Monday Night Football NFL DFS Showdown Strategy: Broncos-Bills (November 13)

After being forced to watch the New York Jets and Las Vegas Raiders in each of the last two weeks, we can at least consider the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills a step up. Our Monday Night Football NFL DFS Showdown strategy will have to go a little deeper than: Fade Zach Wilson.

With a betting total of 47, scoring is expected on Monday which leads to more avenues to a winning lineup.

Here’s how I’ll be approaching large-field GPP tournaments for MNF.

Monday Night Football Showdown Strategy | Broncos-Bills Week 10

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.

• Josh Allen ($12,600) leads all players in fantasy points in 2023, and now he faces a Broncos defense ranked 32nd in pass DVOA and 31st in run DVOA, per FTN Fantasy. Allen has around a 75% chance of making the optimal lineup, according to Stokastic’s Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays Tool.
• Stefon Diggs ($12,000) leads the NFL with 95 targets through 9 games. Diggs has a better than a 60% chance of optimality.
• Russell Wilson ($9,400) gets a Bills defense ranked 20th in pass DVOA. Wilson has around a 50% chance of optimality.
• James Cook ($10,000) has played 61% of snaps over the past two games, taking 20 of the team’s 27 running back carries and getting five targets while running routes on 38.2% of dropbacks over that span. Cook has a better than 30% chance of optimality.
• Dalton Kincaid ($8,400) has seen a drastic increase in opportunities over the past two games with Dawson Knox sidelined. Over those two games, Kincaid is third on the team in route participation and second in target share at 84.3% and 21.8%, respectively, according to the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Kincaid has greater than a 40% chance of optimality.
• Javonte Williams ($7,200) took on a bigger role for the Broncos in week 8 prior to their bye, playing 67.7% of snaps and racking up 27 of the team’s 32 running back carries while running routes on 33.3% of drop backs and seeing 3 targets. Williams faces a Bills defense ranked 17th in run DVOA and he has a nearly 50% chance of optimality.
• Jerry Jeudy ($6,800) is second on the Broncos in route participation and target share at 79.0% and 19.6%, respectively. Jeudy has a better than 40% chance of making the optimal lineup.
• Courtland Sutton ($7,000) leads the Broncos in route participation and target share at 81.1% and 19.7%, respectively. Sutton has a better than 35% chance of optimality.

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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.

• Adam Trautman ($200) is third on the Broncos in route participation but just fifth in target share at 63.2% and 7.3%, respectively.
• Samaje Perine ($1,400) is almost exclusively a pass-catching back in recent games. Over the past two, Perine has played 22.5% of snaps, had three carries, and run 20 routes on his 27 snaps, getting 6 targets.
• Latavius Murray ($1,800) has played 39% of snaps over the past two games, though he has had just 7 of the team’s 27 running back carries and seen just two carries. We will also need to track whether Leonard Fournette is called up from the practice squad.
• Khalil Shakir ($4,400) is fourth on the Bills over the past two games in route participation and target share, at 68.5% and 12.8%, respectively.
• Marvin Mims ($3,800) played a season high 39% of snaps in week 8. Head coach Sean Payton also repeated after that game that he would like to get Mims more involved in the offense, so a post-bye rookie bump could be coming.
• Gabriel Davis ($7,400) has seen both his route participation and target share rise over the past two games, up to 86.5% and 19.2%, respectively, over that span.
• 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 BUF-DEN Game-Specific Thoughts

• If you play Allen: Allen has seen his rushing decrease to just 25.9 yards per game this season, but with the Bills sitting at 5-4 it would not be surprising to see Allen start using his legs more again. Allen can be played naked, though he should generally be paired with at least one pass catcher when captained.
• If you play Wilson: Wilson has seen his rushing rise to 25.1 yards per game this season. He should still generally be paired with at least one pass catcher, and preferably multiple when used at captain.
• Cook, Perine, and Williams each average around 3 targets per game, and are best considered secondary pass-catching options.

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 Cook 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 Cook in the captain spot, you have essentially reduced the field of lineups you are competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Cook 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:

• Jaleel McLaughlin ($2,600) has seen his snap share decline to just 14.2% over the past two games, but he has 9 carries and 4 targets over that span, and the speedy running back has splash play abilities.
• Trent Sherfield ($800) has run routes on 23.6% of dropbacks over the past two games, in line with his season average, though he has just 11 targets on the season.
• Lil’Jordan Humphrey ($200) ran routes on 30% of dropbacks in Week 8, though he was not targeted.

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.