Super Bowl DFS Strategy: Dalllas Goedert A Stud Feb 12

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. In this specific post, we finally made it, as we look at our Super Bowl DFS Showdown Strategy, which features the Eagles-Chiefs in The Big Game.

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.

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. Nonetheless, onto our Super Bowl DFS Showdown Strategy column on the Eagles-Chiefs game and players involved.

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Super Bowl DFS Showdown 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. 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 two of these players in just about every lineup you make tonight, either as captain or in a flex spot.

Jalen Hurts ($11,200) has the top projection tier to himself against a Chiefs defense that has ranked 12th in Pass DVOA and 20th in Rush DVOA since week 13, per Football Outsiders.
Patrick Mahomes ($11,200) leads a group of two in the second projection tier, against an Eagles defense that has ranked fourth in Pass DVOA and eighth in Rush DVOA since week 13.
Travis Kelce ($10,600) joins Mahomes in the second projection tier.
A.J. Brown ($9,200) leads the two Eagles receivers in the third projection tier.
DeVonta Smith ($8,600) joins Brown in the third projection tier.
Dallas Goedert ($6,400) is in a projection tier by himself.

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. In some lineups, however, I will pivot away from one or two of the top point-per-dollar plays 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.

Quez Watkins ($1,400) ran routes on fewer than 50% of passing plays in each of the Eagles’ first two playoff games, after running routes on more than 50% of passing plays in all but two games during the regular season. He remains a solid value with big play upside.
Noah Gray ($1,200) has been targeted at least once in every Chiefs game this season, and ran routes on more than 40% of passing plays in each of the Chiefs’ first two playoff games.
JuJu Smith-Schuster ($5,600) had run routes on more than 70% of passing plays in five of six games prior to leaving the AFC Championship Game early with an injury.
Kadarius Toney ($4,400) ran routes on 14 total plays in the Chiefs’ first two playoff games, including the most recent game in which he left early with an injury. On those 14 plays, he was targeted nine times.
Jerick McKinnon ($6,800) had 15 carries and saw four targets over the Chiefs’ first two playoff games. The Chiefs now face an Eagles defense ranked eighth in Rush DVOA since week 13.
Isiah Pacheco ($7,200) had 22 carries and saw seven targets over the Chiefs’ first two playoff games.
Miles Sanders ($7,800) had 28 carries and saw just one target over the Eagles’ first two playoff games. He did carry more of the load for the Eagles in the first half of each game, before they became blowouts.
As usual, kickers and defenses are among the best point-per-dollar plays on the slate. Harrison Butker ($4,000) leads the group both in projection and value. Neither quarterback was especially turnover-prone this year, as Hurts threw just six interceptions in 15 regular season games, while Mahomes threw 12 in 17 games.

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 Super Bowl DFS 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 Eagles-Chiefs Game-Specific Thoughts

If you play Hurts: Hurts rushed for more than 50 yards per game this season, and added 13 rushing touchdowns in 15 games. He can be played anywhere in your lineup without any pass catchers, though generally it is best to pair him with at least one if he is in the captain spot.
If you play Mahomes: Mahomes rushed for 358 yards and four touchdowns during the regular season. He also suffered a high ankle sprain just three weeks ago, and managed just 8 rushing yards on three attempts against the Bengals. Generally, it is best to pair Mahomes with at least one pass catcher, and multiple is best if he is in the captain spot. Chiefs running backs can be considered pass catchers to pair with Mahomes.

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 Pacheco 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 Pacheco in the captain spot, you’ve essentially reduced the field of lineups you’re competing with to 20,000. If only 200 lineups have Pacheco 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.

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Some Easy Super Bowl DFS 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:

Kenneth Gainwell ($5,000) is projected for low ownership, though the projection feels fragile after Gainwell had 26 carries, including seven in the red zone, and saw five targets over the Eagles’ first two playoff games.
Boston Scott ($3,000) had 12 carries, including three in the red zone, over the Eagles’ first two playoff games.
Justin Watson ($2000) had run routes on more than 40% of passing plays in nine of the previous ten games for the Chiefs prior to missing the last game with an illness.
Zach Pascal ($800) ran routes on more than 30% of plays, and saw one target each in the Eagles’ first two playoff games.
Skyy Moore ($3,800) reached double digit fantasy points in a game just once this season, but saw multiple targets in eight of the past 15 games.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire ($1,000) is a wild card after not playing since week 11. There is a pretty good chance that he does not get on the field after the success the Chiefs have had with Pacheco and McKinnon, especially since he had already fallen out of favor before the injury. It would also not be shocking to see him get an opportunity or two in the red zone.

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 $800 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.