BigMarley’s Tiers Breakdown – DraftKings
Last year I won a trip out to the Live Final for DraftKings to compete in the PickEm’ (Tiers) Championship. I won my ticket to that with a $2 entry and I ended up winning $5,000 at the Live Final. This year, I am going to share all my Tiers secrets with the DFS ARMY members and hopefully, some of you guys can get an awesome experience like that this year.
The first thing I want to say about Tiers is that you don’t necessarily want to make a lineup going for the most points you can score. Instead, think of what the popular plays will be and try to be different by still making good picks. With Tiers, there is no salary, so people flock to the “best” plays. That makes it easier to know which players will be chalky. If you look at projections for each tier, the highest projected player will usually be the most owned guy in that tier. However, they don’t always score the most. Fading the chalk players is the way to go in GPPs and this format makes it easier for you to figure out who those chalk players will be.
With that said, let’s dig into the week 10 Tiers slate:
T1- This is the Patrick Mahomes tier. He will be over 50% owned in this tier this week, and for good reason. He has looked amazing this year averaging over 30 DK points per game and leading the league in yards and TDs. I think for cash, we just lock him in. He is the best play in T1 by a good margin and I don’t care about ownership in cash games. In GPPs, I think we either need to be all-in on Mahomes, or fully fade him. With the crazy ownership he is going to receive, if one of these other QBs can score more points, then you are going to pass up more than half the field. I don’t think it makes much sense to just sprinkle Mahomes into a few LUs because of that high ownership he will receive. If you are only making 1 GPP lineup, I think you should fade Mahomes and hope one of these other QBs can go off, then stack him up with his weapons in other tiers. A move like that is what can win a GPP if it works out for you. I am not sure which route I will be taking yet, but I will have either 100% Mahomes, or 0% in my GPP lineups. Tiers cash does have a much softer field than the main slate does though, so I think it is worth testing out if you haven’t played tiers cash yet. In those games, we just lock Mahomes in and move on. Aaron Rodgers is the guy I am looking at as a possible GPP pivot away from that Mahomes chalk though and I expect GB to have their way with the Dolphins at home in a must-win situation.
T2- This tier of QBs is much more interesting. The ownership will be way more spread out than T1, so you can sprinkle in different QBs from this tier and just stack the up with their weapons in the later tiers. I don’t think there are any bad plays on this tier, so I think you should go with the guy(s) you like the most. For me, I like Ryan Fitzpatrick and Matt Ryan as my top two guys from this tier. Fitzpatrick has over 25 DK points in every game he has played all 4 quarters. This TB team loves to throw the ball and Fitz has a bunch of targets he can throw to. He is my top QB from this tier and we have a few stack options for him in later tiers. My 2nd guys is Matt Ryan. I always like stacking Ryan with Julio Jones in tournaments, and I think we can do that here in tiers this week. Ryan has scored over 30 DK points in all but two games this season averaging just over 27 points per game. He has looked great this season and this ATL offense is a pass heavy team with the injury of Freeman earlier in the year. I like the volume we will see from Fitz and Ryan in this tier and I will probably go with a 60/40 approach with these two QBs. I think that NO/CIN game is interesting as well if you want to use Dree Brees or Andy Dalton against the two worst pass defenses in this tier. No issue with either of those guys but I probably won’t go there myself.
T3- This should be the Todd Gurley tier. I don’t think he will be as highly owned as Mahomes will be in T1, but Gurley should be the chalk in this tier by a decent amount. I think in cash, we just lock in Mahomes and Gurley with their 30-point DK averages. But just like with Mahomes, I think we need to be pretty much all-in on Gurley or fade him completely. I would rather fade Gurley if I was going to choose between those two high owned guys because I think this tier is much closer than T1 and any of these guys could break the slate. I like all guys from this tier and have no issue with anybody you would want to use here. I like to get some stacking in though personally, and I like Kareem Hunt and Julio Jones for that reason. I think locking in all the KC touchdowns by rostering Mahomes and Hunt makes a lot of sense and both guys could have huge games. If Sammy Watkins is out this week then I think Hunt will get more looks in the receiving game as well and Mahomes and Hunt could connect for a TD or 2. If I do take the all-in on Mahomes approach, then I want some Hunt in this tier. I also like to stack my Matt Ryan lineups with Julio as I mentioned before, and I think Julio could be the lowest owned guy this week in T3. I think Ryan/Julio stacks also help make any Mahomes lineups a bit contrarian as well if Julio is low owned himself. Julio finally saw the end zone last week and I think the floodgates may be open now. If you used Brees in T2 then I think you need to stack him with Alvin Kamara or Michael Thomas here to get that correlation.
T4- This tier will be based on what I did in tiers 1-3. I want the game correlations here and there are a lot of options if you do use Mahomes in T1. If I do use a Mahomes/Ryan/Julio build for T1-T3, then I want to stack Mahomes with either Tyreek Hill or Travis Kelce in this tier. If I have Julio in that lineup it means I didn’t stack Mahomes with Hunt, so I do think we need one of these two guys if Mahomes is our T1 QB. If I did use Hunt in T2 stacked with Mahomes, then I think we can still stack with Hill or Kelce here and have all three in the same lineup. But I also think we can run it back with David Johnson here if we have that Mahomes/Hunt stack. ARZ is finally getting Johnson looks in the passing game and I expect him to get a lot of targets while playing from behind this week. He is also going to be low owned in this tier which helps make a Mahomes lineup less chalky. That is how I am attacking this tier if I go with Mahomes in T1. If I use Rodgers in T1 then I want to stack him with Davante Adams in this tier and that is a great stack every week. Adams has been very consistent this season and he is averaging more DK points than anybody else in this tier. I expect GB to win big this weekend and I think we could get multiple TDs from a Rogers/Adams stack. I like that move a lot in GPPs because that build separates your lineups from the majority of the field and gives you a chance to win a GPP if it works out.
T5- There are a lot of guys I like in this tier and it might be a tier where I use more than 2 guys. Mike Evans is in a good spot here against the Redskins and if I used Fitzpatrick in T2 then Evan is my favorite guy to stack him with. I think Evans is a great play even if you don’t use Fitz, and I would probably rank him #1 for this tier if I were just making 1 lineup. Tyler Body is the next guy I like in this tier with AJ Green out of this game and then Bengals going against the 32nd ranked pass defense. Boyd should get a lot of looks this week and he is right there with Evans as a top play of mine. Those will be the two guys I have the most exposure to, but I also like Josh Gordon as well. He has looked pretty good the last few weeks and he has a good defensive matchup here. If Gronk is inactive again this week, then I will get some shares of Gordon as well. He scored 27 DK points with Gronk out last week and I think him and Tom Brady are a dangerous combo moving forward. The last guy I am liking will be for my Ryan/Julio stacks. I think running it back with Jarvis Landry makes sense for those lineups. Landry is getting double-digit targets basically every game and the best way to attack the ATL defense is in the middle of the field. If this game is a shootout then a game stack will be looking good here. I think there are other Browns plays in later tiers though, so this won’t be a heavy play of mine, but it is a build I like for GPPs.
T6- This is the tier I don’t know what to do with this week. I am going to direct you over to the Domination Station for T6 this week. The top play on the DS for this tier is Robert Woods with a DFS Army projection of over 16-points. That looks pretty solid to me and I have no issue with that, especially if we are fading Gurley in T3. The next two plays on the DS are Julian Edelman and Tevin Coleman. I would prefer Coleman over Edelman because I will have some Matt Ryan tiers lineups and I don’t see me having any Brady lineups. The other guy I would mention is Nick Chubb at #4. ATL is terrible against opposing RBs so I think he is an ok look as well.
T7- There are 3 top options for me this week in T7 and I might use all 3 of them this week and spread this tier out based on what I did in earlier tiers. First off, I like Duke Johnson for my Ryan/Julio stacks. As I mentioned in the last tier, ATL is terrible against opposing RBs ranking 31st in the league, and even more so with the receiving RBs. I like Duke as my favorite Browns player to run it back with in my Ryan/Julio lineups this week. The next stack option will be for the lineups I went with Fitzpatrick over Ryan. I want to stack him up with the speedster Desean Jackson here. That is a great GPP stack because DJax has the speed to get a long TD at any point and turn 1 catch into 15-points. If I didn’t stack Fitzpatrick with Mike Evans in T5, then I will be looking to be getting a stack in here with Fitz to Jackson. Those are my top two correlation plays for T7 this week and the guys I will probably look at the most. The other guy I like is Cooper Kupp, and more so if I faded Gurley in T3. I do want exposure to this Rams offense somewhere because they lead the league this year in total offense, so all Rams players are in play each week and Kupp could even be the top play in this tier for that reason.
T8- Usually I don’t care for T8 most weeks, but it is pretty interesting this week. Kevin Golladay burned a lot of people last week, so I think he will be lower owned this week for that reason. He is a good option for this tier and he averages more DK points than the rest of the field. I think he will be getting more looks moving forward with no Tate on this Lions team. The next guy on the list is O.J. Howard and I like him a lot for my Fitzpatrick lineups. I like stacking Fitz with two of his targets in GPPs and hoping he can go off for another huge game. OJ has looked great this season and he has 3 TDs in the past 2 weeks. If we faded the Mahomes chalk and went with Aaron Rogers in T1, then I love stacking him with Aaron Jones or Marquez Valdes-Scantling in this tier. I like locking in most of the TDs for GB with the ARod/Jones stack and that is why that move makes sense to me. I think ARod dominates early and then they use a lot of Jones in the second half to run out the clock while having a big lead. I like the ARod/MVS stack more if we didn’t stack ARod with Adams in T4. I don’t mind the 3 together either, but I do think we need to get a GB stack in if we have Rodgers in our lineup. The last guy I will mention is Larry Fitzgerald. He is coming off a 29-point week and he finally looks healthy. I expect ARZ to be playing from behind and I like Larry as a run it back option for KC stacks.
Good luck to everyone in the DFS ARMY for week 6! I hope to see some more huge winning screenshots this week and if I don’t win the big Tiers GPP, I hope one of you do.
If you have any questions you can hit me up in my Slack channel at #Big-Marley-NFL-MMA
