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NFL DFS Showdown SZN 2024: Jets vs. Patriots

James McCool

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.

For conversation and game theory on the charts with updated ownership distributions as well as the top ownership lineups, jump in the Paydirt discord! Free with this link: https://discord.gg/mQ6u5dfawF

Captain ownership distributions

Right off the bat we can see some trends that we have been seeing quite often this year: Paying down at captain is going to be valuable again while using expensive options is going to hurt you. Another trend that is an extension of that is kicker captains being undervalued, which Paydirt models have been on since before it was cool. Outside of the kickers, this set of simulations has the WR3s for the teams as relatively value at the Captain position.

the big negative numbers come from the heavy hitters on the slate. Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Rhamondre Stevenson, and Aaron Rodgers are all negative edges at Captain and consistently so across different sets of sims. This is mostly because of how valuable they are in the Flex as we will talk about. I do also want to say that these edges are not drastic, and I think you can likely use whatever Captain you would like to use so long as you are building in leverage in the Flex.

FLEX ownership distributions

As noted with the Captain breakdown, the heavy hitters are considerably better options in the Flex. Breece Hall and Aaron Rodgers are pretty heavy positive leverage with Breece Hall being one of the best plays on the slate. The majority of his edge actually comes from too many people using him in the Captain slot and not enough in the Flex where he belongs. Stevenson and Wilson are, for the most part, neutral plays at the Flex. they are valued appropraitely.

Some big negative values here come from both defenses, which is hilarious. The field is building for a game that is going to end up being 13-9 or something and that represents a significant opportunity to play for a game that scores a more average amount of points. We will chat about that later on.

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:

Contrary to the last couple of showdown slates there is a lot of spread out ownership that we can leverage for duplication mitigation. It’s a luxury to have three players as gimme’s without any significant ownership around them. When we have situations like this we can lock those guys in and spread things out around them, giving a nice mix of lower volatility and solid relative value.

Another thing that I’ll say just looking at this is that the Jets leans are going to be much heavier than the Patriots leans. No use of the Patriots DST in the cash optimals shows a bias there, so using the Patriots DST in lieu of the Jets DST is an easy way to mitigate dupes if you want to follow the course with the other spots.

DFS Showdown SZN: Final Thoughts

This is a pretty cool showdown with a rare instance of having both a solid core of Flex players with a spread out group of auxiliary pieces to use for leverage. To add to that, the public is sold on the concept of a very low scoring game and are not building for even an average outcome which would kill well over half the field. I think it’s important to leverage situations like this and look to make some money on the overreactions of the field.

One way of doing that, of course, is to avoid the defenses. The Jets DST is likely to push 30% ownership while the Patriots will be in the 15% range. Simply avoiding them and hoping both teams score around 20 real life points is a great way to get a leg up on the field.

Another way is to look to leverage the positions that would benefit from a higher scoring game and build around QBs rather than RBs. Both Rodgers and Brissett are looking undervalued and utilizing one or both in lineups is going to fundamentally change the way that you think about maximizing the outcomes of the other players. For instance, using Brissett in the Flex gives you inclination to use someone like Polk in the Captain, which would give you a much more unique build path. Using Aaron Rodgers in the Flex leads you to one of Lazard/Williams in the Captain and likely gives you incentive to chase the Jets upside with more offense and avoid Rhamondre.

Finally I think people are just giving the Jets too much credit. They aren’t a great team and making the assumption they are more valuable than the Patriots in a showdown contest by magnitudes of 2:1 is a mistake by the field. Leaning into the Patriots as a 3-3 or even a 4-2 and playing for them to win will be undervalued.

Overall, I like this showdown a lot and think the field is making multiple mistakes. My favorite way to build is locking in Hall/Wilson in the Flex and looking to avoid the defenses while playing for a game that ends up scoring around 40-45 points rather than 20-25. Using one or both QBs makes a lot of sense if you can afford it, but I prefer Brissett if choosing just one.

Overvalued:

Undervalued:

Good luck and bink a unique

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