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.
For conversation and game theory on the charts with updated ownership distributions as well as the top ownership lineups, jump in the Paydirt discord! Free with this link: https://discord.gg/mQ6u5dfawF
Captain ownership distributions
- The highest positive leverage players to focus on at captain tonight are Diontae Johnson and George Pickens, each sitting with around 3% gained leverage over the field.
- The highest negative leverage gained at captain goes to Will Levis at around -5% leverage lost to the field, mostly based on price and inflated popularity .
Some runs I’ve found that Derrick Henry or Chris Boswell end up being the highest leverage gained, but it’s consistent in saying that Will Levis is an avoid at the position.
FLEX ownership distributions
- Chris Boswell shows as the highest positive leverage gained at FLEX here, with a 20% difference between winning lineup exposure and the projected ownership.
- A runner up here is Derrick Henry with an 18% difference.
- The largest negative leverages gained here come from Tyjae Spears and Nick Folk
Interestingly the largest dichotomy of leverage here belongs to the opposing kickers. Folk is a considerable negative leverage whole Boswell is the highest available. This comes from the way each team converts drives into points, with the steelers being much more likely to kick field goals.
The only other note here is that Will Levis is negative leverage in the FLEX as well as the captain, so be wary of using him in any lineups in larger fields.
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:
Some notes on the above (bad) lineups:
- The overall ownership sums here are considerably lower than we have one a lot of slates, which tells us that the ownership are much more spread out.
- This doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have to care about duplicates, but you can feel a bit better about lineups that you might have avoided on slates with more condensed ownerships.
- The most popular captains in highly duplicated lineups look to be both kickers, which the highest owned combo in the FLEX should be Pickett/Levis/Pickens.
Considering how low the total is in this game I'm pretty surprised that neither defense is looking popular enough to end up in the highest projected dupes. You may get to a spot where you can use something like Henry CPT + Titans DST to build out a very clean gamescript lineup.
DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts
This is a fun gamescript because there are super, super clear lines to a single player:
- Derrick Henry is a great play if the Titans win, which means pairing him with the Titans DST and avoiding Kenny Pickett is an easy way to build
- If the Titans lose, Derrick Henry sucks, and the Titans DST is probably bad as well
So that makes for a good starting point considering Derrick Henry is such a high leverage option. I personally think just going full smooth brain here and going Derrick Henry captain is the most chad route.
If you don’t think the Titans win, that opens a lot of different routes. It probably ends up meaning that the Steelers DST is optimal since they don’t score very many points. Running with something like Diontae Johnson captain, Steelers DST, and Chris Boswell as a core makes the most sense in that gamescript.
The most disgusting thing about this slate is both defenses should be considered priority depending on who you think wins such the game total is so low. Just truly degenerate shit.
Some players that look overvalued:
- Will Levis (CPT)
- Steelers DST
- Tyjae Spears
Some players that look undervalued:
- Derrick Henry (CPT)
- Chris Boswell
- Both fucking defenses
Good luck and bink a unique
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