Welcome to this edition of the NFL DFS Showdown SZN breakdown. The aim of this post is to look at the best players to build around and constructions to focus on for the night’s NFL DFS showdown contests on Draftkings. We run the new Showdown Contest simulations to see what differences we can find in projected ownership and likely exposure. Likewise, we take into account the whole lineup’s projection and ownership.
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Captain ownership distributions
The main take away for me from a handful of runs of the contest sims in regards to the captain slot was to stay away from Matthew Stafford. He rated out as a consistently negative leverage option, and when you think about how the Rams offense is put together, that makes a lot of sense. If he has a great game, it’s likely that one of (or both) Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp ended up having 100+ yards and at least one touchdown. That means that Puca or Kupp are going to likely have higher scores than Stafford in most of those instances.
The captains that had some consistently strong positive leverage were Chris Olave and Kyren Williams. Chris Olave is probably the most interesting option since he should come in as the 4-5th highest owned option at the slot and has the same upside as the LAR receivers.
FLEX ownership distributions
Kyren Williams is far and away the highest positive leverage offered in the FLEX, with a 74% exposure rate and just 46% projected ownership in this specific run. He was consistently above 20%+ positive leverage in the runs I did and was never once below 15%. There’s a good argument for him being a lock on this slate when you consider his medians and the options on this slate overall.
The highest consistent negative leverage for this slate comes from both defenses, which can’t be right because at least one defense is always optimal in 2023 showdown slates. Regardless, the models disagree with that narrative and think you can find much better value options elsewhere.
Duplication projections and DFS lineups to avoid
Here is a sample of the lineups in terms of highest ownership from the contest simulations. To clarify, you should avoid playing these lineups in large field GPPs tonight:
Some notes:
- These ownership sum numbers are all really low, so we don’t have to worry too much about dupe mitigation, or at least not as much as we usually would.
- The top 10 lineups in terms of projected duping have kicker captains, so it’s pretty easy to just avoid any kicker captain lineups and build good ones instead.
- The main FLEX combo is Kyren/Stafford and then some mixing in of Puka/Carr/Olave.
With a main FLEX combo of just two players, it’s no wonder the dupe counts are likely to be low. People just aren’t dedicated to any of the Saints options, which represents a nice opportunity!
DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts
The last time that we had a slate like this, it was with the Bengals and we jammed in Chase captain with Browning and won a bunch of money. I think tonight is a similar circumstance, with people being really low on the Saints and their main options, which gives us a lot of upside for leaning heavily that direction. For instance, most showdown slates are going to feature both QBs heavily, but tonight you have a lopsided ownership discrepancy towards Stafford while Carr might not even break the 40% owned range in the FLEX.
When we look at the top overall duping spots, there’s a shockingly low amount of Kamara, who has the ability to completely shatter a showdown slate with how high his usage upside is. Especially because his ceiling is connected to his receiving work, he makes for an awesome pairing with similarly underowned Derek Carr. It’s just a really good situation for showdown.
The way I look at it, going with a Saints 4-2 here makes the most sense along with a fade of Matthew Stafford. I think that Kyren Williams has too much usage to justify a fade in anything but super large field stuff, so that means I’m much more likely to get off Stafford here. Starting lineups with Kamara/Carr instead of Kyren/Stafford is going to help you build in a bunch of relative value for similar upside.
Some options that look overvalued:
- Defenses (FLEX)
- Matthew Stafford (CPT)
- Rams stacks
Some options that look undervalued:
- Chris Olave (CPT)
- Carr/Kamara connections
- Saints stacks
Good luck and bink a unique
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