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 4 NFL Box Checkers for 2023
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 (9k on Fanduel) helps…in fact, the cheaper the better in many cases.
Remember, blue is very strong. Green is pretty strong. Yellow is like an honorable mention. When it comes to checking boxes, we are tracking those typically leading to a DFS NFL player paying off his salary.
Lots of decent choices, some not listed. Don’t forget this guide isn’t all-inclusive. It’s a teaching ground for you to use our NFL Research Station and find other players fitting these categories that make them strong plays.
Week 4 Notes – Hard to imagine Justin Herbert as the “safest” QB on the slate, but here we are. I might like Josh Allen a bit better in that potential shootout of a game and his rushing floor. You can also look to Kirk Cousins and the weapons he has at his disposal boosting his floor. Tua’s ceiling is pretty uncapped this year as well. Several good choices, and with ownerships typically spread out at the QB position, almost everyone makes some degree of sense.
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 5. 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; just eat chalk in cash formats at running back. 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.
We are not looking at backups getting starting roles in this guide, but they are easy to find and filter in our research station with an additional 5 minutes of work. That’s the beauty of these tools. They are very simple to use once you have just a basic understanding of them.
Week 4 Notes – If you know me, you know I love color on the bottom of this list. And, yes, the “Taylor Swift” is an obvious joke….but one I couldn’t resist. He checks almost all the boxes, and is going to come in under the radar. That is going to be something I notice and want to play every week.
Pollard and CMC make even more sense, but they are just outside the price range…meaning they need awesome games to pay off their salary. They are in the matchup for it, but will they? I love CMC as long as he’s healthy. And, with the absence of other strong options, I might pay up this week if the WRs and TEs offer some deeper value. The rest of these guys start getting a little more volatile, historically, so I’d give weight to the 18+ touches and passing game boxes, also red zone on Fanduel especially. James Cook is a little sneaky as long as he doesn’t get vultured by his QB.
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 (over 27 is ideal). When the dog, we want UNDER 21 points indicating garbage time potential (under 18 is ideal). 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.
WR is typically our crapshoot position at the lower price points, not so much at the top though. When we don’t get a lot of green and/or blue plays, I will just spend down most times. If the position is going to be volatile, why spend money?
Again, look at the game total category and how much it hurts these guys. We need high scoring games for WRs to be even remotely predictable. When we look at the implied team total (25+/21- column), things quickly fall back into line. The favorites should score points and the dogs should get some garbage time. I’m still looking to spend down where I can because I don’t pay up for lack of predictability.
Another great tool to consult is our coaching NFL Cheatsheets! If you wind up torn on a couple players, sometimes the words in the blurbs by another coach can help you tip the scale. In the case of this week, when Box Checkers isn’t helping a lot, those cheatsheets might become more important to your research.
Week 4 Notes – Devante Adams has a floor, let’s not pretend he doesn’t. But, being “chalky” this week yet only checking 2 boxes? These are the types of WRs I look to fade because of the inherent volatility of the position. Can he explode again and make me look bad? Sure. But, it seems the normal indicators aren’t on his side all the way this week…..so I can look at other options, with the bonus of lower ownership.
Jefferson, Hill, Diggs are all going to cost a pretty penny, but I might prefer them to Adams and/or Chase. Again, they ALL have huge floors. But, being they are all similar in floor and ceiling, I’d rather play the matchup/box checking game, or ownership game, with them this week if deciding to use one. AJ Brown is another favorite of mine…IF Hurts can get him the ball accurately (a growing issue in 2023) and Keenan Allen is in an amazing spot and falling way too far under the radar for both he and Herbert’s matchups. I’ll live down here instead of playing loads of chalk in this one.
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 Milly a ridiculous 68% of the time…..and until week 1 this year, we had no recorded example of an 8k TE appearing in the Milly 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.
Week 4 Notes – No Kelce, and suddenly everyone looks to pay down apparently. It makes sense. But, names you don’t see on this list like Andrews, Hockenson, Ertz are likely in play as well….they just aren’t pulling any usage as of yet. They are still decent plays almost every week.
I don’t know that I trust the Dalton Schultz’s of the world over a Hockenson, but I might need that salary depending on where I pay up this week. I’m not interesting in punting RB or QB just to spend up at TE. TE is naturally very volatile. As a result, tons of sharp minds rarely pay up at the position and just punt off TE and even DST.
That’s the beauty of “Box Checkers.” You can quickly see who is viable and who is not…..the color schemes, the Xs in the right places, and a little knowledge of your own. And, you have just enough info (for very little time) to do a whole lot of damage in the NFL DFS game!!
Remember, these boxes are set up by Shark Autopsy’s analysis of what players typically land in the Milly 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, and you will hear about those in our Discord rooms very quickly.
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 NFL 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 14, 2021…but applicable for any week. Yes, I understand this video appears “old,” but it’s still incredibly applicable to 2023! If it ain’t broke…
Don’t waste time duplicating the efforts of nerds! Focus on what matters….setting up optimizers. Here are two very fast ways that work.
I referenced an article I was “working on” focused on Diversification: How to Win with MORE Lineups in an Unpredictable DFS World. I published this in the summer of 2022 and people have reached out in droves to thank me for the concept shared. I think you’ll like it. Hopefully, it helps turn on a couple light bulbs about playing DFS in 2022.
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Plenty of box checkers in Week 8’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.
We turn #Smallaballas into DFS pros every day. And, we can teach you to win 50,000 person gpps just like our coaches do. (It’s not as hard as you think…you just have to interact with us!)
Oh, and in case you want to see how these “Ladder Lineups” work out…..here’s an easy example. This is what we call a “sweep” in that it cashed everything. Ladders build bankrolls!!
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