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.
Week 6 Cowboys-Chargers MNF Showdown: NFL DFS 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.
- Keenan Allen ($10,600) has run routes on 85.5% of dropbacks for the Chargers, and he’s been targeted at a team-high 29.5%. Allen faces a Cowboys defense that is ranked sixth in pass DVOA but that has given up big scores in two of three weeks since Trevon Diggs tore his ACL in practice (28 to the Cardinals, 42 to the 49ers). Allen has around a 65% chance of making the optimal lineup, according to Stokastic’s Top Showdown Plays Tool.
- Justin Herbert ($10,800) has thrown 22 deep balls this season according to the Fantasy Points Data Suite. That’s within five of season leader Derek Carr despite the Chargers having a bye in Week 4. Herbert has a greater-than-60% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- CeeDee Lamb ($9,000) faces a Chargers defense ranked 15th in pass DVOA. Lamb has better than a 55% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Dak Prescott ($10,000) has around a 55% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Tony Pollard ($9,600) faces a Chargers defense ranked 28th in run DVOA. Pollard has a greater-than-50% chance of making the optimal lineup.
- Austin Ekeler ($11,200) will see his first game action since Week 1. Ekeler’s comments this week suggest he would have been ready to play in Week 5 if the Chargers weren’t on bye, and he should see something close to a full workload. Ekeler faces a Cowboys defense ranked 12th in run DVOA and is more than 30% likely to make the optimal lineup.
- Josh Palmer ($7,000) ran just one fewer route than Allen in Week 4, the Chargers’ only game since the Mike Williams injury, and he led the team with eight targets. Palmer has a greater-than-35% chance of making the optimal lineup.
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.
- Michael Gallup ($2,800) is second on the Cowboys in route participation at 76% and tied for fourth in target share at 13.3%.
- Quentin Johnston ($4,200) saw his route participation rise to 67.7% in Week 4 without Williams, and it would not be a surprise to see the big-bodied rookie take on more of the Williams role coming out of the bye week.
- Jake Ferguson ($5,200) has 27 targets through five weeks, the second most on the Cowboys.
- Brandin Cooks ($5,400) is third on the Cowboys in both route participation at 72.7% and target share at 15%.
- As usual, kickers and defenses are among the top point-per-dollar plays on the slate.
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.
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 Cowboys-Chargers Game-Specific Thoughts
- If you play Prescott: Prescott’s rushing is down from 15 yards per game in 2022 to 9yards per game in 2023. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher and preferably multiple when used at captain.
- If you play Herbert: Herbert is healthier this season, and he is back to averaging over 13 rushing yards per game. Still, Herbert should always be paired with at least one pass catcher, ideally multiple when used at captain.
- Both Ekeler and Pollard can be considered pass catchers.
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 Ekeler 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 Ekeler in the captain spot, you have essentially reduced the field of lineups you are competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Ekeler 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:
- Rico Dowdle ($2,000) has 25 rushing attempts and six targets through five games. Against this Chargers run defense, he has both standalone and contingent value at reasonable ownership.
- Deuce Vaughn ($1,000) has 20 carries on the season. Only three of them have come in the first half, and 15 have come in the fourth quarter. Notably, the Cowboys haven’t been involved in any particularly close games, and in their closest game — in which they lost to the Cardinals by 12 — Vaughn did not see an offensive snap. Still, Vaughn is in play at his price tag, particularly for lineups built for an expected blowout.
- Jalen Tolbert ($200) played 45% of snaps for the Cowboys in Week 5. For the season, he has run routes on 30% of dropbacks and has accumulated 107 air yards on just nine targets.
- KaVontae Turpin ($1,600) is a burner who showed his splash play potential in Week 5 when he caught his only target (on just two routes run) for a 26-yard touchdown.
- Donald Parham ($2,200) is questionable but appears likely to play after practicing in full late in the week. Parham leads the Chargers with four end zone targets despite being targeted just eight times on the season.
- Derius Davis ($1,400) did not see his snap share increase significantly with Williams out in Week 4, but his 12 snaps were a season high, and he caught both of his two targets on just four routes run. Davis could see additional run if Palmer is limited.
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.
