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
Going through a handful of runs, there really weren’t that many captains that stuck out in terms of consistent positive leverage offered. Sometimes you would get cheap ones, sometimes you would get Trevor Lawrence, but nothing was ever up there time and time again.
However, there were a couple players that ended up as consistent negative leverage: Lamar Jackson and Rashod Bateman. Lamar Jackson is negative for the captain slow mostly because of price, as his exposure in the winning frames was still consistently the highest on the slate. This means he’s a fine play, but you have to be cognizant of playing him at captain because it leaves you with only a relatively small selection of usable lineups that will probably be duped heavily.
FLEX ownership distributions
When it comes to the FLEX distributions, we have some clear direction. All of Lamar Jackson, Trevor Lawrence, and Travis Etienne were consistently positive leverage and frequently offered double digit numbers at the slot. If you started everyone with those three locked into the FLEX, you would be on the right track.
When it comes to negative leverage offered, the most consistent name was Gus Edwards. He’s just too expensive on a team running a committee at RB along with Lamar Jackson taking his share of rushing upside.
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 are really, really low aggregate numbers. An ownership sum of around 220+ is when we start running into heavy dupes, so maxing out in this exercise at less than 200 means we can expect dupe counts to be considerably lower on this slate.
- Lots of Keaton Mitchell and Zay Jones captains, which just speaks to people wanting to fit Jackson+Lawernce reliably.
- The main FLEX combo we see is Jackson/Lawernce/Engram/Tucker, with a good amount of Keaton Mitchell as well.
We see very few of the Ravens main receiving options up here, and instead see a lot of the Jags passing game. I think that’s something we can exploit for sure, and with how low I expect the duplication counts to be tonight you can take any route you want without having to worry too much about leverage or dupe mitigation.
DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts
This seems like a pretty good showdown to focus on. Two quality teams with upside and pretty diverse target trees means that you can go a lot of different directions and put yourself in contention.
Based on what we see above, I think the Ravens passing game is going overlooked. There’s very little Isaiah Likely anywhere in the top dupes, and OBJ has been an awesome piece for them down the stretch. Zay Flowers is a bit overowned but that doesn’t matter if your roster construction allows you to build positive leverage around him.
Jags side is hard to decipher but that’s not a bad thing. There is going to be outsized ownership on Zay Jones and less ownership on Parker Washington, who has shown he can earn targets in a limited sample. Overall there’s probably not any wrong direction for the Jags passing options, so just play who makes things work.
I don’t have a lot of opinions on rushing options for either side. Etienne is the clear and away top option for the Jags, but he may end up a bit gamescript dependent, so pair him with the Jags DST or other gamescript correlatives. The Ravesn side is a lot less clear, even if Mitchell is a bit of a baller, so I prefer to just focus on the passing game.
My main lean for roster construction is a 4-2 BAL lean with either OBJ or Zay Flowers at captain. Locking in Lamar and Trevor Lawrence in the FLEX and just looking for a Ravens oriented shootout.
Some options that look overvalued:
- Lamar Jackson (CPT)
- Gus Edwards
- Jags leans
Some options that look undervalued:
- Ravens passing stacks
- Parker Washington
- Jags DST correlatives
Good luck and bink a unique
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