For nearly a year now, I’ve 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 NFL DFS Showdown.
That’s 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’s a tradeoff DFS pros will gladly make.
My goal with these Showdown articles — which I’ll 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’ll break them down accordingly: Projection, Correlation and Differentiation.
Before reading this article, you may find it helpful to read my evergreen piece about how to attack NFL Showdown GPPs more generally.
Week 16 NFL DFS Showdown: Chargers-Colts MNF
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. Some pros run simulations or create their own projections to achieve this. Many others, like myself, rely on the Stokastic projections and tools to determine which players should be core pieces of our lineups. I primarily look at the base projections and the “Top NFL DFS Showdown Plays” Tool, which publishes results of 10,000 advanced simulations run by the Stokastic team.
Studs
These are simply 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.
- Justin Herbert ($10,400) is the top projected player on the slate in a mediocre matchup with a Colts defense ranked 14th in pass DVOA, per Football Outsiders.
- Austin Ekeler ($11,000) has the second-highest projection on the slate against a Colts defense ranked 13th in run DVOA.
- Keenan Allen ($9,800) has the third-highest projection on the slate.
- Michael Pittman ($8,200) has the fourth-highest projection on the slate in a matchup with a Chargers defense ranked 13th in pass DVOA.
- Nick Foles ($9,000) projects only slightly lower than Pittman.
- Mike Williams ($9,400) has the sixth-highest projection on the slate.
- Zack Moss ($7,000) has the seventh-highest projection on the slate in a great matchup with a Chargers defense ranked 25th in run DVOA.
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’ll typically have at least three studs in each lineup, the top points-per-dollar plays are often players I’ll be pivoting away from in some lineups in favor of players who project a bit worse, but who will also garner lower ownership. I’m also excluding any player with a projection below three fantasy points from this list.
- Mo Alie-Cox ($200) has run routes on at least 10 plays in each game he has played this season, including 16 routes run in Week 15. A touchdown from the big tight end would be enough to pay off his salary.
- Alec Pierce ($2,800) ran routes on 89% of plays for the Colts in Week 15 and has seen 12 total targets over the past two games.
- Gerald Everett ($4,800) has seen 24 targets over the past four games, including five in the red zone.
- Jelani Woods ($2,800) had what seemed to be a breakout game in Week 12, running routes on 24 plays and catching eight passes for 98 yards. His role was reduced the following two weeks with the return of teammate Kylen Granson, but with Granson out once again tonight, Woods could see his heavy workload return.
- Josh Palmer ($6,400) has seen 11 targets over the past two games, even with Allen and Williams back.
- Parris Campbell ($5,400) has had at least an 80% route participation rate in each of the past three games and has seen 12 targets in that span.
- Deon Jackson ($7,600) had 13 carries in Week 15, including three in the red zone, along with running routes on 36% of passing plays.
- As usual, kickers and defenses are among the top value plays. Cameron Dicker ($4,200) has the highest projection of the group, while Chase McLaughlin ($4,000) is the best value.
Correlation
In NFL DFS, correlations are endless, both positive and negative. Most are minor enough that they don’t necessarily need to be factored into lineups. If you want to give a boost to your running back’s defense, for example, that’s 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’s 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’ll 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’ll need to have multiple pass catchers in the flex.
- If you play a quarterback at captain, and he has major rushing upside, you don’t 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 don’t 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 Chargers-Colts Game-Specific Thoughts
- If you play Herbert: Herbert has shown modest rushing upside in his career. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher, and preferably multiple if used at captain. Ekeler can be considered a pass catcher to pair with Herbert.
- If you play Foles: Foles has shown virtually zero rushing upside. He should always be paired with at least one pass catcher in the flex, and at least two if used at captain. Moss and Jackson can be considered pass catchers to pair with Foles.
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’re competing against when the player has a 99th-percentile outcome. Taking it to the extreme, just as a thought exercise, let’s say that Moss scores 100 fantasy points tonight. You’re not just going to need him; you’ll need him in the captain spot (150 fantasy points). If 20,000 lineups in your contest have Moss in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Moss at captain, now we’re talking.
On NFL DFS Showdown slates there is an additional factor for large-field GPPs. We don’t just want to find seldomly used players; we want to find seldomly used LINEUPS. Why? Well, I’ll give you two examples from last year:
- 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 a million dollars, the users who entered those 231 lineups had to split the top 231 prizes, for just a bit over $6,000 each. That’s 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’re going to win — which takes a lot of luck, regardless of how well your lineup projects — I’d suggest making it count. I’m 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. Yup, even if you’re using other tricks to get unique, it’s still a good idea to play a few players in some of your lineups who won’t be getting much ownership. Some low-owned players to consider:
- Donald Parham ($400) returned after an extended absence to play in Week 15, running routes on 22% of passing plays and earning three targets. Parham could see his workload increase and is always an end zone threat.
- Ashton Dulin ($2,600) has seen just four targets over the past two weeks, but two of them have been in the red zone.
- DeAndre Carter ($2,400) has seen his role greatly reduced the past two weeks with Allen and Williams back, but has still seen four targets, including one in the red zone.
- Joshua Kelley ($5,200) had 10 carries and saw two targets in Week 15.
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. If you want to read my reasoning, check out the evergreen piece I linked near the top of this page. In some of my lineups, I like to see the following:
- 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’s up to you. If it’s less than $600 and you haven’t gotten extremely unique with player selections and weird correlations, it’s likely you’ll have to split any winnings with many other entries.
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