The DraftKings Pick-Em contests are an absolute blast. They likely made these contests for people who don’t want to venture into the shark-infested waters of the main slate. This makes for a nice opportunity to bring some strategy to the Pick-Em (PE) format and try to make a pretty penny. Let’s discuss PE GPP strategy.
As a lot of casual DFS players will likely just pick the guy out of each tier they think will do the best, we can still use game theory and stacking rules to attempt to build a highly correlated lineup. By having to select two quarterbacks, we have an abundance of opportunity to correlate our lineups and raise our scoring ceiling.
Tier 1
In the first tier, we have to select between Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady. There are some other names and the larger the GPP contest you enter the more viable they become, but for our general strategy, we will stick to those four because of their strong floor and ceiling combination that they all possess.
After you look at the names we are actually going to skip right to Tier 2 without selecting our first quarterback.
Tier 2
In the second tier, we can take a quick glance at the landscape and figure out who we like the most. Players like Alex Smith, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, and Jameis Winston all offer the opportunity to select a quarterback at home who is favored to win.
So we are ready to select our quarterbacks, right? Wrong! I would venture to say that 90% of the field will go one tier at a time and select who they like the most. Maybe 5% of the field will select their first couple QBs and then run some team and/or game stacks out within the tiers, but generally, they will go right down the line tier by tier.
This is where we are going to have a massive edge for PE GPPs. In Week 1, I placed 5th in the $3 primetime PE contest using this strategy I am about to lay out for you. If we use it correctly we should be able to have a very highly correlated lineup and give ourselves a chance at a massive ceiling.
Now What?
We are actually going to look at the rest of the tiers 3-8 before selecting our quarterbacks. We want to see how many players are there from each team and if they are stackable with a quarterback or if we can game stack them (i.e. Ryan-Julio-Cobb is a game stack).
By having a map and outline of how we want to attack the tiers, we can create a lineup pretty quickly. The last thing we need to think about before we continue is if we are entering this into a smaller GPP, a league, cash game, or a large field GPP.
If it is a smaller GPP, league, or cash game, I would look to grab as many running backs as you can that can score touchdowns. Running backs inherently have a higher floor because of a number of touches they receive, so if we are playing cash/leagues/or a small 1k or less GPP, we can roll out four or five running backs with two high floor quarterbacks and likely have a pretty good chance at doing well.
The larger the GPP is the more I am going to look to game stack around my two quarterbacks for as many tiers as possible.
For Week 2, I think Tom Brady is going to over-owned in Tier 1, so we should fade his ownership and roll with Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, or Drew Brees. I don’t think Ryan has the ceiling we need to win a larger contest, but he is probably the best bet for a league and/or cash game.
For a larger GPP we should roll with either Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers, as both of them probably will clear 40 attempted passes against their opponents. After we looked at tiers 3-8, we know that Brees doesn’t really have people to stack with him and the Patriots guys will be over-owned because of Tom Brady being the highest owned Tier 1 QB.
This leaves us with one choice, Aaron Rodgers. He has multiple teammates in the other tiers, as do the Falcons, so a nice game stack is in order.
With tier 2, we see that Alex Smith and Cam Newton both have targets we can stack with them. Alex Smith will probably be higher owned, which means Cam is probably the best target. But if you want to use Smith I think there are ways to differentiate your lineup as we work our way down the tiers.
Tier 3
It’s okay that Julio Jones is going to be the highest owned player in this tier, we don’t really care yet. We will work on getting lower ownership in the bottom tiers where people are really confused on what they should do. I am eating the chalk in tier 3 and rolling out Julio Jones.
If you had chosen Ben Roethlisberger in tier 1 as an uber contrarian play, then lock in Antonio Brown in tier 3.
Tier 4
We have Ty Montgomery in this tier, which gives us a great high floor option that will touch the ball 20+ times against the Falcons. He’s an excellent stacking option with Aaron Rodgers as we continue our game stack.
Tier 5
This is a tier where we might get some nice low ownership. One guy stands out in this tier, Rob Gronkowski. As the high ownership on Brady will lead many people to use Gronk as a “stack”, we can roll with Tyreek Hill to stack with Alex Smith.
If you are building a cash game lineup, there is no reason not to use Gronk or Marshawn Lynch in tier 5. Both players likely have a higher floor than Tyreek Hill.
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Tier 6
If you had Big Ben in Tier 1, you’d be game stacking Stefon Diggs in this tier. But for our example, we went with Aaron Rodgers. In smaller GPPs, cash games, and leagues I would roll with Randall Cobb because of his nice PPR floor that is built in with his role in the offense. However, in larger field GPPs I really like Davante Adams. He’s a solid red
However, in larger field GPPs I really like Davante Adams. He’s a solid red zone target, had a bad Week 1, and will carry 5% ownership or less because of the other options in this tier.
Tier 7
If we had Big Ben, I see Dalvin Cook as a great choice as he likely will receive 20 touches. Mike Gillislee will have high ownership just because the Patriots have a very high implied team total (31.00 points), as will Chris Hogan. The smaller the contest is the more I love these options.
In large field GPPs, we don’t want those options as much as we want Zack Ertz. The Chiefs just lost Eric Berry and tight ends should have more success against the Chiefs from here on out. The Chiefs are favorites in this game and the Eagles likely will be playing from behind. If you had Alex Smith, we have Tyreek Hill stacked with him and now Zack Ertz to complete the game stack.
Tier 8
If you had Cam Newton, I would lock in Kelvin Benjamin who should manhandle the Bills defensive backs and has two touchdown upside. He will carry extremely low ownership after his terrible Week 1 performance.
Alshon Jeffery is a fantastic option for the Alex Smith owners, as we now have two Eagles to jam in there across from Tyreek Hill, significantly lowering our floor but raising our ceiling for those large field GPPs. This is exactly how I finished in 5th place last week, by game stacking the Vikings game and doubling up on the Vikings pass-catchers.
Lastly, we can go with Keenan Allen and just eat the chalk. He is the safest option in the tier and has pros and cons to using him depending on what contest you entered.
I just used a few examples to showcase the amount of game theory and strategy that we can use for the Pick-Em contests. Feel free to hit me up in Slack to discuss PE strategy if you need clarification and/or want to throw out alternative builds!
You can find me on Twitter @DFSnDONUTS where I post my daily articles and love to interact with my followers!
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