Welcome to the Paydirt NFL DFS main slate breakdown! This article will go over some of the most important aspects of the NFL DFS main slate. It’ll typically include things like team totals, popular plays, and important stacks. The content of this is mostly geared towards Draftkings but is plenty applicable to Fanduel as well. Likewise, this article goes over the slate based on the range of outcomes models for NFL found here at Paydirt, so if you are interested in the same data we use, grab a subscription today!
For conversation and game theory on the charts with updated ownership distributions, jump in the Paydirt discord! Free with this link: https://discord.gg/mQ6u5dfawF
NFL DFS main slate breakdown:
Team stats, rates, and touchdown projections
- The highest team total on the slate is DET at 29.50, the lowest team total is CAR at 15.25.
- The highest expected pass TDs go to DET at 1.92.
- The highest expected rush TDs go to WAS at 1.70
- The highest game total this week goes to IND/DET at 51.00.
Here are the top 10 overall stacks in median projection:
And sorting by team total:
There isa good amount of ownership trending with the highest team totals, so I would say that the field is relatively efficient today. The other two teams that are getting ownership that don’t have a team total above 25 are DEN stacks (mostly based on Courtland Sutton Ownership) and SEA stacks.
You’ll notice that the medians have a couple dark horse stacks towards the top. Las Vegas (team total of 17.75) and MIN (team total of 21.75) both show up as strong QB+2 options. We get Las Vegas towards the top here based on very strong medians for Jakobi Meyers and Brock Bowers while Min shows up mostly based on strong medians from Justin Jefferson.
Based on the above info, it’s pretty easy to nail down DET, MIA, and WAS as main stack options. Secondary options based on team totals are KC and HOU while the medians really like LV and MIN.
Highest NFL projected ownership
Note: Calvin Ridley, Josh Jacobs, and Michael Pittman Jr. all look to carry more ownership on FD than guys like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Brian Robinson Jr., and Jakobi Meyers.
We talked about this on the Slate Talk (linked towards the bottom of this article) but the midrange is getting a LOT of ownership this week. Kareem Hunt, Brian Robinson Jr, and Courtland Sutton are likely to push 30%+ ownership in smaller fields and be among the five highest owned players on the slate in general. Jakobi Meyers and Calvin Ridley, also in the $5-$6k range, are going to grab a good chunk of ownership. People are just landing in this range this week and picking their poison, which makes for general roster dynamics being pretty easy to read.
I don’t necessarily have any issues with any of the high owned players this week. I think utilizing the WRs in unique ways and jamming in the RB options is going to be the way to go. Our relative value this week will come from stacks and roster construction.
Undervalued options
Here are a handful of guys that the Contest Sims find as being well underowned:
Based on the contest sims it’s pretty clear that we should be jamming Jonnu Smith. The more interesting results are coming from them liking Noah Brown a bunch. My guess is that he has a strong correlation with Jayden Daniels (who the contest sims love this week) and it makes for a cheaper way to access the WAS stacks and surround them with highly projected RBs/WRs/TEs. All that said, Noah Brown is leading all WRs on the Commanders in targetshare (20%) over the last four weeks with 33% of the air yards. He’s probably around $1k underpriced for his current role.
Bucky Irving is really interesting too. He’s a cheap RB getting a strong marketshare (46% of the rushing attempts, 13.2 PPR points per game L4) as a big favorite.
Some other players I think are undervalued:
- Josh Downs: This one is easy: Anthony Richardson is projecting for 12% ownership and not being paired with his WR1, so you should pair him with his WR1. Over the last four weeks Downs is averaging 16.9 PPR points and had 19.4 last week where Anthony Richardson looked much improved from his early season woes. His price is no prohibitive whatsoever and he projects at 5% owned. Really easy choice to make here.
- Aaron Jones: Projected for 1% ownership and against an offense that people think sucks, it’s pretty easy to get to Aaron Jones as a leverage play on the field. His role and aggregate projection of 15.77 are both strong and at his price he is a direct pivot off of James Conner. He averages a relatively low amount of the snapshare, though the recent drop is based on injury, but his inside the five attempts are great at 63% and he still demands the entirety of the 2min offense. I don’t think he’s a smash play or anything, his marketshare isn’t as strong as other guys in his range, but in a portfolio I think he should be in your player pool for when you are stacking really popular options around him.
- Brock Bowers: Idk man, he’s projected to be 6% owned and is $2k underpriced. Just keep jamming him in the Flex. lol
NFL Usage and expected fantasy points
Below is the usage and expected value chart sorted by Agg Proj, the production of the players based on their seasonal expected fantasy points per game as well as Utilization expectation and median projection:
Let’s sort that table by projected ownership now:
As mentioned above, I don’t really have any issues with the vast majority of the popular pieces this week. The thinnest play in this entire group is Vele, who only projects for 11% ownership and I would guess he comes in under that.
That said there are clearly a lot of strong options that have lower ownership as you can see in the screenshot of the top Agg Projections. Guys like Jonathan Taylor, Malik Nabers, and Chuba Hubbard are low owned for pretty good reason, but Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb and Brock Bowers are all unjustifiably too low. I think there’s a lot of opportunity to force in a couple of these sub 10% owned options in your lineups without losing any ceiling.
Overall slate notes
- Main stacks for me are going to be WAS, MIA and LV
- Secondary stacks are looking like DET, KC (where you don’t have Hunt), and IND
- KC as a stack is mostly a function of Kareem Hunt being mega owned which offers really good leverage
- LV as a stack is mostly a function of offering a lot of condensed upside at really low ownership
- Chalk is really good today, it’s a week where you win by using it effectively not fading it
- I didn’t mention Hunt much, but I think he’s the best RB play on the slate, and you should probably just jam him in
- If you are playing Anthony Richardson, you need to play him with a pass catcher
- We continue to ride the 2TE train with McBride/Kelce/Bowers all elite Flex options
For more info on this slate from other Paydirt contributors and community members, go read through the other articles here and watch the 12th episode of The Bakery featuring Tribe & Jason.
Slate Talk
A game theory and macro analysis discussion with Pablo, Squirrel Patrol, and myself:
NFL DFS Cash Game Core:
(Finalized after 12pm EST)
This core of players will help you build a strong foundation in cash games. While it is best to use all these players, it’s not a requirement. Generally, you’ll want to focus on the QB, RB, and TEs listed.
QB – Anthony Richardson
RB – Kareem Hunt
RB – De’Von Achane
WR – Courtland Sutton
WR – Jakobi Meyers
WR – Amon-Ra St. Brown
FLEX – Brian Robinson Jr.
NFL DFS GPP Core:
(Finalized after 10am EST)
This core of players will help you build in priorities to your stacks. Likewise, it’s worth noting that the wide receivers and tight ends listed are meant to be in addition to your chosen stacks.
QB – Anthony Richardson, Gardner Minshew, Jayden Daniels, Tua Tagovailoa
RB – DeVon Achane, Kareem Hunt, Bucky Irving, James Conner, Josh Jacobs
WR – Tyreek Hill, Jakobi Meyers, Courtland Sutton, Mike Evans, Josh Downs
TE – Jonnu Smith, Trey McBride, Hunter Henry, Brock Bowers
DST – Whoever you want
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