Neil Orfield's Top Picks & Strategy: Ekeler an Elite Stud for Chargers vs. Chiefs Week 2 TNF (September 15)

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 as a way 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 piece, you may find it helpful to read my evergreen piece about how to attack NFL Showdown GPPs more generally: https://www.stokastic.com/nfl/draftkings-showdown-simplified-tips-tricks-making-big-money-nfl-dfs-island-games-2022/

Week 2 NFL DFS Showdown: Chargers vs. Chiefs TNF

Projection

The goal in DFS is to make the lineup that puts up the most points and 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 Showdown Plays” Tool, which publishes results of advanced simulations runs 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.

Patrick Mahomes ($11,800) is both the most expensive and the top-projected player on the slate tonight.
Justin Herbert ($11,200) is the second most expensive and second-highest-projected player on the slate. I’ll probably have more Mahomes, whose projection is 3 points higher.
Travis Kelce ($11,000) is the third most expensive and third-highest-projected player on the slate.
Austin Ekeler ($10,200) is the fourth-most expensive and fourth-highest-projected player on the slate.
Mike Williams ($9,000) is the fifth most expensive and fifth-highest-projected player on the slate.
Juju Smith-Schuster ($8,000) is less expensive, but projects slightly better than Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire ($8,600) is more expensive, but projects slightly worse than Smith-Schuster.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling ($6,400) is the eighth most expensive and eighth-highest-projected player on the slate. I almost cut this group off after Edwards-Helaire, but Valdes-Scantling just makes the cut. He played 51 snaps last week per FantasyPros, second most on the team behind Mahomes.

Point-Per-Dollar Plays

These are just a few players who will be featured throughout my lineups due to their high projected points per dollar. 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 spots in favor of players who project a bit worse but will also garner lower ownership. I’m also excluding any player with a projection below three fantasy points from this list.

Tre’ McKitty ($400) is the highest-projected point-per-dollar play on the slate. He was on the field for 40 snaps in Week 1 and saw four targets. Still, this projection is fragile. McKitty could easily score 0 fantasy points tonight.
Joshua Kelly ($1,600) was on the field for 18 snaps in Week 1. He carried the ball four times and caught both of his targets.
Jerick McKinnon ($2,600) was on the field for 27 snaps in Week 1, garnering four rushing attempts and four targets.
Gerald Everett ($4,800) was on the field for 44 snaps in Week 1 and caught three of his four targets for 54 yards and a touchdown.
Josh Palmer ($5,000) was expected to be the Chargers’ third wide receiver this season and saw the field for 50 snaps in Week 1. He did nothing with his four targets, catching three of them for 5 total yards, but he still likely steps into the wide receiver two role with Keenan Allen out tonight.

Correlation

In NFL DFS, correlations are endless, both positive and negative. Some are obvious — QBs have positive correlation with the WRs on their team. Some need a bit more research — how do kickers fare when a team’s backup running back exceeds his projection? Some correlations I like in this game:

Patrick Mahomes at Captain with at least one non-Kelce Chiefs pass catcher. I think it’s possible, though unlikely, for Mahomes to be the optimal captain tonight with just one pass catcher in a flex spot. He does a little bit with his legs — 381 yards and two touchdowns rushing last year — and if he has a spike rushing week he could get there. I think it’s a lot less likely that he’s optimal with Kelce as his only pass catcher in flex due to the pricing and scoring dynamics of the slate. Kelce will score more than Mahomes every time Mahomes passes him the ball, and the two are only separated by $800 in salary. The margin for Kelce to score enough points to be optimal in Flex without scoring more than Mahomes is just a bitter thinner than I’d like. So, regardless of whether you have Kelce in a Flex spot, if you have Mahomes in at Captain I’d like to have at least one other pass catcher with him. This could include running backs as well as wide receivers and tight ends.
Justin Herbert at Captain with at least one Chargers pass catcher. Herbert is more likely to be optimal at captain if he brings at least two catchers along with him. This is especially true because most Chargers pass catchers are relatively inexpensive tonight. But both Williams and Ekeler are expensive enough that they could pick up some yards or a touchdown for Herbert without being optimal. And given Herbert’s rushing upside — eight combined touchdowns over the past two years — he can probably be played at captain in a few lineups with just one pass catcher in the flex.

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 Ekeler scores 100 fantasy points tonight. You’re not just going to need him, but you’ll need him in the captain spot (150 fantasy points). If 20,000 lineups in your contest have Ekeler in the Captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Ekeler at Captain? Now we’re talking.

On NFL 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 September 20, 2021, DraftKings had a Milly Maker for the Packers vs. 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 October 11, 2021, we saw the other end of the spectrum: user rcoho1984 played a unique lineup in the Ravens vs. 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 who won’t be getting much ownership. Some low-owned players to consider:

Isiah Pacheco ($4,400) saw just 16 snaps last week, and most were in garbage time. Given the price tag being so close to players like Palmer, Everett, kickers, etc., who have similar ceilings and much safer floors, Pacheco will pick up virtually no ownership. He’s not safe by any means, but after a great offseason and solid Week 1, Pacheco may have earned himself a few extra looks.
Skyy Moore ($1,800) saw just 13 snaps in Week 1, and as a result is not expected to get much ownership tonight. But he’s a dynamic playmaker, and at his price tag one or two big plays might be enough to be optimal.
Noah Gray ($200) and Jody Fortson ($600) saw 37 and 24 snaps, respectively, in Week 1. Both are expected to get very little ownership. Would a Mahomes shovel touchdown pass to a backup tight end really shock anyone?

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 QB at Flex.
Multiple Running Backs from the same team in a lineup.

Latest NFL DFS Content

Leave salary on the table. I kind of buried the lede here. 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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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.