I am always on the search for actionable intelligence. What I mean by that is I dig into past weeks trying to uncover new strategies while keeping up with the constantly changing DFS landscape. I associate the term “actionable intelligence” as something thrown around in spy movies. It makes me feel like some sort of covert agent, so I will try to sprinkle that in as much as possible. The truth is I am staring at spreadsheets and eating a bag of chips that was never intended for a single person to consume. Diet starts tomorrow.
This weekend is much like last weekend – the same sized slate with some of the same obstacles. I think the RB situation poses some difficulty again this week, but they present themselves in a different way. David Johnson is undoubtedly the best play at RB this week. He is going to be the chalk. Everyone will want to roster him, and for good reason. I suppose the big question will be “what percentage of my lineups do I want to have him in?” I think the David Johnson/RB situation is similar to the Antonio Brown/WR situation of last week. Brown came in between 65-73% in the GPPs I looked at. For the sake of this article, let’s say that David Johnson is definitively going to be 60% owned.
So here’s the different ways we can approach this issue:
Do I fade him? No, that’s stupid. He is in such a great spot.
Do I play him? No, that’s stupid. He can’t win you a GPP.
Do I close my eyes and pretend that this problem isn’t here? Yes, that has been the course of action so far this week. The truth is, as I begin this article I have little idea on how I will attack the RB positions this week.
Last Week
As for the intelligence, take a look at the winning lineups from last week’s DraftKings GPPs. These are from three different buy-in levels with three different sized fields.
First, take a look at RB.
Jeremy Hill: appears In 2 of 3 winning lineups.
Eddie Lacy: appears in 1 of 3 winning lineups.
James Starks: appears in 1 of 3 winning lineups.
Chris Thompson: appears in 1 of 3 winning lineups.
Fitzgerald Toussaint: appears in 1 of 3 winning lineups.
This is pretty spread out with five different running backs being used in the six available spots. Looking at David Johnson in relation to Antonio Brown of last week I see something interesting. Brown had a good game. He did not have a huge game, but there were several different ways to build a roster that included Brown and there will be some of the same ways to build around David Johnson this week.
Take a look how David Johnson comes out in the Bales Model for this week.
There are several reasons to feel comfortable expecting a game similar to what Antonio Brown did last week. So now I am beginning to lean more towards playing Johnson and try to get my separation from the field in the form of roster construction elsewhere.
Only Antonio Brown, Travis Kelce, Jordan Reed, and Chiefs D/ST were in each of the winning lineups. There are a few things in common with the way each of these lineups were constructed. Each one had the very common strategy of stacking a QB with a pass catcher. One was Aaron Rodgers-James Jones. The other two had Kirk Cousins-Jordan Reed. Each lineup rostered a TE in the flex spot and played at least two skill players from the same team. Two of these winning lineups went with Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant, and one decided to go Fitzgerald Toussaint and Antonio Brown. The winning Millionaire Maker lineup actually had a QB/TE/RB from the Washington Redskins and two WRs from the Steelers.
The thing that stands out the most is that the Milly Maker winner had Chris Thompson at 0.6% ownership. Honestly, he was not a play I considered going into last week.
Moving Forward
Now that we have gathered some intelligence, what is the action we can take from this? I don’t know, man. Let’s try to figure it out together. I’m not confident we have learned anything new, but a few things stand out that we can dedicate some of our efforts towards.
This may already be obvious, but I think we should throw any negative correlation out the window. This has become more and more popular this year and I wouldn’t be opposed to pushing it even further with the short slate.
Also, I think last week is a good example of how aware we need to be of the field that we are playing against. The higher stakes you enter, the more likely you are to run into sharper players. Also, the larger the field, the more lineups we need to beat. That one seems obvious, but I am not sure that it is to the public. Some would consider Chris Thompson a foolish play. However, I am not sure if there is such thing as a “dumb play” on a four-game slate when you are playing against over 150,000 other lineups.
Think about it this way: 54% of the opponents got the same 30 points at TE, 24% got the same 29 points from at D/ST, 31.8% got the same 25.38 points at QB, and 66.2% got the same 21.9 points from at WR.
This is all fine. We are going to run into inflated ownership on a larger slate, but we need to differentiate somewhere. And this is a personal question of “How big of a risk can I stomach?” This guy stomached a risk that most people wouldn’t or can’t. Chris Thompson was not on my radar at all, so I can`t sit here and say I agreed with the decision to take him without the advantage of hindsight.
However, I can say that I love the way the lineup was constructed. He differentiated himself in a few different ways and took one big shot on a player who was minimally owned. I could sit here debating the decision to take Thompson, but that guy won $1,000,000 and I just ate a bag of chips for an early lunch. He wins. This does pose a question I have always found interesting – can any certain play or roster construction be considered wrong if it wins a GPP? I hope to dive into that question at a later date.
Getting back to some winning strategies from last week, the lineup that won the $300 GPP with a field of 2,347 lineups didn’t have to take such a drastic approach. I would disagree with the decision to roster Chris Thompson a bit more if it were made in this particular tournament. Two people finished in a tie for 1st in this tournament while utilizing the two TE approach. They both went with Travis Kelce and Jordan Reed. Kelce came in at 14.3% ownership and Jordan Reed came in at 55.6%. The combination of the two was only in 3.3% of lineups. Therefore, after the decision to with a TE in the flex, they were only tasked with beating 78 other lineups with QB/RB/RB/WR/WR/WR/D left to choose from. One of the two people who finished tied for first was Maxdalury, who had four lineups finish in the top 10 with that combination in all of them.
This Weekend
Having taken a look at some things that worked last week, what are some things we can do this week?
We saw the winners take a chalk-heavy position (Jordan Reed at TE) and gain extra exposure to it by rostering another TE in the flex. The flex spot is one that if used correctly can put us at a significant edge. If we think the field is going to struggle with a certain position, I like the idea of trying to capitalize on that fear that comes with tough decisions. I think this week will lend itself to David Johnson and a cheaper RB. I also think that the running back position will be ignored about once people have decided which cheaper RB option to pair with David Johnson for that particular lineup.
Thus, we could see some good separation simply by committing to a lineup construction that will roster three RBs. We could go with David Johnson, CJ Anderson, and Fitzgerald Toussaint in the flex. If by end of day Saturday I feel a lineup is sitting with -EV I can always swap Toussaint with a Darrius Heyward-Bey or a Vernon Davis-type of player. That is a gross place I hope to not find myself in, but they are options nonetheless. But put again simply: if I feel that the field is going to struggle with any certain position, then I may try to exploit that fear by taking on more of that position than the field.
I began this article by talking about finding some actionable intelligence. I think we found some intelligence, but the matter of action will fall more on how much risk you can stomach and what your expectation of the higher-owned players is going to be. I didn’t learn anything that was new, but I do think I found where I will dedicate a good deal of my research time (RBs). Roster construction is going to play a larger role than normal on a short slate. I will be focusing on finding a contrarian approach to roster construction and not bothering myself much with any individual players’ singular ownership. Ownership is going to be inflated on a short slate and we are going to see a lot of overlap regardless. As such, finding a way to eat that ownership in the most unique way possible will be my approach this weekend.
