Back to where it all began! The DraftKings NFL DFS Flowcharts made their glorious debut back in Week 15 of last year’s NFL season. We have had some really successful weeks with the flowchart (and of course with it being GPP-focused, some really tough ones too).
I am extremely excited to roll the NFL DFS Flowcharts back out for the upcoming NFL season. Generally, I will be focusing on the Sunday Main Slates. As we get a little deeper into the season, I will work on putting together one for some of the Showdown Slates for the Primetime island games.
It’s extremely important to note that the NFL DFS flowchart will always be geared towards GPPs. Make sure that you aren’t using all of these players for Cash lineups.
This is a tool that can be used to create up to 20 lineups. I walk everyone through the process below and think you will agree these will be very well-correlated entries. Remember we are playing GPPs, so there is inherent risk with some of these picks, However, if everything goes right and we end the night on Sunday with flames above every player, the Top 1% is well within our grasp.
Updates
Just got done hand building my lineups for today. Couple notes:
– RB in the Flex spot as much as possible
– Lot of Hollywood Brown & Gurley 👀
– if you are playing the $5 Milly Maker with over 1 MILLION entries you have to get contrarian, there will be a ton of duplicated lineups— Jon Jackson (@jonboybeats) September 13, 2020
Another REALLY IMPORTANT one…ownership will probably be pretty spread out for Week 1. Remember what I said in my article…NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. That means you need to be different and contrarian but you probably don’t need to find the $4k diamond in the rough today
— Jon Jackson (@jonboybeats) September 13, 2020
GPP Basics
Contest Selection is key.
If you only have the time and energy to create 1 lineup every week, then it is not smart to only enter it into the Milly Maker. Filter for “Single Entry” contests and focus mostly on those. You should always try to get as close as possible to the max number of entries for a contest, to help maximize your ROI over time.
Overall Ownership should be around 120% and never more than 150%.
Most likely, if you follow the flowchart you will be there, but if you have access to ownership projections this is the range that you want to make sure you are targeting.
When you think you are done stacking, go ahead and stack again.
Thanks to Adam Levitan‘s wonderful Milly Maker analysis at Establish the Run, we learned that Top-10 Milly Maker lineups last year used a QB and two of his teammates 41% of the time compared to just 28% by the field.
The next up and coming trend in stacking, is the bring-back stack where you roster a player from your QB’s opponent, which the Top-10 Milly Maker winners did an incredible 36% of the time last year. You must stack in GPPs, it’s as simple as that.
Bankroll Management is extremely important.
In playing GPPs, you are hoping for that big week that will help carry you on the rougher weeks. No matter how good you feel about a certain slate, try to stay constant with your entries. Consistency is what we want here and definitely don’t chase a good weekend by loading up the next.
The most important thing about Week 1 this year, is that nobody knows anything. There’s been no preseason. The reports out of camp are scattered at best. Nobody knows what is going to happen. If it seems like the whole Twitter world is loading up on a player, I would go ahead and steer clear of him for this weekend. The last thing you want in a GPP is to have your lineup get duped in with the crowd.
Speaking of Twitter, make sure to follow me @JonBoyBeats for last minute adjustments to the flowchart. I will typically send out some updates Sunday morning with any tweaks that are needed due to late injury scratches. Last year we had a couple clutch swaps that lead to much bigger weeks. Alright enough of the boring stuff. Let’s dive into the Week 1 Slate!
Team Stack
Last year, the first column of the flowchart was a game stack where I typically paired a QB and a WR with a skill position player from their opponent. Based on some of the stats I listed above, I am doubling down on stacking this year and dedicating the first two columns to it.
A high-scoring game environment is what we want when we are stacking. There are a lot of cool tools out there to help identify pace, neutral game script tendencies, and other metrics, but a really easy way to start is by looking at the Vegas total. I generally start my lineup building by zooming out on the Sunday slate as a whole and crossing off teams that I have no interest in stacking. This week, the teams that fell into that category for me were the Bengals, Browns, Colts, Jaguars, and Jets. From there, I try and focus on which games that public perception might be skewed about which will help lead to lower ownership. This weekend, the game I am all in on is the Cardinals and Niners.
Remember early in the offseason when everyone was calling for Kyler Murray to be the 2020 Lamar Jackson and his ADP rose up to as high as QB3? The only thing that changed between then and the start of the NFL season is the Cardinals traded for DeAndre freakin’ Hopkins. Somehow Kyler Murray’s fantasy stock still fell and I regularly saw him drafted as the QB6 or later.
Speaking of Hopkins, it sure feels like the Texans missed their 3rd-down conversion machine on Thursday night against the Chiefs. Hopkins has a proven track record of performing at an elite level whether the quarterback was Matt Schaub, Brock Osweiler, or Deshaun Watson. Now he gets to play a season with Murray, the sophomore sensation. Get your popcorn!
The most important reason why I love the Cardinals this weekend: the public will see that they are facing the Niners defense. They will remember that defense was 10 minutes away from a Super Bowl Championship last year, and they will scroll right past the Arizona players.
I do think the San Francisco defense will be an elite unit once again this season, however they are not shaping up to look like that in Week 1. DeForest Buckner is gone. Nick Bosa and Dee Ford were battling minor injuries during camp. And Fred Warner, their do-it-all linebacker, just got off the COVID list on Wednesday. I think the SF defense will be overhyped in Week 1.
Bring it Back Stack & Punting at Defense
Speaking of injuries, the Niners are absolutely ravaged on the offensive side. Jalen Hurd is out for the season. Deebo Samuel has already been ruled out for Week 1. And first-round rookie Brandon Aiyuk is Questionable on Friday’s injury report.
Injuries to skill position players usually means the plays are going to funnel to the big guns and that’s exactly why I plugged in George Kittle and Raheem Mostert into the second column of the flowchart. Not only do I expect both of these guys to see a lot of volume, but in my opinion, they each have something working against them this weekend which should help lower ownership. Kittle is the highest priced Tight End by a mile ($1200 to be exact) and I think a lot of people will be willing to jump down in price and save their money for RB or WR. Mostert has seen every report from camp talk up his backups Tevin Coleman and Jerrick McKinnon. The San Francisco backfield will be a tricky one to navigate this year, but for the purposes of Week 1, let’s stick with the guy that was the work horse for most of last season.
This year I will almost always be looking to punt at the Defense position and save money. Historically, we are really bad at predicting DraftKings defense scores because sacks, interceptions, and touchdowns are so random. Don’t waste money on Defense this season! I am rolling with Miami against New England and the LA Chargers against Cincinnati this week.
Projected Ownership under 5%
This is the most crucial column on the sheet. It is also the one that is typically most affected by the last minute Sunday morning Twitter tweaks. In order to rise to the top in the GPPs, you have to hit on a couple of low-owned guys. There are a few different ways to get leverage with these players. I will show you some examples of how I am doing that this weekend.
Hayden Hurst
I am targeting a guy from a team that will probably be a popular stack option this weekend, but grabbing who I expect to be the 3rd or even 4th option from the Atlanta stacks. This will create huge leverage if he outperforms Julio Jones or Calvin Ridley.
Marvin Hall
The example of a guy who is a pivot off of a chalky Marvin Jones who will now be very popular with the news that Kenny Golladay will not play on Sunday.
Tarik Cohen
He’s on the opposite side of the injury spectrum. Early in the week, he was probably going to be high owned if David Montgomery was ruled out. Now that Monty has a questionable tag, I am betting on Cohen ownership decreasing. Hopefully the volume will still be there because the Bears staff will wants to be cautious with their second year workhorse.
Stud RBs and Chalky Players
If we do well with our picks from the third column, then we should have no problem loading up on some of the chalky players on the slate. In addition to some of the chalky studs, this column will also always include some absolute bell-cow RBs.
Running Back is the most important position to spend up on. With the minimum salary being raised to $4000 this year for RBs, it should be easier to find cheaper TEs and WRs as the season progresses. My favorites from this column are Dalvin Cook and Chris Godwin, but there are not really a lot of bad options.
There you have it, you made it through the Week 1 NFL Flowchart. I tried to use this week as more of an introductory course to help define the logic that I put into it. Moving forward, I will profile the players more in-depth and provide actionable data and statistics to help you with your lineups every week.
Good luck this weekend, and I hope to see you at the top of the leaderboards!
NFL DFS Flowchart Related Posts
How To Win The Millionaire Maker w/ Adam Levitan (Ep. 847)
23 DraftKings Millionaire Maker Lineups – One For Every Week One QB
