Recapping $200K DFS Winning Lineup & Strategy

I had gotten a few messages asking to start doing some reflecting/recapping of the previous week which certainly feels appropriate— both because that is how I got started with this substack a few years back and also because, well, we had a weekend in DFS worth recapping. I won the Draft Kings Wildcat contest for $200K along with a 9th place finish in the Millionaire Maker…not half bad.

Now I don’t play DFS quite like I used to. I played pretty seriously for 5ish years but once sports betting became legal and SGPs rolled around, my edge was greater in betting markets than it was in DFS. But the processes are very similar and there is still a place in my portfolio to play a sprinkle of DFS. And if anything, it is entertaining (or grueling if sweating a 4PM slate with no players remaining and 1.3M in potential cash to win if everything holds).

Approach:

I approach DFS like I do most SGPs or the tails angles we so often discuss here. Just as there are market dynamics at play in betting with odds and pricing, so too the parameters, or market dynamics, for DFS revolve around a salary cap and what your opponents might be doing (ownership).

Just as all betting analysis begins from the frame of odds and pricing, in DFS it all begins with the player prices given the context of the salary cap. And frankly, given that I only play 1 lineup, am shooting for 1st place, and don’t have time to delve too much into the ownership, I’m mostly paying attention to the market pricing ie; cap constraints in building the lineup.

On the football side, like SGPs, we can tell a particular story through a lineup tailored to the market dynamics. My process here has not changed much since the very first reflections article I wrote back on here after Week 1 of 2021.

The Lineup:

The Purdy stack was well priced into betting markets— his line was around 255 with a robust rushing line as well. And like we talked about in the Betting Gameplan, I thought the 49ers could have some tail passing success given that TB has been an extreme pass funnell since Vita Vea returned from injury with a top 5 run D and a passing game allowing 3rd worst EPA/pass, YPA etc. But we spoke about that in the Gameplan, so don’t need to further explicate.

But the Purdy, Jennings, Kittle DFS stack offered a contrarian expression of the thesis that the Niners would have success through the air. Rushing for QBs is king in DFS, and we noted weeks ago in this space that Purdy has been rushing far more frequently in recent weeks, elevating his ceiling in DFS. And pairing with Jennings and Kittle offered lots of leverage from those playing Purdy with CMC/Samuel and among those who would force in a TB bring back.

Given CMC’s price, he would need the rushing bonus (3 points for 100 yards) to have a score you needed to have to win which I thought was 1) unlikely given the matchup with TB run D 2) TB filters passes to WRs and TE’s making a receiving ceiling game less likely and 3) for him to hit, he would suck up the volume for Purdy to hit on his ceiling day which was what premise of this lineup. We spoke about the reasons to like Jennings in our SGP section of the Gameplan. (For those new, the Gameplan is where we recap all of the tails angles and associated bets for the upcoming week— would encourage you to read last week’s first before continuing).

Back to Jennings… he has been elite when given the opportunity and this was going to be one of his first games in the Aiyuk role in this offense. He was extremely cheap (5100) against a TB D’ that bleeds production to WRs and blitzes 45% of the time where Jennings had a large target share against the blitz. Nothing we didn’t outline in the Gameplan.

TB had also struggled mightily to defend TE’s and with how weak TE is in general this season, completing the stack with Kittle was appealing. On the bring back side, with only one lineup I would be mostly guessing as to where the production would stem from. Otton had been the main beneficiary but he also had some dream TE matchups in the last few weeks elevating production and his pricing. Like we talked about in the tails angles of the Gameplan, I thought TB could have success—forcing Purdy to stay aggressive— without any one player going off. TB’s touches are dispersed post Evans and Godwin going down.

And in the Gameplan we spoke about the tails possibilities on both the PIT and WAS sides of the game. The logic for Pickens is straight from the SGP section— massive target share and efficiency against single coverage which Washington loves to play + massive deep role to give him ceiling. And with Robinson out, Ekeler was some cheap exposure to the Washington offense where he would have high TD equity and a game script agnostic role— he could both catch passes in a negative one and generate some rushing production in a positive one. And of course, the two hitting on ceiling games is quite correlated.

Shakir and Mitchell were another pair from a game we had written up where I liked the Bills passing offense to have success. With Coleman and Cooper out, I thought much of that volume would go to Shakir where was mispriced as the clear WR1. We also spoke about why the Colts might struggle to run the ball which would mean plenty of passes. With Mitchell at 3400 and Pittman out he was dirt cheap for the role he was about to step into. Mitchell was the last person to miss the cut for the SGPs and he has been a separator in the early going for the Colts.

I wanted to have enough salary for Bijan Robinson who has an insane role for the Falcons right now. Robinson had been getting 6-7 targets last few weeks to go along with a huge rushing workload. Against a Saints Run D that had been worst in the league the last month, Robinson offered such a massive ceiling. Don’t need to overthink that one, I thought he was the best play on the board.

Lastly, we had our defense and can just post straight from Week 10 Stats & Angles as to why I was on the Patriots D. WIlliams was inviting sacks and nuking his own production.

Closing Thoughts:

The points I would emphasize—when you have a thesis on game/player/team think about the market where that is best suited to attack and “bet” accordingly. And because I have gotten some questions/suggestions about including more DFS + other markets in my write-ups I hope this is an example of how I take the angles we discuss and construct accordingly. Among other reasons, one of the primary reasons why I prefer to focus on research >>> picks is that with research we all can react to the ideas/theses outlined and match those up with our convictions to bet accordingly in the right markets— whether that is spreads, props, tails, SGPs, DFS, fantasy or anything else.

And I guess selfishly, I’d also hope that you can see that our Stats & Angles + Betting Gameplans and our general approach to football data and tails angles were the core pillars of building this winning DFS lineup and can be used for any market that predicts any tail outcome.

Lastly, happy to add a little DFS section in the Gameplan if that’s of interest, let me know in the comments! And as always appreciate the support and, please spread the good word about Throwthedamball! Back with Stats & Angles tomorrow!