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
Kind of an odd group towards the top of the positive edge for Captain list. We have two backups (Jennings and Chabonnet) along with Jason Myers showing as the most undervalued options. To be fair here, both Jennings are Charb are really cheap options even if their workload is considerably less with a healthy starter in front of them. Jennings with a 12.10% win rate in the contest sims is the highest overall exposure, so I have to consider him one way or another.
The largest negative edges are basically any expensive captain. This slate has too many valuable, expensive options to allocate more than $8k to the slot.
FLEX ownership distributions
The top of the Flex edges show Kenneth Walker and Brock Purdy. they have exposure rates of 52.10% and 64.80% respectively while having edges of +17.65% and +10.45%. We then also have both kickers along with Jordan Mason as strong positive edges to utilize. When you consider both the Captain and the Flex, it’s obvious that Kickers are a piece you need to have heavy consideration with on this slate.
Looking at the negative Flex options we see Brandon Aiyuk alone at the bottom. His -11.82% edge in this set of simulations is by far the lowest of any player and his ownership projection might be a tad conservative. When this 49ers receiving group is healthy it’s hard to dedicate any considerable ownership to any of them and Aiyuk is the odd man out here.
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:
The dupe counts are likely to be very low tonight, with the max sum ownership for any lineup in the cash optimals below 290. We can see from the Flex core as well that there is no combination of players that is considerably higher than the rest. While this is good because we don’t have to worry as much about dupes, it does make it hard to find easy leverage.
The Flex core, by the way, is mostly centered around Aiyuk/Mason/Samuel but it’s worth noting that Samuel is only found in 69% (nice) of the cash optimals. After those three we have five (!!) players with an exposure rate of 39-58% which is pretty crazy. There is a lot of parity tonight, so as long as you set the max salary in your optimizer to $49.5k (shoutout to Gordy) you shouldn’t have to worry about dupes whatsoever.
The one note I have from all of the above: Tyler Lockett looks undervalued and Deebo Samuel looks (slightly) overvalued.
DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts
These kind of showdowns can be surprisingly difficult because of the parity. I think that slates where there is a clear spot of leverage (like fading Travis Kelce on Monday) make for a much easier small field process than having a wide open set of studs to choose from. That being said, I do think that there is some nice edge in being able to build a bit more optimally. It’s not my favorite kind of slate, but I do think that there is edge nonetheless.
The main things that I think stick out here:
- Tyler Lockett is a bit undervalued based on the cash optimal exposures and makes for one of the better Captain options based on his price, ownership, and upside.
- Deebo Samuel vs. Jordan Mason is going to be a 1v1 that decides the slate, and I would suggest making a rule in your optimizer that allows just one of them into each lineup while having near 100% exposure to them overall.
- Kickers and DST are extremely valuable tonight as you are forced to lock in a bunch of high-priced guys to be competitive, so don’t be afraid to have a lot of exposure there. Normal build process applies here as well: If you think this game ends up 17-13, a DST is well in play rather than a kicker. If you think that it is something more like 27-20 you are going to want to prio kickers over DST. But the main point is that you are going to need a lot of kicker/DST exposure on this slate.
My lean is something like Lockett Captain with Brock Purdy and Deebo Samuel as a correlation in the Flex. Lock in Jason Myers for value and fill in the rest.
Overvalued:
- Expensive Captains
- Brandon Aiyuk
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Undervalued:
- Kicker Captains
- Jauan Jennings
- Tyler Lockett
Good luck and bink a unique
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