for Lamar. It's like everyone all over Lamar is a running back. Just as he's crushing it on every angle, man, he just hasn't been able to get to the show and get the job done. But, you know, from those stats, I think it's interesting. But I don't know if it's a man. It's gone up slowly over the week.

It feels a little bit more to me like the market just realizing, hey, wait a minute, this is Lamar Jackson against a really bad Dallas defense and a good Dallas offense that can probably push this Baltimore offense maybe a little bit more than they've been pushed so far. So I'm with you. I think I'm very interested in this game. I made this point in my Discord, but how can we...

One week say, hey, Jayden Daniels is in a smash spot against this Dallas defense, and then the next week not say Lamar Jackson, who's basically just a better version of Jayden Daniels, isn't in a smash spot against the same defense. So I think Baltimore is a really smart play. And we didn't even get to see Jaden. Like, he was going. He was definitely flying around. He was going to run for over a hundred yards by the middle of the third quarter.

Like, it was going to be a really, really big game. Yeah, definitely agree, man. And I love that topic of like, how can you be in on something in the next week? Not funny enough. Usually it's the other way around, but in this case, it feels like it's not as much. Now, again, look, people are going to land there. Some, I will say this is another prime example. I don't know. Maybe we can look at it later, but I think.

It feels like, okay, people are in on Bateman. Some that could get kept in check, especially if Zay gets in, that could at least still hold the line on the Bateman ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ number. And why I liked what you said earlier too, about like, you gotta wait, you always should be waiting for the information to come in. But some of the information related to this week is also related to ownership.

Like it's going to change around a ton based on some of these things that we could get. And I know it's not like crazy, but just using the Bateman one as an example, if Zay's ruled out, maybe more people come around to these thoughts we're having right now. But if Zay's in, maybe it just holds it in check.

And what I was going to say is like, even Andrews is seemingly being held in check because there's so many options at tight end and people don't want to miss out on what they just saw with Schultz. If they can't get to Gibbs, maybe they want LaPorta. If they can't get to Walker, they are going with the KC game. They want Kelley. We talked about some of the other ones with Kittle and McBride being in the same game, by the way.

That's a phenomenal spot and a late swap opportunity as well for some. If you've got different guys left over, there's a ton of ways to go at tight end, but I just don't see Lamar getting much love at all. And then what about back to Dak? If we think that this is going to be a back and forth and Dak can stay in the game with them or that's what's going to push it.

Well, I don't see as many be like on that side, maybe CD lamb, but like picking sucks now, no way Ferguson could do that again. Dak, whatever, like people, it doesn't seem like as many people are landing on this as what we would have seen just last week in this very spot.

Yeah, the one that I'm really curious in is Lamar's ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ because if Zay misses, we are going to get a scenario where Andrews is around twenty percent, Bateman twenty five to thirty percent, something like that. And if you have those two cheap pass catchers, all of a sudden the price tag on Lamar really isn't that prohibitive. But I'm not really seeing signs of him getting the type of ownership that I would expect. Yeah, $7,500 is meaningfully above like the $6,700 deck.

It's still five hundred dollars cheaper than Josh Allen, which is kind of funny. And honestly, like I think that's warranted. I think Allen is also a very interesting play this week. Very similar situation, by the way, too, right? Because like we also have DJ Moore very iffy. And so if DJ Moore misses now, that makes it easier to get Josh Allen with, you know, Kincaid and maybe you go to Josh Palmer or something like that.

So there are ways to make both of these guys cheaper. And yet I don't think we're going to see a ton of ownership on either. So that is a really, really interesting way to play this latest. Just say, okay, well, what if I just do pay up for quarterback? I know that, you know, over the last couple of years, like paying up in DFS at quarterback really hasn't been that smart.

But I think part of that is both of these guys, both Lamar and Josh Allen, it's not just that their price has been an issue. It's that they haven't supported multiple pass catchers very often, and so double stacking with them just hasn't been very effective for that reason. But now that Kincaid has a larger role, now that maybe DJ Moore is going to be a real wide receiver one for Buffalo, and now that...

If Zay misses that, like they have really concentrated production in the passing game with two cheap guys, all of a sudden, like the double stacks for these guys are way, way more in play than what we've seen. And they themselves can be separating performances. So that to me is like the most interesting part about the slate still, which we really, really need this information on Zay and DJ more for both these guys, but particularly the Zay information.

Cause I think as we've talked about now, like this Baltimore Dallas game is so incredibly intriguing and, especially if people aren't going to it the way I would expect them to. Yeah, game time decision. I just went over to DFSOS for the news. This is a nice feature that it's all loaded in from Yahoo and Rotoworld and Rotowire and Underdog and everything and all the latest. So that's the setup there.

If I pull the Zay Flowers news and just see we got one from thirty four minutes ago. With the expected to test his injury prior to Sunday's game against the Cowboys. And if he suits up, he will Likely be on a pitch count. That's what we mentioned earlier. So that's the latest news on that situation.

I mean, you know, looking at being able to go up at quarterback, this is another thing this week when you got the Titans D down there. We'll have more on that later.

But the other thing that I think is interesting, and it's not going to be a large Delta by any means, but I do feel currently like people are still selecting Josh Allen over over Lamar Jackson. And even because it's only five hundred bucks more and you can get to it and it's easy, like, it's fine. But even if More was out, I still feel way less caught. Like, if both More and Zay are out, let's just say, and you can use this on any week, so it's more like an evergreen thing to apply it. But, like, I still feel way better about the target tree of the Ravens.

And the matchup is still solid too that I'm fine with with the Cowboys that we just saw like we talked about so for me It's like, I feel like that would get better. He's out while Bateman and Andrews might hold ownership. I would still be fine with just running it that way because I don't think Lamar is going to get as much of the ownership and Bateman keeps the price down. Some Andrews keeps the price.

That's a very affordable three man stack and there's great run backBring-BackIn the NFL, a bring-back is usually a wide receiver, tight end or running back from the team facing your quarterback stack.Pick the bring-back who gains the most when his team falls behind. In football that's usually the opponent's top pass catcher, not a running back who loses carries in a comeback.Full explanation ↗ options on the other side, right? Especially with CD lamb right there at $7,800. So again, tons of waste. If there's no Zay, I'm also going to be at least exploring some options where I double stack two receivers. It's Bateman and one of the min-priced one percent guys instead of Andrews. I just hope there are some explosives that way. There were a lot of downfield targets last week that just didn't quite hit.

The upside's there for some of those secondary wide receivers for Baltimore. It didn't get there all the way, but it was on this show with you that I talked. Remember the Tez Walker example last week? Very quick, forty seven yard catch didn't extend to much more and was not needed by any means. It wasn't the statement, but the breakdown of if you're not going somewhere using that to your advantage.

Well, even if Lamar picks up a little steam, even if Bateman picks up a little steam, one way to immediately chop into that is to plug a guy like Walker in there and then hope that this time it's his touchdown with that more. So. Yeah, and he got another deep target, too.

So if he just catches that, even if that's all he did, if you just got two for ninety from DeMontez Walker, that's probably enough, provided the rest of your lineup does well. And obviously, those explosive plays put Lamar in position to go get another touchdown, and then it gets the ball right back to your CeeDee Lamb or George Pickens, whoever your bringback is, that much quicker. So yeah, that would be a really, really good run out, I think, if you got that sort of thing again.

Yeah, I got Jalen Coker expected to play. He is expected to play. I think both of them are solid plays, though, here. Cleveland so far playing the most single high in the league. So there's some real explosive play potential for both of those Carolina wide receivers. Yeah. All right. So, I mean, good news is we've already been talking about some ways to leverageLeverageLeverage is the edge you gain by rostering a play the field is underweight on, compared with how often it ends up in winning lineups. When that play outscores the popular option most lineups chose instead, you gain ground on those lineups, though the rest of your roster still decides where you finish.Look for leverage on players connected to the chalk, like the other side of a popular game or a teammate who can steal the popular player's touches.Full explanation ↗ this lineup as a whole, and we're going to talk more about that when we get to our leverage lanes.

But let's look at it and, you know, talk through it as we usually do. I think one of the interesting things is just the overall roster composition. We've spent time on this in the past in PGA DFS. We've spent time on it now in NFL DFS.

But even for this week, when, like you said, it is a little bit more spread out, the common theme seems to be the mid-range tight end, the cheap defense, the... And then I think it's, again, we just talked about Allen and Lamar and even Dak. Those to me, and even if you want to put Burrow into that category, it's to me, most people are actually going Purdy and down.

I know it's spread out, but if you look at like Shuck and we just talked about, you know, there's Trevor Lawrence, there's Mahomes, which I'm going to bring up in a second. There's Brock Purdy. There's...

Game of Carolina and Cleveland, the back and forth and the up and pace and the receivers being a little bit easier. Now people feel to pick out and say it's going to be these guys or these guys. Let's put them together. So where do you want to go with this, Alex, to get started on sort of ways that you can leverageLeverageLeverage is the edge you gain by rostering a play the field is underweight on, compared with how often it ends up in winning lineups. When that play outscores the popular option most lineups chose instead, you gain ground on those lineups, though the rest of your roster still decides where you finish.Look for leverage on players connected to the chalk, like the other side of a popular game or a teammate who can steal the popular player's touches.Full explanation ↗ the common bill? We talked about the more expensive quarterback. I've got one for later that I'm saving, but anything else that you want to bring up here? And then we can start looking at some of these combinations. Yes.

It strikes me that this is a week where I think the fieldThe FieldThe field is everyone else entered in a contest, the group of lineups you are competing against.Before you build, picture the typical lineup in your contest. Then decide on purpose where you'll match it and where you'll step away from it.Full explanation ↗ is going to be less correlatedCorrelationCorrelation describes how two players' fantasy scores move together. Positively correlated players tend to have big games at the same time, usually because one player's success directly adds points for the other.When you build a tournament lineup, ask which of your players need the same thing to happen. The more of them that do, the higher your lineup's ceiling.Full explanation ↗ than usual, right? I think the way the field approaches stacks is more like, I will double stack and use a bring back when a really good game environment presents itself to me. And it's clear that this is a good way to kind of play all these guys. And Um, there are some games where I think that could be the case this week.

Like I, I think, uh, the Detroit, uh, and New York Jets game will be double stacked with a bring back a decent amount, but a lot of these spots. So, for example, like, uh, not that Trevor Lawrence himself is, is really popular, but Parker Washington is really popular and, and he's going to bring Trevor Lawrence along to some degree.

Like, I think we're going to see a lot of lineups that are like Trevor Lawrence, Parker Washington, and then maybe some mini stacks around that, but that's it for that game. And so I think just.

First and foremost, I think going with double stack and a bring back or even trying to find a way to triple stack this week, just in general, out correlating the field is a really kind of just strong way this week to kind of approach, quote unquote, leveraging the chalkChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ bill, because I think the chalk bill simply just has less correlation this week than most weeks. And that's something I always want to take advantage of. Yeah, I like that.

Just sticking to what works as opposed to just trying to make other stuff happen. But this one was brought up, so I'm going to bring it. But any thoughts? It's, again, just going to another cheap Jets wide receiver. So Mitchell, questionable. I think it was two limited practices for him this week. I just looked up the news again over there. So the one thing that I saw in the picture people posting is his hand wrapped. And his hand looks mummified almost.

It was in black, but it was like, man, that's a pretty big... Glove. I think it's like, it's hard to tell because black blends in and stuff like that versus, you know, if you're wearing white wrap and somebody in golf is wearing a white wrist strap or a white glove, you can kind of see more of the outline. It was really hard to tell they have dark jerseys. It's like, I couldn't see fully, but it looks pretty big. On his hand.

So people are calling that out and saying like, how would he even catch a ball for Mitchell? But people were interested before in using Adonai Mitchell, probably for good reason before this injury. And then like Wilson as the bring backBring-BackIn the NFL, a bring-back is usually a wide receiver, tight end or running back from the team facing your quarterback stack.Pick the bring-back who gains the most when his team falls behind. In football that's usually the opponent's top pass catcher, not a running back who loses carries in a comeback.Full explanation ↗ for the Detroit stacks, or even some people, I think it was in here just earlier. Um, you know, Hey guys, my lane is the Gino stack with JMO Judkins to flip the common construct.

So people at least had some, again, it's getting spread out, but how they were playing Gino was in a way with Gibbs or almond raw or something on the other side. Yeah, I think like I do expect Mitchell to play. I don't really know at this moment how I would feel about Williams if he doesn't.

I think I'd be good with it, and certainly I think like Depending on what that would do to his ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗, to Williams ownership, there's a chance that I would view him as a bad one-off, but as a really good double-stack partner, just because I think the double-stack, including him, would be really, really contrarianContrarianA contrarian play or lineup is one built around choices most of the field will not make, such as low-owned players, unpopular teams or an unusual salary structure.Pick one or two contrarian spots per lineup and ground each in a real reason. The rest of the roster can look like the field.Full explanation ↗. Yeah. I obviously like that's one of the ways that he hits, right?

Is like just the, the offense really produces Gino Smith has three hundred passing yards available to everybody else instead of the expected like two twenty or whatever he's at. And all of a sudden, like that helps Williams go from forty yards to sixty five. And that means an extra two receptions and maybe it means a touchdown, so on and so forth. So that's probably the way that I would think through that one. Yeah. All right. What else do you want to cover here?

The one you mentioned with Trevor Lawrence and Parker Washington could be a starting point for some. I think also more examples of that, I guess I'll give a couple, would be like I think you'll definitely see people just play this, right? Like Purdy Kittle, another prime example. And there is run back options, but I don't know if a lot of people would play something like this with...

McBride and you know and have double tight end or something like that but I think it'd be more Likely they just have him in the tight end I think another one could be and I want to have a conversation on this more in depth but you could also just see this Right? Mahomes Kelley. Yeah, we're going to see a lot of that. Again, this is kind of my biggest point here on what the chalk is doing.

Because again, this is a week just like last week where there isn't a clear obvious stack that's going to separate in ownership. So it's not so much who is the field going to play? It's what kind of builder are we going to see? How are people going to choose their stack? And how is that going to complement the chalk that exists? There are a lot of plays on this slate that people really like.

There are a lot of tight ends kind of like all in the same range that we know people are going to play kind of in bulk. We know people are going to go to Parker Washington. We know which running backs, to a large degree, people are going to go to, a lot of them expensive. So how are people actually fitting all of these plays that they like? And it seems to me like the answer is skinny stacks, my homes, Kelley, Lawrence, Washington.

There are a lot of these that I think people are going to go to. And to me, like when the field thinks, okay, this is a week where I can just out pick everybody else. I don't want to get into a picking combination. I don't want to get into a fantasy football competition with all of these people. I just want to outbuild them. And I think that's a much, much easier path to success.

And that's definitely going to be the way that I go. Hey, that's every week for me. Like I said, I don't got the picks in the plays. Everyone has their thing. We had a bit, go ahead. Yeah, but sometimes that's harder to do, right? Let's say week one, there were a ton of shuck doubles with Gibbs bring backers, or there were some shuck doubles with Gibbs and Amon Ra St. Brown as bring backs.

It's a lot harder to outbuild the competition in a week like that where people are very naturally landing on very correlated things. Just like fundamentally sound builds. This is not one of those weeks. This is a week where I think people are building bad lineups that they just think, Oh, all these plays are good enough that this is okay.

I just built, you know, a really kind of new cool feature in my contest Sims, which I call like implied projections, which basically says it. With contest sims, it's really hard to isolate, like, okay, how well have I built this lineup versus how good are the plays in this lineup? And so what the implied projections do is they just say, okay, everybody is projected with preserving their shape of distribution.

They're all projected in such a way that they have earned their amount of ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗, no more, no less. They're all efficiently owned. So now within this world, if we run through that simulation, Are you building lineups that are strong from a correlationCorrelationCorrelation describes how two players' fantasy scores move together. Positively correlated players tend to have big games at the same time, usually because one player's success directly adds points for the other.When you build a tournament lineup, ask which of your players need the same thing to happen. The more of them that do, the higher your lineup's ceiling.Full explanation ↗ standpoint? Are you balancing the contrarianContrarianA contrarian play or lineup is one built around choices most of the field will not make, such as low-owned players, unpopular teams or an unusual salary structure.Pick one or two contrarian spots per lineup and ground each in a real reason. The rest of the roster can look like the field.Full explanation ↗ upside separators with high probability plays well? Are you leveraging chalk in a coherent way? If you're doing all those things well, now you get this construction ROI. And so the sim now tells you both...

How good the lineup is as a whole and how well you've built that team. And I think what it's going to show this week is that you can get some really high construction ROIs because the field as a whole is not building the lineups that we view as really well-built lineups because they think they can just kind of pick players really well this week. Which doesn't mean that the field can't.

And especially if you're in larger fields, I do think there are going to be lineups where... Guys just happen to land on the right combinations of one-offs and things of that nature.

But particularly in single entries, this strikes me as a week where we could see much lower top-end scores than what we have become accustomed to seeing and what we saw in week one, because this might just be a week where no one really gets elevated. And it's hard to dodge landmines where you might pick some really good one-offs in your lineup, but if you have too many one-offs, you're also going to miss some.

And so I think we could see kind of stunted ceilings for that reason. Yeah, I think it's more like conceptually. I was like, every week is different to your point. Like week one, you're trying to figure out with the chalkChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ for a month, what can I do differently there? And what game's going to be popular? How can I play it differently with, you know, certain things like last week, it could be the flex conversation that we had.

Like, again, we're looking to outbuild the field via like zig when they zag, but not for stupid reasons, just like for validated. And you're even building tools. Like you said, they can validate this even further. But my point would be like this week, prime example, you said it and I was going to go there too. It's not my lane, but it's just notable.

This is the first week where now people have seen a couple of weeks play out and say, again, that overconfidence, well, the one-off thing kind of can work if I just go this way, or I could just plug in this secondary stack or this thing. And it doesn't seem like at least there's not as many game stacksGame StackIn the NFL, a game stack usually combines a quarterback, one or two of his pass catchers and one or more players from the opposing offense.Target games where the spread is close as well as the total high. A high total with a lopsided spread can turn into a blowout where only one side keeps scoring.Full explanation ↗ that Well, what if that's the week for this? So it's like, I'll just lean in to that. Is it stupid? No, because it actually could happen.

We talked about very condensed offenses in some up pace spots, ways you can get after it, ways that others aren't doing that. You're not being stupid. Yes, it might feel to you when you're building it like, ah, but I'm missing out on this guy or, oh, I don't have anyone from that game. You can't cover them all, but you should be considering them all and then making your decisions based off of that. So that's where the outbuild factor comes from. That's a really good point.

One of the things that you and I have talked behind the scenes about, what we want to do with this show is we don't just want to say this is what the ownership is, this is what the field is doing, but we also want to talk through why that is.

I think your point there of it can feel bad because you're missing out on certain plays, I think that might be an even better explanation this week for why ownership people aren't correlating as much as they often do. It's not necessarily that they're not identifying spots.

They feel good about, you know, adding a second wide receiver and using a bring back from. It's more than like, oh, but if I, if I do that, if I include, uh, you know, Bateman in this, uh, in this lineup, now I don't get this guy. I don't get that guy, right? And, and similar thing, like, oh, I, I really like Dac here, and I love the, you know, Bateman bring back. But if I go with CD Lamb, now if I, if I also, if I turn this into a double stack by also using Pickens, I can't get...

Parker Washington, so I'm just going to play Parker Washington and leave it as a single stack. I think it's kind of a really good point that I hadn't even really thought through, but I think that does an even better job of explaining why there's not a whole lot of correlated lineups this week.

And, and again, that means that, sure, it might feel a little bit uncomfortable, but when you have these types of game environments, like across the slate, if one game does separate, it now makes that even that much more valuable. So we've already said multiple times, like, that's going to be one of the ways that we, we try to build this week, but I think putting the why on it is always kind of a nice touch.

I think it just helps people more that don't fully grasp it or think like, well, yeah, but a lot of people say they understand or say they're going to get it and they're going to go build like that. And then they still go build the opposite way of what we just talked about. So it's like trying to make sure, at least on this show, that we're helping you guys as much as possible, be able to get to those situations and build your lineups that way.

Now, excuse me, one sec. I tried to mute it. I couldn't, but I thought I was going to sneeze. I was going to say this. I put a name on the screen. I put the disclaimer up very early this week with people. I've realized why they've invented two quotes in life. And one is never say never. And then two is all good things must come to an end.

To me, and I never do this, the only other time I did this, though, Alex, so I do have a good result. I feel okay with the Mahomes Milly Maker. Maybe imagine my Milly Maker comes off of Mahomes. I will say this, though. The only other time I've broken a streak this long was telling people to stop betting Will Zalatouris for a year plus. And then the only time I bet him was a one-off week. I had the receipts. They're posted out.

I put a thousand dollars on him to win. I was there live in Memphis. He won in a crazy playoff. And I came in third in the five. Like I had tons. It was like, that was the one week. And this is the week we might break it. So I put the disclaimer, it's still a might because you never know what you need by the end of the week, but there's too many things going in the favor.

And it actually ties together a lot of what we just talked about. So, you know, when, when you look and I want to get this from you later on, cause we're going to get this demo from you anyway, but like people are playing Kenneth Walker off the charts and, you know, he's boosting up in some places, not others. And so, um, It's like a perfect storm. People are then moving to Kelley. But how many are playing all three of them together?

And then on top of it, we just had this big long argument in our Discord yesterday. And this was my point about like how we're trying to outbuild every week. And I just don't care. Like you could tell me whatever you want about how bad Xavier Worthy sucks. I don't care if he's good. If he's bad, those lineups are dead. Good for those lineups too. Bad for them, but good for them. I don't care.

It's what I'm trying to say is if it's X Worthy, that fits in the build. If it's Taekwon Thornton that fits in the build, I don't know who it's going to be that does good. But I know if you're playing Mahomes, you want to get enough of them to be able to cover these angles, but we could have it where it's Mahomes, Walker. Rice, Thornton, Worthy, Kelley, and blend it up. On the other side, we have Caleb Douglas out.

You have Malik Washington and Bell who can speed up a game. You got A-chan who can speed up a game. And talking about those overstacks, this would be one of them. So it's to me, when you have the perfect storm... The only time I would break free is when you have that. You got Walker being the only guy that's getting love. Mahomes with Walker alone might be different enough, right? Mahomes with Walker and Kelley should be different.

Mahomes with Walker and Kelley and at a fourth should be very different. And man, they're scheduled to put up almost thirty points on the road. Miami just does not care. But But the other part about this, if there was ever a week for Miami to care and show up, it's the perfect timing. You know why? Because they're going to lose anyway. So just show up and play really good and still lose, but at least look like you showed up.

And so to me, there's a lot of things going into this recipe, but I did want to get your thoughts on the Mahomes stack, game stackGame StackIn the NFL, a game stack usually combines a quarterback, one or two of his pass catchers and one or more players from the opposing offense.Target games where the spread is close as well as the total high. A high total with a lopsided spread can turn into a blowout where only one side keeps scoring.Full explanation ↗, possibility of that game just going back and forth here this week. Do you want me to bring up the conditional ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ stuff? If you can, now might be the best time. Yeah, let's do that. It'll be a nice preview. So once we get to the leverage lane, people are already a little bit familiar with the conditional ownership stuff.

I want to see it, one hundred percent. So bring it up. I will go back to this. I'll remove mine and you should be able to present yours. Yeah. All right. Can you see it? I think you just have to add it. Add it. Perfect. Bang. Oh, add it. Remove it. Add it. Now we're good. Go ahead.

So the way this conditional ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ stuff works is it essentially says put a player in and now let's view how ownership changes within the world of lineups where this player is included. And so here we can see like... The condition is Kenneth Walker is in the lineup. So what happens to Mahomes, his ownership? And by the way, like you can choose the, uh, the contest of interest, uh, up top.

I'm going to stick with the high stakes here just because otherwise we get into Sample size issues. And so there's a little bit more noise. Uh, I, and in fact, like for, I, you know, that's a point I made with my subscribers. Even if you're playing single entrySingle-EntryA single-entry contest allows each user exactly one lineup. It can be a cash game or a tournament.In single-entry, one or two contrarian decisions are usually enough. Pair a strong, popular core with a lower-owned piece instead of fading everything the field likes.Full explanation ↗, it might make sense to view this in the high stakes instead, just because then you get the better Sample size and, uh, With that side note, side note, definitely only playing it like this.

I'll play it in the middle. These are Milly Maker. This is for the Milly Maker for me. I need it to, if I'm doing this, it got to win me all the money. There's no chance I'm doing this for a couple of bucks. So it's the M in my homes stands for Milly. We're getting after it. Keep it in the $555. Perfect for this. Now, let me start somewhere else, actually.

Instead of starting with Mahomes and Kenneth Walker, because I'll kind of talk through why that's a little bit difficult. Let's start instead with Lamar, and let's look at Derrick Henry. And so here we can see, okay, let's go salary. So Henry looks really, really neutral, basically just as owned within Lamar Jackson lineups as he is outside of Lamar Jackson lineups.

This is interesting because last week – The reason why I created this conditional ownership tool in the first place was, like, just to help me make the field lineups in the contest even better. And then as I was doing it, I was like, wait a minute, this is like a really cool tool that I should put on the site.

So one of the things I learned last week was that, uh, my my field lineups were overestimating how much Henry would go with Lamar Jackson and underestimating how much Mcafree would go with Purdy. So now let's go look at Purdy lineups, and let's see Mcafree. And now we get, look at this, so twelve and a half percent overall, but inside of Purdy lineups, thirty five point seven percent owned, a delta of plus twenty three point two percentage points. So the reason I start with these two guys is because what that result last week showed me was, okay, I need a stronger dial to find out who people will pair quarterback and running back with and who people will not do that with.

At least to the same degree. And so there are two aspects of that calculation or formulation, however you want to say, that goes into the field lineup generation. The first is just past results. How willing have people been in the past to pair Henry with Lamar Jackson, to pair CMC with Brock Purdy? Then the second thing is just like an archetype of offense environment. How involved is this guy in the receiving game? What are his targets per game?

What's his average at the target out of the backfield? So on and so forth. Both of those things have real meaningful signal in terms of how Likely people are to be willing to pair that quarterback and running back together in stacks. So the reason I went off on this tangent is because we only have one of those aspects with my homes and Walker. So again, I am going to show this, but I'd also say take some of this with a grain of salt.

There is a chance that people are more on the Henry side than the McCaffrey side. Certainly, people aren't going to be as willing to put Walker with Mahomes as they are McCaffrey with Purdy. There's no question there. But is it going to be as restrictive as Henry with Lamar, or is it going to be as restrictive as what I'm showing here? So if Walker in, you see there is a boost to Mahomes. If we do it the other way around...

If we start with Mahomes, there is a boost to Ken Walker here. In fact, a pretty sizable one. So plus seventeen and a half, about a fifty percent relative boost to the Walker ownership. You, however, said like, OK, but how many people are going to Walker if they also like Travis Kelley? So we can do that as well. We can come here and see this like enormous boost for Kelley. No surprise there. That shows how much people stack.

And then we can say, OK, well, given that start, how many people are going to Walker. It does shrink, but it's, it's not necessarily super unique. And so I think the way that this, the way that this would really hit is like, if there's just no mercy from Kansas City, or of course, if Miami like really pushes them, but what if, what if my homes and company put up like forty five points in this game?

I think that's the path you need because it doesn't look like this is going to be a super unique approach. But if you go Mahomes, Kelley, Walker, and let's say Thornton or Worthy, just use an example. Okay. So let's see. Now we want here. You know what? I can sort by team. I'm going to put in a team. Oh, I can do that. Look at that. Look at me go. So let's go KC.

So even with that start, you still are getting a bunch of Worthy and recognize the fact like this is conditional ownership, right? This is not saying that, wow, thirty six percent of lineups are going to have Mahomes, Walker, Kelley Worthy. Of course not. This is saying that within lineups that have Mahomes, Kenneth Walker, Travis Kelley, what percentage are also going to have Worthy? So what this says is like this is still more contrarianContrarianA contrarian play or lineup is one built around choices most of the field will not make, such as low-owned players, unpopular teams or an unusual salary structure.Pick one or two contrarian spots per lineup and ground each in a real reason. The rest of the roster can look like the field.Full explanation ↗ than not adding Worthy, right?

Because you're getting a thirty six percent on guy. So that means that, you know, sixty four percent of people decided not to add another one of these guys to me. Like if I'm going to Kansas City, I'm going Rashi Rice. Right. Look how look how low ownedLeverageLeverage is the edge you gain by rostering a play the field is underweight on, compared with how often it ends up in winning lineups. When that play outscores the popular option most lineups chose instead, you gain ground on those lineups, though the rest of your roster still decides where you finish.Look for leverage on players connected to the chalk, like the other side of a popular game or a teammate who can steal the popular player's touches.Full explanation ↗ he is in all of this stuff. So even even in just my homes. Like, look how much lower owned he is than all of these other guys. Right. Like that's. That's crazy.

Even in Mahomes lineups, Rashi Rice, the wide receiver one with him in the past, only eleven percent of Mahomes lineup. So to me, like that's a number one, a really good use case of this tool is finding the the contrarian way to play whatever stack you're doing, especially if you're going to a chalkier stack and you're looking for a contrarian way to do it. But also just, you know, finding them. Finding the areas of the stack that are just like, well, wait a minute.

This doesn't vibe with how this stack has hit in the past. If you look over the last two years, the vast majority of really good Mahomes games have been really good Rashi Rice games. So that's the way that I would do it, I think. I think the other thing too is like, I'm fine with Thornton and it's kind of the same thing for a lower price that I can boost up elsewhere.

The other thing that's really stands out to me here is like, just take Kelley out of it and you're in good shape. And we already talked about that. And I think you talk with Mayo about it as well. Just breaking down the difference of like tight ends with the quarterbacks and maybe, you know, a different topic for another time.

But just to note it, I think that's kind of the thing that stands out to me is like, once you go to Kelley, people that do that with, do you have the Kittle Purdy version? Yeah, real quick, I wanted to show this. You said like, okay, well, what if you just take out Kelley? So once you've added a player into the condition, you just click him again and it changes what that condition is.

So this says in lineups that do not have Travis Kelley, you take Mahomes down from ten percent to four percent. So you go like Mahomes, Rashi Rice, Kenneth Walker. Now you're in business. Now that's a really, really, really low owned thing. And that like to me, that has way more separation potential than using Kelley anyway, because how does Kelley get there? Like eight receptions just over and over.

Sure, he can get there on touchdowns, but if you want the big plays, like a screen pass to Walker that he takes forty yards to the house or a crossing route to Rashi Rice that he takes forty yards to the house, like, that's where you're really getting those ceiling Mahomes performances. That's where the one-off conversation comes from because we've had it enough in the past and I know you just had it and all that stuff, but like the Schultz thing.

He ends up breaking the slate and is needed, but it's as a one-off. It's the last drive when he gets, you know, six catches and whatever. Yes. He had other stuff going on. It's not even shitting on the Schultz play because it was chalk. It's noting that it's like if Kelley gets eight catches, but no touchdowns, he's just catching those balls over the middle and landing at the clocks, just burning. Things are just running.

It doesn't necessarily do shit from a homes or that stack or anything, but Taekwon Thornton catching a six yard bomb. Well, boom, let's get this thing going, man. Let's see this thing speed up. That's what makes the difference of it. But people just naturally go because they go together. It's like, okay, yeah, if he gets you two or three touchdowns and then yeah, that'd be phenomenal. But otherwise you can get that from different ways in different places.

So what I wanted to compare was like the Kittle version to see if it's just as good or just as high with Purdy. That's the example. Yeah. So like to me, this screams, okay, if I'm using Brock Purdy, I'm not using George Kittle. Cause look at this. He goes from seven percent overall to fifty two percent within Purdy lineups. You have if you're doing this because you have this like preconceived notion that, okay, I want to stack the tight end position.

Personally, I've moved away from that based on the roster construction data, but I know a lot of people still have that thought. I'm not going to spend too much time arguing against it, but look what you can do here. You can still correlateCorrelationCorrelation describes how two players' fantasy scores move together. Positively correlated players tend to have big games at the same time, usually because one player's success directly adds points for the other.When you build a tournament lineup, ask which of your players need the same thing to happen. The more of them that do, the higher your lineup's ceiling.Full explanation ↗ it and you go to McBride who goes from being a slightly higher owned guy overall to significantly more contrarianContrarianA contrarian play or lineup is one built around choices most of the field will not make, such as low-owned players, unpopular teams or an unusual salary structure.Pick one or two contrarian spots per lineup and ground each in a real reason. The rest of the roster can look like the field.Full explanation ↗ within Purdy lineups. And he's like a wide receiver one, so that's a way to put it as well. Yeah, Purdy, Evans, McBride.

To me, that's a really good way to build a San Francisco lineup. Maybe you add Debo or Demarcus Robinson if you want to make it a double stack. I think it's going to be really hard to do Purdy, Evans, McCaffrey, and McBride. It's just going to be way too much salary, so that's why I left McCaffrey out of that. But yeah, that's a really good option. And sure, these guys become...

A lot higher but man by simply not using Kittle it's the same sort of thing so let's let's do it the opposite way right let's go to Kittle And let's just take him out and now say, okay, and Lana said, don't include Kittle. What happens to Purdy's ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗? And we find he goes from six point three to three point two percent. So it's a similar thing.

Like, I think just excluding the obvious tight end within a stack is you can turn any stack into a contrarian stack by simply excluding the popular tight end that goes along with them. I can't imagine year is $2,000 twenty six and people don't have YouTube premium yet. It's like people watch more YouTube than they watch anything else in the entire world. So for that, I would definitely recommend it if you want to get it doesn't help me at all.

It helps you because people are wondering about ads and stuff like that. It's like, yeah, there's this thing called free shows. And when you do them for free, there's either we sit here and talk about ads all day or Or we actually talk about good shit that nobody else in the industry has or does. Or we run ads and you get to listen to me talk about manscaping your nuts. Like that's the difference in this type of setup. But easily, just go get YouTube premium.

I get zero dollars for when you do that. You just get to skip ads and not worry about them. But the chat is hilarious when it comes to that stuff. They're watching forty hours of YouTube premium of YouTube shows a week and like these ads, these ads, man. It's like you drive a car. You got to go get some gas, too. You need something to actually move the needle. These creators, that's how they get paid. So just note that when you're doing it.

So it's super cheap for what you're getting. It's one of the cheapest in the world. But- All right. Really good job with this. I think it's going to come back up again anyway, so leave it for now. But I will say that if you guys are wanting to get involved and check out Black Analytics and go get that, you can use the promo code TAMBO to check it out and get in there. The Discord, all this stuff, the roster construction data.

I just thought the tight end stuff was, you know, the data on that stuff was interesting based on explaining it. And then I was having that conversation with Pat the other day. I was like, man, like Blickle sold me on this stuff. You got to talk to him about it because it actually makes a ton of sense the more you think about it when you're just looking at these games and how they play out.

Yeah, and I think as we kind of go through the conditional ownership stuff, it's clear why building stacks through wide receivers instead of tight ends has been so valuable. Because from a conditional ownership standpoint, you're just getting much, much, much better numbers on your side. And so, yeah, like I... I've built a lot of stuff in my life at this point for DFS. And some of it's a swing and a miss. Some of it I care about for two weeks and then never think about it again.

But the two that have had the most staying powers, the GPPGPP (Guaranteed Prize Pool)A GPP is a tournament whose prize pool is guaranteed to pay out in full even if the contest does not fill. Payouts are steep: a small group at the top wins most of the money.Before you enter a tournament lineup, ask how it finishes first, not just how it cashes. If you cannot name that scenario, rebuild it.Full explanation ↗ scores have been kind of revolutionary for me in DFS. And I think the conditional ownership tool is probably now my second favorite thing that I've ever built. And I think it's going to be a huge part of my process for years and years now. And there's definitely nothing else like it in the industry. So I definitely recommend checking it out over at Black Analytics.

Yeah, and I think we did the AI DFS cohort where a lot of people right now are using AI. I talk about it all the time. I get pitched weekly on a ton of different options that, oh, this new tool, this new thing, this new extra, whatever, all these different factors. But to me, it's like... One thing I will say, like you said, I'm a big quality over quantity guy, right? I talk about all the time, less is more.

But I will say a lot of people don't remember or think about this part that the quality comes from the quantity. So you'll try out a project, you'll work on some stuff. But if it's not...

A cool project or it's not something that you can see holding value and moving forward with, it's sometimes tricky to continue staying up those late nights working down that path. And, for example, using AI to help gather things quickly and do it. Everyone thinks that AI is like the worst enemy. It's about how you're using it or what you're using it for, right? That's the difference. Again, it's, there's a ton of ways to make your life easier and use it to assist, but it just gets you there quicker.

Vibe coding. We talked about on that cohort of like a way that you can just talk to it like a normal Person and not have to know how to code and then still get yourself something pretty cool out of it. This tool is definitely pretty solid when it comes to like what you said, like being able to see that kind of stuff. Some stuff you'll know intuitively Like someone say, no shit, Kelsey's more popular in Mahomes lineups. Right.

But then a lot of people still just go and plug that in as their starting point when they're building it. So that would be an example where you can just get different, like you said, or the Purdy with Kittle thing. Well, what about the Purdy with McBride instead? Like things like that. So- Anything else you want to talk about on, you know, leveraging the chalkChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ build?

I don't really have a ton of different angles of attack as much as, or sorry, like actual examples as much of angles of attack. Like we talked about like over stacking one that I'm saving for leverage lane. I know you're going to show a little bit more during your leverage lane with that type of stuff. But I think the big thing for me this week is, is the key point that you pointed out of people just trying to say, Hey, I got this mini stack.

Let me add a mini stack, a mini stack and a mini stack or just one offs and versus you can actually build it differently. And then the other thing is just one lesson from last week. Um, we could see it again this week too, but was like, you know, you saw a bunch of wide receivers, chase, uh, lamb, JSN, et cetera, all come through when everybody was on those running backs.

We talked already this week, but there is some sort of fragile spots when it comes to what people are getting comfortable with in some of these positions.

With some of these running backs, some of these wide receivers, some of these tight ends. So I like the theory of, like you said, over stacking and paying up for quarterbacks, some of those ones that we talked about. But anything else you want to want to talk about? Uh, not really. So is it, is it time for, like, what people are overconfident in this week? Yes, definitely can bring us there. Cool.

I think this is the one that I kind of talked about in week one is what I thought we would see. And we're getting an example kind of earlier in the season than I expected, which is people using coverage data in what I believe is just completely wrong way. So again, like... A lot of this coverage data is really valuable. It's really insightful. But it's not always obvious the best way to use it.

And so there's a player, I'll just name him ahead of time, like Parker Washington this week, I think is being over-owned because of what coverage data is saying about him. And to be clear, Parker Washington has an awesome role. He seems like a fantastic player. I was... High on him in best ball, not nearly as high as some people around the industry.

He got steamed so much, and I was only a little bit overweight on him, so I'm not going to try to victory lap that in any way, shape, or form. But his ownershipOwnershipOwnership is the percentage of lineups in a contest that include a given player. Projected ownership is an estimate made before lock; actual ownership is posted once the contest locks.Ownership isn't something to avoid; it's something to build around. The goal is understanding how the field is likely to build, then finding your edge relative to that.Full explanation ↗ this week against a New England defense that's a pretty strong defense, I just don't totally understand.

And so the way that I will kind of talk about this, if you will, The thing that people are pointing to, so let's just go first, like why is this an overreaction from people? He's been really good against too high so far this season. And New England plays a lot of too high. So what? That's a tiny Sample size.

Not only is it a tiny Sample size, but you're talking about a split that from one season to the next doesn't even have stability, right? So like a player who one year is good against too high, that doesn't tell you anything about how he's going to be the next year against too high coverages. That's not one of the splits that has stability. The splits that do have stability are single high.

So someone who does really well against single high coverage does tend to continue to do well against single high the next year. Reason being that the skill against single high is easily definable. And you can point to it as, okay, if someone's really good against single high, it probably means they're explosive. And It's a very real predictive thing that defenses that play a lot of single high give up more explosive plays.

But the skill of being good against two high, being good against most Likely zone coverage, because more two high coverages are zone, more single high coverages are man, it just doesn't translate in the same way. So not only is this a bad starting point, you shouldn't be caring about someone's splits against too high coverage, but it's also just a bad use case in the sense that you're grabbing a Sample size of two games this season. It's not anywhere near enough. It doesn't tell you a damn thing.

And again, this doesn't mean that Parker Washington is a bad play this week. I think his efficient ownership is probably like one of the better plays in his range from a probability of success standpoint, but he should be fifteen percent. He's going to be twenty five percent. That's a big inefficiency. So that's something I wanted to point out. It's it's less about not playing Parker Washington.

It's more about When you're on Twitter, when you're consuming all of the content around the industry, it's just something to watch out for. When people are setting these splits that sound really good, that sound like, oh my God, this is so exciting. This guy who I already liked anyway has this great matchup that I didn't even know about because I didn't have this data for myself.

Pump the brakes a little bit and ask yourself, does the data that they are citing actually mean something? Or is it just a nice thing that makes me seem like I should be excited, but there's not actually a whole lot there? And more often than not, the answer is going to be the latter. And now that we're in a day and age of DFS where I think this is actually impacting ownership, I think it's something to really watch out for. Yeah, I agree with all that.

And again, one thing I'd want to see, let's see, can we bring this back up? Can you, you've got them up there on the screen. I shouldn't have really done that. You could add randomness up on your screen. I just showed it off. But anyway, luckily I could see that you didn't have too much up there. I'm curious because he's so owned on his own, which we already know. What, what is it?

Because remember we saw this week one where people were like talking about Trevor, it would have been like inverted, but they were talking about Trevor Lawrence, but then they could never get to the stack because they didn't want to just plug them in with Parker Washington and Myers and run it back. What, what are we seeing on the Jag situation here? Goodness gracious. Yeah. Yeah, he's in ninety percent of Trevor Lawrence lineups. Yeah. So it's so high. But but it's so it's not.

No, no, no. That one makes sense because that's yeah. And that's again, that's some of the intuitiveness. I actually want to see the inverted of that. Yeah, that's what I was. So it putting Parker Washington in the lineup takes Trevor Lawrence from eight percent to twenty six percent, which again is like this. This is the the point I was making earlier of like, OK, I think we're going to see a lot of single stacks.

Because people aren't necessarily looking this week for a game and then one-offs around that game. They're saying, well, I like all these individual plays. So instead of stacking, let me just attach the quarterback to one of these plays that I like. And that's why we're seeing this really high conditional ownership on Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, and the thing is, that all makes perfect sense. The Trevor Lawrence stuff as a whole, though, it's like he's going to stay in check.

And then, again, you can go deeper with it. But can you do like... Um, Trevor Lawrence, Parker Washington and Myers and, and see what that looks like. So, yeah. So the, the way you do that is you say like, okay, I'm going to put two of the three in and then check the conditional ownership for others. So, um, this is a, a fairly large lift for Myers, but still it's only twelve percent adding him on.

And it looks like just a total of like, uh, you know, twelve and then eighteen.

So you might get, uh, something like thirty percent of all Trevor Lawrence lineups are double stacks. That's a very low percentage. Actually, it's, it's probably higher because we also have Burned Strange. So, yeah, fifty percent of all Trevor Lawrence stacks are double stacks. That's, that's still a very low percentage. And, and it's something that, like, if you are sold for some reason on Trevor Lawrence this week, I don't know what that reason would be, but by simply making it a double stack with a bring back, like, I think you're going to put yourself ahead of the curve on a lot of the, uh, the Lawrence, Parker Washington single stacks. But for me, this tells me less, okay, I should use him and double stack him and more.

I just should stay away from Lawrence and Washington in general. Yeah, I think for me, it's like a little different, but that information helps me get to my same opinion of saying, it's like, if it is Washington, I want him actually having an explosive game, which would connect to Lawrence, which would make the game go more back and forth, back to our previous point of how to leverageLeverageLeverage is the edge you gain by rostering a play the field is underweight on, compared with how often it ends up in winning lineups. When that play outscores the popular option most lineups chose instead, you gain ground on those lineups, though the rest of your roster still decides where you finish.Look for leverage on players connected to the chalk, like the other side of a popular game or a teammate who can steal the popular player's touches.Full explanation ↗ the chalkChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ builds. I'm not just running Lawrence with Washington.

You can, but it makes more sense to me to get different. Like Myers was like one point seven percent. Does he pop up more into the triple stack? Sure. But I've still put myself in a room of like, twelve out of a hundred teams, and then you get the rest of the lineup to separate yourself. So you still get yourself in a pretty small room that's unique to the top if it actually happens. Otherwise, probably just a void.

That's how I would agree with you on the other side of it. So how about this? So look, we can put all New England in here and we can just go conditional ownership here. Whoops. Oh, it's harder to do New England. I'm going to add a team filter instead of just making you search because this is a little bit annoying. Can you type Pats, Patriots? I don't think so. Let's see. No, it's just the defense then. Because it's a team abbreviation here.

So I'm just going to add a team filter to this. But... So what we see here, check this out, is let me go back to the Delta because that'll at least give us New England guys like you can see. All right. A lot of these New England guys are being used as bringbacks. Not a ton. But how about the most explosive player on the team at one and a half percent conditional ownership?

And you just hope that Trevion breaks out another forty yard touchdown run like he did last week. And you get another game or another just overall running back environment where nobody separates. And now this is a huge piece because not only does that like one long touchdown run, maybe you get two, right? Like maybe he only gets ten, twelve carries, something like that. But two of them are long touchdowns.

And now he gets the hundred yard bonus, gets you two touchdowns, is one of the highest scoring players on the slate. And those plays got the ball right back to your stack. And so I agree with you there. I think going Lawrence, Washington, Trevion might be the way to do it. And just hope that it really breaks your way that way.

So you're getting a little bit more correlationCorrelationCorrelation describes how two players' fantasy scores move together. Positively correlated players tend to have big games at the same time, usually because one player's success directly adds points for the other.When you build a tournament lineup, ask which of your players need the same thing to happen. The more of them that do, the higher your lineup's ceiling.Full explanation ↗ in the field, but you're doing it in a really intelligent way that would meaningfully boost Lawrence and Parker Washington. Because like adding Jacobs Myers, for example, If Myers has a good game, that doesn't necessarily boost the outlook for the combination of Lawrence and Parker Washington, whereas if Trevion Henderson has a big game, it absolutely makes Lawrence and Parker Washington significantly more Likely to succeed. Yeah. Mine is going to be, uh, I'm fully aligned with a guy, Aaron Smith.

Usually not actually. He's a lot of good comments in there, but sometimes I disagree, but this one, uh, definitely in on, I think that the Warren ownership just skyrocketing, the Sims are flying them up the board even further. I get that. He's only five, seven hundred. I understand it's Pittsburgh at home, et cetera, et cetera. But, uh, Um, you know, to me there's again, Cincinnati D has looked a little better to start the season. So that's one thing. And that's small Sample.

It's way more about the overconfidence or just like the automatic got to play this guy and plug them in. I think we've talked about a ton of different ways with over stacks to get that cheap wide receiver to boost you back up. So you might not even need to be in that position or what you're going to there.

And then I think there's other spots that I would spend, but I do think this one is the one I have at least the most concern with. I understand why he's popular. He's going to be in my portfolio. Played accordingly, finding that stuff out. Like what Alex just showed, you can see how to do that. But just noting it, he at $5,700 seems like the guy that's getting the most steam and boost.

Like he could be double Chubb Hubbard, who I actually think is more of the real deal. And I know he has to go in and play the Browns, another AFC North defense. But just noting it, I would pay a little bit more for something like that if that was going to be the case. Yeah, and I mean, it's the same concept as Bijan against Carolina last week, right?

Like the way that these really chalkyChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ running backs fail more often than not is the offense as a whole just looks really, really bad. And the chances that this Pittsburgh offense looks really, really bad against Cincinnati this week seems fairly significant. So yeah, I like the Warren fade. I also really like the Warren fade with the Cincinnati defense, things like that.

Yeah, and another thing, like Mayo and I talked about this yesterday, but just because you go to the Cincinnati D, you don't have to play Chase Brown or something. Yeah, of course not. It has nothing to do with that. It's just that sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn't. We had the good one last year where we flipped the Brees Hall Jets to the Judkins Jets. And it ended up really working out.

And man, if you had that tool back then, you would have seen an insane difference in those two combinations. And it was a one and a half point spread. So using it to find those things out, I think are somewhat interesting. I do think the running back position this week, my last comment just in general, would be some overconfidence. We often have this because running back chalk is the best chalk. You've got the roster construction date on this. It's like pitchers in MLB.

Like, yes, it is better. But when it gets really condensed, last week is a prime example. It's not to say last week is this week because it's not. But when people kind of put it down to three options and like this is what it is, I'll look for alternatives. Like last week, you got a bunch of them. But like this week, A-chan- getting a little bit of love. I think Tootin, by the way, is a great leverageLeverageLeverage is the edge you gain by rostering a play the field is underweight on, compared with how often it ends up in winning lineups. When that play outscores the popular option most lineups chose instead, you gain ground on those lineups, though the rest of your roster still decides where you finish.Look for leverage on players connected to the chalk, like the other side of a popular game or a teammate who can steal the popular player's touches.Full explanation ↗ play on Washington.

They already said he's going to get more passing work. He looks fine on the ground. You just can't get to him because people are going to pay for the other cheap running backs or they're going to move up. He's a hundred dollars less than Warren. And he's a pivot to the Parker Washington piece. You and I just broke, both brought up overconfidence. My brain just goes immediately to how do we pair that together? What about Tootin in that spot? Again, will people end up there?

No, they can say they will, but they won't. Brees Hall himself. He's one that actually could fit with the Jets D because you don't have to put them together. But if you're not going to be on Detroit, that's somewhat interesting. Chuba Hubbard and Judkins in that same game, Montgomery going against Indy, I think is again, these are not my favorite plays. I'm just noting like ways you can get different out of position. Judarian price full go this week.

We've been waiting for a bright, a breakout. I think he's one of the offensive rookie of the year candidates. And was, I should say, haven't seen it yet, but it's only a matter of time. And then when it does happen right now, going up against that Washington team, he's an option. And there's a couple more. I'm just saying the point being overconfidence in a position as a whole, you don't see it at wide receiver ever. You never see it at quarterback.

People spread it out this week, even more so than most. And at tight end this week, it's spread out. We talked about it. There's eight to ten guys that people are interested in. Defense, kind of very, you know, a good segue here in a second. Very overconfident in that this week, or just overconfident in what the builds you get from it. Not necessarily that people love the Titans, but they do see D-line versus O-line. Potential rain is like, what, ninety six percent.

So it's going to be a nor'easter, whatever people are calling it. It's going to be a lot of weather there. And they're cheap. So when you put all those things together, but then it's also what does it do for the lineup? So I think that's the other interesting factor from there. Are you ready to finalize with your leverage lane? I got mine that we could go to, or you can go to yours first. I'm ready. Why don't you kick us off?

Yeah, I'll start it off because then we'll pull the screen back up. I think you want to show off a couple more things. But mine is going to be very simple this week. And this will be for like my main entry, my higher dollar, my $555 millimakers, stuff like that paying up for defense. It's not just because the Titans are going to be an insanely owned number. I think these pay up defenses do a couple of things.

So I spent some time on this just noting it. But like that example, I just gave how you can kind of like put the pieces together for but there's a lot of examples where people are on the Titans and CMC, for example, or whatever, insert Jameer Gibbs, insert whatever. It's like you could have, instead of Jameer Gibbs, you can have Amin Ra or Jameson Williams. Instead of CMC, you could have Trey McBride opposite side of that game or Kittle or something else in that spot.

So it's like, there's, when you pay up for the defenses this week, you could get the ceiling score. You're not just hoping for the six or seven points that everybody's talking about with the Titans. As long as I get, you know, seven or eight points or whatever number they want to use. I'm good. You don't know if you are, and you don't know what the slate's going to bring that worked.

Last week when people had, you know, five or six points at the defense but had all the points from the other guys. But I think this week, with the Seahawks, with the Chiefs, with some of these other ones up there that you got to pay up for, I think there's a real value. Even the Lions this week going against the Jets. I think there's a real value to going up at defense this week, and that allows for me to not just say pay up for defense because the Titans are bad chalk. It's pay up for the defense, and Titans will fit in other lineups to make things work. But when you go up to this defense, then you can actually have it.

So you get some unique options of drop downs from your studs to like your mid ranges, which is just not common this week, the way people are building. So I think that's the other intriguing thing. I think I'm using the Titans. I will just put the note, not a caveat. I'm noting it's like, cause I know people are still doing it and I'm doing it in my portfolio some, but the lineups I've seen the Titans go into are, are like over back to these over stacks.

It's really over stacking to get like everything into a lineup that also correlates versus the previous points we've had on this very show where people are like, Lawrence, Washington, Gibbs, whoever else, like, you know, whoever the guy, Gibbs, Walker, Jalen Warren, and Mark Andrews. It's like, yeah, you're touching on every spot and you're getting all the best quote unquote plays at every spot and using the Titans to do that. I want the Titans in my...

Hell, I'll just say like the Mahomes, Walker, Rice, Worthy lineup with a, you know, A-chan on the other side. Well, who has that with the Titans? Not many people, right? But now it's because I'm getting to different separation scores and things like that. So I'll let you talk about yours, but that's going to be mine for this week. I like that one a lot. And it also gets to something like, it's nice when we can do a leverage lane that is unique, right?

And so many people just kind of view the DST position as a throwaway. And the roster construction analysis that I've done really kind of points to it as actually a pretty key decision point where Yeah, it's always going to be true that it's really hard to guess who's going to have the defensive touchdown and the really good defensive performance. Who thought last week the Carolina defense would score like, twenty-five fantasy points or something, right? Nobody did.

It is chaotic, but there are general trends, and one of the clear general trends is that, hey, you know who's more Likely to get a twenty-point performance? Expensive defenses. You know who's more Likely to be five percent owned when they do give you a twenty percent performance? Expensive defenses. Uh, it, I do think it's a, it's a really smart, um, leverage lane and I like the uniqueness of it. And it's also just like in general, I think a good strategy overall.

I want to tie it to that. I'm glad you said that because it's kind of like the don't use running back at flex. Last week was the real theme of what you were saying. You were saying wide receiver and giving the percentages off of that. But the real concept or the theme of it was running back is going to be insanely high at flex last week. And there was no running backs in sight in flex. I'm saying it's to your point.

There's still high, high variance. It's still hard to get it right. I'm saying, I think it's doing multiple things for you in your builds. And it's giving you a setup where you're saying, okay, find out what that pool is for you.

But the pay up D is going to force you down from some studs to some mid tiers to some game stacks that can really flow together, where you're getting it from the game stackGame StackIn the NFL, a game stack usually combines a quarterback, one or two of his pass catchers and one or more players from the opposing offense.Target games where the spread is close as well as the total high. A high total with a lopsided spread can turn into a blowout where only one side keeps scoring.Full explanation ↗ output and not just from the, well, I got this guy from this team and this guy's like, I'm thinking about those spots and then still correlating it. But I'm still putting it together with a theme of pay up at defense and then pick your pool and let them fall into place.

All right. My leverage lane. Um, let's, uh, let's bring the conditional ownership tool back up. My leverage lane is going to be pairing stud wide receivers together. And the reason for this is because we can get some really, really nice conditional ownerships, combinatorial ownerships. So if I start with, uh, with Amon Rossi and Brown here, um, I want you to just notice what happens to some of the other conditional ownerships around this price point.

And so first and foremost, like, yeah, there is a pricing element here. As soon as you click a $7,900 wide receiver, it's harder to get anybody else in the upper $7,000, $8,000 range. So all of these conditional ownerships are going to go down. But look, Gibbs goes from thirty four to twenty five. We get McCaffrey from twelve to eight. We get Derrick Henry from fourteen to twelve. Those are small movements. Right. Jonathan Taylor, nine point four to eight point five.

C.D. Lamb goes from fourteen percent to four percent. Lamb is more popular than Jonathan Taylor, but within Amon Ross St. Brown lineups, CD lamb is half as owned as Jonathan Taylor. And this is a pretty steady theme, regardless of which stud wide receiver you start with. The wide receiver pairings are just significantly lower on another way. We can look at this. So if we start with Amon Ross St. Brown and then click CD lamb, Look at this. Matching field lineups.

One percent combinatorial ownership for Amon Ross St. Brown and CeeDee Lamb. This combination is projected to be in one percent of all lineups. Conversely, if we go Amon Ross St. Brown, And Derrick Henry, two point six percent. That's a massive difference. Right. That's one hundred and sixty percent more Likely to be in in Amara St. Brown's is Derrick Henry versus C.D. Lamb. Like that's that's crazy, crazy powerful. And this isn't something that's being talked about around the industry.

It's not something that's being identified. So this is largely inspired by what we saw last week where. CeeDee Lamb was like twenty three percent owned. He wasn't that contrarianContrarianA contrarian play or lineup is one built around choices most of the field will not make, such as low-owned players, unpopular teams or an unusual salary structure.Pick one or two contrarian spots per lineup and ground each in a real reason. The rest of the roster can look like the field.Full explanation ↗. Jackson Smith and Jigba was thirteen percent owned. He wasn't that contrarian. I even under projected Jackson Smith and Jigba pretty significantly. I had him under eight percent in my my high stakes ownership. But conditional ownership, I had JSN at two and a half percent in CeeDee Lamb lineups. He came in at three point eight percent.

So even though I was wrong about his overall ownership, was pretty much dead on the conditional ownership. And obviously like if you had that pairing last week, you were at the top of every single leaderboard. You could have totally screwed up the rest of your lineup. You still had a good week. Uh, this is really kind of screaming at me again this week that we can find the exact same advantage. And, uh, there was one other thing I wanted to kind of show with this.

Um, but let's, let's instead, Oh yeah, it's, it's this. So just from a, uh, an ownership perspective, like, Amara is twenty two percent. CDLM is fourteen percent. We as an industry are actually pretty darn good at finding the guys who are in good spots and, you know, being pretty efficient with ownership to the point that.

In general, if you are able to play somewhat chalkyChalkChalk is the most popular, highly owned play on a slate. The term comes from sports betting, where the favorite is called the chalk.Don't label chalk good or bad. Ask whether each popular play deserves its ownership, then decide which chalk you'll eat and which you'll fade.Full explanation ↗ players and chalky players, they are more Likely to succeed than when you try to get really contrarian and go to like a seven percent Justin Jefferson. Well, actually, it's kind of a bad example because I think Justin Jefferson is a really good play this week.

But typically speaking, if you're able to play higher owned guys in unique combinations, it's a much, much higher path or much higher probability of success for the guys in your lineup. And yet here we have an opportunity to do this in a way that turns both of these guys into very, very, very real separators because combined they're only going to be in around one percent of lineups. So I really love this leverage lane. I think this conditional ownership tool is going to be extremely helpful.

And I can't wait to see what it does throughout the rest of the season. And hopefully it pays some immediate dividends with, uh, with contrarian combinations of wide receivers. And last point here is, like, I used St. Brown and Lamb as the main example here, but this is true of any combination. If you like JSN, Chase, Jefferson, Olave, Pickens, it doesn't really matter.

Anytime you use a stud wide receiver, the conditional ownerships of the other stud wide receivers around them are going to plummet. The only possible exception there is... Pickens plus lamb or chase plus Higgins, because even though it is a lot harder for people to make double stacks out of those teams, you're still going to at least get, uh, you know, um, in line numbers with their overall ownership, with their conditional ownership.

So you're not getting the same conditional ownership, uh, discount there, but it's still a lot lower owned than like, you know, we were looking at the conditional ownership of, uh, Bateman when Andrews was already in it, it's way up because people are trying to make that a double stack that works. You're not getting that with, uh, with the Dallas spot and the Cincinnati spot. So all of these guys, all of these combinations really, really good.

And, and, uh, I think I'm going to have multiple lineupsMulti-EntryMulti-entry means entering more than one lineup into the same contest. A contest's entry limit, such as 3, 20 or 150, sets how many lineups one user can submit.Set your total spend for the slate first, then divide it into entries. Multi-entry should spread a fixed budget across more outcomes, not raise how much you put at risk.Full explanation ↗ this week. And so what I may try to do is just get, you know, if let's say I'm running three lineups, I might try to go for three different unique combinations of stud wide receivers and just really make that, like, the thing that I built through this week.

Yeah, and I'll say a couple things just to finalize because I love that, and this comment is correct, but also it doesn't mean you suffer overall. And it was literally just last week when it's not even like chasing. It's just noting the facts of it, but it was last week. You didn't end up suffering because it probably means you didn't have Bijan, and that was the lineups that got to the top. So there's that.

Also, my point was, and part of my overconfidence, I started with Warren, moved it to a discussion around the position as a whole and the concept, and then even gave Tootin as an example. I'm just picking one, but I'm noting it that I just rattled off. You rewind back. I rattled off like... Seven or eight options that you could play at running back this week that are not Gibbs or Walker or the guys that are the most expensive on this slate.

So we, we have a way to do it. Game stacksGame StackIn the NFL, a game stack usually combines a quarterback, one or two of his pass catchers and one or more players from the opposing offense.Target games where the spread is close as well as the total high. A high total with a lopsided spread can turn into a blowout where only one side keeps scoring.Full explanation ↗ almost always. When I was talking earlier about Taekwon Thornton, or you look at a guy like Bateman, or we talked about Walker in that game, or we talk about a lamb pickings. What about Flournoy? It's like, there's again, just people worry about it too much about the play. If the play comes through, that really boosts it even further.

But these are all the concepts combined, being able to play them in a lineup in a way that puts you in the position to get to the top and get lucky and have it go your way. But you got to be building. Like we said, we're out building. We're not out picking. That's the difference. Yeah. So this comment is true. That was on the screen there. Like if you go double sub wide receiver, you do suffer running back.

But that doesn't make it any less impactful or any less viable because it's true anything. If you use Gibbs, you suffer everywhere else in your lineup. That doesn't mean that Gibbs isn't worthwhile because Gibbs can really elevate you, right? So it's just about like... Does it make you suffer more than what that unique combination can be worth? And the answer there to me is like very clearly no.

And, uh, and the other point there is like, even though the running back pricing did go up in kind of a weird way, we're like now, you know, last week we had some, some viable guys that like $5,100 $5,500 and now it's fifty seven fifty nine sixty one where you first see chalk. But like there are still cheap options, right? They're still saving you $2,500 from Jameer Gibbs and from Christian McCaffrey.

So, There are also ways to save at the position. And then I'll also throw out a very fun, $4,400 one percent owned Emmett Johnson. Maybe you get a blowout there and maybe Emmett Johnson cleans up and gives you like twelve DraftKings points. And if we get a slight like last week from running back scoring like that would be an extremely valuable score at one percent, especially if you pair it with with some wide receiver combination.

So I think that's the other thing is like. Yes, you do suffer at running back, but what does suffering at running back mean from a point differential? If you can get... Yeah. If you can get twenty from Hubbard, are you really suffering if that means you didn't get the thirty points from Gibbs? Probably not. That's okay, right?

If JSN, against a very bad Washington secondary, by the way, puts up thirty five and, you know, saving $2,500 of JSN otherwise means you could have gotten a receiver who got like thirteen, like, that's, that's a way larger separation than what you'd get from the same price difference at running back. And so, uh, it's, it's another reason why I think this makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

It's a factual statement at the start of a slate that has nothing to do with the end and a result. It's not a net. It's not a negative or a knock on the Person that made the comment. It's a fact. Like you said, the comment is a fact, but so is double running back. You suffer a wide receiver, literally just flipping the comment. So that's my point.

It's like, you don't know until you know, but if you want to like use recency bias, like everyone does for everything else that like just last week, you suffered at running back that you could get into your lineup. But your lineup didn't suffer as a result. It actually was better at the end of the week because you didn't need Bijan or any of that stuff, really. And even Henry had seventeen or something is like the other popular pay up. So it's not like that crazy.

And then the other thing is just in general, build accordingly, put yourself in the position. I think we did a really good job today. Hopefully everybody thinks that we did a good job of tying it all together to see how you can use these numbers because the separation is also what makes it valuable. And these tournaments, I don't know, last time you checked, but I just checked again, yep, they're still very top heavy.

And so you want to be able to separate and get yourself to the top. We're talking, we're trying to win a million dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, $50,000, a hundred dollar single entrySingle-EntryA single-entry contest allows each user exactly one lineup. It can be a cash game or a tournament.In single-entry, one or two contrarian decisions are usually enough. Pair a strong, popular core with a lower-owned piece instead of fading everything the field likes.Full explanation ↗ with a hundred grand up top, fifty grand up top. I mean, you can do it a hundred bucks. There's twenty five dollar single entries with $10,000 and thirty three. There's just so many tournaments, regardless of your bankrollBankroll ManagementBankroll management is how you size your DFS spending relative to the money you have set aside to play, called your bankroll, so normal losing streaks do not wipe you out.Write down your per-slate limit before the season starts. Spending rules are much easier to keep when you set them before a losing streak, not during one.Full explanation ↗, all of these concepts can apply. Hopefully helpful for you guys.

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