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 11 Tiers slate:
T1- I think Cam Newton and Drew Brees are the top two plays from this tier, and I expect that to show in the ownership as well. I think these are the guys we are looking at if we are playing cash games, and I would lean towards Cam for the rushing floor. I also like Cam for cash because we don’t need to worry about stacking a guy like him because he can rush for TDs and I am always ok rolling him out Naked. I prefer stacking for GPPs though, and I don’t love the stack options for Cam. For that reason, I will be fading him and his ownership in GPPs and I will go with Drew Brees or Matt Ryan for those games. I think you can go all-in on any of these three QBs if you want to, but I will probably be close to 50/50 in GPPs with Ryan and Brees. Brees is at home with the highest team total on the board (32) and he is playing against an Eagles team that is pretty easy to pass on. The one thing I don’t like about Brees is that Taysom Hill steal a few snaps from him every game and he gets goal-line work as well. I would like Brees a lot more if he was quarterbacking for 100% of the snaps. That is why I will be using Ryan as well here. I think Ryan is solid every week and he averages more than all these guys in this tier. He has also only scored less than 20 DK points only two times this season. I think he goes over that again this week and I think we will get him at lower ownership than those other two guys. I don’t have any interest in Carson Wentz or Philip Rivers this week, but all of these QBs are solid so if you are on either of those guys I don’t want to talk you off them, I just won’t be on them personally.
T2- With all the QBs in this tier this week it is hard to figure out how the ownership will play out. I would imagine it will be spread out somewhat evenly with nobody as heavy chalk. I think we can just play the guys we like the most in this tier and not worry about differentiating from the field. For cash, I want Desean Watson as my guy. I like the floor he brings to the table as well with his rushing ability and he should be mostly healed from the injuries he was suffering from a few weeks ago. I think Watson is fine in GPPs as well, and he is the top play on the Domination Station this week. With all these options I am not sure exactly what route I will take in GPPs, but I like the TEN/IND a lot this week and I think I will use the QBs from that game in most of my lineups. I might just throw 3 guys in from this tier and use those guys as well as Watson. This TEN/IND game has a 50.5-point game total and I do see this turning into a shootout. Titans games have typically not been high scoring, but almost every Colts game has. I think the Colts are going to be able to move the ball on this defense and the Titans can do the same against the Colts defense. For tournaments, Andrew Luck is my favorite QB from T2 and Marcus Mariota is my 2nd favorite. I am going to be stacking this game up for most of my LUs and hoping they can put points on the board. Luck has only scored under 20 DK points twice this year and even against the 3rd ranked passing defense I think he gets there again this week. I think they will be forced to throw the ball a lot more this week as well because the Titans have the #1 ranked rushing defense in the league and they may be able to shut Mack down. I don’t see them being able to shut Luck down though. If I am right about Luck doing well then, the Titans will need to keep up with the Colts and that is why I like Mariota as well. This Colts defense is ranked 25th against opposing QBs and Mariota has looked solid the last 2 weeks. I think he is in for a big game here and he finally looks to be fully healed from his injury earlier in the year. This is one of my favorite games of the week and I think it all starts at the QB for both teams.
T3- This is a very skilled tier and any of these guys could break the slate this week. All 5 players are in great spots and I don’t want to talk anybody off the play they like the most here. For that reason, this will be the tier where I refer you to the Domination Station over at DFS ARMY. I think you should be checking the DS every week when making your lineups and I think just using the optimal lineup it spits out could even be a solid strategy for cash games because it is that good. But let’s keep that between us. Here is what the DS is projecting for T3 this week:
T4- This is the tier that is completely based on what I did in T1 and T2. If I went with Cam in GPPs, I think stacking him with Christian McCaffrey is the play here. You should lock up most of the Carolina TDs with those two players, and that is one of the most correlated QB/RB pairings in the league with CMac’s receiving game. If I went with Drew Brees, then I think Alvin Kamara is a great stacking option in this tier for the same reasons. If you stacked Brees with Thomas in T3 then you can still throw in Kamara and just run out the 3-man stack from the team with the highest team total on the slate. I think we do have to have Brees stacked with one of those two here though. If you used Ryan in T1, then we obviously stack him with my boyfriend JULIO Jones. As the leader of #TeamJulio I think you guys know my thoughts about that stack by now. And then lastly, Hopkins will be the other guy I use if I went with Watson in T2. For cash game, I don’t care about stacking at all, so just go with the “safest” play. I always think RBs are the “safest”, so CMac and Kamara will be the cash options for me this week. I think Adam Thielen is also very interesting for cash because of the work he gets each week, and because I won’t have any exposure to him in GPPs.
T5- For this tier, I crossed out AB, Evans, and Mixon right away because of their opponent rank at the position. That leaves me with James Conner, Zach Ertz, and David Johnson. Those will be my plays for this tier and if you prefer one over the others then I have no issue with an all-in spot here. For me, Conner and DJ are the guys I would rather have just because I prefer RBs over TEs. Ertz is coming off a 43.5-point game though, so he is a fine play and I think will be lower owned in this Tier. I think if you used Wentz in T1 then Ertz should be the play here. James Conner is probably my favorite guy though because Big Ben struggles on the road and the Jags passing D is where we like to stay away from. I think RB against the Jags is a good way to attack that defense and Conner has been amazing this year. He is getting the Le’Veon Bell roll and he has scored over 30 DK points 4 times this season. I think he will even be lower owned than DJ this week as well, so I think that would make him a better GPP play. With Johnson, that green 26 on the opponent rank is going to stand out to people building rosters because the other 5 plays are all in tough spots. I think that will make him the chalk for this tier. He is a good play though and he is finally getting the usage he should in this Leftwich offense. Last week he had 21 carries and 9 receiving targets. That is the type of work I like to see from a guy as skilled as DJ. All that work turned into 37.3 DK points for his best game of the season. If you want to go all-in on DJ and hope that continues, I think that is fine.
T6- For me, this tier is pretty easy just because I like to stack in GPPs and I only have one stack option here with the QBs I am using. My main play in this tier is T.Y. Hilton because I am so heavy on this game. I like him in my Luck stacks and I like him as a run it back player for my Mariota lineups. I may be 100% on TY here if I go 50/50 on Luck/Mariota in T2. The other guy I would use is Alshon Jeffery going against the 32nd ranked passing defense of the Saints. The only times I would be using Jeffery though is as a run it back player in my Saints stacks. I think if we are running out a Brees/Thomas/Kamara stack here then I think we almost have to run it back with Jeffery here and hope for a shootout.
T7- After the last tier I think you probably already know where I am going here. My main play from this tier will be Corey Davis for my TEN/IND stacks. He is going to be the main guy I stack with Mariota, and I will use him and a guy from the next tier as my run it back players with my Luck stacks. This won’t be an all-in spot for me, but I will have Davis in over half my LUs this week because I am so high on that game. He is coming off a 28.5-point game last week against the Pats and he has two games in a row with 10 receiving targets. I think he is in a solid spot against the Colts and I think he is in play even if you didn’t use Luck or Mariota. The other guy that would be in play for me in this tier is Calvin Ridley. I will have Matt Ryan lineups, and most will have Julio as the stack, but I like running 3-man stacks and Ridley has big upside with his TD potential. That DAL/ATL game is a top 3 game of the week for me and I will focus almost all my lineups on it, TEN/IND, and PHI/NO.
T8- I usually don’t care for T8 but I think it’s a good one this week. To start, I will go with Dion Lewis. He will be in almost every lineup I don’t have Corey Davis in T7. You know my thoughts on that game, and I think it’s between him and Ingram for cash. I think Ingram is a fine play for GPPs as well. I think the Saints get a big lead here and give Ingram a lot of late work. The other two guys I like a lot in this tier are Amari Cooper and Larry Fitzgerald. With Cooper in this new role for Dallas, I think he is going to get a lot of looks every week. He saw 8 targets in his first game as a Cowboy, and 10 targets last week. Now he is going against the 29th ranked ATL pass defense. I like Cooper a good bit for my ATL stacks and I will run back all of those lineups with him or Elliott. I think Cooper is my favorite player if I am not worried about stacking as well. Lastly, I think Fitz is going to see a lot more work in this new Leftwich offense. If you are fading the DJ chalk in T5 then I think Fitz makes a lot of sense here as a pivot. He has seen 22 targets the last two weeks for a total of 40.2 DK points. I think he could blow up in this spot against this lifeless Raiders team.
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