Conference Championship Sunday!  The second game of the day is a rematch of one of the best primetime games of the regular season with the Patriots heading to Arrowhead to take on the Chiefs!

My name is Josh Thomas, and I write the Chalk Donkey article for NFL VIPs as well as focusing on the showdown/single game and the Monday-Thursday on both sites. In this article I’ll break down how those showdown/single game 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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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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Slate Breakdown:

It’s Conference Championship Sunday in the NFL!

The New England Patriots head into the frozen tundra of Arrowhead stadium to take on the high flying Chiefs in what is promising to be a clash of the Titans. Young QB Patrick Mahomes leads the chiefs as 3 point home favorites against the old guard of the New England Patriots and their veteran QB Tom Brady. Does old man Brady have any magic left in him and if he does, is this their last chance for glory in the Brady/Belichick era? While TB12 claims he wants to play a few more years, this truly could be their last shot at another Super Bowl. Brady’s legend and place in history is secure (and so is Belichick’s) but adding another trophy to their case might truly be the cherry on top.

The Patriots have been awful on the road this season, going 3-5 on the road and 9-0 at home. Historically, they are bad in the postseason as well, with Belichick and Brady going 3-4 in their time together on the road in the post-season (that statistic in and of itself is insane, considering how many games they’ve played in the playoffs to only have played 7 games as the ‘road’ team). During the season this year, the Patriots scored 33 points a game at home and only 21 on the road. The Chiefs who were dismal on the road as well, gave up a ridiculous 34 points on the road and only 17 at home, in fact, the Chiefs haven’t given up 30 points to an opponent at home in 34 consecutive games.

Early in the week, we saw the under get hammered in this game because there were some weather concerns, but it appears that it’s going to be warmer than expected and should be similar conditions to what both teams played in last weekend. Given what we know about both teams home/road splits, I would expect the under even at a 56 total to hit. The return of Eric Berry in the secondary should help as well.

Given that we expect this game to go under, but still be fairly close I think it’s important to have an idea for a score before we build rosters. I like the Chiefs and the points here so I’m going to build rosters under the assumption that the Chiefs win this game something like 28-24. That would be 4 touchdowns for the Chiefs, and three and a field goal for the Pats. We can go a little each way here, maybe its 31-24 or 34-21 but either way I want to get involved in the Chiefs touchdowns and find out where I can get some value with the Patriots.

Right off the bat, the highest priced player on the slate on both sites is Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes is clearly the best play on the slate as he is averaging a whopping 8 more FD points a game (6 DK Points) than his nearest competitor. When these teams met earlier in the season, Mahomes went off for 32 DK points only being outscored by Tyreek Hill who had a ridiculous 42 point game. Mahomes has been incredibly consistent though as of late he has scored a few less fantasy points as the Chiefs fantasy production, in general, has gone down. Another factor is the emergence of Damien Williams who has five touchdowns in the last five games. The Patriots do a nice job keeping backs out of the end zone though (only 6 TD’s this year) and I think that benefits Mahomes quite a bit. He is pricey, but is the clear cut top play on FD and one of my favorite captain plays on DK.

On the other side of the ball, old man Brady is intriguing, and I’ll have some exposure just in case the goat finds a way to get it done on the road, but I’m less than optimistic. Brady not only struggles on the road, but he’s likely to lose some of his upside to Sony Michel and James White. Though one of the best ways to attack the Chiefs is to the RB’s in the flat. I’ll have some exposure to the goat, but not much.

Those two RB’s and Julian Edelman are likely where I get my exposure to the Pats. I love me some James White this week. He’s a stud and can rack up the PPR points in a hurry. The concern is that he gets vultured at the goal line by Sony Michel like last week, meaning that he might have to get in from over 10 yards out, a tough task no matter the opponent. Sony Michel has been a stud and this Chiefs run d is porous. He can bust a big one here, but he also can bang them home from the goal line. Of all the RB’s in this game, he has the best chance of going for multiple TD’s, though White could still outscore him if he finds the endzone once himself.

Edelman has just been incredibly consistent, he hasn’t had less than 16 DK points since week 13 against the Minnesota Vikings. He’s also only had one game in that time span where he had less than double-digit targets. He has a great floor and should get a good matchup against the 29th ranked defense covering the slot.

What do we do with the corpse of Rob Gronkowski? I don’t really care about the price he’s at, he hasn’t been involved in weeks and looks to be just cruising towards retirement. The spot is excellent as the Chiefs are turrible against the TE so if you want to play him go ahead, just not my cup of tea.

The TE on the other side of the ball though is in a slam dunk spot against a defense that has given up 8 TD’s to opposing TE’s this year. Kelce has had 7 straight weeks of at least 9 targets and when these two teams played the first time he had 5 receptions for 61 yards. At home, big time game, I think Kelce crushes.

Tyreek Hill is a big game player. He shines when the pressure is on, and there is no bigger pressure than the conference championship with a birth in the Super Bowl on the line. I don’t think Stephon Gilmore has a chance against Hill and he will be my second highest owned player after Mahomes.

The last time these two teams played the kickers both scored more than 18 DK points…that’s insane! Gostkowski had 22 and Butker 18. Both are in play here again especially considering that we think this game goes under. For that to happen the defenses will have to make stops and limit each other to field goals. I love kickers in general in showdowns, but this is an excellent spot.

I think this is going to be a great game to watch, and a fun one to build rosters for showdown. I’ll likely be heavier on the Chiefs maybe a 65-35 split in terms of total roster construction as I think they roll and get their first super bowl appearance since 1970 when they beat my heavily favored Vikings.

Final Prediction: Chiefs 31 – Patriots 24

Showdown/Single Game Roster Construction:

We are now 18 weeks into the 2018 NFL Season and have enough showdown/single game slates that we can take a look at the GPP winning rosters and see how those rosters were built and whether there is any sort of trend that we can see to help us build GPP winning rosters ourselves.

This year, I’ve broken down all the GPP winning lineups to that point on both FanDuel and Draftkings and I’ve updated that data for this week with all the games from week 17. As always we have to answer four questions when building our Single Game/Showdown rosters and this data can give us a huge edge when answering them. Those questions are:

1. Who is going to be your captain?
2. How many players from each team to do you want?
3. What positions should you play from each team?
4. Are you playing both, one, or no quarterback

Let’s take a look at each of these questions

Who is going to be your captain?

Previously, the thought was that you need to have the following positions your captain.

1. WR1 for the Favorite
2. WR1 for the Underdog
3. TE1 for the Favorite
4. TE2 for the Underdog

But after looking at the GPP winning rosters through 14 weeks on both sites what we found was this:

As you can see here that is not the case. On Fanduel its actually the opposite and we have another week of data that shows that QB or Running Back is clearly the play on Fanduel. All of the GPP winning running backs in that spot have been ELITE RB’s (Alvin Kamara, Todd Gurley, Saquon Barkley) so it’s worth noting that unless you have a situation like that, you might want to just stick with QB. Typically the QB will have the safest floor and even in situations like the Titans/Cowboys game where you have an ELITE player in Ezekiel Elliott in a smash spot against a weak defense and he underperforms and actually scores less than both QB’s.

We continue to expand our so we continue to expand the pool of players that are viable to be captains, at least on DK. During week 9 we had a WR 4 (Adam Humphries) be the optimal player in the captain spot. We have still not seen a Kicker in the captain spot yet this season.

There is a large spread on DK while its a little more tightly concentrated on FD. Typically you just want a RB/QB on FD while anything and everything besides Kicker is in play on DK.

The reason that Draftkings is more spread out is due to the 1.5x salary increase for the Captain position. There have been times when the highest scoring player on the slate wasn’t in the optimal captain slot because having another high scoring player there at a cheaper salary allowed the user to build a better lineup.

The average salary on Draftkings for the captain spot was $11,113 which is typically right around the 7th or 8th highest priced player. That lower priced player in the captain spot allowed those users to build better overall rosters. You obviously need to find the right lower priced player here, but it’s a strategy that should be utilized on Draftkings when possible.

Salary typically isn’t as big of a deal on Fanduel where you really just need the highest scoring player, regardless of salary. The only player that wasn’t in the top 4-5 of pricing that was in the optimal lineup as MVP was  Carlos Hyde, against the Jets.

Another interesting piece I found when looking at the rosters was how often the captain or MVP was on the winning team. Early on in the season, we saw that this chart was almost 50% of each, but lately, it’s been trending in the direction of about 2/3 of the MVP/Captain slot players were on the winning team. While we shouldn’t be afraid to roster someone who is a dog in the game in this spot, particularly QB’s who have to air it out in a comeback, it is important to note that as we get more data, its becoming clearer that playing a player who is likely to win in this spot is optimal.

Surprisingly, the captain’s spot containing the winner of the game was about equal on both sites at 70ish % of the time. As we saw above you want to pay down at the captain spot on DK, and for those cheaper WR’s to pay off they likely need to score a TD and be heavily involved. This number actually increased over the weekend, so when making decisions on the Captain spot on DK you may want to target a player from the team that is the favorite.

While the sample size is small, I think its very telling and should help us to build more optimal lineups, especially when doing MME. Given this information here is how I would break down my Captain/MVP exposure on both sites.

Draftkings: UPDATED 11/14/18 

WR: 30%

RB: 30% 

QB: 25% 

TE: 15%

DEF:  Rarely and only if the game total is very low or we have a QB prone to turnovers

Fanduel: UPDATED 11/14/18 

QB: 45% 

RB: 45% 

WR: 10% 

I’m not typically even going to mess with TE on Fanduel. You don’t need to save salary and its VERY rare that a TE is the highest scoring player in the game and I can only foresee one or two situations where this could even happen, though one is this week with Travis Kelce and the Chiefs.

How many players from each team do you want?

This was something that was really interesting to look at among the optimal lineups, at least on Draftkings where there are three options, but still good to know for Fanduel as well.

With only two options on Fanduel for how you want to construct your roster, a more balanced 3-2 roster was the optimal 70% of the time. The 4-1 rosters were games that were blowouts (For example, last week we had one 4-1 roster with the Saints/Eagles game a blowout.) and one game that had an insane comeback  So unless we have a game that looks to be a massive blowout, it appears that best way to approach roster construction on Fanduel would be a 3-2 split.

On Draftkings though, its a bit of a different story.  A 3-3 split or balanced lineup was dead even with 4-2. Both are viable in GPP and what I would tend to target the most. The 5-1 lineups were reserved for blowouts and interestingly enough they tend to roster Kickers which allows them to load up on studs elsewhere in their lineup. If you are expecting a blow out this looks to be a good strategy.

In the majority of game situations you are going to want to target a balanced lineup unless we see a blow out happening, and if that’s the case then looking at a kicker is an important piece to consider.

What positions/players should you play from each team?

What I found in my breakdown of all the winning gpp lineups was that no winner had the exact same roster construction in terms of position players. Obviously, we have a smaller sample size and at some point this year we may see a duplicate, but right now we haven’t had the exact same roster construction on either site.

Draftkings: 

Let’s look at the roster construction on Draftkings. Check out that QB number first…close to 100%. There was only one instance where a QB wasn’t used in the winning GPP lineup and that was in the very first game Thursday game of the year with the Falcons vs. Eagles. Other than that there has been at least one QB in a lineup if not two in every single game. QB’s are the easiest way to get points, but as we looked at earlier, for the most part, we want to roster them in the flex position as opposed the Captain spot. Its cost prohibitive to roster them there, but if you instill the strategy of using a lower priced player in that spot you can often roster two QB’s, or a QB and a high priced skill player.

Also, in every roster that had a QB there was a correlation play, with a WR, TE, or pass catching RB. Even when there were two QBs in a lineup there was at least one correlation play for each QB. No Naked QB strategy has worked to this point and while I don’t think we can say it never will, it’s a solid strategy to correlate your QB with a pass catcher just like in regular lineups.

RB1’s continue to be used at a high clip on Draftkings in the flex spot. They are typically priced below the WR’s unless you have a Todd Gurley or Ezekiel Elliott and they give you some roster flexibility. Of the running backs used in flex position on Draftkings they had some interesting splits. While one would think that majority of your RB’s taken are bell cows, but we see over 25% of the rosters containing an RB2 who is typically only a third down or change of pace back.

So what does that mean? The way I interpret it is that you shouldn’t be afraid to play a running back just because he isn’t necessarily a bell cow back, especially if he can catch passes. PPR is king on DraftKings and often those Non-Bellcow backs are ones that do catch passes and they are MUCH cheaper than their counterparts. That’s a prime situation to take advantage of. A non-bellcow back who catches 3-4 passes and is at a huge discount can make the rest of your lineup work by allowing you to target those higher priced players for the remaining spots. What we’ve really seen in the last two weeks is that these ‘non-bellcow’ backs are starting become featured either because of injury or game flow and are becoming viable captain plays based on the game script.

I was surprised to see that Defenses were used in these GPP winning lineups on Draftkings MUCH more than Kickers originally but now Kickers are starting to make a comeback and actually pulled ahead in Week 8. They are priced the same usually and while we consider the Kickers to have a bit safer floor, the defenses do have that GPP winning upside if they can get over 15ish points. Twice now a defense has been used in the Captain slot in a GPP winner. Don’t be afraid to play your defense against your captain though as that has been the GPP winner four times already this season (Most recently in Week 8 with the Saints against the Vikings). Defensive scoring is all about sacks and picks or defensive touchdown so a WR/TE scoring high doesn’t necessarily mean that defense will score low. What I wouldn’t do is play a defense in a lineup with a QB as the Captain.

Fanduel:

As we move over to Fanduel we now have an entirely different strategy. What I found over there was that contrary to what we think might be the best play, double QB has only been in the winning lineup a few times.  This is mostly because it is cost prohibitive to do with often the two QB’s being the most expensive players on the board, but also because we don’t often see two Qb’s go off unless its a shootout.

QB’s when in winning lineups have had at least one correlation play as well on Fanduel similar to DK, and naked QB has not been in the winner yet.

Without the ability to play defenses on Fanduel we have seen kickers take a more prominent role in the roster construction and in fact they are now the highest played position in the flex spot. We haven’t had a double kicker GPP winner this past week. TE’s are priced down as well over here and we see them in the winning lineups at over 60% of the time.

The graph above shows how many points players scored relative to their salary for week 2 on Fanduel. What we find here is that paying down at the MVP spot rarely makes sense when there is no salary increase that comes with it like on DK.

A higher salary doesn’t always indicate that a player will score more points, but as you can see above it typically does mean that a player with a higher salary will outscore those lower than them, at least those significantly lower.

Another interesting thing from this graph was that while Andy Dalton, had a heck of a night in that game against Baltimore, he wasn’t in the optimal lineup at the Captain Slot because of AJ Green just barely squeaked by him. It should be noted though that AJ Green caught three touchdown passes to barely squeak by and had he not, Dalton would have been the clear MVP. Further solidifying my take that QB should be your main MVP play on Fanduel.

Are you going to play one, both, or no Qb’s?

As we saw above I think you should have a QB in every single lineup. On Draftkings a lineup without a QB has been the optimal only one time in 16 slates. On Fanduel its happened twice, but I still think there you are better off with one than without one. If you are making 150 lineups I think I would allocate about 5% of my lineups to having no QB but the odds are that the nuts will have a QB in it.

As far as both QB’s go, I think its site dependent. On Draftkings I’m ok with going double QB, as long as they are both in the flex spots and not in the MVP as we have shown that that is not optimal construction.

On Fanduel, because of the way the QB’s are priced, double QB has only been in the optimal lineup MUCH less than DK, and it happened in shootouts. If the Vegas total is over 50 then I’m going to be more apt to try to get double QB lineups in. Obviously, it’s an extreme case but the Chiefs/Rams game is a perfect example of a double QB game.

With the DS now set up for Single Game slates, what I would do is say I was making 100 lineups, I would make 60 lineups with a rule saying that the QB’s couldn’t be in the same lineup. I would then run 40 with both QB’s locked in. This gives you a good mix of lineups.

Summary:

Here are a couple key points that you should remember:

1. For the Captain Slot of Draftkings don’t be afraid to pay down. WR on the favorite is my first play to look at, followed by RB and then a much lower percentage of QB.
2. The exact opposite is true on Fanduel. I want the majority of my lineups to have QB in the MVP slot, followed by RB and then WR last.
3. Always Correlate your QB with a pass catcher. Never Naked QB.
4. Defense is a better punt on DK, Kickers on Fanduel
5. TEs are great salary savings on FD and have been in the optimal lineup over 60% of the time.
6. Pass catching RB’s even if they aren’t the bell cow back are great plays on DK when you can get them at a salary savings.
7. The captain salary on Draftkings for GPP winners has been $11,113

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 break down who my captains are for DK and who my MVP’s are for Fanduel as they are different, and then the rest of the player pool I’ll be using.

Captain – Draftkings:

Patrick Mahomes – QB Chiefs: 25% 

Tyreek Hill – WR Chiefs: 20%

James White – RB Patriots: 20% 

Travis Kelce – TE Chiefs: 10% 

Tom Brady – QB Patriots: 10% 

Julian Edelman – WR Patriots: 10% 

Sony Michel – RB Patriots: 5% 

While I love Edelman as a flex play, I don’t know that his ceiling is high enough to warrant exposure in the Captain spot. I may end up pulling him and just dumping more ownership into Michel and White.

Flex – Draftkings:

Rob Gronkowski – TE Patriots: Great matchup, just hasn’t really been involved.

Damien Williams – RB Chiefs: I’m banking on the Chiefs passing game being how they move the ball in this matchup, meaning that I likely lower my ownership to Williams. His expensive price makes him difficult to fit in with some of the key pass catchers. I do plan on making a few lineups that are contrarian to what I think happens, just in case. #hedgelife

Sammy Watkins – WR Chiefs: I was all in on Watkins last week and he had a nice return at a super cheap price. He’s been priced up this week a bit but still makes a great stacking option with Mahomes. He likely needs a TD to be in the optimal lineup. If Belichick works to take away Hill and Kelce, it would stand to reason that Watkins has a big day.

Phillip Dorsett – WR Patriots: Dorsett has had 5 targets in back to back games now and looks to be a bigger part of this offense than Chris Hogan.

Chris Hogan – WR Patriots: While not too far removed from that 11 target performance against the Jets, he wasn’t involved much last week. He does show up in big games though so get some exposure.

Spencer Ware – RB Chiefs: Williams has been a stud in Ware/Hunt’s absence, but Ware is back this week without an injury designation. I don’t think he gets a ton of work, but he could find himself in the end zone if runs the 2-minute drill.

Chris Conley/Demarcus Robinson – WR Chiefs: Neither has been involved much since Sammy Watkins return. This is the Chiefs though and Mahomes spreads the ball around a ton. Both are worth a few punts in 150 lineups.

Harrison Butker – K Chiefs 

Stephen Gostkowski – K Patriots

Patriots D/Chiefs D: I don’t really want exposure to either of these defenses, but it’s possible that one score and gets in the optimal lineup. I lean Chiefs but again, its not something I’m super comfortable with.

James Develin – RB Patriots: My super punt special. He gets involved enough to warrant some roster consideration, crazy to think that he has 4 TD’s this year! Likely a guy that I roster in Chiefs heavy lineups for salary savings. Fully capable of a zero.

 

MVP – Fanduel 

I like to keep my MVP core really tight over here and typically we look at about 45% of QB’s and 45% RB’s in this spot for the optimal lineup.

Patrick Mahomes – QB Chiefs: 50% Heavy exposure here. Could go even higher.

James White – RB Patriots: 20% 

Sony Michel – RB Patriots: 10% 

Tom Brady – QB Patriots: 10% 

Tyreek Hill – WR Chiefs: 10% Just have a feeling he has a massive game.

Flex – Fanduel

Julian Edelman – WR Patriots

Travis Kelce – TE Chiefs

Rob Gronkowski – TE Patriots: Great matchup, just hasn’t really been involved.

Damien Williams – RB Chiefs: I’m banking on the Chiefs passing game being how they move the ball in this matchup, meaning that I likely lower my ownership to Williams. His expensive price makes him difficult to fit in with some of the key pass catchers. I do plan on making a few lineups that are contrarian to what I think happens, just in case. #hedgelife

Sammy Watkins – WR Chiefs: I was all in on Watkins last week and he had a nice return at a super cheap price. He’s been priced up this week a bit but still makes a great stacking option with Mahomes. He likely needs a TD to be in the optimal lineup. If Belichick works to take away Hill and Kelce, it would stand to reason that Watkins has a big day.

Phillip Dorsett – WR Patriots: Dorsett has had 5 targets in back to back games now and looks to be a bigger part of this offense than Chris Hogan.

Chris Hogan – WR Patriots: While not too far removed from that 11 target performance against the Jets, he wasn’t involved much last week. He does show up in big games though so get some exposure.

Spencer Ware – RB Chiefs: Williams has been a stud in Ware/Hunt’s absence, but Ware is back this week without an injury designation. I don’t think he gets a ton of work, but he could find himself in the end zone if runs the 2-minute drill.

Chris Conley/Demarcus Robinson – WR Chiefs: Neither has been involved much since Sammy Watkins return. This is the Chiefs though and Mahomes spreads the ball around a ton. Both are worth a few punts in 150 lineups.

Harrison Butker – K Chiefs 

Stephen Gostkowski – K Patriots

James Develin – RB Patriots: My super punt special. He gets involved enough to warrant some roster consideration, crazy to think that he has 4 TD’s this year! Likely a guy that I roster in Chiefs heavy lineups for salary savings. Fully capable of a zero.

Showdown Cash Game Strategy: 

In cash games, you want the safest floor possible. I think its really easy to build cash game lineups on DK for this game and not so much on FD. You don’t need to crush, you just need to cross that cash line. For me, that means sometimes rostering both QB’s and both defenses if it’s going to be low scoring. On DK I think that we don’t get cute and just play Mahomes in Captain, Edelman in flex, Kickers, TyFreak Hill and whoever else you can fit as the core pieces give you a nice floor. On Fanduel, I’m going Mahomes n MVP and then Tyreeek and James White and filling out with floor pieces.

Final Thoughts: