MNF Showdown NFL DFS Strategy: A Tricky Rams-Bengals Game

For nearly two years now, I have been hosting the High Stakes podcast for Stokastic, interviewing DFS pros on a range of topics. There have been a lot of recurring themes on the show, but the most relevant for this article: DFS pros love MNF Showdown.

That is because a lot of casual NFL fans enter the Showdown fray to have some action on island games. As a result, DraftKings and FanDuel offer enormous contests with generous prize pools. The contests become more difficult to win, too, when there are hundreds of thousands of entrants, but with a large portion of the new players being casual, the increase in difficulty pales in comparison to the increase in prize pools. It is a tradeoff DFS pros will gladly make.

My goal with these Showdown articles — which I will be writing for each Thursday Night Football and Monday Night Football NFL DFS slate this season — is to help you attack the largest-field DraftKings GPP like a pro. There are three main components to discuss when it comes to Showdown, and I will break them down accordingly: Projection, Correlation and Differentiation.

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Week 3 Rams-Bengals MNF Showdown: NFL DFS Showdown Strategy

Projection

The goal in DFS is to make the lineup that puts up the most points, so a natural starting point is looking at individual players who are likely to put up high scores or high point-per-dollar scores. I rely on Stokastic’s NFL DFS projections and tools to determine which players should be core pieces of my lineups. I primarily look at the base projections and the Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool, which publishes results of thousands of advanced simulations run by the Stokastic team.

Studs

These are the top-projected players on the slate. I’d recommend having at least three of these players in just about every lineup you make tonight, either as captain or in a flex spot.

Joe Burrow ($11,400) leads a top tier of four who all project similarly to each other against a Rams defense ranked 22nd in pass DVOA. However, Burrow is dealing with a calf injury, and is questionable to play. If Burrow can’t go, Jake Browning ($8,000) will likely come in at reduced ownership.
Joe Mixon ($8,400) is the one Bengal whose projection is unlikely to change much based on Burrow’s status. Mixon gets a Rams defense ranked 30th in run DVOA.
Puka Nacua ($10,000) has 25 receptions and 266 receiving yards on 35 targets through his first two NFL games. Nacua will face a Bengals defense ranked 25th in pass DVOA.
Ja’Marr Chase ($11,000) will see his projection tick down if Burrow is ruled out, but he will remain an elite option.
Tee Higgins ($8,600) leads a two-man second tier of studs.
Matthew Stafford ($10,200) has accumulated 641 passing yards on 93 pass attempts through two games.
Kyren Williams ($9,000) has 29 carries and 12 targets through two games, resulting in 154 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns. He’ll face a Bengals defense ranked 28th in run DVOA.
Tutu Atwell ($7,000) ran routes on 100% of dropbacks in Week 2. Atwell has 13 receptions and 196 receiving yards through two games.

Top Point-Per-Dollar Plays

These are just a few players who will be featured throughout my lineups due to their high points-per-dollar projection. At the same time, because I will typically have at least three studs in each lineup, the top points-per-dollar plays are often players I will be pivoting away from in some lineups in favor of players who project a bit worse but who will also garner lower ownership. I am also excluding any player with a projection below 3 fantasy points from this list.

Drew Sample ($200) is expected to start for the injured Irv Smith, but he’s priced like a backup.
Tyler Boyd ($5,200) has run routes on more than 90% of dropbacks in both games so far, and he’s been targeted 11 times, including eight in Week 2.
Van Jefferson ($4,400) has run routes on 84.8% of dropbacks this season, and he has accumulated 133 air yards on nine targets — but just 33 actual receiving yards. Jefferson is a positive regression candidate, as he has 4.2 fantasy points per game but 7.2 expected fantasy points per game, according to the Fantasy Points Data Suite.
Tyler Higbee ($6,200) has the fourth-highest route participation on the team at 79.8% and the fourth-highest share of the team’s targets at 9.7%.
As usual, kickers and defenses are among the top point-per-dollar plays on the slate. Notably, Stafford has thrown 27 interceptions in 28 games since joining the Rams, and the Rams allowed their quarterbacks to be sacked the third most of any team in 2022.

Correlation

In NFL DFS, correlations are endless, both positive and negative. Most are minor enough that they do not necessarily need to be factored into lineups. If you want to give a boost to your running back’s defense, for example, that is great; but running backs will frequently be optimal without the defense also being optimal, even in NFL DFS Showdown.

The only correlations that are almost mandatory to consider on NFL DFS Showdown slates involve quarterbacks — particularly non-rushing quarterbacks. That is because of the scoring dynamics on DraftKings. On each passing play, the pass catcher scores more fantasy points than the quarterback. For example, if a quarterback throws a pass for 5 yards, he will get 0.2 fantasy points — 1 fantasy point per 25 yards passing, divided by five. The receiver will get 1.5 fantasy points — 1 point per reception, plus half a point for 5 yards receiving. The quarterback also only gets four points per passing touchdown, while the receiver gets six points for a receiving touchdown.

The quarterback is also generally one of the most expensive players on his team. Thus, he will often need to be his team’s highest fantasy point scorer to be the optimal captain. Outside of rare occasions where the quarterback scores fantasy points by passing to a player who is not in the DraftKings player pool or gets points as a receiver on a trick play, there are essentially just two ways for the quarterback to be the highest-scoring player on his team: adding fantasy points via rushing or spreading the ball around to multiple pass catchers.

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Some General Thoughts

If you play a quarterback at captain, and he does not have rushing upside, and he is the most expensive player on his team, you will almost always want to have multiple of his team’s pass catchers in the flex. This is also largely true if the quarterback is only slightly less expensive than the most expensive pass catcher on his team.
If you play a quarterback at captain, and he has moderate rushing upside, you can consider playing just one of his pass catchers in the flex — but multiple may still be preferred, depending on the extent of that rushing upside. The quarterback’s price may also come into play here; the more expensive he is, the more likely you will need to have multiple pass catchers in the flex.
If you play a quarterback at captain, and he has major rushing upside, you do not necessarily need to play any pass catchers in the flex. This is relatively uncommon, and only applies to a few quarterbacks.
If you play a quarterback in the flex, and he does not have rushing upside, you will generally want to have at least one of his pass catchers elsewhere in the lineup, either at captain or in another flex spot.
If you play a quarterback in the flex, and he has moderate to high rushing upside, you do not necessarily need to include one of his pass catchers elsewhere in the lineup. But there will always be positive correlation there between a quarterback and his pass catchers.

Some Rams-Bengals Game-Specific Thoughts

If you play Stafford: Stafford rushed for exactly 1 yard per game in 2022, adding one rushing touchdown. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher and preferably multiple when played in the captain spot. Williams can be included as a stacking option.
If you play Burrow: Burrow is playing with a calf injury and shouldn’t be expected to run much. He should also always be paired with at least one pass catcher and multiple if at captain. Mixon can be included as a stacking option.

Differentiation

Making highly projected lineups with smart correlations will separate you from the lowest level Showdown players, but there are many very smart casual players as well. Differentiation is the last step to separating pros from Joes.

In just about any DFS GPP, finding low-owned gems is key because lower ownership reduces the field of lineups you are competing against when the player has a 99th-percentile outcome. Taking it to the extreme, just as a thought exercise, let’s say that Mixon scores 100 fantasy points tonight. You are not just going to need him; you will need him in the captain spot (150 fantasy points). If 20,000 lineups in your contest have Mixon in the captain spot, you have essentially reduced the field of lineups you are competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Mixon at captain, now we are talking.

On NFL DFS Showdown slates, there is an additional factor for large-field GPPs. We do not just want to find seldomly used players; we want to find seldomly used LINEUPS. Why? Well, I will give you two examples from 2021:

On Sept. 20, 2021, DraftKings had a Milly Maker for the Packers-Lions tilt, but the top lineup was duplicated 231 times. Rather than winning $1 million, the users who entered those 231 lineups had to split the top 231 prizes, for just a bit over $6,000 each. That is despite having everything go their way, which requires an extreme amount of luck.
On Oct. 11, 2021, we saw the other end of the spectrum: User rcoho1984 played a unique lineup in the Ravens-Colts Milly Maker, taking home not just a million dollars but a ticket to the Tournament of Champions.

If you are going to win — which takes a lot of luck, regardless of how well your lineup projects — I would suggest making it count. I am not necessarily concerned with making an entirely unique lineup like rcoho1984 did every single time, but I aim to be a lot closer to their unique lineup than those that were duplicated 231 times.

Some Easy Tricks

Low-owned players. Even if you are using other tricks to get unique, it is still a good idea to play a few players in some of your lineups who will not be getting much ownership. Some low-owned players to consider:

Ronnie Rivers ($2,400) has been the RB2 for the Rams so far, which has resulted in zero rushing attempts, one route run and one target. Royce Freeman ($200) has been activated from the practice squad, making a murky situation murkier. Neither has a high likelihood of success, but in the largest-field GPP either is playable, with outs including a different game script, injuries, capitalizing on low volume, etc.
Trayveon Williams ($3,800) out-snapped Chris Evans ($200) 15-8 when both were active in Week 1 and ran nine routes to Evans’ five. Both are viable longshot options behind Mixon, though Evans has an easier path to paying off his salary.
Ben Skowronek ($600) has run routes on 16% of dropbacks and been targeted three times this season.

Embrace lineups missing some correlation pieces or even with some negative correlation. Generally, highly correlated lineups will be over-owned, whereas the field will avoid negative correlation at all costs.

Quarterback against opposing defense.
Pass catcher at captain without including the quarterback at flex.
Multiple running backs from the same team in a lineup.

Leave salary on the table. This is the easiest way to lower your duplicates. Casual players assume that if they have salary left over, they should upgrade. The problem with this approach is that it almost inevitably leads to highly duplicated lineups. How much salary should you leave on the table? That is up to you. If it is less than $800 and you have not gotten extremely unique with player selections and weird correlations, it is likely you will have to split any winnings with many other entries.

Author

Neil Orfield

Neil Orfield has been playing DFS regularly since 2013, but his success really started taking off in 2019 when he had a six figure payday with a hand built NFL lineup. The next day, he signed up for a Stokastic+ subscription with FantasyCruncher. Since then he has won an NFL milly and added six figure wins in XFL, MLB, and NBA. He has recently excelled at NFL Showdown, with many five- and six-figure wins since 2021.