Tag: Betting

Welcome to the Paydirt NFL DFS main slate breakdown! This article will go over some of the most important aspects of the NFL DFS main slate. It'll typically include things like team totals, popular plays, and important stacks. The content of this is mostly geared towards Draftkings but is plenty applicable to Fanduel as well. Likewise, this article goes over the slate based on the range of outcomes models for NFL found here at Paydirt, so if you are interested in the same data we use, grab a subscription today!

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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

NFL DFS main slate breakdown:

Team stats, rates, and touchdown projections

• The highest team total on the slate is MIA at 29.00, the lowest on the slate is NYJ at 15.50.
• The highest game total on the slate is WAS/MIA at 49.50 with a handful of games sitting at 47 or 47.50.
• Highest passing TD expectation is MIA at 1.93, with HOU a close second at 1.91 followed by a significant drop to DEN at 1.54.
• Highest rushing TD expectation is MIA at 1.71 with a significant drop to the second highest for DET at 1.33.
• Highest dropback expectations go to WAS by a lot at 43.97 with the next highest being NO at 39.29.

Here are the top 10 overall stacks in median projection:

Really not a lot of surprises here. MIA, PHI, and HOU are all up there in terms of either team total, passing TD expectation, or both. SF is part of the best game environment on the slate against the Eagles. The only team kind of out of nowhere here is LAC and their projection is likely inflated a bit by Keenan Allen’s median expectation of 1,453 targets.

Ownership makes a lot of sense as well, though I don’t think that the MIA ownership is really representative of the stack as a whole. Both Tua and Waddle should be under 10% owned.

Sorting by team total:

The big outlier here for me is PIT, who has a healthy team total at above 23 points and is almost completely free to stack. That team total is a full touchdown above their season average. I said last week I was happy to sit out of the first game without Canada and see if Pickett could ball, and last week he showed signs of balls. This team total and the Cardinals defense have me thinking that they are drastically undervalued on this slate and are too cheap.

Highest projected ownership

• Zack Moss bigly chalk here. He’s a lock in small fields and cash games.
• Brevin Jordan chalk is… worse. But he’s a cheap TE and the position is generally inconsequential.

Quick note: Both Olave and Breece Hall are chalk options on FD. I think both are fine, I don’t really have many notes on them.

For Zack Moss: RBs have mostly been bad against the Titans all year and people were burned badly on it early on, but have since started to ignore it again. Moss had a great role early in the year. In his three great fantasy outcomes (20.7, 25.5, and 36.5 fantasy points) he had 18, 30, and 23 carries and the third performance (against TEN) had a 56 yard TD which supercharged his outcomes. However, he has had a couple outcomes of 18 carries with less than 10 fantasy points, and it’s fair to argue that Moss had the benefit of Anthony Richardson as a threat to play off of.

Overall for the price he’s an obvious play in small field stuff but at 60% owned you have to consider the downside of any play in NFL DFS. I’m not suggesting a fade in large field but I do think that you should be looking at how builds look without him as well.

The other thing worth mentioning with Moss chalk is that he will be paired heavily with Tyreek Hill. I would absolutely suggest making a rule of playing just one of them in lineups in large field stuff.

Outside of the Moss chalk which is really the biggest piece of this slate, I think a lot of the chalk is fine. I would not be playing Brevin Jordan in GPPs outside of a stack, but other than that I don’t have a lot of quarrels with the popular plays.

Undervalued options

I don’t really have a list of undervalued options this week, but the regular guys apply: Alvin Kamara looks undervalued, Adam Thielen got a price drop after a disastrous week, and Keenan Allen is underowned.

But what I think is more valuable this week is how you build out stacks and where you allocate your salary. For me, I think too many people are going stars and scrubs this week while jamming in value plays like Moss and Brevin Jordan to get the high priced combos of Tyreek/CMC/AJB. I don’t think that’s right.

There are like 15-20 really, really strong mid-range to high-mid players that are in the single digit ownership range this week. I mentioned a whole lot of them in the video breakdown, and you’ll see a bunch in the expected fantasy points segment below, but I really like balanced builds this week with cheaper stacks. Focusing on the expensive RBs and paying down at the WRs and stacks makes a lot more sense to me than trying to fit in this giga-expensive stacks like MIA and PHI.

One last note is I think that Henry/Downs lineup secondary combos are really nice this week. Both should carry individual ownership but I don't think the combo will get much steam and it plays really well in the lineups I'm liking to build.

Usage and expected fantasy points

First, sorted by exValue, which is the value offered based on their salary and expected PPR points:

General note: I’m not touching any CLE players. Joe Flacco is old as fucking dust.

Zack Moss tops this list, but right behind him is Kyren Williams who is projected for single digit ownership. I don’t really trust that, I think he’s around 15% when we turn over the cards, but he’s a great play regardless.

Noah Brown is another player on this list that is kind of blowing my mind. He is the best value play on the slate in a high total game that isn’t getting ownership.

Next, sorted by raw expected PPR points:

As noted above, look at all this midrange! With no ownership! It’s crazy. If there was ever a week for me to use my one-time and the chalk builds failed, it would be this week, because I just think people are playing the slate wrong and ignoring balanced build combos.

One name that pops for me here is De’Von Achane. Dude gets massive ownership at like 10 touches per game but is appropriately priced in a spot with a 29 team total and people don’t wanna touch him? He’s an awesome play.

Other names here that are really enticing are Jahmyr Gibbs, D’Andre Swift, and Mike Evans. A secondary combo of Adam Thielen and Mike Evans seems pretty sick, and if you don’t wanna go Mike Evans, you can absolutely look at Rachaad White and Adam Thielen stacks.

Finally let's sort this by Ownership:

I think I have talked enough about the ownership, but this is a pretty good representation of where the good stuff is. Brevin Jordan probably has a ceiling of 12 fantasy points, so playing him as a one off is an absolute no go. A lot of these guys have expected fantasy outcomes that are relatively low. Josh Downs at 9.95, Diontae Johnson at just 10.29. Jaylen Warren getting 20% ownership while overproducing his baselines is probably a signal to fade.

Overall slate notes

• Main stacks are pretty straight forward: MIA, PHI, and HOU are the heavy hitters with PIT, DEN, and SF being the value stacks to utilize.
• Don’t play Brevin Jordan as a one off, and if you are playing Zack Moss just make sure he’s not paired with Tyreek Hill in larger fields.
• The balanced builds look way undervalued this week, and I think make the most sense with strong cheap stacks we can build around.
• I’m realizing I said that last week as well and hey, maybe I’ll get luckier this week than I did last week!
• In the past couple weeks we didn’t have a big focus on bring backs, but this week makes for a good opportunity to stack as much as possible and max out correlations.

NFL DFS Cash Game Core:

(Finalized after 12pm EST)

This core of players will help you build a strong foundation in cash games. While it is best to use all these players, it's not a requirement. Generally, you'll want to focus on the QB, RB, and TEs listed.

QB – Brock Purdy
RB – Zack Moss
RB – Rachaad White
WR – Tyreek Hill
FLEX – Christian McCaffrey
TE – Brevin Jordan
DST – Falcons DST

NFL DFS GPP Core:

(Finalized after 10am EST)

This core of players will help you build in priorities to your stacks. Likewise, it's worth noting that the wide receivers and tight ends listed are meant to be in addition to your chosen stacks.

QB – Brock Purdy, Russel Wilson, Jalen Hurts, Kenny Pickett
RB – Kyren Williams, Derrick Henry, Zack Moss, Alvin Kamara
WR – Tyreek Hill, Josh Downs, George Pickens, Courtland Sutton, Brandon Aiyuk
TE – George Kittle, Pat Freiermuth, Trey McBride
DST – Whoever you want

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• Make decisions using a players full range of outcomes, not just their median projection.
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• Jump in the Paydirt community discord and join conversations around your favorites sports all day, every day, for free.

Welcome to the Paydirt NFL DFS main slate breakdown! This article will go over some of the most important aspects of the NFL DFS main slate. It'll typically include things like team totals, popular plays, and important stacks. The content of this is mostly geared towards Draftkings but is plenty applicable to Fanduel as well. Likewise, this article goes over the slate based on the range of outcomes models for NFL found here at Paydirt, so if you are interested in the same data we use, grab a subscription today!

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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

NFL DFS main slate breakdown:

Team stats, rates, and touchdown projections

• The highest team total on the slate is KC at 26.50, the lowest on the week is NYG at 14.75.
• The highest game total on the slate is BUF/PHI at 48.50.
• Highest passing TD expectation is KC at 1.90 with BUF at 1.84 then a drop to LAR at 1.66.
• Highest rushing TD expectation is PHI at 1.44 and then a significant drop to IND at 1.14.
• Highest dropback expectations go to KC and BUF at 39.22 and 38.85.

Here are the top 10 overall stacks in median projection:

BUF and PHI at the top are no surprise, it’s two high powered offenses in the highest game total of the week, but the prices aren’t doing you any favors on stacking them. In fact, the teams in the best spots are appropriately expensive, which makes this week more difficult than the last few with obvious value spots to lean on.

Ownership is mostly in line as well, except KC is getting way too little attention and are probably the best stack on the slate.

Sorting by team total:

There are a couple things that stand out here for me:

• KC is getting less ownership than BUF and PHI, but with a higher team total and higher passing TD expectation.
• IND is super cheap and is getting less ownership than JAX who is the trendy cheap stack.
• LAR is relatively expensive if you aim for Puka/Kupp but makes a lot of sense based on their team total and super low ownership.
• HOU and BUF have relatively low team totals for their prices, it’ll be interesting to see how that affects ownership when we turn over the cards.
• New Orleans with legit no ownership makes for a really interesting value stack.

Highest projected ownership

• Jonathan Taylor chalk looks…. Okay. I think that 40% is too much and people are just kind of saying “fuck it” when the optimizer suggests him. But he’s a good play in a vacuum.
• Trey McBride is way overvalued here, he’s appropriately priced and should not be played at 30%+ ownership.
• Justin Watson lmao
• Why is Zay Flowers showing up here?

I’m fine with some pieces here but it seems weird to overvalue Trey McBride. Both him and Jonathan Taylor feel a lot more like the Industry getting some tunnel vision on players that they have had interest on for a couple weeks and frankly there are just better spots.

I’m kind of blown away not to see Derrick Henry on this list? If he’s going to be low owned against the Panthers you just jam him in and move along.

Two players that I expect to catch a lot of steam up to lock are George Pickens and Jaylen Warren. There was a report that came out that mentioned the Steelers wanting to get them more involved this week, which is a good report to follow if the QB doesn’t suck shovel handles in his spare time. I’m not touching the Steelers until we see that Pickett isn’t the problem.

Undervalued options

Usually I have a little graphic here showing players that have a high LevX but this week I’m just going to call out a couple that I think are way undervalued overvalue based on sentiment:

• Alvin Kamara has the highest expected fantasy points in the league, the 10^th best utilization of all RBs in the league, and the Saints are in a pretty okay spot. I understand why he is low owned, because he’s pretty expensive and Taysom Hill’s package continues to grow like some radiation infested blob, but he has slate breaking upside and will be 5% owned.
• Adam Thielen is looking like 5% owned or so and continues to have one of the best roles of any WR in the league. He had another 10+ target game last week and has only had one week with single digit PPR points in the last 10 weeks. He’s not even overpriced!
• Derrick Henry has been giving some work to whoever the fuck that RB2 is on the team but he still has a couple ceiling games left in him and this spot makes a lot of sense. The Titans are home favorites against a trash team and Henry has had the largest win/loss splits in terms of fantasy output over the last 5 years. He’s going to be like…. 10% owned and a quarter of the ownership of Jonathan Taylor.

The really nice part here is with Henry/Thielen you can build a nice secondary correlation across your lineups.

Usage and expected fantasy points

There is really low ownership on the majority of the highest expected fantasy point players here. Why are people jamming in Jonathan Taylor of D’Andre Swift? Why is Travis Kelce only 11% owned? Joe Mixon at 6% owned? Weird week.

So let’s go ahead and sort this by Ownership now instead:

The more I look at this week the more I think the chalk is kind of bad. Jonathan Taylor and Trey McBride have good roles but you aren’t getting super big discounts on them and there are a lot of pivots in the price ranges. Justin Watson chalk is out of this fucking world weird. Demario Douglas chalk? I guess?

I think this is going to be the week that the chalk nerds finally get punished.

Overall slate notes

• Main stacks are looking like BUF, PHI, and KC but if you need some value it makes sense to go with IND, JAX, and NO.
• Secondary stacks are LAR and HOU, but it’s hard to justify them with the prices when other heavy hitters are in better spots.
• I don’t think you can play Trey McBride this week unless it’s as part of a game stack or ARI stack, which helps you get the benefit of correlation. He’s appropriately priced without it.
• Derrick Henry and Adam Thielen secondary stacks to the fuckin moon, my dudes and dudettes.
• I’m not going to be touching PIT stacks until we see that Pickett can be the guy. I think he’s a bottom 5 QB in the league and Matt Canada being gone won’t change that much if any at all.
• After looking at the chalk, I think having some pay down stacks and hitting the mid range fantasy upside guys makes a lot of sense. There’s some bad value chalk out there.
• The the chalk gobblers die.

NFL DFS Cash Game Core:

(Finalized after 12pm EST)

This core of players will help you build a strong foundation in cash games. While it is best to use all these players, it's not a requirement. Generally, you'll want to focus on the QB, RB, and TEs listed.

QB – Trevor Lawrence
RB – Jonathan Taylor
RB – Rachaad White
WR – Michael Pittman Jr.
WR – Justin Watson
TE – Trey McBride
DST – Chiefs DST

NFL DFS GPP Core:

(Finalized after 10am EST)

This core of players will help you build in priorities to your stacks. Likewise, it's worth noting that the wide receivers and tight ends listed are meant to be in addition to your chosen stacks.

QB – Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Derek Carr, Trevor Lawrence
RB – Alvin Kamara, Derek Henry, Jonathan Taylor, D'Andre Swift
WR – Adam Thielen, Devonta Smith, Stefon Diggs, Josh Downs, Chris Olave
TE – Dalton Kincaid, Travis Kelce, Dalton Shultz, Taysom Hill
DST – Whoever you want

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Powerful tools for every sport

One site, one affordable price

• Make decisions using a players full range of outcomes, not just their median projection.
• Use actionable metrics based on leverage that help you identify mistakes the field is making and leverage them for your own success.
• Have access to experts in the field along with coaching opportunities to build your process.
• Jump in the Paydirt community discord and join conversations around your favorites sports all day, every day, for free.

Welcome to the Paydirt NFL DFS main slate breakdown! This article will go over some of the most important aspects of the NFL DFS main slate. It'll typically include things like team totals, popular plays, and important stacks. The content of this is mostly geared towards Draftkings but is plenty applicable to Fanduel as well. Likewise, this article goes over the slate based on the range of outcomes models for NFL found here at Paydirt, so if you are interested in the same data we use, grab a subscription today!

---

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

NFL DFS Turkey Day slate breakdown:

The Thanksgiving breakdown I do is a bit different than I do for normal main slates. I am going to go through each game and give some thoughts and notes in regards to both the full slate and the showdown slate for each game. This won't be quite as in depth as the regular breakdowns, but I hope it helps everyone make some good decisions!

Game 1: Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers

It's hard to get a good grasp of Jordan Love and this Packers squad. The highs are pretty nice but the lows make him look like Zach Wilson with an accent. The last time these teams faced the Lions just ravaged the Packers o-line and Love couldn't get anything going whatsoever. I think Lafluer is a good gameplanner and can make adjustments to mitigate that this time around, so I would expect it to be much more competitive this time around.

Packers things:

• Last week we saw Jayden Reed have a mini-breakout game, and he's been the Packers best WR for the majority of the season anyway.
• Musgrave is on IR and Degura doubtful (or out, I don't remember) so it's going to be a heavy dose of KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE for the Packers. He should play basically every snap and makes for a strong punt.
• The Packers RBs aren't in much better shape. It'll be a majority AJ Dillon assuming his groin holds up, but we should expect Patrick Taylor to get quite a bit of run here. His props are kind of wild and you can get o25 rushing yards for like +350, so if you can find that you should hit that!
• The best combo you can run is Love/Reed/Doubs and I'm not sure you need to consider anything other than that. Watson is a fine flyer if you are playing the really large field stuff but he kind of sucks at football.

Lions things:

• Amon-Ra St.Brown is the lynchpin of this offense and the obvious priority in this game. If you are building either a DET stack or a GB stack he's going to be in it.
• Jahmyr Gibbs has taken over the “lead” back for the Lionts over the last two weeks with 50%+ of the snaps, but more importantly he has his 17%+ targets in those games. He makes for an awesome pairing as a stack piece which should help you be more unique than the traditional pairings in this game.
• The best pairing you can make here is Goff/ARSB/LaPorta but you do get a significant ownership discount dropping from LaPorta to Reynolds.
• My favorite combo for a DET stack is actually Goff/ARSB/Gibbs, and that's the route I will go with a stack today if I end up playing a DET one.

Showdown things:

• Patrick Taylor is a priority on the GB side as a value piece while ARSB is a priority on the Lions side.
• Kraft makes for a strong value as well, though I'm sure people will be on him with Musgrave on IR.
• The highest duped FLEX combo is going to be ARSB/Goff/Gibbs/Reed, so if you have that I would consider finding some ways to be more unique.
• Lions should win this one but I do expect it to be much more competitive. Building with a 4-2 DET lean with Gibbs at captain makes the most sense to me.

Game 1: Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Commanders

Dallas is going to be the highest owned stack by a longshot today and I guess? It's justified? But man does this feel like a typical Cowboys let down spot to me. They just finished beating up on some really low quality opponents and while I don't think that WAS is a good team I think they have more upside than either of the last two. I think my main thought here is if DAL covers the spread (they are like 14 point favorites) it feels like they do it through their defense and not necessarily through their offense. As far as WAS goes, so long as Howell doesn't throw for 3 interceptions I think he will throw for 2+ TDs. This game is going to be competitive and I think you can kind of stack it every which way.

Cowboys things:

• Tony Pollard scored a touchdown last week! It was incredible. The correlation play between Pollard and the Cowboys DST is well in play again, as is the stack of Dak/Pollard/Lamb.
• The Cowboys WR room has been interesting and Cooks/Tolbert both make for strong value options on this slate. Especially with such a high total there should be touchdowns to go around.

Commanders things:

• The Commanders are the pass heaviest team in the league by most advanced metrics and that shouldn't change today.
• The ball has been spread around a lot for them, but that isn't really an issue with how cheap the receiving options are for WAS. They can pay off on relatively low volume and each have strong ceilings due to the passing volume.
• I'm pretty sure that Howell is still on pace to break the record for most sacks taken in a season, but even if he isn't he is still taking like 5 sacks a game. Cowboys DST will be justifiably popular.
• Gibson should play today and makes for an interesting stacking piece with the receiving work on a team that projects to play with a significant trailing script most of the game.

Showdown things:

• Most people are going to be stacking 5-1 with a DAL lean and that makes sense with how large this projected spread is.
• Cowboys DST is going to have a lot of ownership at captain. I don't think you should do that, it'll be highly duped, but I do think they make plenty strong of an option at FLEX with a strong floor.
• The highest duped FLEX combo will be Lamb/Prescott/CowboysDST/Howell.
• My favorite route here is going to be a 4-2 DAL lean, but a 3-3 WAS captain is really spicy and I think it is viable. With the passing volume for the Commanders I could see Samuel/McLaurin/Thomas getting enough volume and a touchdown to allow the heavy hitting DAL options in the FLEX to thrive.

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Powerful tools for every sport

One site, one affordable price

• Make decisions using a players full range of outcomes, not just their median projection.
• Use actionable metrics based on leverage that help you identify mistakes the field is making and leverage them for your own success.
• Have access to experts in the field along with coaching opportunities to build your process.
• Jump in the Paydirt community discord and join conversations around your favorites sports all day, every day, for free.