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 9 Tiers slate:
T1- I think we have to eat the chalk here this week. Patrick Mahomes and Cam Newton will be the popular plays from this tier, but for good reason. I think the best way to attack this tier is to go all-in on whichever guy you like more, or just go 50/50 and just change 1-2 spots for each lineup. I don’t have a strong lean of which player will have a better day, I think both will get around that 30-point mark, so I am going to take the 50/50 approach. If you are just making 1 GPP lineup for tiers this week then I think going with Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady would be the better approach because they will both be low owned, and you can really separate yourself from the field if the chalk busts.
T2- This looks like it is going to be my chalkiest week yet for tiers because I think we should eat the chalk in T2 as well. With almost a 60-point total in the LAR/NO game, I think we have to go with either Drew Brees or Jared Goff in this tier. There are a lot of options in this tier so maybe they don’t get crazy ownership numbers, but they are clearly the best two plays in my eyes. This is the game I want to attack everywhere, and I think you can load up on it in these different tiers. I prefer Goff over Brees because we won’t have a backup QB taking snaps away from him. Plus, the Saints are last in the league against opposing QBs. I have no issue with 100% Goff this week if you want to go that route, but I do want some Brees lineups with him at home in the dome. I think 75/25 in favor of Goff would be the way I want to attack T2. The only other guy I am really interested in is Kirk Cousins. I don’t think I will be playing him myself, but if you want to use him and stack him with his WRs I think that is totally fine here.
T3- I don’t even think DraftKings should put Todd Gurley on the tiers slates. He is such a great play every week that it’s too hard for me to not click on him. Which I’m sure everyone else will do as well. He is going to be well over 50% owned this week for T3 and that is the guy I want to roster here. Since he is going to be very highly owned, I will have 100% Gurley to get a bit of leverage still. If you used a QB for one of these pass catchers in T2, then I think you should just go ahead and stack them together to avoid the Gurley chalk.
T4- As the leader of #TeamJulio, this is probably going to be another all-in spot for me. But I don’t think this is the Tier to follow me. I do think Julio Jones has a big day, but there are better plays in this tier and I don’t think any of these guys are a bad play. I think if you used Mahomes in T1, then you can stack him up with Tyreek Hill here. Same with Christian McCaffrey, if you used Cam in T1, then I think you can pair him up with CMac here. CMac has the highest point projection on the Domination Station this week, so he is in play even if you didn’t use Cam. I do like that TB/CAR game quite a bit, so I think CMac and Mike Evans make a lot of sense here to get exposure to that game. Those are the spots I would likely go to if Julio wasn’t on the board, but I do think Julio breaks a slate soon and I refuse to miss it.
T5- Looks like we have another pretty clear tier here with T5. I think Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas are the best plays here, especially if you went with Brees in T2. Those two guys and James Conner are the only guys I will be using from this tier. I think the way to do it is to use Thomas if you used Brees to lock in that correlation. If you used Goff in T2, I think you should go with Kamara as your run it back player for that game. Those are the top guys though and I want as many guys from a ~60-point total game as I can get. James Conner is just too good to leave out. He is getting the Le’Veon Bell roll in this Steelers offense and he has looked great all year long. He does have a bad matchup, and everyone will use these Saints players, so I think Conner is a great pivot here. If you used Cousins in T2 I think you should pair him with Stefon Diggs. Diggs has been a guy I have used all season long in Tiers, I just like these other three spots a lot more and I did not use Cousins myself.
T6- Here is where we have to decide which stack we like more, in my opinion. There are only two plays here for me, and that is to pair with Mahomes or Goff with their guy. My favorite play from this tier is probably Travis Kelce. I do love that stack this week, and I didn’t get much exposure to Kelce on the main slate, so I like it as a hedge here with no salaries. I think he is the safest play from this tier and he also has big upside. The guy who I think has higher upside though is Goff’s WR, Brandin Cooks. Cooks is going against the 32nd ranked passing defense and he has the revenge game narrative going for him. Those are the guys I will be mixing into my LUs and it will mostly depend on what I did in T1 and T2.
T7- This is the toughest tier for me this week. I went to the Domination Station for this tier myself, so I am going to do the same for you guys. The top play on the DS this week is Tarik Cohen, and I think that makes sense. He is a solid play each week in this Bears offense and he has looked great this year. The Bears should run the ball a lot in this game assuming they get off to a lead early. So, I think Cohen work here. This is what the DS is spitting out for T7 this week:
T8- I like T8 more than I like T7 this week. This is a solid tier and I think you can go to whoever you like most. I think there are two correlation plays from this tier we can go to depending on what we did in T1. If you went with Mahomes, I think you can pair him with Sammy Watkins in this tier and he had a great game last week with over 100 yards and 2 TDs. If you went with Cam in T1, then I think Devin Funchess makes sense here and he should be low owned as well. Those are the guys I am looking to get if I am stacking with T8. If I am not stacking, I think Kenny Golladay is the clear play from this tier with Tate being traded this week from the Lions. With Tate gone, the Lions are going to have 10-15 targets per week that will go to other players. I think Golladay is the Lions best player, so it would make sense to start targeting him the most. I think he will have the easier defensive matchup this week as well. I think he is the top play from T8 this week, but I am guessing he will be the most owned as well.
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