NFL DFS Showdown SZN: Titans vs. Bills

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.

Captain and FLEX ownership distributions

EDIT: Gabe Davis was declared out after the initial writing. This raised Josh Allen up to 50% captain exposure in the optimizations and made him by far the top option overall. Likewise, Jamison Crowder ended up at 25% in FLEX, with McKenzie sitting at just 14%. The largest boost went to Allen and Crowder.

The first notable thing here is Derrick Henry being extremely overvalued by the industry. Granted, Henry has the ability to go nuclear in any and all games. However, based on the Titans offense, their pass splits, and his inefficiency since having foot surgery, there's a lot of reason to be down on his expectations. All of that is likely what the optimizations are picking up.

Another observations of the distributions is how centered the captain ownership is on the QBs. This isn't necessarily interesting in general, but there is a lot of WR upside with Diggs, Davis, and Woods. To clarify, over 60% of the captain ownership is on the QBs on this slate, which could signal that the field is too high on the position players.

A couple notes:

• Ryan Tannehill is like the most undervalued play at captain and possibly on the entire slate.
• If Gabe Davis is out, we likely see Isaiah McKenzie jump up in value in both captain and FLEX.
• Austin Hooper looks well undervalued in the FLEX position.

Duplication projections and 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:

EDIT: with Gabe Davis out, Josh Allen becomes a used captain and 85% FLEX in the highest dupes. We also see Isaiah McKenzie jump to 55% used in FLEX and Crowder at 35%. It makes Isaiah McKenzie a much more valuable fade overall.

Here are some notes on the highest dupes:

• Interestingly, there are no Josh Allen captain lineups in the 20 highest predicted dupes. This likely changes if Gabe Davis is out, but that's how it stands right now.
• There is a lot of spread out ownership at captain, but mostly on cheaper players.
• Josh Allen is used in 100% of the highest dupes but as a FLEX.

For what it's worth, these results are likely a consequence of Derrick Henry being very low in optimizations in general. Since his projected ownership is one of the highest on the slate, it's to be expected that the dupes with him involved with be quite a bit higher than what is shown here.

DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts

There are a lot of moving pieces in this showdown. The injuries to Gabe Davis and Kyle Phillips make for murky situations. On the other hand, the optimizations hating Derrick Henry means being unique is much easier. Overall, fading Derrick Henry and going with Tannehill captain is an easy, high upside path in GPPs.

Some players that look overvalued:

• Derrick Henry
• Devin Singletary

Some players that look undervalued:

• Austin Hooper
• Ryan Tannehill
• Zack Moss

Good luck tonight!