TJ's #Taek: Week 8 NFL DFS Recap

Week 8’s winning lineups from the biggest contests on FanDuel and DraftKings can be used to tease out lineup-building strategies and offer clues on how you could have landed on a similar team. Reviewing your hits and misses each week is imperative if you want to be a profitable DFS player but examining winning lineups is also a useful exercise in cultivating a winning approach.

DraftKings Week 8 Millionaire Winning Lineup

This week’s Millionaire winner had the most unique first-place lineup of the season, using a true stars-and-scrubs build. Before Sunday, every winning lineup in 2020 spent $6,000 or less on their RB2 and $5,800 or more on their WR2. ghartman314 got away from a balanced build by spending at least $7,500 on both running backs and rostering three wide receivers—with one in the flex—with a salary of $3,500 or lower.

The game stacking trend continued here with four players from one game and two more from another, marking the fifth time in eight weeks that the Millionaire winner rostered at least six correlated players. No winner has had fewer than four correlated players.

What Were the Indicators for the Low-Owned Plays?

Despite the fact that this was arguably the worst slate for chalk in 2020, this week’s winning lineup had an average ownership of 12.4%, the third-highest mark this year. The formula to be unique for ghartman314 was simple—find an unpopular player on the team with the highest implied total of the week.

In the two games prior to Week 8, Demarcus Robinson played over 80% of the snaps with Sammy Watkins sidelined, by far the most among the Chiefs receivers not named Tyreek. Although Robinson was coming off of a one-target game, being on the field that much for a team that is expected to explode is enough to be worthy of a GPP roster spot. His low salary meant that he didn’t have to have a monster day to help prop up a winning lineup.

FanDuel Week 8 Sunday Million Winning Lineup

Astute observers will notice that duelyou left $600 of salary on the table but that was likely due to a late swap to DeeJay Dallas. This lineup included DK Metcalf and Keenan Allen, so there’s no way of determining exactly what swap was made but leaving flexibility for the questionable Seattle backfield situation proved to be a million-dollar strategy. That move resulted in a lineup with an average ownership of 9.7%, by far the lowest of the season for a Sunday Million winner—the average ownership for winning lineups this year is 13.1%.

Note that although duelyou had the foresight to leave enough flexibility to get to Dallas, it was Giovani Bernard, not Dallas, in the flex position. Every lineup should use the latest, highest-salaried player possible in the flex to allow for the maximum number of choices when deciding to late swap.

TJ’s Final #Taek

Assuming that duelyou did actually use late swap, it was an example of how advantageous implementing late swap can be but it’s a roster management technique that goes far beyond leaving options for questionable players.

Beyond injury concerns, the most obvious use of late swap is when you are blocked from moving up the leaderboard in a GPP. Consider this scenario. You’re in second place in a tournament after the early games and the only player you have left is a $9,000 running back in the 4:25 game. You look at the team in first place and, after adding up the salary of the players in their lineup, realize that they have $9,000 left and a running back to go. The only way to win is to swap to another player, hopefully in your flex position. Of course, by swapping you run the risk of tumbling down the leaderboard but in a top-heavy payout structure such as a Millionaire or qualifier, the decision to swap is obvious.

While swapping for a big payday is an exciting decision, the more common—but probably the most overlooked—spot in NFL DFS is when your day starts badly. Inevitably, there are going to be weeks where most of your players in the early slate have poor days. When that happens, leaving late-game players that figure to draw high ownership in your lineup leaves yourself no outs. Instead, when clearly behind and facing a huge losing day, swap from your chalk players to less popular plays—turning a huge loss into a small loss or breakeven day is an opportunity to increase your bottom line by a significant margin that over 90% of DFS players aren’t taking advantage of.

#POLL How do you manage late swap in MAIN SLATE GPPs in NFL DFS, if there are no late-game injury concerns?

— TJ Hernandez (@TJHernandez) November 3, 2020

In a game where we are already pushing thin margins, this is an edge that absolutely must be exploited.

Many DFS players who are implementing this technique are only using it in GPPs but it’s viable in cash games, as well. In double ups or 50/50s, it’s relatively easy to get an idea of whether your lineup will approach the cash line or not and make the decision to swap based on how popular your remaining players are. Ideally, though, you would go through as many head-to-heads as time allows and implement late swap there, too.

For a more nuanced discussion on swapping in marginal spots, PMR concerns and blocking, be sure to check out this week’s DFS MVP podcast dropping on Thursday.