Are you ready for some Football? We wrap up week three with what looks like its going to be a shootout between FitzMagic and Big Ben down in Tampa!
My name is Josh Thomas, and I write the Chalk Donkey article for NFL VIPs as well as focusing on the showdown/single game slates on both sites. In this article I’ll break down how those slates are scored, differences between the sites in terms of scoring and roster construction, and strategy for how to attack these games for GPP and Cash. I’ll also provide my anticipated exposure percentages for players that are mass multi entering.
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Before we get started I wanted to personally congratulate DFS Army Member kbiggz on a massive, life-changing win this past week during NFL Week 2. Kbiggz took down 2nd place in the $3.5M NFL Sunday Million winning $200,000! This was his first weekend as a DFS Army Member and he took down 2nd place! Consider joining the winning team today!
Check out my Chalk Donkey PGA Article for this week here! –> Chalk Donkey PGA
How Does Showdown/Single Game work?
Each site runs their contests a bit different but for the most part they are very similar. You pick 6 players from the game (5 on Fanduel), and choose one to be your Captain (MVP on Fanduel) and that person scores 1.5x points than everyone else.
On Draftkings you can play QB, RB, WR, TE, K, and DEF while on Fanduel you can play QB, RB, WR, TE, K but no Defense.
Scoring is the same as normal NFL DFS contests. On DraftKings there is a full point for PPR and that makes pass catchers more valuable while you only get a half point on FanDuel.
You need at least one player from each team on your roster. So you can’t just load on say the Bengals tonight even though you might think they dominate, you need to run it back with at least one Ravens play. Optimally I like to build with 4 of one team and 2 of the other on DraftKings and 3 of one team and 2 of the other on Fanduel, though 4-1 seems to be pretty solid there as well.
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Game Breakdown:
Week 3 wraps up with a fantastic match up between the 2-0 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 0-1-1 Pittsburgh Steelers. The upstart Bucs have been tearing up the league with Ryan Fitzpatrick at the helm leading an offense that is averaging 409.5 yards passing and 4 passing TD’s a game. The Steelers on the other hand have been a bit disappointing for their fan base early, tying the Browns in an ugly rain soaked game in Cleveland and losing to the upstart Chiefs and rookie sensation Patrick Mahomes at home in a shoot out.
The line movement for this game has been very interesting. At open, the Steelers were the favorite and the spread was -2 Pittsburgh. It’s flipped over the last few days and is now -1 Tampa and actually is -1.5 on a lot of sites. The money line has favored the Bucs all week playing at home and that hasn’t changed, but we have seen big movement in the Over/Under. The O/U line started at 50 and has now shot all the way up to 55, with the vast majority (75%) of the money on the over.
What does this mean? That this thing is going to be a shoot out. High scoring, lots of passing, and vegas thinks that the Bucs will win. Along with Vegas, our model at Beat the Bookie LOVES Tampa tonight too.
Our @DFSArmyBTB NFL Model has been killing it the last 2 weeks. Went 12-4 ATS last week and is now 12-3 ATS this week. It only costs 50/mo to join (https://t.co/F3ugaAtevU) and our model is winning at a 76% rate. Get in before tonight's game, which is our 2nd most confident game pic.twitter.com/sAnHtIeXxs
— Ryan Besch (@DFS_FightOn2016) September 24, 2018
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They’ve been absolutely smashing this year. 12-4 Against the spread last week, and now 12-3 so far this week, hoping to go 13-3 tonight betting on the Bucs to cover the spread.
For me, that means I want to target lots of Bucs players. The Steelers are priced up and will carry more ownership than the Bucs because they are the Steelers. So I can get the team in the better spot, that our model loves, cheaper, and at lower ownership? Sign me up!
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to target studs on the other side of the ball, but for the most part I will be heavier on the Bucs tonight than the Steelers.
So how do we attack each team? Lets take a lot at each teams defensive weaknesses and who that benefits starting with the Steelers.
Through two weeks, the Steelers are the 21st ranked pass defense, and the 27th ranked run defense. Specifically they are 21st against WR1’s and 27th against WR2’s. They’ve been pretty good against slot WR’s and pass catching RB’s (which the Bucs don’t have), and mediocre against TE’s. The Bucs don’t have a true ‘slot’ receiver with Mike Evans, DeSean Jackson, Chris Godwin, and even TE OJ Howard getting time there.
The running game of the Buccaneers is really not something I trust but they do have a good match up here and Peyton Barber is mega cheap. He’s getting 17.5 carries a game so even though they have these big splash plays with the WR’s they are still giving the RB’s touches. Unfortunately, Barber really hasn’t done anything with those touches, averaging 2.6 yards per carry. This is a good spot for him, but I’ll be underweight.
Joe Haden figures to play tonight and that should be a downgrade for Mike Evans and an upgrade to the rest of the passing targets for the Bucs. Haden is a stud CB and will most likely follow Evans around the field. His absence this year is why Pittsburgh has struggled against #1’s.
With Haden providing shadow coverage on Evans, I think its a huge upgrade for guys like DeSean Jackson and Chris Godwin. Jackson has had two big games so far this year with a 146 yards and 2 tds in game one and 129 yards and a TD in game two. All while only having 9 targets total. Jackson is a big play threat and one that Fitzpatrick likes to hit. Now he gets to go up against a defense that has given up 9 passes of 25 yards or more through two weeks. Jackson should line up against Artie Burns too who is absolutely terrible.
Godwin has been a Red Zone threat for the Bucs through two games, pulling down both his end zone/red zone targets for TD’s. Gets a great match up this week and has a reaaaaally affordable price tag.
OJ Howard is in play with his athleticism and the struggle the Steelers have had covering big athletic tight ends this year.
Oh you think I forgot about Ryan Fitzpatrick? Fitzmagic is a smash play this week. On FD I will have quite a bit of him in the MVP spot, and will have a heavy heavy dose of him in all formats. He’s just been soooo efficient and hasn’t been afraid to air it out. He also is a guy who isn’t afraid to tuck it and run which can be a big boost to his overall point total.
I heard a great description of FitzMagic this week comparing him to a Pumpkin Spice Latte…
- Ladies love him.
- Everyone thinks he’s not very good, yet he still shows up every year.
- He’s seasonal, only here for a few weeks and you don’t miss him when he’s gone.
I’m going to ride the Fitzmagic train again tonight and hope we get another Conner McGregor presser tonight.
Now lets take a look at the Bucs D and where we can attack them.
Pittsburgh’s D has been pretty bad this year, but the Bucs have been worse. They are the 31st ranked overall defense, 28th against the pass and 21st against the run. They are bad, but the offense has been able to more than make up for it and help them win.
Tampa D should get a boost with Brent Grimes likely to return and should put the shadow coverage on Antonio Brown. Grimes was resurgent stud in 2017 only giving up one TD in 14 games, which is crazy stat line. I think the Steelers might try to feed Brown a ton of balls this week after two mediocre weeks and him taking to twitter and complaining, but that might be a bad idea if we see 2017 Grimes. This is Grimes first game back though and he may be a little slow off the start. I love AB, but I will temper my expectations just a little bit.
One way to attack the Bucs is with pass catching RB’s. This would be a smash spot for Leveon Bell if he was available but I don’t think we can ignore James Conner here. He has 5.5 targets per game and its possible we see him get 6-7 here and in PPR format like DraftKings combined with his ability to run the ball he could have a HUGE game today.
For whatever reason the Bucs have been pretty good against slot WR’s (7th through two games). With Grimes coming back, he should see one of two rookies, either Carlton Davis or M.J. Stewart. Both have been fairly solid this year, but JuJu Smith-Schuster has been a STUD this year and I think Big Ben forces him the ball early and often regardless of who is covering him.
James Washington hasn’t had a ton of targets so far this year but is viable as he’s played 80% of the snaps so far this year. He’s also super cheap and gives you a lot of room to build with studs in this game.
We need to watch inactives but if Justin Hunter is active he makes a REALLY interesting play on DK at $800. He had a TD called back int he Browns game and then was inactive in week two. At that price though you can basically jam whoever else you want in on your roster and if he has one catch he basically hits value.
Tampa has been a bottom third team against opposing TEs and we have two solid TEs for the Steelers in Jesse James and Vance McDonald. The issue is that they basically split reps last week against KC, and while James had the big game, they had the same number of targets. Both are cheap and I think more of the ownership will be on James so that leads to me want to have more ownership of McDonald in GPP.
Big Ben Roethlisberger is averaging 50 passes a game…50 PASSES A GAME. Thats an insane number but in what is likely another shoot out tonight, I think we could see it happen again. The nice thing with Ben is that his offensive line is one of the best in the NFL. He has TONS of time to throw and with the speed and skill of the WR core here, he should be able to let plays develop and find the best option.
What needs to be noted though are Ben’s road splits. They are real. We can’t deny them anymore.
Ben Roethlisberger has notoriously bad road splits. But how bad are they?
Independent Quarterback Rating on the road
2016 – 74.2 (last)
2017 – 94.5 (17th)
2018 – 51.4 (29th)*IQR is similar to QB Rating, but factors out what QB doesn't control (dropped passes, dropped INT)
— Sports Info Solutions (@SportsInfo_SIS) September 24, 2018
That is….not good. I’m not out on Ben tonight by any means but I will most likely have more Fitzmagic than him. I’ll take pieces of that offense, especially on DK where I get PPR without Ben in the lineup. On FD I think you need the correlation though.
I see this game being a shoot out with both QB’s throwing for over 300 yards and multiple TD’s (regardless of Ben’s road splits). I think Tampa takes care of business though and gets a late interception to win it.
Prediction: Tampa Bay 31 – Pittsburgh 24
One way that I breakdown rosters is through our Research Station. We will have a stand alone research station for the Thursday games this year, which I’m pumped about, check it out here! –> Showdown/Single Game Research Station
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Showdown/Single Game Roster Construction:
How you build rosters is going to be much different than how you would build a regular roster as you have to take a couple of different things into account.
- Who is going to be your captain?
- How many players from each team to do you want?
- Are you going to play defense/kickers?
- Are you playing both, one, or no quarterback
Lets take a look at each of these questions.
Who is going to be your captain?
QB1 is the obvious selection right? Not so fast. For Cash games I think rostering a QB for your captain, particularly the QB that is the Vegas Favorite is the play but in GPP we want to think outside the box and actually statistically, there is a better option.
In the Captain/MVP slot the four highest scoring positions in optimal lineups actually come out in this order.
- WR1 for the Favorite
- WR1 for the Underdog
- TE1 for the Favorite
- TE2 for the Underdog
For this week that means we have these four players in these spots.
- Mike Evans WR1 Tampa Bay
- Antonio Brown WR 1 Steelers
- OJ Howard TE1 Tampa Bay
- Vance McDonald/Jesse James TE1 Steelers.
Typically, these four players should make up the core of your Captain/MVP selections. I love all of them. On DraftKings I think you can also include DeSean Jackson in a great matchup and the salary savings he brings on DK in that spot. Same story for JuJu Smith-Schuster. I’ll have some James Conner there on DK too with his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield.
As far as Quarterback goes, I think its viable on Draftkings to play one there, but it really hamstrings the rest of your build. I might have a little FitzMagic and no Big Ben. On Fanduel though I think it makes sense to have shares of both in this spot.
How many players from each team do you want?
A lot of this is just going to depend week to week on the type of roster you are building. In GPP, I want to at least have a 4-2 spread. Making a stand on the team that I think wins the game/scores the most fantasy points.
If I’m going hard on one team, say a 5-1 spread, then that 1 I want to run back on the other is almost always going to be the WR1 or TE1. When teams are down they often funnel the ball to their best player(s) so I want to make sure I have some exposure to that player on the other team.
I think a 3-3 spread is fine in cash, it gives a safe floor. Especially if the spread is under 5, meaning that it should be a pretty close game. If I’m doing that, I’m most likely running out both QB’s and 2 other players with solid floors.
Are you going to play defense/kickers?
The answer to this question is yes and no. If you followed along during the preseason we were often advocating for 2 defenses and sometimes even 2 defenses and 2 kickers in cash games. That provided us with a really solid floor in preseason where we didn’t really know how much run players were going to get. Now that we are into the regular season though we are going to have to change that strategy.
Unless we have a game with two REALLY bad offenses and two REALLY good defenses (like last nights Cowboys/Giants Game), I don’t think we will ever want to stack defenses in a game. Its just not a plus EV move. That being said, I do like rostering one defense, and if MME’n, especially throwing 150 entries in, you have to put a small percentage of your captain spot even on defense. Last year in week one the Rams D scored 28 DK points. That would be 42 points in the captain spot. Thats a huge score, and likely would have been on the GPP winning showdown lineup.
As for kickers, I think you can roster a Kicker but how and when you do it is crucial. At this point I don’t think there is a high enough upside for kickers in the Captain spot, but I do like them if you are building a 4-2 type roster on the team with two. If I’m rostering 4 Buccaneers players, I’m assuming that the Steelers aren’t going to be able to move the ball very effectively against their defense or enough to get it in the endzone multiple times anyways. That would put their kicker in play (Chris Boswell)
Are you going to play one, both, or no Qb’s?
The answer to this question is I think you absolutely need to stack a QB with a WR1 or TE1. Unless we get a showdown with two awful backups, you almost always will need a Quarterback among your six players. Having two is not always necessary though and in fact I think we should be focusing on only rostering one QB.
For it to make sense, I think each Quarterback needs to score 20 points to hit ‘value’ (about 2x salary). I went through all of last years’ games and found that this happened in the same game 21 times. That is 8% of the games in the NFL last year. Thats a ridiculously small number. I think in certain situations we can roster both, and I think the general consensus is that you need to, but in GPP I’ll be rostering only one in over 90% of my lineups. In cash though, it is entirely viable due to the high floor that both bring. That being said, its difficult to roster two QB’s with their price often.
Check out our fearless leader FFootballGeek’s Monday Night showdown podcast here! —–> Geek’s MNF Steelers vs. Buccaneers Showdown Pod
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Showdown Player Pool
In this section I’ll show you my player pool and my anticipated exposure to each player. In some cases I’ll provide short notes about why I like a player. I’ll also break it down between Captain slot and rest of the roster.
Captain/MVP Slot:
DeSean Jackson – WR Bucs: 25% I love this spot for DJax. Steelers give up tons of splash plays and thats what DeSean does. He has a great matchup and can absolute smash here. I love what I can do with my lineup on DK with him in the Captain spot.
Antonio Brown – WR Steelers: 20% A mad AB who is demanding targets/unhappy with his situation? Yeah they are going to feed him a ton of balls. He has two TD 150 yard upside and the floor I think is 100 yards.
JuJu Smith-Schuster – WR Steelers: 15% Tons of targets. TD upside. Love him this week.
James Conner – RB Steelers: 15% Pass catching RB. Can go 100 yards rushing with 5 catches and a TD easy.
Chris Godwin – WR Bucs: 10% Low price captain option who gets a lot of redzone targets.
Mike Evans – WR Bucs: 10% Don’t like the match up, but he can absolutely go off. He also just shuts down sometimes.
Ryan Fitzpatrick – QB Bucs: 5% I’ll have a sprinkle of him here on DK.
On Fanduel I’ll have about 30% Fitzmagic and 20% Big Ben here.
Remaining Plays:
I’ll have the above players as my core, but here is who else I’ll be rostering on each team:
Steelers:
Ben Roethlisberger – QB Can’t deny the road splits. Still should have a big game but he could have 3-4 picks.
Chris Boswell – K If you need salary savings he’s a great play.
James Washington – WR Cheap WR who played 80% of snaps this year.
Vance McDonald/Jesse James – TE: Have to pick one here. I’ll have equal shares of both. Don’t play them both in the same lineup.
Buccaneers:
OJ Howard – TE: Could be a great spot for him here. I think he’s viable at captain on DK too.
Peyton Barber – RB: Don’t love him, but he gets enough opportunities that he could have a nice day at his price.
Chandler Catanzaro – K: Nice Salary Saver on DK.
Bucs D: This is a play if you think that Big Ben splits are real. If I play them the only real play from the Steelers that I want is James Conner.
DS Betatesting:
We’ve got something really exciting brewing with the Domination Station. Right now we are beta testing the DS for showdown slates on Fanduel. You can check it out here —-> DS Betatesting It’s still in the early stages but lots of people had success using it last night and I’m pumped to try it out today. Click Lineup Tool on the Link and you can mess around with it. Any questions be sure to hop into my channel DFSUpNorth Slack or the DS Betatesting Slack
Showdown Cash Game Strategy:
In cash games you want the safest floor possible. I think its really easy to build cash game lineups on FD and not so much on DK. You don’t need to crush, you just need to cross that cash line. For me that means sometimes rostering both qbs and both defenses if its going to be low scoring. For this game on DK I want to have a cheap WR option in the captain spot, both QB’s and some pass catchers. On FD I’m playing Fitzmagic or AB in the captain spot and filling out with safe floor guys like Conner.
Final Thoughts:
We seem to have an edge here in these games and lots of members have been cashing. Thats awesome and I’m pumped about it but be smart for this game and don’t go crazy just because you won big last Monday. Play the same amount, pick the right contests, play cash games and you’ll have
another great night!
Let’s have a great MNF! I can’t wait to see those helmets crushing at the top of the leaderboard!
Make sure you message me in my channel #dfsupnorth-nfl-pga and tag me with any lineup questions or help as that’s the easiest way to get ahold of me!
Also, give me a follow on twitter @dfsupnorth as I’ll be posting updates there as well as useful retweets leading up to the games tonight!
Sports betting is legal in the US! It’s been a long time coming, but we’re so pumped for it that we created our own division here at DFSArmy called ‘Beat the Bookie’. These guys are crushing it on the daily and you’re gonna want in! Tell em’ UPNORTH sent ya and you’ll get 10% off for life!
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