
Welcome to this edition of the NFL DFS Showdown SZN breakdown. The aim of this post is to look at the best players to build around and constructions to focus on for the night's NFL DFS showdown contests on Draftkings. We run the new Showdown Contest simulations to see what differences we can find in projected ownership and likely exposure. Likewise, we take into account the whole lineup's projection and ownership.
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Captain ownership distributions

The highest positive leverage offered at captain across multiple runs of the simulations goes to Jordan Love, which is weird! Typically the contest sims are not a fan of QB captains, but there was a clear expectation for this slate. Other consistently positive options at the slot were Harrison Butker and AJ Dillon.
The most consistently negative options at captain were Patrick Mahomes and Romeo Doubs. With Doubs it makes sense considering how spread out the GB offense can be. With Mahomes, it’s almost entirely because of price, as he just makes a much better FLEX option where you can still fit upside around him.
FLEX ownership distributions

The highest positive leverage offered for FLEX goes to Patrick Mahomes, which, duh. Just because a player doesn’t make for a super strong captain doesn’t mean they should be avoided. In this case, Mahomes should be owned basically 100% across both slots, but he makes a lot more sense in the FLEX. Following him in terms of positive leverage offered on a consistent basis is Travis Kelce and then Love and Dillon.
The most consistent negative leverage offered at FLEX was for Christian Watson, who is going to have inflated ownership due to a strong outing last week. The Chiefs DST was a consistently negative option as well, which means that you should lock in the Packers DST since it’s showdown and one of the defenses is a key to be optimal in 2023. This is science.
Duplication projections and DFS lineups to avoid
Here is a sample of the lineups in terms of highest ownership from the contest simulations. To clarify, you should avoid playing these lineups in large field GPPs tonight:

Lots of Harrison Butker! As is a usual circumstance where there are strong payups, we have a kicker captain slate where people will be jamming them in to fit the FLEX combo. However, the ownerships in these high duplication risk lineups are actually pretty low (below the 220+ threshold) which tells me the dupe factors won’t be all that high tonight.
The FLEX combo that you’ll be seeing the most of tonight will be Mahomes/Kelce/Love and a good amount of Jayden Reed. Overall that core combo will be highly owned but there are enough paths to differentiation that I don’t think you have to make any adjustments away from it whatsoever. Both of these offenses are spread out to the point that you can run the core FLEX combo with some 3rd or 4th tier options and still maintain your upside. This kind of thing makes for a really good showdown field.
DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts
Chiefs showdowns make for some quality stuff as is, but add in another team that has kind of a =RAND() way of handling touchdown distribution and it makes for a killer contest. The options here in terms of differentiation and build path are really wide, which lets you do two things: Play it safe with a core combo of Mahomes/Kelce/Love, and get fucking weird with WR3s and backup TEs.
From a gameflow perspective, I would expect this game to be close. The Chiefs offense is hamstrung by mediocre receiving options which has kept their median in check, while the Packers have a bad floor but a pretty strong ceiling. Both of these defenses are above average, so you can probably expect a relatively slow paced duel here. Both RBs are valuable in this kind of gamescript, as well as the possession receivers.
The possession guy for the Chiefs is obviously Kelce, but it’s more of a question for the Packers. Tucker Kraft comes to mind, as does Romeo Doubs. Christian Watson is not the guy I would expect to be getting peppered with possession targets, which makes me a bit happier to fade him at ownership.
My lean here is a 3-3 with either Rice/Kelce/Pacheco at captain or going with the Sims and slapping in Jordan Love and hoping for a 3-TD game to multiple options. If you do go with a 4-2 lean towards either side, I think Pacheco/Dillon both make for great captain options as this game could slow down and allow them a lot of volume.
Some players that look overvalued:
- Patrick Mahomes (CPT)
- Christian Watson
- Chiefs DST
Some players that look undervalued:
- Jordan Love
- AJ Dillon (CPT)
- WR3 and TE2 builds
Good luck and bink a unique
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