DraftKings Week 9 High Stakes Ownership Report
Tags: NFL, Fantasy Sports, Fantasy Football, Sports Betting, Sports Analytics

Looking at the sharpest plays to learn from week 9

In daily fantasy sports, ownership is a key consideration in tournament lineup building. Reviewing lineup construction and player ownership at the highest stakes reveals valuable information regarding trends that we can take advantage of in the future.

Typically, high stakes players focus on the optimal lineup, or, simply put, the team they believe projects for the most points. With this in mind, we can infer that the popular players in high stakes contests likely had the strongest overall value when measuring cost against projected fantasy points.

In this article series, we will analyze ownership numbers from a low stakes, large field DFS contest (the $9 NFL Slant), and compare them to the ownership in a high stakes contest (the $3,000 Luxury Box). As many would expect, a contest with a $3,000 entry fee tends to have significantly sharper players, so it’s important to review high stakes ownership to see where the pros invested in a given week.

$3,000 Luxury Box Ownership Leverage Leaders

Luxury Box players targeted a pair of WRs in Julio Jones and Marvin Jones who were expected to see increased work due to teammates Calvin Ridley and Kenny Golladay being inactive in week 9. Neither player performed well, but given that both players projected well in games that finished with more than 50 total points, it’s safe to say the process here was correct.

Like I mentioned in our week 8 high stakes review, it was only a matter of time before high stakes players pivoted off D.K. Metcalf in favor of Tyler Lockett. Unfortunately for players who thought this play would give them an edge, Lockett carried an absurd 41.6% ownership in the Luxury Box while Metcalf saw just 4.3%. To be clear, Lockett was a solid play as he projected similarly to Metcalf and was $1,000 cheaper, but one of the most important tenants of DFS is to zig when the crowd zags. With nearly half the field rostering Lockett, high stakes players gained a massive edge if they rostered Metcalf at a tenth of the ownership.

Two Broncos players and the ATL defense made the high stakes list… despite the fact they played each other. How can this be?

High stakes players found themselves forced to make a difficult decision. The ATL defense is giving up 27.9 PPG and provides a significant fantasy boost for every team playing them, but the Broncos offense is averaging 21.8 PPG (6th-worst) and is led by PFF’s 4th-worst QB by overall grade. Regardless, Drew Lock established on Sunday that even bad QBs can have good games against Atlanta, especially when they have Jerry Jeudy getting open on every play. Side note: Jeudy is already a top-5 route runner in the NFL and would be a top-5 fantasy WR on any team with a competent QB.

Justin Jackson was over-owned as there weren’t many prominent value options this week. Projecting for 12–14 points at $4900 shouldn’t mean 40%+ ownership, but it did on Sunday. Jackson was injured on the first drive of the game and never returned, leading to goose egg for nearly half of Luxury Box entries.

$9 NFL Slant Ownership Leverage Leaders

Luxury Box entrants did not care for the Chargers passing attack this week, likely due to QB Justin Herbert performing well in a pair of metrics that typically signal regression is coming: passing under pressure and 3rd down passing efficiency. Herbert is playing great, but his 101.6 passer rating under pressure is unsustainable. Coming off four uninterrupted 20+ point games provided sharp players with another reason to fade Herbert, as they likely assumed he would see higher ownership than warranted.

It seems like every week I write this article, the most expensive defense of the week winds up in the low stakes leverage column. Since defenses typically project for between 4.5–8.5 points, it rarely makes sense (from a projected points/salary perspective) to roster the most expensive defense, since they will need double-digit points to meet value. A double-digit fantasy outing for a defense almost always includes a defensive TD, which is impossible to accurately project. Cheaper defenses continue to be the sharp path to success in 2020.

Individual Lineup Breakdown

In this segment, we will take a look at some of the specific lineups that notable high stakes players entered in the week 9 Luxury Box. Studying top players is one of the best ways to improve in DFS, as reverse-engineering their process can assist our own in the future.

Awesemo aka Alex Baker

Total Entries: 2 ($6,000)

ROI: -100%

Currently the #1 ranked DFS tournament player in the world, Awesemo always submits some very unique lineups, and this week was no different.

Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins saw moderate ownership, but combining that stack with Chase Edmonds proved to be quite the unique combo, as only 4 other lineups in the Luxury Box stacked all three players.

D’Andre Swift was an intriguing pivot off the Justin Jackson chalk as Swift ended up with 12.7 points. Not tournament winning material, but still a far superior play to Jackson’s 0.0 fantasy points.

Utilizing an incredibly low-owned Steelers stack would have given Awesemo a massive edge over the field, as he was the only Luxury Box player to roster all three of Big Ben, Diontae Johnson, and Chase Claypool in the same lineup. While it didn’t work out, this otherwise chalky lineup would have run away with the Luxury Box had those players gone off.

Bales aka Jonathan Bales

Entries: 2 ($6,000)

ROI: -100%

Author of multiple DFS books, founder of FantasyLabs, and legendary NFL DFS tournament player Jonathan Bales is always a great player to study thanks to his in-depth understanding of game theory and the intricacies of DFS.

Bales’ second team was incredibly chalky, with only three players (including his defense) logging inder 20% ownership. Even so, the lineup wasn’t duplicated by any other Luxury Box entrant, a massive risk when rostering that many popular plays.

Bales’ affinity for the Seahawks v Bills contest that combined for 78 points should have led to better results, but he bricked virtually every play that wasn’t involved in that game.

The only player we see appear on both teams is Seattle RB DeeJay Dallas, who was quite the polarizing play after handling 18/27 rush attempts for Seattle in week 8. Unfortunately for us Dallas truthers, his 2.3 yards per carry in week 8 cost him quite a bit of playing time, logging just 7 total carries on a 31% snap share in week 9.