The NFL DFS flowchart stayed hot in Week 12 as both Derrick Henry (41.5 DKPts) and Tyreek Hill (60.9 DKPts) were the top two scorers on the slate, and both showed up in the flowchart. Even though the player pool was correct, I had some trouble last week in contests because the secondary correlation plays didn’t really come through. There were a lot of one-off options from games that were needed in order to have a lineup that made it up to the top of contests. Usually, I talk about trying to correlate roster spots to minimize the amount of things that you need to get right, but Week 12 was a lot more similar to the 9-leg parlay style of lineups where you had to have the nuts from every game situation to have success.
This can be frustrating for people who have committed to a good weekly process, and then see lineups at the top where you think to yourself “There’s no way I would have ever gotten to that mix of players.” I would caution anyone that is thinking they need to change their process. Remember back to Week 6 where almost all of the chalk hit and GPP scores were through the roof, or back to Weeks 1 through 3 where triple stacks were extremely prevalent in high scoring lineups. If you try to make lineups that will do well in all of these kind of situations, you will quickly lose your bankroll. Pick a process and stay strong to it!
Let’s jump into the DFS flowchart Week 13 slate. There’s a lot of interesting games this week to analyze and plenty of different ways to approach the week. I’ll try my best to comment on a few of these approaches in this week’s article. I will most definitely be up early Sunday morning checking in on the news, so make sure to follow me on Twitter for any updates that pop up tomorrow morning.
NFL DFS Flowchart Week 13 DraftKings GPP
Team Stack
We finally find ourselves in the first week of “DeHember” that so many Derrick Henry owners have been waiting for. The stats are very clear that Henry gets better as the season progresses, and he has really blown up in the last month of the season. Unfortunately, he was a week early on this blowup (not unfortunate for the flowchart), so his price tag has skyrocketed through the roof at $9200 and he will probably be a very popular play. I am very interested in this matchup between the Titans and the Browns, but I really want to attack the passing side. The Browns have been a bit of a pass-funnel defense this season, but people may have forgotten that recently because of all the bad-weather games they have played in over the last month. I think we see Ryan Tannehill pass the ball a lot on Sunday, and even though Henry will surely get a lot of carries, I have faith in this game going over the total so I want to have plenty of exposure.
If Tannehill is going to pass the ball a lot then I want to target AJ Brown and Corey Davis to stack with him. AJ Brown is capable of popping off a 50 yard touchdown any time he touches the ball, but Corey Davis has typically been the target hog in the games that he’s been healthy this season. Another name to remember is Adam Humphries who is coming back from a concussion and will most likely get no ownership.
Bring-It-Back Stack
On the Cleveland side of the ball, I am choosing to go with a couple of thinner options as a bring-back. Rashard Higgins is a guy who was really popular a couple of weeks ago on the waiver wires once Odell Beckham Jr. went down, but then has had a couple of quiet weeks during the Browns tough weather stretch. I like that Higgins is cheap this week and he has proven he can hit the 100 yard bonus this year, so I’m betting on his ceiling here. On the other side of the flowchart, I really like Austin Hooper against the Titans who haven’t been great against TE this season. He missed a chunk of time in Weeks 7-9, but he’s healthy and at his lowest price point of the season. At a position that has been so volatile, I’ll take the correlation and buy-low opportunity with Hooper and pray for the best. Before we move on, I want to reiterate how much I like this CLE/TEN matchup this week. I think we will be seeing a lot of points in this game and the ownership projections do not currently reflect this. If you are playing other lineups this week, try and fit in a piece or two from this game in there.
Low-Owned Leverage Plays
Duke Johnson has been a bit of a roller coaster ride this season for DFS players. In the weeks he is chalk he hasn’t done well, and just when everyone had finally given up on him he put together a great Thanksgiving showing. He is projecting to be the 5th highest owned Texan on Sunday and is arguably the one who will have the most opportunities to capitalize. Hunter Henry is another guy who has made his way into plenty of flowcharts this season, and continues to be pretty consistent at a tough to tight end position. The reason I put Henry in this column is because I don’t think a lot of people are going to play multiple players from this Chargers/Patriots game, and they will most likely just pick Ekeler or Allen and move on. I am all aboard the Ekeler train this week, so I don’t think he is bad chalk, but I like the potential to pair him up with Henry and double down on the Chargers passing attack against this Patriots defense that really isn’t very good.
Miles Sanders ($6700) and Chris Carson ($6300) are both in a running back price range that is not going to find much ownership this week. Most people will be either paying up for Dalvin Cook or Henry, or deciding to save some money and dropping down to Devonte Booker or David Montgomery. That reason alone makes Sanders and Carson good contrarian plays this week, and Sanders also faces a bad Packers run defense while Carson is a part of this Seahawks offense which appears to be satisfied with Russell Wilson’s cooking to begin the season and feels the need to establish the run again and try and keep games close. Sarcasm is thick in that last statement.
Studs and Chalk Plays
I want to spend some time talking about Davante Adams because he is the third guy above the $9000 price tag this weekend (along with Cook and Henry). On DraftKings, you will need these high-priced players to cross the 30 DKPt marker in order for them not to completely sink your lineup. In order for a running back to do this, you are probably banking on at least two touchdowns and a 150 yard game especially for a guy like Henry he doesn’t catch passes. Meanwhile, Davante Adams can catch 10 passes for 120 yards and a touchdown (which seems like a normal game for him) and hit that same 30 DKPt mark. Safe to say, I really like Davante Adams this weekend. James Robinson has seen incredible volume this season, and Austin Ekeler in his first game back from injury just saw his career-high in touches last week. Both of these guys are still underpriced in my opinion and are examples of good chalk plays.
That does it for this week’s flowchart! Good luck and I hope to see some screenshots this weekend!
Week 1 – Optimal Lineup 157 DKPts, min cash in GPPs (top 20%)
Week 2 – Optimal Lineup 175.4 DKPts, 3X-4X cash in GPPs (top 4-5%)
Week 3 – Optimal Lineup 122.3 DKPts, no cash
Week 4 – Optimal Lineup 171.3 DKPts, 2X cash in GPPs (top 7-10%)
Week 5 – Optimal Lineup 178.92, 3X cash in GPPs (top 3-4%)
Week 6 – Optimal Lineup 180.2, 2X-3X cash in GPPs (top 5-6%) (ALL LINEUPS CASHED)
Week 7 – Optimal Lineup 153.34, no cash
Week 8 – Optimal Lineup 140.12, no cash
Week 9 – Optimal Lineup 174.26, 3X-4X cash in GPPs (top 4-5%)
Week 10 – Optimal Lineup 178.92, 10X-15X cash in GPPs (TOP 1%)
Week 11 – Optimal Lineup 168.12, 2X-3X cash in GPPs (top 4-5%)
Thanksgiving – Optimal Lineup 187.42, 2X-3X cash in GPPs (top 5-7%)
Week 12 – Optimal Lineup 189.5, 3X-4X cash in GPPs (top 3-5%)
