NFL Week 4 – Leverage Lane | DraftKings & FanDuel DFS Strategy

My uh you know anyone who knows me you probably see it on this side some there's some Ravens gear there anyway but uh knows I'm a big Ravens fan that that was just a crazy run out I don't the one second on the clock we're not here to review that stuff but I will say shouldn't even be put in that position the coaching decisions by the Cowboys down the stretch were insanity and worked in the favor of the Ravens and a team I love but in the end crazy game but you want to talk about it from a DFS perspective as does everybody here want to listen to it Crazy that a thirty four thirty one game, you know, there's like nothing that shows up anywhere from any of that.

So I'll let you take it away. Yeah. I mean, first of all, like it would have been really nice to have overtime there. So it always feels like I'm sure everyone has this exact thought, but it always feels like when I need a game to go overtime, something crazy happens so that it doesn't. And when a chalk game, when I'm rooting against it to go to overtime, something crazy happens so that it does.

But with that said, yeah, it was definitely a weird game last week in the sense that like the, the Cowboys kept kicking it out of bounds or giving Baltimore a short field in, in one way or another. So it was like almost every single drive started at their own forty or even better field position than that. And that just meant that they had short field over and over and over again. And so there wasn't really an opportunity for them to get a ton of yardage.

Uh, it also meant that they spent more of their like overall offensive time, uh, in an area of the field where their run rate is always going to be higher than the pass rate.

So, uh, It was, I think, an unlucky run out in a lot of ways, but I also noticed at times that it was very clear that even though I expect Declan Doyle's offense to be very aggressive when they're at full strength and an aggressive passing offense down the field, he was a little bit concerned about how beat up the offensive line was and called it a little bit more of a conservative game plan as a result.

And so that was something that I feel like I've... Put myself in that position more than I would like over the last, let's say, year and a half of NFL main slate DFS, where my stack just isn't trying to get me fantasy points the way I want them to try to get me fantasy points. And of course, I don't mean that... I want them to be thinking about DFS product or anything like that.

It's just I want to be picking offenses that have every football incentive to be aggressive through the air more than what I have done. So that's something that I did want to kind of take accountability on, but then also kind of frame some of the stacks I'm interested in this week. Yeah. Through that lens.

Cause I think that's a, it's a helpful explanation for why I like some of the stacks that I do, or it's helpful to think about, okay, well, given the interest I have in this stack, how should I actually play it? Uh, which is going to come up quite a bit. Yeah.

One other thing we talked about too, just going back to that winning lineup for a second, like the, you know, it ties into some of this stuff as well, but the, so last week we had Bowers. We're going to talk about, you know, we'll, we'll start there. Maybe then let you segue it to Bowers, but I had it here. Sadiq shows up on all these lines and Juwan Johnson.

I talked through it on Monday and you and I talked a little bit about it pre-show, but You know, Mason Taylor was already out. Adonai Mitchell was kind of doubtful. We weren't really in the play. We just had to wait for it to be official that morning. We got it. I know you'll talk about accountability myself. I talked to her, talked to her on Monday. I already had Wilson and Gibbs and those stacks and things like that.

But I got to a lot more Isaiah Williams than I did. And that cost me. Somebody in the chat earlier had said, you know, Sun God over Gibbs. That can always be true. Gibbs was super popular. You could have them both, 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 ↗, whatever, depending on the type of tournament that you were in. But in the end, Gibbs was needed. But it's almost like that type of stuff, people – it's on a last-minute whim.

They have Williams lined up and not Sadiq in a onesie position. I know there was a ton of tight end options last week, so that's part of it too. But still, just thinking through it again, you're like, damn, kind of missed that piece already. If you didn't get there. So, you know, everybody did that didn't get there. And ninety five percent of the field didn't get there for that. And then the other angle of just like condensed offenses. Mm hmm.

You know, Wilson, Sadiq, or Williams, pick your poison. I mean, you could have Breece Hall, I guess, in there too. Still pretty condensed. And then the what if of, you know, you're most Likely you had Gibbs in your lineup. A lot, forty percent or something had Gibbs. So it's like you're already saying this is going to happen. If that happens, they got to throw now. So like that, the guy's catching the ball. So you kind of almost got a perfect storm.

And it's when it shows up on the millionaire lineup. Oh, damn. How did I not get to that myself? Because that makes perfect sense. You got to try and think through that for each slate when you're putting together your lineups, especially your single entries like we talk about here and that you focus on. So any more on that, like Sadiq, Bowers, there's more. Go ahead. Yeah.

I mean, it was, as you said, like there were a lot of tight end plays last slate, but there were, there were three main ones that I want to talk about real quick. And that is Bowers, Sadiq and Gadsden. And the reason why I want to talk about these three is because they all had a lot more uncertainty around them than a lot of the other plays. Right. So like, uh, there wasn't a whole lot of uncertainty around Dalton Schultz or TJ Hockenson.

We know what their role is. We know that they have an avenue to success through catching touchdowns and catching a lot of just short passes, but they're not going to make big plays. They're not going to catch the thirty five yard seam route, you know, leaping over the defender, diving in the end zone the way Sadiq did for the touchdown.

And so these three all had Unique uncertainty around them and the uncertainty played out very much in favor of two of them and very much against the other. And so the first one I want to talk through is Bowers because I think we're only going to get one chance ever to use like a $6,600 one percent Brock Bowers. And that was last week, at least with with Kubiak as the as the head coach.

And I think very, very highly of Kubiak and think very highly of the role that the Bowers had. And so I am kicking myself a little bit for not. Really wanting to be ahead of the curve. And I almost feel like if he had been four percent on five percent on, I might have talked myself into it more. Whereas like when he was one percent on it, it felt a little bit more like, OK, this is probably just a stupid play.

If only one percent of people are going to do this. And obviously it turned out like that was not the case. And so I wish I would have trusted my my first thought there instead of kind of backing off of that throughout the week.

But but Gazan and Sadiq, man, like I'm not convinced even after seeing the way those games played out, that they were all that different of plays with the information that we had at the start of the games where both are young players. Both are obviously talented, um, we didn't know what role they would have, right? Like they both had guys ahead of them who were out. So it seemed like they had to be on the field.

Gadsden then wasn't on the field any more than usual. In fact, he might've been on the field less than usual. They were using like double fullbacks at times. It was a very weird thing. And I also will say like that game played out even weirder than the Baltimore Dallas game, where if Buffalo had scored the way we expected them to score, instead of turning the ball over five times, the Chargers probably have to play a more traditional drop back style offense.

And then Gadsden probably gets on the field. So I think that was, you know, the Gadsden donut was probably more of just bad run out than anything, but it also shows just how wide of a range of outcomes he had. And I think Sadiq had a pretty similarly wide range of outcomes. It just happened that he had like the very good end of that range of outcomes. And I'm sure people are going to, not totally agree with that. And that's fine.

Like I, I could definitely be wrong about that, but I think the thought that I've had is like, let's imagine that those situations were reversed. Let's imagine that Gadsden had a really good game and Sadiq had a poor game. And I was on here saying the exact same thing of like, well, I think there were pretty similar plays.

I'm a hundred percent sure that there would be people in the comments saying, well, Gadsden was obviously the better play because we had seen him have NFL level success last year. And Sadiq missed a lot of training camp and, you know, rookies who miss a lot of training camp just never end up in the role that we wish them to be in.

And so I think there's probably some hindsight bias in anyone saying that Sadiq was clearly a much better play than Gadsden. Where I would agree with them is that if they were very similar plays and they had similarly wide range of outcomes, they were both in pretty good game environments, but one was like half 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 ↗ of the other. That was Sadiq. So he probably was the better play. Yeah, I also think there's the element of what's going on, like what the slate dynamics are.

And that's what I was trying to say is like you already had, like we talk about it all the time, the secondary stacksMini-StackIn NFL DFS, a mini-stack usually pairs two players from the same game without either team's quarterback. Often a secondary group beside your main quarterback stack, it can pair a running back with an opposing receiver.Before locking a pair, describe how both players reach big scores together. Then ask whether that outcome would make an omitted quarterback or teammate difficult to beat.Full explanation ↗ that kind of just get put together. This week's going to be another good one to talk about because there's going to be Chase Brown, Parker Washington is the equivalent at a different price point, probably more balanced price point than last week, but it was Gibbs and Garrett Wilson.

When those were already in all of those lineups, the way what I was calling like a slice and dice is like you're not – that ownership exists whether you like it or not in in single in double you showed off the conditional ownership last week like oh those were just getting played together a lot but then you know

Would you see sadiq and gino in more of those combos still yes because that fit 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 ↗ but I'm just saying it allowed you to also go get different with all this other stuff the you know that ended up at the top and it's not the results oriented thing of like oh that's what won the tournaments as much as if you were already there and I, I actually, I don't know if you caught it, but I, you know, I had a back and forward Mayo and I always go back and forth on this defense shit.

And I, and it's like, you know, you don't have to put the defense at all. We know that the data shows that we've looked at it. It's been like a myth forever. Like it can work. Obviously we know why it can work. The defense gets a conversion to a fumble recovery or something like that. And boom, now the offense is right back in position and they want to just run it and they run it in or whatever it might be.

We get the angle of why it correlates some and people love to do it. But again, It's like sometimes it just fits it. And it's something that others aren't thinking about. Everyone's playing Aaron Jones. Great. But how many people are paying upSpending UpSpending up means choosing a higher-priced player over a cheaper alternative, using more of your lineup's salary budget at that spot. You may also hear it called paying up.Build a version with your preferred expensive player and another without. Before choosing, check whether either version relies on a cheap player whose expected role still depends on unresolved injury news.Full explanation ↗ and spending $4,000 on the Minnesota Vikings defense this week? Not many. That could help. It could hurt. I don't know. But it's like that's an example where you could get to it. You don't have to do it.

But when more people are on Garrett Wilson and Gibbs.

That's where I get a little disappointed in myself of not not hitting the result but of like not putting the puzzle together in that way where it was like at least in some that I got to I had some with it but a very minimal versus like I would be willing to take on to go collects point the uncertainty that kept their ownership low well that uncertainty won people millions of dollars that were willing to get there or go there or use that as the way to build their puzzle up and make it make sense and I always talk about the penthouse process right uh you know like I'm getting to the next

Level and that you got to get to the top of the penthouse to win all the money well it's like a lot of people were on ground level with Garrett Wilson or gibbs a lot of people got to level like tons of people got to level two of like put those two together okay great most people got stuck on floor two and couldn't get you know the past the security at the elevator to keep going up it was those that were like oh but wait I can put gino sadiq and this okay well that's the next one but then it's like if I do that it unlocks this and I still have

A piece of all that and boom and now you've got the million dollars at the top shout out again to one eight hundred degrees Miami who definitely was at the top of the penthouse and can buy a penthouse now for two million dollars with both milli maker wins so don't know I don't have more to add but I think the slate dynamics and what you're doing still matter to me and that was one of the easiest ways using that uncertainty but what was a more condensed target treeTarget ShareTarget share is the percentage of a team's targets (passes thrown toward an intended receiver) that go to one player. A receiver who sees 8 of his team's 32 targets has a 25 percent target share.Judge target share over the last three or four games, not the full season, especially after a trade, an injury or a quarterback change. The most recent role is the one you are paying for.Full explanation ↗ in a game that could get the back and forth and you could put it together and slice and dice the ownership of the very popular combo

To your thing on Gadsden, I'll say I agree everything you stated there, especially the comments part, what people would say, like for sure, all that, whether right or wrong, it's really tough to tell. But the thing about that is, is like hopefully people that were going there were building with that same idea in mind. Like, did you have a Herbert McConkie Gadsden with James Cook or something?

But I also think that's an element that we talk about a lot on here and we'll be talking about again this week when there's games that people know could go off but they don't get there because they're like I don't know what to do with the Buffalo side or I don't know what to do with this it's like that's where you got to think about it and when you had the Jets example from last week which we can always bring across that's kind of the thought process there it's like not much to think about it's just

You have to think about it in hindsight unfortunately because uh to your point on like the um Bowers thing we're not going to get Bowers at one percent very often and by the way that was last week so you can't have it back it's over you can't even get it back that was before you'll never get it again right now but In the Jets situation, it was condensed. It fit the game stack. We knew what to do with Gibbs or Amon Ra on the other side.

People had it all figured out. That's why more got there in the end. So think about that when you're building out your lineups each week. Anything else from last week, Alex? Yeah, Aaron's in the chat asking if, speaking of tight end uncertainties, take me an example of this week. It's a different scenario, but it's similar. And I will say a lot of what we're talking about here as review of last week, we are...

We are talking about it very purposefully because it's all coming up in this week again. And to that point, the last thing I wanted to mention from last week is my leverage lane last week was to use double stud wide receivers. And for anyone who didn't watch that show, it's based on the conditional ownership tool that I now have on my site over at BlickAnalytics.com, which basically looks at...

What combinations of plays can be really unique and help us separate, not just the individual ownerships of certain players. And while I was dead right about 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 ↗ of those sub wide receivers, one thing I think I overlooked a little bit was Jameer Gibbs was on the slate.

And the reason why that's so important is because if you have the double stud wide receivers and they both do really well, that's only helping you separate if they both do better or at least match what Gibbs does at a lower price tag. And that's just a really hard thing to do because Gibbs is, I think, head and shoulders above everybody else in terms of the fantasy value that he has this season compared to anybody else. And yeah, he was on that slate.

And so maybe that wasn't the best slate to run with the conditional ownership advantage of those double-stub wide receivers. But to that point, we have a slate this week with no Gibbs and no B. John Robinson. So the double sub wide receiver very much in play this week. It's not going to be my leverage lane.

I think I have another really good one, not in the sense that this one's quite as powerful from a DFS perspective, but because it's just another thing that... It's part of a much larger theme of like how I want to be better about the way that I approach these main slates in NFL DFS. And I think it's, it's probably going to resonate with a lot of people.

Yeah, one thing I will say, I know you're almost like building your own flow chart over there when you're saying it like that. Like if Gibbs, not this. If not Gibbs, this. Like that makes sense. But I also think, again, taking it back to Slate Dynamics and sure enough, JSN was in there with Gibbs. But I think all too often, and I know you mean it this way, so it's fair when you say stud price, right? You're going off price.

But I will say- Garrett Wilson was, I don't care about his price. He was, he was a wide receiver one by a mile on his team and on the projections, which almost how you got to think about it. You don't want to, you don't want to call him a stud or whatever. Like people don't want to say, well, his price doesn't equal too high priced. You were kind of calling two studs, but referring to two high-priced receivers. Well, it doesn't have to be so price-dependent.

So I'm trying to find some examples this week. But if I recall correctly, and it's all been overwritten at this point on the site since I have this week up, but... I think that even with Garrett Wilson, actually, yes, I do remember this one specifically. The conditional ownership of JSN in Garrett Wilson lineups was really, really low because even the lineups that went like Garrett Wilson, Jameer Gibbs, if they had another expensive receiver, it was Amon Ross St. Brown almost exclusively, not a JSN.

And so interestingly, even though Gibbs was on the slate, this is a great point by you to bring this up, like that JSN Garrett Wilson combo was a combo that the combinatorial ownership was a lot lower than what their individual ownerships would suggest they should have been. And so by all means that like, I guess my leverage lane last week was better than I was giving myself. I'm not trying to give you three points. Particularly, but yes, a little bit saying it in that sense.

That's what I'm trying to explain to people is like, even doing that. Yes. Some probably went with JSN and lamb or something like that. And it's like, I want to get it that way. Sure. But in reality, going to that thought process is what might've got you to JSN.

And then somebody else said, um, You know, Aaron, actually, again, was this we've seen Drew Locke lineups with JSN last week, there was Darnold lineups with JSN that were at least hovering for a bit, and then other ones got there. So you know, it didn't quite show up. But it's like, that's the thought process that can get JSN into a Gibbs lineup, let alone with Garrett Wilson with everything else that you need and look at it ends up at the top.

So just to show it off again. Yeah, I mean, Darnold was awesome last week in terms of his score, and obviously JSN was spectacular. But one of the reasons why we didn't see as many Darnold lineups up at the top is because the Darnold lineups just had a harder time getting as many spots in the lineup correct because you really only had the one super 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 ↗ piece in JSN hit in a big way.

There were some Commanders, like I think McLaurin would have been a pretty decent play, but if you had Geno, you were far more Likely to have Gibbs and Garrett Wilson and Kenyon Sadiq, where obviously it's not so much that Geno was more valuable, it's just that by using Geno, you got to more really good plays on the slate that you needed to have, and that's why correlating with double stack and a bring back is so valuable.

Last thing just on this, I don't know about you, but I almost never do this because it's like a tight end is worth what they're worth. Like they're the same big boy price. And I believe they're both wide receiver ones at tight end one. You get tight end one pricing, which is much lower than wide receiver one pricing on essentially wide receiver one. So I get how people see it like that, but it's also a onesie position.

Right where you so yeah you can play double tight end and we'll get there but it's like I would I would rather have like a cheap tight end with the big boy versus the two big boys just because you're kind of wanting that to crush the other one and potentially crush the low priced tight ends that everyone's going to on the slate and 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 ↗ etc etc so I don't know your take but I don't really do that very often yeah I mean so part of part of A play being so valuable on a slate is when that play creates separation over the rest of his position.

And that's especially true at the quarterback position where there's only one quarterback that you use and only one defense that you can use. And it's true in baseball because there are no utility players on DraftKings. It's a little bit more complicated with the flex on DraftKings because you do have the flex spot. And so, uh, you know, there are, you can use two or three running backs. You can use three or four wide receivers.

You can use one or two tight ends, but it's, It's still true that when you get the perfect run out for, let's say, the Brock Bowers play, the thing that makes it so valuable isn't just that Bowers gives you, let's say, thirty DraftKings points. It's that he gives you thirty when no other tight end is within fifteen points of him or within ten points of him. There's no value tight end that gets to fourteen.

McBride is the second highest scorer at seventeen or something like that. If you're trying to create separation at the position, and it's easier to do that at tight end than running back or wide receiver since there's only one spot there, I very, very rarely go to double tight end with a stud tight end because the outcome where that stud tight end is most valuable is is when he creates that separation over the position.

And if he's creating that much separation over the position, then I don't want somebody else from that position. I want someone at running back wide receiver who can do a really well as well and not eat into how good of a play Bowers is, right?

If you go, if you go Bowers and McBride, for example, and they both get you three, That that's obviously great, but it's not as valuable if we also see, you know, a Parker Washington, thirty spot or a Garrett Wilson, thirty spot or Jordan Addison in, you know, at $5,300 gets you twenty five. So on and so forth.

So when you use double tight end, when even one, let alone two of those tight ends are really expensive, you just force them to compete with the running backs and wide receivers in their price range in a way that you're not asking them to do if they're your only tight end in the build. Yeah, love this conversation. The same guy, Aaron, says great tight end talk. I think it's just at these onesie positions, people always just overlook the thought process that goes into it.

And that's something you can build in. That's something you can keep an eye on. And particularly when you're building your 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 ↗, you can really think about this stuff. And that's the same reason why, like I said, I tease and joke with Mayo about the defense stuff. It's like we're trying to win the million dollars on that show. This is really focused on a single entry and high level thought process around that.

It's you know and that it's I'm more apt to do just whatever down there like move around I'm not really focused on that but in here you got to really think about this because these are the moves that you know get that one lineup that you've got to separate from the rest of 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 ↗ and give yourself a true opportunity to win that tournament where we we also talked about this on um takedown breakdown on Monday but it's crazy that like a hundred dollar single edger with $5,000 people People act like it's nothing.

Well, that's only $5,000. It's on a digital application like DraftKings app. And you're seeing that, you know, there's one hundred and $75,000 people in a twenty dollar million maker. Yes, it does look small, but go somewhere where there's $5,000 people in a room with you and tell me how you like that. Like you got to beat every single one of them. It's not as small as you think. So you do have to actually have room for separation.

You got to be thinking about this when you know, when a lot of people say, you Oh, no, I'd do that in a twenty dollar Milly Maker, but there's no way I'm doing that in my hundred dollar single entry. Then you see the scores are only, you know, fifteen, twenty points apart. There's room for like one mistake. Yes, maybe. But it's not as far apart as you might think.

And so a lot of that stuff is something you'd want to take on there, too. So. I pulled up the Stone 2.0 point over a chip nation dot com. We can use the hand builder to talk through 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 for this week. A lot of those thoughts we had this week instead of making it, you know, specific topic, we use the review.

Like Alex said, we plan this stuff pre in advance just to be able to bring it across and what's going to make the best, hopefully the best show for you guys. If you enjoy it, make sure to hit the thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. But this stuff will come across. But the funny thing is this week, it's like it's not Gino with Garrett Wilson and Gibbs.

But I do think because Chase Brown and Parker Washington just fit so easily and they feel so underpriced, et cetera, et cetera. It looks like Lawrence is at least separating a little bit at 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 ↗. I know we still get spread out ownership at quarterback. There's cheap options this week, especially if Bagent starts. They're already talking in the chat about Daniels for Tampa Bay coming in as the backup. But those I don't think are getting to this 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 do think we'll see a lot of Lawrence Washington Brown to start. What do you think there? And then what do you think I'm missing to help fill this thing out and get a first look at it? Yeah, I definitely agree that I think Lawrence is probably going to be at least one of the two most popular quarterbacks. And Washington, Chase Brown, Washington Higgins, even when people don't go to this game, they're going to want a piece of this game.

And I think that one of the things we talked about almost every show last year was, Who are the mini stacksMini-StackIn NFL DFS, a mini-stack usually pairs two players from the same game without either team's quarterback. Often a secondary group beside your main quarterback stack, it can pair a running back with an opposing receiver.Before locking a pair, describe how both players reach big scores together. Then ask whether that outcome would make an omitted quarterback or teammate difficult to beat.Full explanation ↗ to avoid? And to me, it's this. You don't want Washington with Chase Brown. You don't want Washington with T. Higgins unless you're over stacking the gameGame 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 ↗. If you're really just loading up, then okay. By all means, you can put those guys together. But man, especially Parker Washington, T. Higgins.

If you have those two and they do really well, chances are you're losing to the teams that also have... Lawrence or that also have Joe Burrow and maybe Ja'Marr Chase and do it that way. Because when those two go off... The game itself is probably going off, and you're missing pieces that are really Likely.

Just like last week, if you had Gibbs and Garrett Wilson, and that was it, it was nice to have those guys to get you a lot of points, but you were losing to the teams that also had Geno Smith and Kenyon Sadiq. So think of it that way, and that's why, to me, you really want to avoid those many stacks. But yeah, I think Addison, Hawkins, the cheap tight end chalk has...

Has obviously been a big part of pretty much every slate this week, and I think Hawkins and Kittle both are going to be up there this week. I also think Trey McBride has a chance just because there's definitely some interest in that game, and I think particularly on the Brissett side, people are going to like Brissett, which makes Trey McBride an obvious pairing with him. So yeah, the other guy, I could see Strange steaming just because people might go...

Lawrence Strange Washington and and play it that way with with Higgins or Chase Brown or both 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 ↗ but but yeah so you know lots of uh lots of cheap guys on this slate that are going to be very popular and that lets people spend upSpending UpSpending up means choosing a higher-priced player over a cheaper alternative, using more of your lineup's salary budget at that spot. You may also hear it called paying up.Build a version with your preferred expensive player and another without. Before choosing, check whether either version relies on a cheap player whose expected role still depends on unresolved injury news.Full explanation ↗ at least once I'm trying just to see if I can you know round this thing out in some way I can't quite find it, but it is interesting that a lot of the Minnesota guys are popping.

Obviously, we know the injuries and whatnot there, but it's like you would think just Addison, but also like you said, Hawkinson's popping. Aaron Jones is popping. I also wonder like Jeremiah Love was already popping a little bit, but also people like the Cardinals defense this week. We've talked a ton about this one. Just another, you know, back and forth of the defense stuff.

But I do think we are, we've been correct a lot in the past predicting this, that it's like, okay, Jeremiah loves popping. Cardinals is popping. That just becomes like another favorite combo. People can throw in like Brown, Washington, get Lawrence. Great. Throw in love in the Cardinals. Cool. What am I doing with Minnesota? Great. Like, I don't know which one it is, but let me ask you this of the three Minnesota guys, Addison, Jones senior and Hawkins.

What combo do you think is played the most knowing that you've got the data anyway, but I'm just curious what you think off the top of those two. If someone's to play two of them, do you think it's Hawkins Addison and they find a different flex or, or what are you thinking there? I'm going to just play around with it while you look. Yeah, let's see. I'm going to go back up. With Aaron Jones, here we go. I want Minnesota in here.

So with Aaron Jones, I've got Addison at thirty four percent. I have Hawkins at twenty eight percent. Both of those are pretty much like right in line with what I have for their overall ownerships. So no real change there. If Addison is in. I have a huge increase in conditional ownership for Kyler Murray. Obviously, no surprise there. As I just said, pretty neutral on Aaron Jones.

Hawkinson, though, is almost at forty percent in Addison lineups, which basically like a lot of that is coming from okay, people are going to pair Addison and Hawkins when they use Kyler. And so I think Kyler has a chance to be a pretty popular quarterback on this slate as well with his entry news. And I think it's worth just spending a moment talking about these guys and like, okay, we know they're going to be really popular.

We know why they're going to be really popular because there's no Justin Jefferson. Do they deserve to be this popular? And... The starting point for me is always like, I do think people tend to dramatically underestimate the likelihood when a really important player like a Justin Jefferson, who, yes, he commands a ton of usage. And so when he's not in the game there, there's a lot of usage that has to go somewhere else.

And yeah, These three guys are far and away the most Likely to soak up that usage, but I think people dramatically underestimate the likelihood that the offense itself just doesn't function that well because that player, like a Justin Jefferson, is the MVP of the offense. He's the engine of the offense, and they just struggle without him. In this situation, they're playing a Miami defense that...

There are a lot of not super NFL caliber player guys on that defense, so I do think this is one of those situations where they should be fine efficiency-wise, and also this Minnesota defense might be so dominant that they have a ton of play volume because the Miami offense just can't stay on the field. So I do think these guys are good plays. I'm not going to go to the...

To the point where I say you need at least one in your lineup, but I do think it's smart to have at least one in your lineup.

Yeah I'm trying to find different versions of it the other guy I forgot to mention too is like wix is picking up some steam late in the week now because of all the news there and he's $4,300 so I was trying to look at versions of that but I I do think people are gonna try and get to jsn so I guess if I play around with it just a little bit more and go here I'm just you know I want to get as close to what I think for now as possible and I'm just trying to fill it out here If I go with Wicks instead of JSN, what happens when I put the Rams is $8,400?

The Cardinals is $8,500. I guess let's do this then. Let's do CMC and $3,300. What does that get us?

Bills the packer maybe the Packers like yeah it's really tricky to see exactly what people will do here but I guess you know if I'm not playing hawkinson maybe we go back here whoops and sort of and maybe we do get Aaron Jones he is more money and then it drops you to and that can get you the Giants against the Cardinals kind of makes sense or the Bears versus the Jets, whatever you think.

But anyway, this is somewhat to what I think roughly people could be on here. Like CMC is $7,700. We know the Chase Brown, Washington, Addison, no Jefferson, Wicks, no Smith, no. Who else are they missing? Goedert at tight end as well this week. Yeah, it's it's an absolute wreck. You know this, being an Eagles guy.

So, you know, Kittle probably fits in for some people there, but there is differences of ways that you could go to boost this thing up at the bottom. But this gets Addison Jones. It could be, like we said, something different here where people move stuff around to try and get somebody else in. But I think overall, you know, it's going to be somewhat in this vicinity at least. Can you do it?

Can you go to the question from GoCollect about 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 ↗ with Jones and Kyler Hawkins leaving out Addison? Because I think, number one, this is just a really smart way to think about really popular games like this. It's to simply ask the question, can I stack this in 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 ↗ way and be different that way? Can you bring up the conditional ownership tool that I have? I'll screen share for a second here. So there are...

There are two ways we can look at this. The first is, what does the ownership look like when Jordan Addison is out of the lineup? And sure enough, Kyler, one point four percent conditional ownership. So that's one way to see that it is pretty contrarian. The other way is let's bring Kyler in and now look at the conditional ownership. So we've got eighty six percent of Kyler lineups are going to have Hawkins. Eighty nine percent of Kyler lineups look like they're going to have Addison.

Either one of these. Is therefore a way to stack it in a contrarian way. By leaving out either of these guys, and including Aaron Jones, who only has a small boost in conditional ownership, both work. I think this condition might be a little low. I think Jones might be more like forty to forty five percent in in Kyler lineups. But regardless, like these aren't high, it's going to be crazy, crazy high on both Addison and Hawkins.

And then the other thing is, let's see if we wanted both Addison and and hockinson here now what do we get on jones like notice we're not getting you know a massive uh conditional ownership discount here still twenty nine percent of lineups that start this way so I think we're also going to see triple stacks so if you are looking for a contrarian way to stack kyler the answer is double stack leaving Addison or hockinson out not triple stack they're going to be plenty of triples what about when you turn off Minnesota and turn on Miami Uh, for Tyler, just Kyler lineups and then see what people are doing with why, like, isn't, isn't this the argument also, what are they doing side?

Cause that's typically what matters, right? Like who are they bringing back? And it looks like Malik Washington, right? Yeah, Washington most Likely. Chris Bell, I think there's a chance that he'll go up a little bit. I've heard enough buzz from him, but obviously not projecting well even at this projection, which is not bad, seven point three for $3,700. He's still a negative GDP score, so I don't think a ton of people are going to get there.

But yeah, so it definitely looks like Malik Washington is the main guy. But to your point, There's not going to be a ton here, right? Like we're only talking from five percent to sixteen percent. So it's about three times more Likely to to be in a lineup when you're stacking Minnesota than when you're not. But that's not a massive percentage. Not a massive jumping conditional ship. It's nothing like the conditional ownerships of Addison and Hawkins. And we can even simplify this.

So like when you just start with Kyler, it's the same thing. He's still about a little bit more than three times Likely to be in lineups as, as overall. Yeah, that's what I wanted to see. So all good there, yeah. That showcases it so we can see. And that's what you've got to be thinking about when you are building out these lineups. All right, what do you want to go to first then as 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?

I know there's a couple different stacks you like for this week, and there's some other thoughts. Any other thoughts just on this build as kind of the common build? We're pretty close, I think. I think we're really close, and I think the main thing that crosses my mind is like – It's not Likely that these guys fail, right? I think the main way we're going to have to beat this type of lineup this week is by finding plays who actually outplay these guys.

And that's not a super easy thing to do. I think it has to largely come through a bet that an entire game environment elevates guys instead of just... If you're trying to build a lineup where you're just trying to hit on, let's say, two or three 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 ↗ one-offsOne-OffIn NFL DFS, a one-off is a player you select outside your stacks, commonly a running back or a receiver without his quarterback. An opposing receiver intentionally paired with your stack instead serves as a bring-back.Before adding a one-off, compare him with an affordable teammate of your existing stack. Decide whether his individual upside is worth passing up that extra scoring connection.Full explanation ↗ that are meant to be better values than some of these guys, that, to me, seems like a really hard route.

So I think the way to beat 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 this week is through game environments and through 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 do better than the game stacks. Here... Or we can play things in a contrarian way. And, and, and ideally then like, we're not just playing in a contrarian way, but we're playing in a contrarian way where we're also saving some money through the stack so that we, the, when we deviate from the field, we're able to deviate with better players out there.

Cause like, if you try to find, you know, a $4,300 wide receiver is going to be Dontavian Wicks this week. That's, that's a hard thing to do. He's, he's clearly in a better position than anybody else. If you're trying to beat Aaron Jones because you have access to like a $7,000 running back, like maybe in a Saquon Barkley or something like that, that to me is a, is an easier way to do things.

So yeah, it's not going to be easy this week, but I think we probably have to do it through stacks. Yeah, I think so as well. The other thing is a lot of people talked about it earlier in the chat. I'm not going to scroll back and find all the comments, but it was about just flipping the build and talking about it from that perspective. You've obviously got it right there, but I guess...

You know, just thinking about it from this perspective of like no Chase Brown, no Lawrence adding in Ja'Marr Chase and Higgins getting a little bit different in this setup. How different is that actually versus what people think it might be? That's what I'm curious about. Let's see. In lineups without Chase Brown, Higgins goes from twenty seven to twenty five percent. Chase goes from fourteen point three to fourteen percent. Burrow goes from seven point seven to five point seven. No real difference there.

Let's check Jacksonville. Parker Washington goes from twenty five to twenty percent. So yes, simply leaving Chase Brown out doesn't do a whole lot for you because again, like they're going to be a lot of Trevor Lawrence lineups that use Higgins as a 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 ↗ instead or use Chase as a bring back instead. So That in and of itself is not really getting you different. I think what might make you different is, let's see how many lineups are going to go Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

Let's see. Where are you, T? I was trying to search for Higgins in the teams, and no wonder nothing came up. Higgins, and now let's see where some of these other guys are. Chase goes down from fourteen percent to thirteen percent when you include Higgins. Yeah, I think if you are looking for a contrarian way to play this game, I think you have to start double expensive receiver on Cincinnati with a Burrow stack.

The price prohibitive nature of that stack is what's going to keep that 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 ↗ down, and you probably just have to find a way to make that work if you want to play this game in a contrarian way. Can you do something else for me, just more obvious one? Can you just go Chase Brown in? Yep. And then what I want to, I think the way you do this is now showcase Jacksonville. And we just want to see how often Parker Washington is in it.

Like, isn't that the way to look at the secondary stackMini-StackIn NFL DFS, a mini-stack usually pairs two players from the same game without either team's quarterback. Often a secondary group beside your main quarterback stack, it can pair a running back with an opposing receiver.Before locking a pair, describe how both players reach big scores together. Then ask whether that outcome would make an omitted quarterback or teammate difficult to beat.Full explanation ↗ the best way? Yeah. And you can see, so Parker Washington goes from twenty five to forty percent. Trevor Lawrence goes from seventeen to twenty nine. Let's see how often. How often is this played? So no Trevor Lawrence, Chase Brown in Parker, Washington, so it's, it's not a crazy boost by any means, but, but it's still like people are going to be in on this. Right.

And, and so, yeah, I think, like I said, you probably do not want that mini stack. I think this shows why, because I mean, that's, that's a huge conditional ownership on Parker Washington and that's largely through game stacks.

And so the, the Chase Brown Parker Washington mini or the Parker Washington T Higgins mini, you are threading a really, really, you're threading a needle through like a teeny tiny hole where the, man, you need the game to be good enough that those guys do well, but not so good that you need other pieces from the game. That's a very, very hard outcome to land inside of.

It's like trying to middle a game except you know the you know you're not you're not getting the benefit of one hitting and one losing like you you need that middle uh to to be the only good outcome and that's again it's a really really hard thing to do okay now last one this is for the exercise that's what I think people need to go with now do this for me go to Higgins in okay t Higgins in instead of Chase Brown And then let me see the Jacksonville guys in that lineup.

So same thing. So Parker, Washington, like almost identical 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 ↗. Right. That's not where I'm going with this. So I'm double flipping. This is leverage lane. So everyone thinks this game is going one way. What if it just goes the other and it's Tootin and Higgins instead of Chase Brown and Washington? It literally would just be a flip of the game. But look, using this tool, how different that is as a secondary stackMini-StackIn NFL DFS, a mini-stack usually pairs two players from the same game without either team's quarterback. Often a secondary group beside your main quarterback stack, it can pair a running back with an opposing receiver.Before locking a pair, describe how both players reach big scores together. Then ask whether that outcome would make an omitted quarterback or teammate difficult to beat.Full explanation ↗ that you're not just automatically saying it's the other way.

Now, projections wise, and I can do that over here and I don't need to bring the screen up. I'll just quickly do it. Obviously, that matters to to some. But you're this is what I want to explain is the concept. So I've got Tootin and Higgins roughly around thirty one fantasy points. And this is a good thing. This is a good exercise here. Now, let me go back to, what did we say? Chase Brown, what did I say? Thirty-one points? Mm-hmm.

It's currently around thirty-three on the other of no. And we can be a little light on that. Maybe it's thirty-five. I actually don't care. Let's say it's thirty-five or thirty-six to thirty-one and people just get so up in arms about giving up four points or five points. It's like, If you're saying that's in your lineup, you're not physically changing the projection. First of all, you could. You can just go edit the projection because you're saying it's going to go a different way.

But mentally, you are saying the game is going to go different. So you shouldn't even be factoring in the four or five points at that point technically because really you're mentally thinking it. Therefore, you could be or should be physically changing it in that lineup to say it's actually going to go this way. And Higgins is going to get those Chase Brown points and Tootin's going to get those Parker Washington points. So really you're flipping it. And then look at, you're not threading the needle at all.

Like the other side, look at the difference in that secondary stack. And that's the concept I want people to take away from this exercise. It's you're in the same game. It flipped. But you didn't flip it to like the example you showed where people that all just go Burrow chase Higgins and Parker Washington and whatever. I mean, you've almost got the same shit. We just saw, you just flipped it a little bit. And actually you might hamper the rest of your build because you've added in chase.

It probably doesn't mean you get to JSN. Like there's different factors on the slate now that you've taken yourself away from, but the what's the price difference. That's the other thing. So what is this? Twelve, six, right? Twelve, six. And then I go down to Tootin Higgins. And what is that one? $12,600 versus $11,700. You actually just picked up almost a thousand dollars as well.

So this is the type of stuff you want to be thinking about when you're building your single entries. And you're not like, am I flipping it just to flip it? No. But if you think about the slate at hand and really what others are doing.

Tootin hurts Lawrence possibly I know you can catch passes but I'm saying he could hurt Lawrence and Washington well we just saw how popular that was and then he's at a running back position first of all you could also play tootin and Chase Brown together if you want and say this game goes differently you could play tootin with the Jags d there's other ways to flip it I'm just trying to show and now we have the tool to do it with to explain it all that these are the things that we already thought about and spent time on, but now you can actually validate them and go and look at that.

So, you know, just my two cents there, you know, bringing it across that we can kind of, you know, tie that in. What else do you want to spend time on here and talk about with leveraging this build? But I mean, that was just the easiest one I could start with and go to.

Yeah, last thing on the common build for me is I do want to talk about the running back position for a second here and where 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 ↗ is because I've got McCaffrey far and away ahead of everyone else. Basically at forty percent owned in in high stakes and 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 ↗, thirty percent in MME.

After him, though, the next four guys in ownership were nineteen, twenty five, twenty five, twenty eight percent in single entry and twenty one, twenty four, twenty five and thirty two percent in in high stakes. Skattebo, Love, Chase Brown, Aaron Jones, all of them are between $5,800 and $6,100.

So we have this like really weird dynamic here where people are paying down at running back, but they can't go that low because the DraftKings pricing is like, you know, make basically the bottom of the like super playable guys upper five case now. But man, like that to me does say, OK, last week was stud season. Wide receiver combinations that were going to be really unique.

And the week prior, I wonder if stud running back combinations this week might be, uh, really unique just because so many lineups are going to have that, uh, that, uh, at least one of the guys from that range, that's just, you know, right at the $6,000 a number.

So, um, that, that is something I wanted to check in and sure enough, uh, In Derrick Henry lineups, McCaffrey goes from thirty nine and a half to seventeen and a half percent conditional ownership in in McCaffrey lineups. Henry goes from twelve point three to five point four. This is, of course. Just like last week, we had the same conversation. This is largely due to salary constraints.

One of the reasons why someone who uses Derrick Henry is less Likely to use Christian McCaffrey is because it's just harder to fit him now. But... Where we see that not come true is like, again, so in McCaffrey lineups, you have Henry going from twelve point three to five point four. You have JSN, who's seven hundred dollars more expensive, going from ten point eight to seven point nine. So less owned overall overall. Fire owned inside of McCaffrey lineups. That to me is really interesting.

So maybe this week we're flipping the build in a different way and we're putting stud running backs together. And, you know, we've got Addison, we've got Wicks, we've got, you know, a lot of cheap tight ends. Like this is not a super difficult build to actually achieve here.

Yeah a couple other things on that is we usually don't feel like you said it's hard to get the exact numbers that's the game we always play and in NFL with the way contest sims push things certain times and you know sometimes numbers get bigger than you think or you're like oh man that's I thought he was gonna be closer to twenty five he ends up at thirty five or something but if you are looking at it obviously cmc clearing away then I think it's pretty obvious that it's

Chase Brown, most Likely that Cardinals-Giants game of love, Skattebo, and then you've got Aaron Jones Sr., and yes, there's guys after that, but to your point, that makes it very clear on the other thing, when you flip to sort of my pricing, it's Derek Henry, or sorry, it's CMC, and then it's not much on Derek Henry- you know back to the well on kenneth walker nope twenty point two points or whatever you got you wasn't good enough in that game so it's like I'm not really interested in him at $8,200 James Cook had a big game but now it's all against the Patriots some people don't want to go there genti on the other side of that kenneth walker spot Barkley giovante swift who got cleared and

Is healthy like nobody wants any of those guys it's everybody wants cmc Then it drops down to Chase Brown at $6,100. So to your point of all that stuff, what if it's like Derrick Henry, Kenneth Walker that you need and you can still have like a kiddo at that point? Because who cares? Just that running back combination alone is not going to be something that people get to. So And then by the way, Bo Nix, cheap, right?

And then you've got most people with Bo Nix or CMC lineups and Bo Nix would be more popular probably than Bo Nix with Waddle and Kittle or Debo or something like that. So however you're looking at that, yes, you will have to find the stacks to make it work. But to your point, there is... There is ways and options you can go with stacks.

I think you talked a little, maybe it was earlier on in the show about Bo Nix and that, you know, the O-line advantage that they have. He's $5,600 and his receivers are not that expensive. Right. If you look at their pricing, it's not going to be too much. Sutton is $4,900. And what is that? Waddle is sixty two. Sixty two. Yeah, I got here. So Waddle is $6,200.

So again, don't have to look at it from that perspective. But I mean, $4,900 for Sutton, $6,200 for Waddle, not that expensive. And you can still get around this. So is there other stacks that you like, you know, that you could say maybe I could fit this double stud running back in? Yeah, I mean, I do think Denver is the first one that comes to my mind.

And that is a very natural way to do this, too, because then you just use McCaffrey 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 ↗. So now that's one less position that you have to really think through of how to do this. But if you use Knicks, Waddle, Sutton, and McCaffrey as the bring back, you still have fifty one twenty for the remainder of your lineup. So it's not that hard to then go with a Derrick Henry or a Kenneth Walker.

If you go Derrick Henry, for example, you have $4,300 remaining for wide receiver tight end flex DST. It's not like you can't get. Any more super great plays, but you also don't have to use anyone that you feel bad about in the lineup. That, to me, is really interesting. Denver, this week, probably has the biggest discrepancy between strength of the offensive line and strength of the opposing defensive line. Denver's offensive line has a really, really big advantage over San Francisco.

I think it's going to be very difficult for San Francisco to get pressure. Bo Nix... He's been really, really weird in the sense that a lot of quarterbacks that we think of, we think like, okay, I want this guy to be pushed.

And with Bo Nix, he's been so much better against bad teams than good teams that most of his ceiling performances come in like, you know, thirty five to fourteen wins where they just happen to stay aggressive in the second half and less so when he gets pushed, because when they get pushed, He often doesn't do that well until maybe the fourth quarter, a lot like Caleb Williams last season. So thinking through how you want this game to play out is a little bit different.

But are a little bit tricky. But I also think, look, like at least now he has two very clear big play wide receivers. They made a very clear effort to get Sutton more involved last week, only caught three for a forty six. But I still liked what I saw in terms of the way they were trying to incorporate him. So, yeah, I think when Knicks has a really big game, there's a good chance that it's waddles over a hundred yards.

Sutton only has four receptions, but two of them were a touchdown and they were down the field. So there's a lot of upside here. And of course, you can make this Denver team very, very pass happy if San Francisco scores a lot early. So I really like the way that this game could shape out for their pass rate. And I really like the fact that they have the offensive line and the protection to allow them to be really aggressive and pass happy.

That makes them really, really intriguing to me. Yeah, so a couple of good concepts across the board in that segment. I don't want to round it out completely, but I do want to talk about just some of the other 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 ↗ here. I guess, you know, because it will lead to my lane later. But what are some of the other game environments that you're comfortable with? I think people like, again, there's a lot of conversation around Jacksonville, Cincinnati.

But I also think there's like five other games I'm comfortable going to and not even, you know, again, we'll get to it. But I think that's my thing is like there's a lot of ways that it's just not. That game on this slate, in my opinion. And I'll get your thoughts here first. But, you know, the Bo Nix one you brought up was a good one. I think the Texans and the Cowboys is another good spot to look at.

And then you mentioned – the Broncos side, but I actually think even the San Francisco side, again, we know how these lineups will get stacked up, but Purdy has just been, you know, making things happen. So it's, it's the more expensive side and probably the, we'll see probably the more popular side too, because of the way it stacks up with Kittle and CMC and then to Purdy.

But again, As popular as that's going to be, it's, you know, or again, meaning I don't think it's like super popular, but saying if you went to 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 ↗ and would see, yes, that is popular together. My point would be that it's like, then how many people are bringing a Sutton into it as a run back at $4,900 things like that? Will there be some? Absolutely.

But it's like, again, when you get to that versus all the Jacksonville Cincy stuff being in that build, you still have separation there if that goes your way. So what are some of the other game stacks you're comfortable with? What about your your Eagles spot? There because I think the Ram side is at least somewhat interesting. And then you got to play some Eagles to make it move.

We know Wicks is popular, but Barkley being overlooked as well, but you usually have good thoughts on this game. Give me, or on this team, give me your thoughts there. So first I couldn't agree more with you on Dallas Houston.

Like to me, It weirdly like remember week one when Detroit was super popular and I was like, well, Cincinnati is like the same offense, you know, in terms of, you know, the same price points for a lot of the pieces of their stack and they weren't getting as much 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 ↗. Of course, by Sunday, they did get that much ownership. But here, like with so many people looking at the Jacksonville Cincinnati game, like Dallas Houston price wise is very similar.

And I'm struggling to come up with an argument why, uh, the Cincinnati Jacksonville game is better. Like the, I think the pace is going to be a lot better in Dallas Houston. You get the Dallas defense. That's worse than any defense in the Jacksonville Cincinnati game. I think that Houston defense will eventually look better than they look so far this year. But as of now, like they've been attackable this season. So I'm, I'm not afraid of them. And, Thank you. It's a really good Dallas offense.

So even if the Houston defense is quite good, there were plenty of times where great defenses give up a lot of points to great offenses. This could be one of those spots. So I like that a lot. From a cheap standpoint, I think we've got to give at least some consideration to the Giants and the Cardinals. I would be even more interested of looking at that through the James Winston side.

Now, we talked about wanting offenses that are comfortable and interested in being aggressive. That couldn't be further from the truth with this James Winston offense right now. They are treating him with the ultimate kid gloves. They do not want him dropping back. They do not want him throwing down the field. But what if the game scriptGame ScriptGame script is how a game's score and time remaining influence its pace, play choices and player opportunities. In football, teams protecting a lead often run more, while teams chasing a deficit often pass more.Before locking a lineup, ask who keeps playing if your expected script reverses. Check passing-down roles and backup rotations instead of assuming a team's leading rusher handles every situation.Full explanation ↗ demands it? What if the Arizona offense comes out, they score a bunch early on, and... New York has to throw the ball.

And now you get a fairly 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 ↗ Malik Nabers at $6,000. And James Winston, who's capable, at least sometimes maybe maybe maybe he's just washed. And, you know, when when he was forced to throw a bunch in the first game that he played when he was in and relief for Dart, like he looked really bad throwing the ball. So maybe he's just not the same guy that he once was. But maybe he starts to look that way again.

And if forced to be aggressive, we know that he's been able to put up some really, really big scores in the past and really big fantasy outcomes in the past, particularly for his receivers. So I'm interested there. But if you're doing that, you need to play that game in a way that tells the story of Arizona scoring a lot of points earlier. You probably want Jeremiah Love... You probably want at least one of McBride and Wilson alongside of Jerry, uh, Jeremiah love.

And then if you have multiple bringbacks, you can single stack it with just Malik neighbor. So I think that's an interesting way to approach this slate. And then finally, yeah, let's talk about Philly a little bit. Um, But before we do, I just want to add one thing, as you said there, it sparked my mind. Actually, there's a couple of good spots for this, this week, and it's not my lane, but it will kind of go with it later.

But just noting it of you said the single stack with the double 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 ↗ is what I think you were insinuating there that that works. I think really good in like this Winston lineup because you could still play Michael Wilson or Trey McBride or something and have that set up. But I also think it could work, um, your, your favorite player of all time, Nico Collins. I think you could work with like Stroud, Nico and pick a couple of Cowboys.

Cause even like lamb just ends up being a PPR guy typically. So it's like, and if he gets you more great, I am, I am wanting to ceiling, but I'm saying his ceiling is whatever he gets to can come off of just catching the ball. Ten times for a hundred plus yards and a touchdown. It's like, man, that's a really good game, but it doesn't necessarily mean you fully need the DAC stack with him.

And then it could be like a Javonte or a, you know, something else, a tight end or whatever. So I think there is a way to set some of these up for the single stacks with the double on the other side. I think you showed that pretty strong over last year as well.

Yes, and real quick here, I don't want to forget to go to the Philly-LA game because I think it's an important one to talk through, but I want your opinion on Nikko here because from a football standpoint, I think this is a fantastic spot for Nikko. How do we balance that with... I now have pretty clear and convincing data that when a guy comes back off of a multi-week absence the way Nikko is here, that production, both efficiency and volume tend to drop.

How do we combine that to come up with an opinion here on Nico Collins? Well, luckily for me, it's easy because I never consider that stuff. It's bad probably. You're a quant for me. So it's somebody that brings this stuff and I should listen. But what I would balance with it, again, I would say there is something to be said there still, which is if I'm playing him as though he's a hundred percent healthy and I do believe he's what makes that offense move.

And so I'm excited about that. Then I'm counting on a full- Like you needed Nico Collins. He breaks the slate game and that's going to bring Stroud with him. So I'm playing that together. Like if I'm playing Nico, I'm playing Stroud and I'm getting all the points combined from those two. I might get stuff wrong in the rest of the lineup. I might get stuff wrong on the other side of trying to pick what's right for Dallas, et cetera, et cetera.

But I am treating that as though, yes, it's a risk. But I'm taking it on and I'm making sure that when I take it on, I'm playing for what the reward would be, which is the game that I want from him. So definitely think you're, you're probably onto something there, not listening, ignoring it a hundred percent, just do my own thing by still playing him. But I'm going to play him for sure with Stroud this week. Yeah, I think I agree.

And I want to spend a moment here on, on why I think it's such a good spot for him. Cause I've seen a lot of like immediate reactions to Joey Porter Jr. Becoming a Dallas Cowboys. I was like, oh, well, that makes the matchup a lot tougher for Nico Collins. I couldn't disagree more because what we expect for Porter's role is to be the boundary corner in this defense.

And essentially what that means is Every time the ball is snapped, it's typically snapped from one hash or the other, or at least there's a wide side of the field and a short side of the field. And the boundary corner, so I think Quinion Mitchell for the Eagles, the boundary corner is essentially given a side to himself. And it's, it's the short side of the field because then the boundary is like an extra defender.

The out of bounds line is an extra defender. So you're trusting that guy to like handle that side of the field himself. And it allows you to then rotate a safety or rotate, uh, on more like an extra underneath linebacker, whatever you get an extra defender on the other side of the field, because you have this guy that is so good that you trust him in one-on-one coverage on that side of the field.

And that's, Assuming or like if you're Christian Parker and you didn't have the personnel to do that before, you're not giving Nico Collins those one on one opportunities. Now you have a boundary corner that you actually trust to do well enough most of the time that you're willing to call. Defensive coverages that provide Nico Collins a one-on-one opportunity. And that's good for the Dallas defense, most Likely.

It's also good for Nico Collins chances to get one-on-one opportunities where the big plays happen and fantasy points happen. So even though Porter is a better corner, than what he would have faced previously, I think it's still a positive for him in terms of what he can do, particularly from an upside standpoint in DFS. So the only concern that I have is coming back from an injury, but from a football standpoint, this is a smash spot. Yeah.

And I want to bring up something else here, too, because you'll go collect said Bowers was coming back from multi-week. It can happen. These guys can come back to big games, but you want to play for that. And Aaron Smith, again, we we agree and disagree. Sometimes you always bring the best comments, though, because you spark conversations that are good. So I appreciate it fully.

But saying someone's not needed is not really what it's about, because like there was like an example I'll give you right now. You know, there was definitely lineups. Where if I... Let me see here. Let me remove this for a second and share this.

And as you do that, as you do that, I think the point to think through for me is when you say something like, yeah, Cousins was not needed, where I agree with that last week is Bowers was the guy to hit in that game. It wasn't like a game going off, right? And so... To me, it doesn't matter if Cousins got to a score. Did Cousins also bring somebody else on his team, and was there a bring back?

Did that game deliver, or was it just Bowers as a one-offOne-OffIn NFL DFS, a one-off is a player you select outside your stacks, commonly a running back or a receiver without his quarterback. An opposing receiver intentionally paired with your stack instead serves as a bring-back.Before adding a one-off, compare him with an affordable teammate of your existing stack. Decide whether his individual upside is worth passing up that extra scoring connection.Full explanation ↗? As is usually the case with tight ends, it was more so just Bowers. Yeah. And I think that's important too. Cause also that's again, a onesie position. Like sometimes you just need the tight end and your data shows it like, obviously you can just get a tight end that smashes and plug them in and you don't need it. But I want to reference it to a wide receiver.

Cause we're talking about Stroud in the original conversation, like using the JSN combo. Um, Sully brought it up earlier, like saying like a darn old JSN, this lineup.

Darnold was not needed he didn't he didn't win the Mills makers last week but this lineup was the number three alternative to the perfect lineup last week the number two I just left it was he was also in that one and I left it out because jeremiah love you might not have got to that but gibbs Warren Wilson Wilson jsn sadiq Johnson like these were everybody was getting this this smashed the Milly Maker lineup so what's needed and what wins totally different stories but if jsn has Stroud has thirty eight points this week.

I'm sorry if Stroud is thirty eight. That's a really good day. And hopefully Nico Collins has even more. But if Nico Collins has thirty four points or thirty eight points this week, I don't know if you'll need Stroud at the top, but I'll definitely want to have Stroud in those lineups because they're Likely all points that are attached to him.

And then again, I may get other things wrong in the lineup and that may or may not end up at the top of the Mills makers, but it could be still really good and it would make sense. And that's all we can build for. So I think that's the the way to look at it. And it won't this again, I disagree all the time with you now. It's like, this will not be popular at all.

Nobody's going to play Stroud, Nico, CD and a double 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 ↗ like that. That will not be popular. People don't even play double bring backs with single stacks. First of all, like that's where the data came from that Alex had, like nobody plays that. They have to finish it out. They have to make it make sense or do a three, one or a, you know, a single with a bring back. It's like, they just don't play that.

At all and then there's also so many other ways you can get different within the lineup so I think I think the back to the original combo the Stroud one is interesting the jamis one you brought up is really interesting you kind of just want their main dudes to come through for them and that's what drags them along and you don't need to always double stack it or triple sack it in those cases um the kyler research you did a little bit earlier was very solid and saying like actually the triple Could be more popular than the double, just the way 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 ↗ shakes out this week on that particular game.

So I thought that was interesting. I'll let you get back to the Philly conversation now. But the only other thing I wanted to talk about was about what was it? The last thing here, the Philly thing, the Green Bay spot this week. So Golden, Watson, Kraft all pop. It's hard to pick a Tampa Bay guy, which makes people not want to go there, too. And so, like, everyone's just talking about the Green Bay guys, but not getting to them.

No one's really getting the love because they're just not able to put it all together. And then nobody likes a run back in that game, maybe for good reason. But I'm just saying it's like that's another spot that you can get to this week that I think those prices almost all fit in a different way of like the Minnesota guidelines, like pretty close to the way Minnesota can fit. So it's just an example. Go ahead.

Last thing on that Stroud conversation there. Lineups with Stroud and Pickens, you get like, ninety percent have Nico Collins, you get six percent have CeeDee Lamb. If you add Collins in, so Stroud Collins, Pickens, Bringback, only seven percent also use Lamb. So, yeah, it's it's it's definitely a bit of 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 ↗ way to play that game. And the game itself already is more contrarian than Jacksonville Cincinnati. So I do think that's in play.

That's one that I want to sim, though, to see, like, am I? Am I really better off with the savings of Stroud over Dak? Than just going to Dak and obviously then having better 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 ↗.

My guess is that the Dallas stack is going to seem better there because even though the conditional ownership of Dak is probably going to be higher than Stroud when you have Pickens, Collins, Lamb, I think the correlation is just going to be worth it there because you're going to get outcomes where you want both Pickens and Lamb because Dak had four hundred and four touchdowns and That's for sure. Yeah. On that.

I think one argument I would say though, just for people to know too, like when I'm looking at these spots, I actually think it's, it fits really well with the James one too. Like if, if I'm going with James and Nabers, but bringing two guys back on the other side, I'm probably way more Likely to do it with love and Wilson.

So again, I know it's ugly and people may not like this and that's fine, but I'm saying I would, I would, I would almost never do CD and Pickens in that spot. I would probably do Stroud with Nico and then go Javonte with lamb and like lamb is a PPR and pick it up and then get Javonte on the ground. Almost like the love situation again, matchup and everything, people all, but there's no way he could run. If he's going to keep getting.

I'm fine with it. But again, it's, it's telling a story of how it would get there. Your point is, is dead on. If you're running CD and, and Pickens on the other side, just get Dak in that lineup. Like the world of outcomes that you're going to see like that to me, you just got to find the money and make it happen and then use up your wide receiver spots, get the game out of Collins.

But if I'm wanting the big Collins game, I'm wanting it with Stroud. And if I'm doing that, I would probably go Javonte and lamb in that spot. But yeah, just my two cents. Want to hear about the Eagles spot still. We'll end on that and then get to our lanes. But let's talk about the Eagles spot before we get out of here.

Yeah, so this is another one of those spots where I immediately go to one of my main thoughts, which is when a wide receiver one is out, what like that hurts the offense. And so the times where I really want to make sure that I'm not playing that when I'm, I'm not more Likely to play a quarterback because his wide receiver one is out is when that guy's getting steam as a result.

Like there was a time, uh, there was a time last year, uh, where I think it was, yeah, Ladd missed. And so Herbert, Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnston became really, really popular. And I played it, and I felt like an idiot afterwards. They didn't go off, no surprise. They didn't have their best receiver. And I played into major ownership with it when he wouldn't have been popular otherwise. So that's an area I want to avoid. This week, though... Where do we have Jalen Hurts?

At one point zero 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 ↗, zero point nine percent high stakes, one point three percent MME. So at least you're not playing into ownership there. You also have a quarterback who doesn't need to like throw for three hundred and three. To put up a great score himself, because maybe you get two tush-push touchdowns from him.

You get two really cheap wide receivers in Makai Lemon and Dontavian Wicks, and you also get a game scriptGame ScriptGame script is how a game's score and time remaining influence its pace, play choices and player opportunities. In football, teams protecting a lead often run more, while teams chasing a deficit often pass more.Before locking a lineup, ask who keeps playing if your expected script reverses. Check passing-down roles and backup rotations instead of assuming a team's leading rusher handles every situation.Full explanation ↗, most Likely, where they have to throw, because this is one of those spots, without question, Philly does not want to throw the ball. The way that they want to win this game... Is by running the ball effectively by playing pretty good defense.

I think it's going to be hard for them to do that when those act bond, they've already been struggling enough defensively. And he's like, he's one of the most important pieces to them defensively. I'll talk more about that in my leverage lane, but, um, The chances that LA scores a bunch and just doesn't allow Philly to take that really conservative approach offensively I think is pretty high. So I like Hurts in that regard.

And then the last thing is the way this regular season game went last year is LA dominated early. I think they were up like twenty six to seven after the first possession of the second half or something like that. LA kind of. Took the foot off the pedal. And Philly then finally started throwing the ball and throwing the ball downfield and over the middle. And A.J. Brown had a big second half. And Dallas Goedert had a long touchdown down the seam.

And all of a sudden, Philly came back and won. And it was like... There were rumors afterwards that Jalen Hurts called the plays in the second half because he was just so tired of Petullo's offense already that early in the season. This was like week four or something like that. Point being... I think that LA will not take their foot off the gas in this game.

So I think that there's a very good chance that Philly really has to be very aggressive in the second half, throw the ball a lot. And so even if Wicks and Lemon don't have massive games, I think there's a very good chance they do enough and maybe you get two rushing touchdowns from Hertz or something like that, where this stack is really good. You can use one bringback. You can use two bringbacks, whatever you want.

I think that this stack is definitely under-owned. Is it under-owned enough and high enough probability that I want them as a single entry or like a three entry? I don't know, but if I were MMEing this week, I'd have at least ten percent and be ten X the field on Hertz stacks and feel really, really good about it.

Yeah, do you like, I mean, you went through it there some, but like any of these over stacks with him where it's like, you know, Wicks, Lemon, and who's going to be Ertz back on the roster now? Yeah, I mean, Ertz is going to be the main tight end, but for me, like no question, it would be Hertz, Lemon, and Wicks because- Number one, I think Wicks is good, and Lemon has been used primarily in a gadget role.

I think they have no choice but to use him as a wide receiver this week, and he's actually been better as a wide receiver than a gadget guy. All the behind-the-line-of-scrimmage stuff has been atrocious. The Eagles are by far dead last in the NFL in EPA and yards per play on passes behind the line of scrimmage. Most of them have been to Lemon. Now they're going to have to throw the ball downfield a little bit to him.

And then what do you think about Puka in general? And then tie back to Sean's question here. So, you know, popular mini stackMini-StackIn NFL DFS, a mini-stack usually pairs two players from the same game without either team's quarterback. Often a secondary group beside your main quarterback stack, it can pair a running back with an opposing receiver.Before locking a pair, describe how both players reach big scores together. Then ask whether that outcome would make an omitted quarterback or teammate difficult to beat.Full explanation ↗, I think, you know, Wix and, and Puka could be played together a lot, but also if like, this is one of the things I always say, I'm not comparing these players at all. So don't take this the wrong way. I'm just noting like the facts. So like when, when, Wanda Robinson would be popular like $4,300.

He's like a really good cash gameCash GameA cash game is a contest that pays a large share of the field, usually close to half, the same flat prize. Fifty-fifties, double-ups and head-to-heads are the common cash games.Treat cash games as the steady base of your bankroll. Use one safe core across your cash entries on a slate, and save riskier ideas for tournaments.Full explanation ↗ play and everyone's like, let's play him. But then people would just play him as a one offOne-OffIn NFL DFS, a one-off is a player you select outside your stacks, commonly a running back or a receiver without his quarterback. An opposing receiver intentionally paired with your stack instead serves as a bring-back.Before adding a one-off, compare him with an affordable teammate of your existing stack. Decide whether his individual upside is worth passing up that extra scoring connection.Full explanation ↗ or in a secondary stack in their tournaments where they need like a ceiling outcome from this guy.

That's kind of what you were saying there with like if you're just throwing wicks in like I would almost rather him be in a man it's just so hard like if you actually are getting the tournament outcome from him in what you need and by the way those Robinson weeks that did work it was like with a jamis it ended up being the winning tournament lineupsGPP (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 ↗ it was you know you saw that move to the top it almost fits it that way a lot of people might have wicks and puka sitting there but who will have it with hertz puka wicks and lemon right and then if you actually get those ceilings out of those guys in that Philly side that makes

Uh puka get to his ceiling and gets them to their ceiling then who's really going to have that and that's where you just see such a difference and a lot of those secondary stacks will be sitting there saying like well didn't get to that level of the penthouse but I did get to that secondary stack at least what do you think about this as a whole and just puka at his price tag it did say while we're live on this show I missed it earlier Just got the news.

Badgent will officially start. So I guess Ben Johnson could only hold it for so long. But I did see somewhere it said this morning that it could be like a really limited snap count for. For. Go ahead. Look it up for Puka. Yeah. So if Puka is on a snap count, like his ownership is going to go down. So take this conditional ownership projection with a grain of salt.

But as of right now, I have when Wix is in Puka goes from thirteen percent, which is above industry to nineteen percent. I'm probably going to have to bring that thirteen percent down on him because it sounds like he is going to be limited. That's going to make all the the L.A. Stuff a little bit messy.

I like my my inclination is that people are not going to want to play Devante Adams and very much when he's getting, when he's in his usual role and facing a lot of Quinion Mitchell or Rick Willen on the outside, like they need him to be in the Puka role for him to be effective. If Puka's playing even on a limited snap count, most of Adams routes are therefore in his own role and not Puka's.

So I don't think people are going to play Adams I don't think people are going to play Puka. It's weird. There are a lot of reasons why this game is going to be on our own. By tomorrow morning, this actually might end up being my favorite game just because I think the game scriptGame ScriptGame script is how a game's score and time remaining influence its pace, play choices and player opportunities. In football, teams protecting a lead often run more, while teams chasing a deficit often pass more.Before locking a lineup, ask who keeps playing if your expected script reverses. Check passing-down roles and backup rotations instead of assuming a team's leading rusher handles every situation.Full explanation ↗ is so nice and so conducive to both of these teams playing aggressively and There are ways I want to play L.A., which, again, I'll talk about.

In fact, I'll talk about the first one right now, which is I think Tyler Higbee's a really, really good pivot off some of the other cheap tight end chalk. Higbee was outstanding in the playoff game against Philly two years ago. Higbee is now like the only tight end in an offense, only good tight end in an offense that really rewards tight ends and plays a lot through the tight ends. We know he's capable.

And the kicker is Zach Bond is the reason why the Eagles have been so good against tight ends in the past. Actually, in the past, you could also credit some of the safety play, and you could credit N'Kobe Dean for a lot. But John Campbell this year, now starting with N'Kobe Dean in Las Vegas, he's been really bad in coverage.

Trotter, who will probably get the start in place of Bond, is great against the run and is actually like a high quality backup inside linebacker, but he's not anywhere near what bond is in coverage. So I think Philly is going to be very, very vulnerable to the tight end, especially because like Fangio is not going to change the way he calls the defense very much.

He's probably going to call the defense as if he's got a guy in the middle of the field who's capable of locking down, you know, that area. So I think, I think this could be a really big kick me game. And then there's one other guy in the, in the, on the Rams that I like a lot this week, he's going to be part of my leverage lane. Yeah, we can segue right there. I've got nothing else.

I was just using, DFSOS has this news feature, which I like. You guys can use code SHIPIT if you want to get half price over there off the all access plan. But it already had like everything from the last hour, from all the different beat reporters, everything. It was all just stricter snap count than usual. And, you know, may not be a full allotment of snaps when he returns to the lineup on Sunday. Obviously, we know how these things go. I remember the Hawkins game.

Oh, he's only going to be used...

In certain scenarios it was like he has ten catches at the half and then you see that type of stuff happen so you can't really fully trust those things all the time but just in general something to think about when you're looking at this here before we go to the I mean we're going to get to our lanes in a second you just kind of leaned into yours so I'm going to let you segue it but Good one here was just talking about, are blowout overstacks dead or entry type specific?

How are you thinking about this data now? And I'm assuming this is, are you taking this as like three twos or something or like more than that, like four threes, like people that are actually just really overstacking a game? Yeah, my initial instinct was that he was asking like, can I go triple stack with no bring back? And just hope that it's like thirty five to seven or something like that. Yeah, I was going to be saying like the blowout in the game.

I guess we could take it from that perspective. Like if you just had that, usually that's an onslaught, right? That's true. Yeah. Somebody just pounded. Or is he saying like blowing out the lineup so that you have, you know, if you play Lawrence, Washington, Myers, Strange, Higgins, Chase Brown, like are those dead? Are they kind of specific to the smaller field stuff? Still that. So either or you can answer from any way you take it.

But I'm just curious what your thoughts were. It was interesting. I meant to keep it up there. Go ahead. Yeah. So if we're talking about a blowout where like you're asking just one team to do all the production and then the other team not do anything. So like a triple stack, we know bring back type thing. Those really haven't been good.

I think you can make a case that like there are opportunities for it and maybe the field just does it a little bit too often. And if you're really picky about it, maybe you can outperform the field in finding those spots where it's viable. If we're talking triple stacks with a bring back, it's really hard to 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 ↗ too much. And...

And I think people get that wrong a lot where, especially like in the big tournaments, like the Milly Maker or, you know, high stakes, like, you know, even the five, five, five Milly, for example, I think people have this idea in mind that, Oh, I need to hit, I need to hit for ceiling in like every spot of the lineup. And so if I have three guys from this offense, it's just too hard to do that.

That's wrong, and the triples, like the overstacks in that regard, have been really successful in every single contest type, which doesn't mean that no matter what stack you like, you should try and find a way to double stack it or triple stack it. What it means is you should look for the stacks that you like that are in a game environment where there's actually room for everybody to really perform well and hit their ceiling together and win.

And price is obviously a big part of that. So for example, if you're stacking Cincinnati this week and you say, okay, well, I've got Burrow, I've got Chase, I've got Higgins. Now let me also make it a triple stack by throwing Gesicki in there.

That to me is a really bad idea because when Gesicki contributes, when he has the two touchdown game, that's taking production from Higgins and from Chase in a way that you need those guys to really hit their ceilings for the double expensive stack to hit. So there you do not want to triple. So it is game-dependent. It's price-dependent. It's stack-dependent. But certainly...

In general, looking for opportunities where the price is right and the game environment is right to triple stack is a very smart thing to do and just over stack in general that way. Yeah, I want to tack on to that. That was a great breakdown because the Gesicki example is perfect where people just think like, even using conditional ownership, they'll say like that, well, that makes it lower, gets me in a better spot.

Like, okay, but how are you actually thinking about the game? Like we talked about earlier, if all that was truly to happen, it's like a thirty eight to thirty three game or like a thirty eight to thirty game, thirty seven, thirty, whatever numbers you want to use that, you know, you can put out there where I would almost then want like to Washington, some of that, like you may as well go for it.

If that if the SEC is going to be the ceiling outcome for you, that's where we like you said, people just over correlate to correlate or something. It's like he would his two touchdown game that would be needed and where Higgins and Chase still came through. Would almost have to be something that got pushed to the other side to get this thing going off. Unless you want to use, somebody said it from last year, I should, sure.

Like there was a couple of random examples of the Lions just chucking up and saying, we're just going to run through this. And you could have had an onslaught where it was like, um, golf, almond rod, JMO and LaPorta or something, and maybe Detroit defense even or something, but those are really hard to predict. And then you need multiple things to happen. You need that to be the fifty point spot.

The blowout with nobody pushing them and just hope that they actually go through that route and then get all the guys, right. Got to be exact combo of all those options too. So again, correlating just to correlate is sometimes not the way, but it can work in your favor if you get it right, but really be thinking about the big picture. That's the, yeah.

To that point, uh, G man said like Detroit did it last year referencing the triple stack hitting and, uh, and yeah. Um, when I looked through all of this data, one of the things I realized that was like, it was two or three offenses doing most of the triple stack hits. Um, Detroit was one, the Rams were one and I can't remember who the other one was.

Um, But I think it was like three offenses were probably ninety percent of the triple sack takedowns. And Detroit was maybe fifty percent on their own. And then it was L.A. And it wasn't Cincinnati because Cincinnati was one of my guesses. But it was it was another. Oh, I think it was Baltimore where it was like Lamar was so good. He brought Henry and Zay Flowers. And then there was like one other cheap guy that that that helped as well.

So, yeah, you're you're looking for those offenses that can really put up some massive scores. Do so through a lot of explosive plays, which is why Detroit is so often the team that does this because you get the long explosive touchdown run from Gibbs. You get the long touchdown from Jamison Williams. You get a defense that allows a lot of explosives. So that's the recipe for these overstack success. Perfect. All right, let's get to your leverage lane. You hinted at it a little bit earlier.

Where are you landing at this week? It starts with just kind of zooming out a little bit and talking about the fact that, like, outside of the the $50,000 hit in week one last year, I've definitely felt like NFL main slate DFS has been a weak spot for me. Like I've been I've been crushing NFL showdownShowdown (Captain and MVP)NFL Showdown lets you select players from one football game, including eligible quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, tight ends, kickers and team defenses. Your Captain or MVP receives the contest's scoring multiplier.Compare complete lineups with different players in the multiplier slot. Leaving salary unused can reduce duplication, but do not sacrifice meaningful scoring potential just to make your lineup unusual.Full explanation ↗. I've had multiple takedowns in the last year and a half on the afternoon only and even the early only.

But like the smaller slates, baseball and PGA, you know, I've obviously had some success. And so I was asking myself, like, well, what do I do differently? What is potentially the reason why I'm not having success and feeling like I may be making more mistakes than in other spots? And ironically, I think it's that there's so much time to think about the slate in the week. And I'm someone who, like, my favorite thing about DFS is kind of solving the puzzle of the slate, right?

And so if on Wednesday I have the idea of, oh, I want to play Brock Bowers or I think, you know, Kyron Williams is really under-owned this week, or a great play this week. By Saturday, if that's the foundation of my lineup, then I don't get the fun anymore of solving the puzzle of the slate by saying Kyrie Williams is the way to go at running back.

I want the experience again of being able to find the diamond in the rough or the leverage lane that I'm going with. And I think that that has kind of cost me a little bit where I'm trying too hard or I'm overthinking the slate and I'm not just playing it simply. And, you know, one of my, one of my best friends and I from, from high school, we have this saying of like first thought, best thought.

And at the time, like, you know, that applied to how do I want to ask the girl out that I have a crush on and things like that. But now it's, you know, when. When I do a PGA showdown lineup or an NFL showdown lineup, like a lot of the time, you know, especially with PGA showdown, it's like I might have ownership finalized at nine PM. I might have Sims stuff finished at nine forty five.

I want to be in bed reading at ten thirty. Like I've got forty five minutes to build that lineup. I can't possibly overthink things. First thought, best thought. And with NFL DFS, I think so often like I just spend so much time overthinking.

My first thought this week before any ownership read for anything was my God, $5,900 against an Eagles team that probably doesn't have Zach Bond is insanely cheap for Kyron Williams and Now we get like the added benefit of there are four guys in his exact price range that are like maybe double the ownership of Kyron. That's insane to me. So Kyron Williams is my leverage lane, but it's more of like just trusting my initial instincts a little bit more.

And yeah, being okay with the idea that maybe the most important decision I make on this slate, I made on Thursday and I don't get to make again on Friday night or Saturday morning before leverage lane or Saturday night in slate thoughts for my Discord. Maybe it's one of the very first thoughts that I had on the slate. I love that one too.

And also I could be way wrong on this, but isn't the Eagles like run, like their run D stopper guy, Jalen Carter, isn't he playing with like a broken wrist or something as well too? Not saying it's not going to matter. I mean, he can come through. He's that strong and crazy, but typically that's just another thing. And you mentioned a different D guy over there.

It sounds like too, but I just think about that, but really at $5,900 getting a piece of that game and being able to play it differently. I really like that.

And it's he's just under like he's a perfect pivot and as well to all of the options that people are landing on in that range right they're they're playing Chase Brown right out of the gates you know right there two hundred bucks more Aaron Jones right there Skattebo uh love he's a hundred bucks more than love I believe like so like everybody is right there and you can just play karen Williams at $5,900 yeah and not only that but like if Fangio's defense has been spectacular, no question.

Now, not this year. It's been a lot worse this year, which may or may not be tied to the fact that the Philips were still alive in the playoffs. His splits when the Philips are alive or not, he's a huge Philips fan, for those who don't know, is shocking, which also just might be he's really good at making adjustments and kind of figuring out what his defense is doing poorly and how to react to that, so on and so forth.

But the style of offense that he has had the most issue with Think Chicago, think San Francisco in the playoffs. Think these Rams is the team that is really good run first and play action. And he's had trouble all the time against this type of offense. And now you add in the layer of no Zach bond. So yeah, I think, I think the Rams offense is going to have kind of a field day with the Eagles defense this week.

I'll be very pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong about that as an Eagles fan myself, but I think, I think they're going to roll. And I think Kyron Williams is going to be hyper-efficient and, If Puka is limited a little bit more than usual, and we know how weak they are in the tight end room, there's also a chance that he's more involved in the pass game than he's been a lot over the last year.

So yeah, I think this is an awesome spot for Kyron. And even though Corum is getting a lot of work, which to me, if there's one reason why Kyron's ownership is suppressed as much as it is, it's because people are worried about Corum just eating into his workload. As true as that is, Kyron still has pretty much a stranglehold on the high-value snaps. More targets than Corum and more red zone opportunities than Corum. He's got three touchdown upside written all over him in this one.

Yeah, I like it. Very, very direct call to this week. Mine is going to be a little more generic, but it's based around everything that we talked about. So I mentioned it. I think there's at least five other games I like more than the Cincinnati Bengals and the Jaguars spot. I get why it's super popular and there's so many names within it.

Uh in my main lineup my main 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 ↗ which is what our leverage lane is for I will have nobody from Jacksonville or Cincinnati I know they project off the page but there'll be no brown no Higgins no tootin no uh Washington nothing I've like I like five other games that have better spots and once I build them out I may throw Williams now into that spot that others will have this in just because I like that call so um I'm pretty hard on

This one thinking that it's going to be the you know the thing that I'll be able to stick to easiest and uh for me yeah I have a bunch of other games that I'm going to that don't require me to go to that game I think a lot of people are starting their lineups with Jags and Bengals or both and then moving from there and so that that's an easy one for me so um for my main lineup fading the Jags and Cincy game and going to somewhere else so yeah I might have the answer based on your leverage lane, but one thing I wanted to talk through with you is what to do with Ja'Marr Chase.

Because on the one hand, it looks like Chase Brown and Tee Higgins are going to be the more popular Bengals. If you have the upside of Ja'Marr Chase as a 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 ↗ playoff of two 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 ↗ plays on the slate, like Man, that could be awesome, but it also feels a little bit risky. Cause when chase goes off, like that game is more Likely to hit and I don't want to play that game with you in that regard.

So how do you feel about like using chase as a one-offOne-OffIn NFL DFS, a one-off is a player you select outside your stacks, commonly a running back or a receiver without his quarterback. An opposing receiver intentionally paired with your stack instead serves as a bring-back.Before adding a one-off, compare him with an affordable teammate of your existing stack. Decide whether his individual upside is worth passing up that extra scoring connection.Full explanation ↗ or, you know, you, you made the point early about like Higgins and Tootin as flipping the bill. Like what if, what about chase and tune? Does that work? It could. I will say this, though, and I've stuck to this one pretty hard. It's like a Ja'Marr Chase break the slate day is usually a Burrow day or 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 ↗. You said it best.

Or it's the other side, and it's just going to be a bad day all around because, like, that lineup has that. Now, in my portfolio, our lane is for 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's not a cop-out. We are very clear on this. You'll go check my single entry. It won't have this. But in the other stuff, I can just build differently. Like, I already looked at some stuff.

I've got some – I found one lineup I liked was, like, again, people won't like it, probably, but I think it was Lawrence – tootin and I can't remember was myers or btj who you know people just thinks is dust and sucks he probably is that's fine but for one slate one event I don't care I think it was like those three with Higgins or something and I was like damn that's like kind of and then everything else looked clean I was like that's interesting so when I'm playing that game it'll be the flips that I talked about I like tootin Higgins because Higgins If he has two touchdowns, really good for Burrow as well.

But also what is he? Sixty something like he's not as expensive as $8,100. Yeah. $6,100. If $8,100 Ja'Marr Chase hits forty points again, I just think it's Burrow or it's the game stack with Washington and Washington. Maybe not Washington, but at least Lawrence or Burrow at the helm. So to me, I think that's a good call out by you.

But I think when you get a price of $8,100 making that happen, it's going to typically be something like that. And I'm just not as interested in that for this week. Yeah, that's my instinct. But man, it's really, really rare that Chase is 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 ↗ guy in this offense. And I do think the Jacksonville defense, probably a little bit of a pass funnel. They have given up explosives now. A lot of teams like...

The big three, or the big four, I should say, over the last three years or so, Cincinnati, Philly when A.J. Brown was still there, Dallas, and Kansas City. Teams who play a lot of single high, don't play a lot of single high against those teams. So the fact that Jacksonville has played a decent amount of single high and they've given up explosives, that doesn't necessarily translate here.

But on paper, there are a lot of things about this matchup that say this is a chase game combined with the potential leverage over his teammates. I'm interested. I want to see what the Sims say, though.

To me, that's a perfect use case for a really good contest, Sims, which I think we've got over at Black Analytics, where am I playing too risky of a game trying to get the chase ceiling that leverages his teammates while also not allowing for the game as a whole to blow up? That, to me, is something that the Sims can answer better than probably our human brains can. For sure.

And I think another angle would be like the leverage stuff that we talked about that didn't fully go into, but we at least spent time on was like the running backs at his price tag. No one's going to like, you know, just at his price tag alone and going by price. Derek Henry, three hundred bucks more. Kenneth Walker, a hundred bucks more.

You know, the other guys down below, like you said there and then the other one, even at wide receiver, I talked about already, but I like Nico Collins. I actually like, you know, the Higbee call you made earlier, but I think that it's crazy that almost nobody's going to play DeVonta Adams. And I can play Stafford, Adams, and Higbee, which is literally what we've seen go off in the past when we're missing all these other guys.

And like, so there's those stacks that I could go to. Zay Flowers is $6,900.

On this slate whatever argument you're out there making for Parker Washington being too cheap and I know the matchup got better for him in the slot with the injuries and stuff too on the other side for the Bengals like we we live and breathe this stuff we know this but I'm saying whatever anyone's arguing about the price is too cheap like and regression I get like again we follow all the stuff but it's again one game we have no idea what's going to happen yet Zay Flowers um at his pace was

On like is nuts what he's on pace for right now he actually played all the snaps he was still heavily involved even with the limited stuff last week they used him in the high leverage spots so it's like there is and and also if you're not on Derrick Henry and you really think they are still going to put points up on Tennessee like you can get to him nobody you know you go look at the other stuff Christian Watson nobody's really playing him.

And I talked about the Green Bay stuff. Like there, there's just so many ways that I can go on this slate. And that's the last thing I'll say is like the attachment pieces.

When we talked earlier about like JSN and like who you need to have, obviously it is better to have, um, you know, Darnold when JSN scores, you know, But like a Christian Watson could score twenty four, twenty five, beat all the guys around him by a decent margin or like enough and be involved that way. But no one's really playing love or anybody in that game.

So while he would be attached to that, my point is more of like it's also not just who you're playing. It's to Alex, but who you're not playing, if the field, who the field is playing and who they're not playing. If Ja'Marr Chase hits, we already know people are playing Burrow and Washington and Lawrence and Tootin and Chase Brown, et cetera, et cetera. So you're going to be attached to something that's so heavily owned by the field.

If Watson hits it, yes, it would probably be nice to have him with Love, but there's a chance and he's that much cheaper as well. He's sixty. I'm just using him as the example. $6,700 versus $8,100 chase. And he's not really attached to anything like nobody is really playing that game or that spot or whatever. So it's like you can get away with a little bit more from that perspective as well. Right. Yeah. I like this.

I like this slate. I think it, uh, it sets up well and, and, uh, it, it, It's going to be a hard one to win with a low-scoring slate because I just don't see all of the chalk failing this week. But I think there are definitely spots we can leverage.

And I think more so than there's fragile chalk this week, I think this is one of the weeks where there are a number of lower-owned guys who really do just set up well and we have potentially inefficient ownership that way. So I think that's what I'm most excited about here. Yeah. Give Aaron a props on the way out. A good one here is, is people are playing love. It is just the one from Arizona. Yeah.

We could call this one leverage lane and you could leverage love by playing the other love and just going different and not using the Arizona green, the Arizona giant spot in playing Jeremiah love and play Jordan Love with his past, or you can put them together double love if you want it this week as well. So yeah. I think this was a fun one. Hopefully you guys enjoyed. Let us know in the comments below. Make sure to hit the thumbs up.

Subscribe to the channel. We'll be back next week, same time. Got all the other shows and coverage starting tomorrow with myself, Hoop, and Title breaking it down tomorrow morning at nine a.m. Eastern. That's gonna do it for this one, guys. For Blickle, for myself, and for my voice, good luck in your contents this week. Let's ship it!