Back by popular demand, NFL DFS Box Checkers shows you to quickly identify key players for this week’s fantasy football slate in minutes. The DFS Army NFL Research Station is a very powerful suite of statistical analysis with fully customizable, filterable, sortable functionality. What used to take days or hours now takes mere minutes to discover! Follow along as @Choppodong rips these core plays to shreds every week in less than 15 minutes…
At the bottom, see a secret video normally only available to our VIPs! How to setup the optimizer to crush the top 1% and 2% in contests like leagues and microboosters. As the self-proclaimed “king of the smallaballa,” Chop has uncovered another easy to follow system capable of building bankrolls for anyone struggling on Fanduel or Draftkings.
Week 9 NFL Box Checkers
Quarterbacks
5 categories lead to making value historically. Home NFL QBs perform better than road QBs. Favored teams are implied to score more points, and their QBs do the scoring. Game totals make sense to follow, the higher the better. And, efficiency trumps volume! Volume is nice, but efficient QBs are proven to put up more fantasy points than those banking on volume alone. To finish, salary. You can price yourself out of making value unless putting up a true ceiling performance. In the NFL, we find staying under $8000 in Draftkings salary helps…in fact, the cheaper the better.

Lamar Jackson and Dak Prescott are checking every box this week and make for fine plays. But, remember, this system is full of indicators only….and there will be, as you will see below, exceptions to these rules at times. However, clean sweeps are almost always solid picks. These guys don’t differ in that regard.
Patrick Mahomes has been relatively productive, and it feels like a matter of time before he really breaks out and has a slate-busting game. He’s a risk, though, and might be best for gpps only, even though he appears fairly safe. Joe Burrow has been slinging it. And, don’t forget Taysom Hill…..his rushing floor is insane, and his price is pretty low. Also note others like Josh Allen missing a box and being priced high. And, Kyler Murray being a road dog….look how that hurts him compared to others in safer matchups.
That’s the point of Box Checkers….compare and contrast available choices.
Running Backs
Once again, home teams matter for RBs, and being favored obviously affects game scripts in a positive way. High scoring game environments help push those touchdowns around, landing on running backs. We want volume at all positions not QB. 18 touches (rushes + receptions) is the goal here. Passing game work gives us safety when the game script flips. Red Zone work matters…especially inside the 10. And, salary works here again. Staying under $8000 like our NFL QBs helps the running backs, too.

NFL DFS RB is often where Box Checkers shines. These guys are safe enough for a cash game, but you might not use them there if you find 30% or 40% NFL RBs. They do, however, make sneaky high-quality pivot plays in tourneys or even multipliers and leagues. My “Ladder System” absolutely feasts off plays like these.
Zeke is running the table! But, we also need to consider some not checking all the boxes. Is CMC really going to get his usual run? Eli Mitchell…..had a game, but isn’t much used (yet) in the Red Zones, nor catching passes.
Most notably, the strong box checking of Alvin Kamara. You have to think of how Taysom Hill impacts Kamara’s usage. Remember, rather than dumping off and checking down, Hill tends to take off running. Did Sean Payton correct that with designed plays, or is Hill going to cannibalize Kamara more?…that weakens the boxes Kamara checks significantly (a great fade if Kamara projects for a ton of ownership).
Wide Receivers
Home field advantage proves negligible for NFL WRs. But, being favored is still important to hitting fantasy value. High totals matter, but when favored, we want team totals over 25 points. When the dog, we want UNDER 22 points indicating garbage time potential. Volume matters again. We’d like to see more than 7 targets per game on the average, and we want to see more than about 25% usage in the Red Zone…especially on Fanduel. Salary is key again, so we stay under $7000 here. Remember, this position is volatile as hell. But, we have backtested 250+ contests and found the top 3 Milli-Maker lineups contain someone meeting these criteria almost 60% of the time…..good odds for a crapshoot like WR.

A lot more to choose from this week…or at least more we can have some confidence in. Look at all the green! You might focus on those cheaper players in the 5k-7k range.
And, how did Keenan Allen dip under 7k? This gives him a clean sweep. A great floor, plenty of usage, and a game environment that tends to lead to NFL WRs making value….me likey.
Tight Ends
Here we go with the home and favorite stuff again. NFL TE depends on it. We want volume, so focus on 7+ targets again, too. Red Zone work goes without saying at TE. And, we’ve discovered they also benefit from closer games, under 7 point spreads. If favored, you want ITTs over 26 points, and if the dog, under 24 points. Cheap plays, too!! On Draftkings, $3000-$5000 seems to be landing in the Milli a ridiculous 68% of the time…..and until week 1 this year, we had no recorded example of an 8k TE appearing in the Milli winner. That changes with Travis Kelce, and you can speculate all the previous slates he might not have been a part of due to prime time or Monday Night games. Fact is….the super high-priced TE is rare and likely cost prohibitive most times. Tend to pay down.

How’d Jared Cook do last week? Box Checkers works.
Mark Andrews is the only NFL TE missing only one box. The rest clearly have warts. I like Kyle Pitts again, but being home and favored does matter to TE. And, I also like Dalton Schultz, but he isn’t used a ton in the Red Zone….and not as stable as people are touting around the industry.
Remember, these boxes are set up by Shark Autopsy’s analysis of what players typically land in the Milli-Maker lineups, too. We have our safety plays, but we are also shooting for upside.
Where to Use These DFS Players
Box Checkers players are typically obvious, chalky (see our NFL Chalkboard Tool) and highly owned. Occasionally, we get some that slip under the radar (see our Leverage Stacks components).
However, these players can be used in ANY format from NFL cash games to big tourneys (or “Ladder Lineups” combining both!). The key to tourney play is using a core of these players and adding in some other lower owned pieces to give your lineup some uniqueness and creativity with the upside to beat a lot of competitors. As the DFS NFL world becomes more and more advanced, sometimes simplifying our process actually goes a little against the grain.
Now, How Would You Set Up an Optimizer?
I have backtested my own contests looking for the elusive “top 1%” and found a very fast and easy way to set up optimizers. Gone are the days of hours and hours of research. Make your own tweaks, but start winning more money this week.
Imagine how openly I share with our VIPs? Ask any question, and I will dive into YOUR game and help turn things around. (See how to join DFS Army below.)
Box Checkers Setup NFL Week 9
Don’t waste time duplicating the efforts of nerds! Focus on what matters….setting up optimizers. Here are two very fast ways that work.
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Plenty of box checkers on last week’s gpp winner. But, what’s up with all the goofy correlation? I broke the details down for our members in our #beginners-coaching Discord Channel. If you feel you struggle with stacking, correlation, leverage, and some of the finer points of lineup construction, you are going to want to use that discount above….and get involved.
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