NFL DFS Showdown SZN: Eagles vs. Chiefs SUPERBOWL

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 optimize 5,000 lineups for the contest and look into the most common captains and FLEX. Likewise, we take into account the whole lineup's projection and ownership. Finally, we run the lineups through the tools found in the Theory of DFS: Advanced Players course (Buy it here) to see what combos are +EV.

Main Points:

• The name of the game today is fitting Mahomes and Hurts, and doing so while remaining competitive in the GPP without being duped is exceptionally difficult.
• The highest projected dupes completely lack both defenses, which makes them prime options in terms of building natural diversification.
• Enjoy the Superbowl and I hope to see you all next year at Paydirt!

For conversation and game theory on the charts with updated ownership distributions as well as the top 20 predicted dupes, jump in the Paydirt discord! Free with this link: https://discord.gg/mQ6u5dfawF

Captain and FLEX ownership distributions

The slate entirely comes down to building around Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes. However, the optimizations much prefer Hurts thanks to a considerably higher median projection and rushing upside. Hurts has a CPT% in the optimizations of 48% while Mahomes is at just 2.78%. The projected ownership for both is around even at 13%, which says that Hurts is considerably undervalued even with the highest projected captain ownership on the slate. This feels akin to Josh Allen or Christian McCaffrey showdowns, where the field isn’t playing them enough even as the highest owned player overall.

The most overvalued player tonight is likely Travis Kelce. His projected ownership at captain is 10.71% while the optimizations only have him in the slot 2.41% of the time. Likewise in terms of FLEX his projected ownership sits at around 43% while his optimization exposure is only 28.76%. This isn’t necessarily a consequence of Kelce being a bad play, it’s more a consequence of his price. The optimizations prefer using only two studs, and Kelce ends up being left out of lineups because of it.

Some other notes on optimization exposures and projected ownership:

• AJ Brown looks way undervalued at both CPT and FLEX and is the second highest priority on the slate outside of Jalen Hurts, which creates a natural pairing.
• While Travis Kelce is overvalued, Juju Smith-Schuster looks undervalued especially at the FLEX spot.
• Both Kickers are well undervalued as salary saving options.

Duplication projections and DFS lineups to avoid

Here are the top 20 lineups in projected dupes. To clarify, you should avoid playing these lineups in large field GPPs tonight:

Nearly every one of the highest projected dupes is using Jalen Hurts, but that is to be expected. Outside of him, Patrick Mahomes and AJ Brown are highly exposed options as well.Interestingly, Miles Sanders is not seen here at all, and neither is the Eagles DST. That pairing may provide extreme leverage in large field contests while people assume the game to be high scoring. Likewise, the pairing of Isiah Pacheco and the Chiefs DST makes a lot of sense for Chiefs onslaughts as well.

DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts

I wrote this during the CIN/BUF game, and it holds true tonight:

“It is going to be very, very hard to win the main GPP tonight on Draftkings with the size of the contest and generally condensed offenses. People are going to build out weird lineups with bad plays just to be unique, and I think that’s mostly a mistake. While you should certainly be off the board, I think it’s much better to be off the board in a way that maintains upside rather than throwing darts. 

Be different with roster construction and captain usage instead of playing someone like Royce Gilliam or whoever the fuck is going to get touted as a sneaky value option. Use defenses and kickers in weird ways. Fade Joe Burrow. Run a 5-1 BUF onslaught. But build something that isn’t unique in a bad way.”

The size of the contests tonight makes it hard to be unique, but that doesn’t mean you should throw optimal game theory out the window and just play fuck-all plays. The name of the game here is being thoughtful with your leverage and creating a lot of direct routes towards passing the field. For instance, playing Noah Gray in a lineup with the salary for Travis Kelce. Or playing Miles Sanders in a lineup that could have Jalen Hurts. Look for ways to build in a way that benefits while the field fails.

Overall, the optimizations have a clear taste for Hurts over Mahomes tonight, and they prefer the Eagles in general. Utilizing the combo of Hurts and AJ Brown instead of that of Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Utilizing RB/DST correlations and making onslaught lineups while the field plays for a competitive high scoring affair is a strong route as well. Finally, the main player that looks like a strong piece of a KC stack in place of Travis Kelce is Juju Smith-Schuster.

Some players that look overvalued:

• Travis Kelce
• Jerrick McKinnon
• Marquez Valdes-Scantling

Some players that look undervalued:

• Juju Smith-Schuster
• Jalen Hurts (CPT)
• Harrison Butker (FLEX)

Good luck and bink a unique!

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