DraftKings NFL DFS Cheat Sheet Week 5: Warren Over Gibbs
By Sam Smith
October 7, 2026
The 11-game Week 5 main slate on Sunday, October 11 is a running back board, and the clearest call on it is Jaylen Warren at $6,700 over the $9,800 chalk. Three of the five seats on the top-150 exposure panel are backs: Warren at 80%, Jahmyr Gibbs at 62% and Aaron Jones Sr. at 42%, so the FLEX goes to a back too. The seat that costs somebody is Amon-Ra St. Brown's, 27% owned and on neither the exposure nor the leverage panel.
The Quick Answer
Play Warren ($6,700): 41.2% owned, 80% top-150 exposure, second in leverage at 38.8%. Keep Gibbs ($9,800), the 52.4% chalk, at 62% exposure. Play both Bengals receivers, Mitch Tinsley ($3,300) and Dohnte Meyers ($3,500), first and second in value and tied at 54% exposure.
One standing condition on all of it. Our projections carry Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Caleb Williams and Justin Jefferson at zero this week. Three of the nine seats below exist because of those zeroes. If any of them is back in the projections on Sunday morning, re-pull the board before lock.
The Build
| Seat | Player | Salary | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| QB | Jared Goff | $6,600 | Ties at 8% on the stack panel, fourth in projection at 20.9 |
| RB | Jahmyr Gibbs | $9,800 | Top projection at 27.7, 62% exposure, chalk the Sims kept |
| RB | Jaylen Warren | $6,700 | 80% exposure, second in leverage at 38.8% |
| WR | Jameson Williams | $5,900 | Salary call, completes the Goff stack |
| WR | Mitch Tinsley | $3,300 | First in value at 3.8, 54% exposure |
| WR | Dohnte Meyers | $3,500 | Second in value at 3.5, first in leverage at 40.9% |
| TE | Isaiah Likely | $4,300 | Fifth in leverage at 14.1% |
| FLEX | Aaron Jones Sr. | $6,500 | Third back on the exposure panel at 42% |
| DST | Steelers | $3,300 | Rides with Warren's game |
Seven seats before the FLEX and defense cost $40,100. The full build lands at $49,900.
The Week 5 Board
| Panel | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Projections (Proj FP) | Jahmyr Gibbs 27.7 | Jaxon Smith-Njigba 21.3 | Jaylen Warren 21.1 | Jared Goff 20.9 | Amon-Ra St. Brown 20.5 |
| Highest Ownership (Own%) | Jahmyr Gibbs 52.4% | Jaylen Warren 41.2% | Mitch Tinsley 36.1% | Trey McBride 30% | Amon-Ra St. Brown 27% |
| Top Values (Value) | Mitch Tinsley 3.8 | Dohnte Meyers 3.5 | Jacoby Brissett 3.4 | Tyson Bagent 3.4 | Kyler Murray 3.2 |
| Top Exposures (Exp%) | Jaylen Warren 80% | Jahmyr Gibbs 62% | Dohnte Meyers 54% | Mitch Tinsley 54% | Aaron Jones Sr. 42% |
| Leverage Plays (Lev%) | Dohnte Meyers 40.9% | Jaylen Warren 38.8% | Aaron Jones Sr. 20.3% | Mitch Tinsley 17.9% | Isaiah Likely 14.1% |
| Top QB+2 Stacks (Stack%) | Kyler Murray 8% | Jared Goff 8% | Jacoby Brissett 8% | Jayden Daniels 5.3% | Tyson Bagent 4.7% |
Reading the panels: Own% is what the field is projected to roster. Exp% is top-150 exposure, how often a player appears in the 150 lineups with the highest simulated ROI. Lev% is the gap between the two, so a high leverage number means the Sims want a player the field does not. Value is projected points per $1,000 of salary.
Board captured Wednesday, October 7; ownership moves through Sunday morning, so re-check before lock.
The Stokastic Sims play the slate tens of thousands of times with ownership modeled as a distribution, then rank lineups by simulated ROI. So Warren at 80% means he is in four of every five top-150 lineups while trailing Gibbs 27.7 to 21.1 in projection. The ranking is paying for his $3,100 discount and for the 100-yard bonus games his median hides.
One number to watch. Our Ownership Projections re-ran Tuesday night a few points off this board: Gibbs 56.6%, Warren 45.5%, Tinsley 27.2%. That nine-point Tinsley gap makes the Tinsley-Meyers split the softest number on the page, and I use the board.
Who to Play and Who to Fade
Eleven games is a short board and the field has bunched onto two backs: Gibbs 52.4% owned, Warren 41.2%. The Sims hold both, Warren at 38.8% leverage, so this is chalk the Sims built rather than chalk to fade.
The shrunken pool shows on the value panel. With Chase and Higgins at zero, the two Bengals receivers priced beneath them lead value at 3.8 and 3.5 points per $1,000, and Tyson Bagent ($4,700) sits fourth in value with Caleb Williams out.
On DraftKings' full PPR scoring, a $3,300 receiver who catches six balls pays off in a way he never does on FanDuel's half-point. The ROI ranking buys that cheap floor, which is how both Bengals land at 54% exposure. The field splits them: Tinsley is 36.1% owned and Meyers is outside the top five in ownership, so Meyers tops leverage at 40.9%. I play both.
The fade is Trey McBride ($6,700), 30% owned and off the exposure and leverage panels, and the stack panel says why. Two of the three 8% stacks, Goff and Brissett, are opposite sides of Lions at Cardinals, so the Sims are buying that game twice from the quarterback seat. Paying up for a 30%-owned tight end on the Arizona side is the wrong way to buy it.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba ($8,800) is second in projection at 21.3 and on nothing else, not even the ownership panel. The field is already off him, so the usual leverage case is available and the Sims still decline it: he clears no exposure at $8,800. When the median is the only panel a player makes, you are paying full price for the projection and nothing else.
The Build, Worked Through
Warren is the only player in the top two of both the exposure and leverage panels, so he is where I start.
Three quarterbacks tie at 8% on the stack panel: Kyler Murray ($5,200), Goff ($6,600) and Jacoby Brissett ($5,500). Goff is the one I keep coming back to, the only one of the three who also makes the projection panel and the Detroit side of the game the Sims build twice. My QB+2 stack is Goff with Jameson Williams ($5,900), a salary call since he is on no panel, and Gibbs, which keeps the stack and the chalk back in one offense. McBride is the natural bring-back, which is the second reason I am off him: I already hold that game from the $6,600 side.
Warren, Tinsley and Meyers fill RB2 and two receiver spots, and Isaiah Likely ($4,300) is the tight end at fifth in leverage. That leaves $9,900 for the FLEX and a defense.
The FLEX is Jones ($6,500), and he gets there the way the Bengals receivers do. The projections carry Jefferson ($7,300) at zero in the same Minnesota offense, the Sims route that repriced passing game through the back, and the field has Jones outside the top five in ownership. Same condition as above: if Jefferson is back, this seat reprices.
That is the seat St. Brown ($7,900) loses. He is 27% owned, on neither the exposure nor the leverage panel, and he fits only with a $2,000 Dolphins defense against my own two Bengals. The Steelers defense ($3,300) rides with Warren's game instead, and the build lands at $49,900.
The cheat sheet is free. The paid Stokastic NFL DFS packages open the Sims and the Ownership Projections behind every row above, including the Tinsley-Meyers split the field has not caught up to. Code CHEAT takes 10% off your first payment.
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