This season, I’ll be exploring data-backed Showdown GPP strategies to gain leverage on the field. Why should we care about Showdown? It is newer, and the field has less experience with it, resulting in far more dead-money. Additionally, there are significantly more slates, so we can have increased opportunities to profit over a larger sample size compared to a standard 17 week NFL season. 

Each week we’ll examine last week’s optimal lineup from the biggest Showdown contest on both DraftKings and FanDuel for Thursday, Sunday, and Monday’s night games. The goal will be to find methods for creating high-quality lineups that are contrarian enough to take down a coveted solo-win. Like many others, I jumped to conclusions about Showdown games when they first appeared. I didn’t understand how choosing players from a single game could be any fun, nor how there could be much skill involved. However, it turned out to be a great opportunity for those seeking profit in DFS.

I’m partial to the Showdown product on DraftKings. With six-man rosters and the Captain (CPT) slot increasing both your player’s points and salary by 1.5x, as well as a wider pricing range than that of FanDuel, it has more options for roster construction and less duplicated lineups.

Not all Showdown games were created equal and one of the main concerns is prevalent at FanDuel. With a limited player-pool, duplicated lineups are rampant. It’s a known issue with FanDuel especially, where rosters consist of only five players and the MVP does not increase a player’s salary cost.

Winning a GPP is sweet, but sharing that cash with a bunch of identical lineups is an all-too-common occurrence in Showdown.  People tend to jam in the most expensive and highest projected players at MVP for the 1.5x score boost, encouraging duplicates. But with GPP’s having such top-heavy payouts, we should be aiming to finish in the top 0.1%. If you end up splitting the prize money at the top, you can have the highest score and still lose money from your entry fees. While I prefer the more complex version of Showdown that DK offers, I will touch on FD each week as well.

This season begins with a Thursday Night Football matchup with the Houston Texans at the Kanas City Chiefs. The total sits at 54 with the Chiefs as 9-point favorites. First I’ll go over some basic strategies for each site, followed by some thoughts on point and ownership projections.

General guidelines for gaining leverage in DK Showdown GPPs:

  • These are concepts learned from Drewby at Daily Roto, Cody Main at ETR , and Xandamere from One Week Season.
  • Use a customizable lineup generator to create rules or boosts.
  • Max 1 DST: 0 wins >(20%) more than 1 DST. 2 DST only won (1.75%).
  • Max 1 K. 0 wins twice as often as 1. 2 K only won (3.51%).
  • Max 2 Total DST/K.
  • Stacking CPT WR/TE w/ flex QB is good, but not required.
  • CPT should not be the only player from his team on the roster (1-5 construction).
  • Don’t force the max salary. Over (93% of wins used between $42,000 and $49,900)
  • Highest-to-lowest average points-per-$ plays: K, DST, RB2, QB, RB1, TE1, WR2, WR1
  • Beware DST chalk. Hit unsustainably high last season and tough to predict.
  • Optimal CPT frequency out of (52): RB(20), WR(17), QB(10), DST(4), TE(2), K(1).
  • Don’t get too cute at CPT. No need to go ultra-contrarian here.
  • Lean towards a favored CPT. Top 1% lineups use a Vegas favorite CPT nearly (75%).
  • Keep cumulative roster ownership between 150-250% to minimize duplicates without sacrificing projected points.
  • 5-1 lineup build (onslaught) is very viable as (39.2%) of top 1% lineups use it.
  • Stack CPT QB with opposing RB, WR, or TE. Nearly (89%) of winning lineups did.
  • Don’t force too many stacks. Using boost, group, key, and other lineup builder features allows you to encourage correlated stacks while keeping contrarian options open.
  • Stars and scrubs roster construction works fine, but stick to 2 or fewer scrubs per lineup.
  • Keep negative correlation in mind when using build rules to discourage less successful stacks like RB1+RB2, or block the worst kinds such as QB+Opposing DST.

The top values on Daily Roto are projected as Darrel Williams ($1,800), Clyde Edwards-Helaire ($8,800), and Harrison Butker ($3,800). With Kansas City as such big favorites in a 54 total, my top projected lineups all feature 4-2 or 5-1 Chiefs onslaughts. I’ll simply be looking to the build rules to guide me for this first slate, but I’m interested in projecting some alternate game scripts where Texans come out on top to look for some leverage.

My goal is to end up with more Deshaun Watson and Will Fuller than the field, especially at CPT. If you’re bold enough, I’m sure there is even greater leverage to be had by going heavy on David Johnson and sprinkling in the HOU DST. It remains to be seen how Chiefs head coach Andy Reid will split up the backfield work, which makes this one of the times I’m happy to use both RBs from the same team, though I will boost Williams and CEH’s negative correlation. 

General guidelines for gaining leverage in FD Showdown GPPs:

  • Below are just some of the insights that can be found from Brandon Gdula’s analysis of FD Showdown at numberFire.
  • Use a 3-2 lineup split rather than a 4-1. 3-2 wins at 63.7% rate.
  • CPT RBs are underutilized. It wins most (37.1%) but is only used 30.6%.
  • CPT QBs are overused. Wins only at only 33.9% rate but used in nearly half of lineups.
  • WRs are also underutilized in CPT slot. They win at a 24.2% rate but are only used 16.3%.
  • No need for TE or K in CPT. Could consider an elite TE, but only 5% of wins w/ TE CPT.
  • Don’t stack three pass catchers from the same team.
  • Don’t force both teams’ starting QBs. Lineups with both only win at a 29.8% rate
  • Don’t force the max salary. Less than 6% of optimals used the full $60,000.
  • RB CPTs do best in close, lower-scoring games compared QB CPTs.
  • Favor players from the team you think can win. Extra leverage when underdogs win. 

The top projected pt/$ plays on FanDuel can hardly be considered “values”: Edwards-Helarie ($12,000) followed by Patrick Mahomes ($16,500). Watson ($15,000) even comes in fourth. This jives with the previous analysis of FanDuel pricing, and points to a heavy QB at MVP slate from the field.

I’ll go bigger on Watson at MVP and lower my exposure to the Mahomes MEGA-Chalk. I’ll also try to have more single-QB lineups than the field, given how popular both are likely to be and how much of the Salary that uses up.

This is one of the rare instances where an elite tight end (Travis Kelce) could be an optimal MVP, so it is on the table. I want to be overweight on Darrel Williams, Will Fuller, and Tyreek Hill at CPT to leverage the likely QB-heavy construction. This seems like the less frequent type of slate where a 4-1 onslaught could take it down, but I imagine it will be more popular than it should.

Multi-entry can require a ton of refining when using a lineup optimizer. I’ll review lineups and make sure what I’m left with at the end makes sense. I want to avoid making lineups that are only unique because they are bad and have no chance of winning. I’ll be back with analysis for Sunday Night Football’s Showdown games for both Draftkings and FanDuel.