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 8 Raiders-Lions 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.
- Amon-Ra St. Brown ($11,200) is questionable with an illness but expected to play. St. Brown leads the Lions in both route participation and target share by a wide margin at 88.1% and 29.4%, respectively. He has a nearly 65% chance of making the optimal lineup, according to Stokastic’s Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool.
- Jared Goff ($10,400) has a nearly 65% chance of optimality as well.
- Jahmyr Gibbs ($8,600) has a great matchup with a Raiders defense that is giving up the fifth-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to running backs, according to Fantasy Points. Gibbs had elite usage in Week 7 with David Montgomery out, seeing 11 carries and 10 targets. He has a nearly 65% chance of optimality.
- Davante Adams ($10,800) leads the Raiders in route participation and target share at 86.7% and 29.5%, respectively. Adams faces a Lions defense ranked ninth in pass DVOA, according to FTN Fantasy, and he has around a 40% chance of optimality.
- Josh Jacobs ($8,400) has taken 72.8% of carries for the Raiders this season and run routes on 47.7% of dropbacks. Jacobs has a greater-than-50% chance of optimality.
- Jimmy Garoppolo ($9,400) returns from a back injury this week and has a nearly 40% chance of optimality.
- Jakobi Meyers ($8,200) is second on the Raiders and 16th in the entire NFL in target share at 25.8%. Meyers has a nearly 50% chance of optimality.
- Sam LaPorta ($7,400) is second on the Lions in route participation and target share at 69.3% and 19.1%, respectively. LaPorta has around a 40% chance of optimality.
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.
- Tre Tucker ($600) played a season-high 49% of snaps in Week 7. It is worth noting, however, that 14 of Tucker’s 24 routes run were in the fourth quarter of a blowout, while Adams ran just five routes in the fourth. Tucker can be played anyway, as he regularly sees some opportunities, but the nearly 50% snap share was an anomaly.
- Hunter Renfrow ($1,200), similarly, ran 17 of his 21 Week 7 routes in the fourth quarter. Renfrow has run routes on 45.5% of dropbacks on the season, but he has seen just 12 targets.
- Kalif Raymond ($2,800) ran routes on 37.9% of dropbacks for the Lions in Week 7, right in line with his season average. Raymond has 19 targets on the season.
- Craig Reynolds ($3,200) played just 7 snaps in Week 7, getting three carries and one target. Reynolds played 29% of snaps in Week 3 with Montgomery out, however. Reynolds has standalone and contingent value.
- 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 DET-LV Game-Specific Thoughts
- If you play Garoppolo: Garoppolo averages just 3 rushing yards per game in his career. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher, and preferably multiple if used at captain.
- If you play Goff: Goff averages under 5 rushing yards per game in his career. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher, and preferably multiple if used at captain.
- Both Jacobs and Gibbs qualify as 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 Jacobs 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 Jacobs in the captain spot, you have essentially reduced the field of lineups you are competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Jacobs 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:
- Austin Hooper ($800) has run routes on 29.1% of passing plays for the Raiders over the past two games. Interestingly, however, Hooper ran nine of his 14 Week 7 routes in the fourth quarter of a blowout, while Michael Mayer ($3,800) played just four of his 22 snaps in the fourth. Mayer is not quite low owned enough to make this section, but it is worth noting that he is trending upwards.
- Brock Wright ($200) has run routes on 23.6% of dropbacks over the past two Lions games, though he has been targeted just once. A single touchdown would pay off Wright’s salary.
- Ameer Abdullah ($200) has 19 Expected Fantasy Points on the season, per the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Incredibly, that is the fifth best on the team. Abdullah has standalone value, as a single splash play could pay off his price tag. Zamir White, meanwhile, may have more contingent value. White played 11 of his 12 snaps in Week 7 in the fourth quarter.
- Antoine Green ($200) played a season-high 44% of snaps in Week 7 with Marvin Jones out.
- Two more players who don’t fit neatly into any bucket but are clearly in play and deserve some context: Josh Reynolds ($6,200) has maintained his role as the WR2on the Lions, while the receiving corps behind him has been in flux. Reynolds has run routes on 67.9% of dropbacks over the past two games, and he has four of the team’s five end zone targets this season. Jameson Williams ($5,200), meanwhile, has received sporadic playing time since return, playing 47%, 23%, and 44% of snaps over the past three weeks. Williams is already fourth on the team in air yards with 203 and has clear splash play potential.
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.
