The Look Off: Weeks 3-4
Apparently last Sunday was "Any Given Sunday" for the Broncos.
Welcome to Weeks 3-4 of The Look Off!
For FanDuel DFS players, same note as last week. Consider SNF one of the “Obviously Attractive” games for the purpose of thinking through contests. You might even want to prepare for a scenario where that game stands head and shoulders above the rest.
As Week 4 approaches, it’s worth reflecting on how this iteration of the NFL differs from previous years’ versions.
With scoring tapering off, the gap between the fantasy cream of the crop and replacement-level players is shrinking. Fewer and fewer players are hard fades. Wider and wider sets of skill position players can form the backbone of cash or small-field tournament lineups.
On top of that shift, it seems that volume is less “sticky” than it used to be. This’d be the subject of a good analytics piece, and I can’t back up the feeling with numbers yet. But the rash of early season injuries, combined with changing tactics, appears to have led to highly variant usage patterns.
On the other hand—I might just be sore about owning so much Brock Bowers and Jameson Williams last week.
The changes in the NFL necessitate a change in DFS strategy.
I’ll let you know when I figure out what the change should be.
For now, here’s what we’ve seen from the 32 franchises through three weeks.
The Tape - Looking Back to Last Week
The Broncos and Panthers really showed up to play, and Washington’s Monday night was enough to win them the top spot by Domination Rating.
Buffalo is in a tier of its own when it comes to season-long DR. That’s not to say they’re the best team in the league—they just clearly have no problem scoring points. The Jets’ Thursday night performance might have gotten lost in the Sunday shuffle, but they quietly smote the Patriots. I get the sense that the Jets pieces are going to be sneaky plays for the remainder of the year. They’ll never pop off consistently, but they’ll have a few blowup games before we get to January.
Despite starting 0-3, the Bengals have also managed to produce with the ball. The betting market has done a good job of holding position on Cincy, recognizing their offensive prowess. The Bengals will get a few 35+ point days in 2024. Like with the Jets, it’s just a matter of figuring out where they’ll show up.
Houston’s showing against the Vikings feels unrepresentative. Lots of penalties, turnovers and other, less-than-“sticky” factors were mixed in with Brian Flores’ defensive work. Representative or no, Houston is still waiting for a statement win (30+ points).
Although if I set the bar there, who knows how long it’ll take them to hurdle it in this new NFL.
Here are the summary stats from Week 3:
Game Buckets
Hoping for Variance
Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Total: 43—Early Slate)
Pittsburgh Steelers at Indianapolis Colts (Total: 40—Early Slate)
Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Chargers (Total: 40—Late Slate)
Cleveland Browns at Las Vegas Raiders (Total: 36.5—Late Slate)
Tournament Edge
New England Patriots at San Francisco 49rs (Total: 40.5—Late Slate)
Denver Broncos at New York Jets (Total: 39.5—Early Slate)
Los Angeles Rams at Chicago Bears (Total: 40.5—Early Slate)
New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons (Total: 41.5—Early Slate)
Jacksonville Jaguars at Houston Texans (Total: 44.5—Early Slate)
Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers (Total: 43.5—Early Slate)
Obviously Attractive
Cincinnati Bengals at Carolina Panthers (Total: 47—Early Slate)
Washington Commanders at Arizona Cardinals (Total: 49—Late Slate)
Hoping for Variance
Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers: With a banged-up receiving corps and a less-than-sensational Jalen Hurts at the helm, it’s hard to believe the Eagles of yesteryear will pop out this week. Saquon Barkley is obviously a useable piece, as is Dallas Goedert (risky—but that’s the tight end position in the 20’s). On the other side of the ball Chris Godwin and Mike Evans can play a role in a good number of builds. But it’s hard to imagine that a whole squad from this game gets there.
Pittsburgh Steelers at Indianapolis Colts: Is Justin Fields all that? Not sure. But he’s produced enough through three games to translate Pittsburgh’s suffocating defense into three wins. Anthony Richardson’s high-variance style of play seems like a poor fit for this matchup. It just doesn’t look like the Colts will be able to push Pittsburgh. If nothing else, Najee Harris is a way to get different by using the $5,500—$6,000 running back price tier. Other than that—this game is an academic question, and nothing more.
Unless Richardson connects for a 60 yard shot with one of his receivers. Then that guy will pop up in cashing lineups everywhere.
Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Chargers: This matchup feels a lot like the New Orleans / Atlanta bout discussed below. Kansas City has done a competent job of managing games, but haven’t flashed the ability to pull away from the competition that would make them an obvious fantasy play. On the other side, the Chargers are dealing with a banged up Justin Herbert and presenting with a very low team total (~13 points). You can roster Chiefs pieces in the hopes that Patrick Mahomes and crew decide to really stamp on the gas, but it’s a very contrarian strategy and I probably wouldn’t consider it in smaller fields.
That said, Carson Steele and Rashee Rice are certainly usable as volume-based plays. It’s just too hard to make them out as slate breakers.
Cleveland Browns at Las Vegas Raiders: These are some bad teams, no two ways around it. Neither team has demonstrated the ability to participate in an offensive slugfest. Stacks from a game like this are hail mary shots. So if that’s what you’re looking for in a given contest—sure, this game can get a look. But Cleveland’s defense seems poised to suck all the oxygen away from the Raiders, and allow the Watson-led offense to sneak by on poor output. Not an attractive fantasy spot at all.
Brock Bowers is still pricey and is the only decent option in that price bracket. Given the poor game situation, he should be a fade. But the lack of tight end options through the board means that spending on him might be the only way to get some utility out of savings elsewhere in the lineup. So I’m not ruling him out of any player pools.
Tournament Edge Games
New England Patriots at San Francisco 49rs: Despite the injuries, the fighting Kyle Shanahans are still favorites. At first glance, I was tempted to write this game off as a tournament play. Without their topline weapons, it doesn’t seem likely that the 49rs will stay on the gas, even if they take a commanding lead over the Patriots early.
But their DR last week was good … and they had that game well in hand. At the very least, 49rs skill players are going to be the right fit for some lineups. Jordan Mason’s pricing has gotten more difficult to manage, but his ceiling in this offense is very, very high. He’ll make sense in a lot of spots, the tough situation notwithstanding.
I’m not touching New England and their ludicrously low team total—literally ten points—with a 37-and-a-half foot pole.
Denver Broncos at New York Jets: Normally, I’d resist an urge to go with my gut and steam up a game with a sub-40 total. Lines land where they do because lots of smart people put loads of work into forecasting game outcomes. And running counter to that settled-on line without a comparable amount of labor strikes me as unwise.
Nevertheless, nothing makes sense this year. If there was a season to swing for the fences on gut-based forecasting, this’d be the one.
Both of these teams have a positive DR on the season. Bo Nix is a grade or two below Aaron Rodgers, but if Denver continues to put the ball in the air at the rate they have, the potential for a blowup game is there. Not a lock, just potential. The game is, if nothing else, an opportunity to get off of the Carolina / Washington chalk.1
Los Angeles Rams at Chicago Bears: This game is in this bucket because of its potential to disintegrate into backyard football. Both of these squads have big problems on offense: the Rams’ receiver room is hurt, and the Bears are navigating the Caleb Williams experience. The Bears defense has been solid so far this year—but a flailing offense can put a lot of strain on even the best of units.
It’s more than possible that either of these quarterbacks try to force magic to happen by force-feeding their playmakers. Both teams pass far more than they run, and the Bears are running 75 plays per game on average. Rome Odunze’s strong showing last week is the archetype. But given his target share, D.J. Moore could play the same role this week. On the Rams side—just pick someone and hope for the best. Kyren Williams will probably eat up most of the opportunity, so he’s a solid choice whether or not the Rams catch fire. It’s just a question of how valuable the rest of the snaps will end up being.
To be clear, I doubt either side as a whole is that likely to blow up (check out some great analysis on that point from KoalatyStats). There’s just potential for all the yards actually produced to flow through a couple of skill position players.
Jacksonville Jaguars at Houston Texans: C.J. Stroud et al. feel like a game stack. They’re dropping back to pass nearly two-thirds of their snaps—and they’re taking a good number of snaps. While some of this season’s cards are up, very little is certain. Priors still have value, and the prior assessment on the Texans was quite positive. Because of what we’ve seen in 2024, the Texans aren’t an obviously strong play. But non-obvious plays have a lot of value in this discipline.
The Jaguars are no stranger to disappointment this year. It’s been decidedly mediocre—a letdown when Trevor Lawrence has seemed so close to ascending. I don’t see why this game couldn’t go off—just lots of reasons for it to be middling. So it’ll land squarely in this bucket, with all the other opportunities to avoid rostering Andy Dalton.
Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers: Brian Flores’s beat down of the Texans last week takes the air out of this game’s sails. Which is a tragedy, because otherwise it bears a lot of the markers of a blowup spot. Both squads have a positive DR and the Vikings have had some gaudy box scores over the last couple of weeks. Regardless of who’s under the helm for the Packers—they’ve demonstrated they’ve got tools that allow them to keep up.
The issue is that Brian Flores just neutralized what should have been one of the leauge’s best offenses. And it’s very hard to forecast Malik Willis or Jordan Love succeeding where C.J. Stroud failed. The Viking’s impressive defensive trends could continue, the Packers could fail to pressure Minnesota into scoring, and Kevin O'Connell’s side could claim easily victory without dominating coverage on Red Zone.
Minnesota pieces are definately an option. Justin Jefferson feels like the only safe high-salary roster option these days. Aaron Jones is a half-decent way to play the “Vikings crush the Pack” narrative. But a game stack from this part of the card just feels too risky for this game to make the top bucket.
Obviously Attractive
Cincinnati Bengals at Carolina Panthers: This game’s total seems predicated on the thesis that the Panther’s defense isn’t a real concern. Which is fair—they’ve been a sieve unless you’re wearing silver and black. The Bengals’ inability to keep opponents off the scoreboard has Andy Dalton looking like the automatic click of the weekend.
Last week’s DR also supports the total. As a descriptive statistic, you’d hope it would. I can’t find a real reason to hate on this game. The pieces deserve to be chalk. I’ll just note that the Bengals’ skill players probably present a bit less risk. Not just because the Bengals are projected to put up more points, but because their opportunity distribution is more established and stable. In contrast, we’ve only had one week of the Dave Canales / Andy Dalton pairing.
That smidge of Carolina uncertainty aside, this game is a top candidate for the highest total when the dust settles. The big names and depth pieces from both squads are viable.
Washington Commanders at Arizona Cardinals: Washington has been an unexpected bright spot in a season plagued with offensive woes. While it’s still too early to stamp the Jayden Daniels pick as a success, it’s looking sharper and sharper each week (great piece on that from “The Evaluation Period” here). They’re second in season-long DR, which is especially impressive considering the stat assess a penalty for offensive production while trailing (moving the ball when you’re down doesn’t indicate willingness to run up the score).
Both Daniels and running back Brian Robinson Jr. look to be chalky this week. You might just have to play them anyways.
Arizona’s annihilation of the Rams a couple of weeks back feels like it’s having an outsized effect on this total. I say feels, because I can’t verify with a model of my own (yet). Outsized influence or no, the Cardinals do have tools. And at least once, it’s all come together into a fantasy production storm. I’m not sure how viable the Cardinals game stack is at their price point—not without flaky options for salary relief. But Marvin Harrison Jr., James Connor, and Kyler Murray all have the potential for slate-breaking days.
The Chalkboard
With the games bucketed and analyzed, this next section walks through how the entire slate might play out
The idea here is not to issue a definitive statement about what will happen. Rather, the goal is to identify the most likely sets of combined outcomes, and parsing out how DFS players can build lineups to take advantage of those outcomes. In other words, we’re taking to the chalkboard, and scratching out some attack plans.
This analysis focuses heavily on tournament play. For example, game stacking, a technique discussed below, is rarely optimal in head-to-head type games. Just be mindful that all the sample lineups below are lineups built to finish in the 95th percentile or higher. Anything worse than that—it could be the bottom of the barrel for all I care.
Scenario 1: Washington at Arizona is All That
The approach to this scenario is pretty simple: get all of the pieces from this game. If both teams clear 35 points, it’s more than possible that no other game is particularly close. Here’s a sample of what that might look like. Reminder: all lineups shown are meant to get the juices flowing, nothing more. If these bad boys fail—so be it.
Scenario 2: The Top Games are Good, But Don’t Lap the Field
This one’s tougher to figure out. In this scenario, a couple of games (likely from the tournament edge bucket) stand out as better-than-expected spots. You can certainly attack deep fields with depth chart pieces from squads like the Jets, Vikings, and Bears. Just keep in mind that sticking with the players currently dominating opportunity is the safer approach for smaller fields.2 Think guys like D.J. Moore:
Scenario 3: Effectively Random Scoring
With offense collapsing around the league, gaps between game totals should start to close up. If this week is a microcosm of that phenomenon, the best way to play it is to overvalue volume and undervalue ceiling. Does Bo Nix have a Peyton-Manning-esque day in his bag? Probably not. Is he going to throw the ball a lot? Absolutely. That volume gives him a better chance than most to turn over as a top value if Burrow and Murray can’t run away with the day. Here’s how a volume-hungry lineup might look:
Gross, I know. Not to mention that the introduction goes out of its way to assert that volume’s becoming even more variant. That makes this strategy risky. But that’s the NFL in 2024—if you can’t find a game situation to target, this is approach left to you. Just remember that everyone else is stuck with same problem.
Final Thoughts
After working through some disbelief brought on by the insanity of the last three weeks, I’m actually pretty excited, as a fan, for the remainder of the regular season.
My love of football stems from its nexus to strategic and tactical first principles. And those principles matter the most when the dominant strategy for an average franchise is shifting. As one such shift is happening, we’ll get to watch the best coaches and quarterbacks adapt their style, the best skill position players adjust their bread-and-butter plays, and the defensive names known mostly to initiated become household.
And who knows what January will bring?
The idea that Carolina and Washington are both chalk in Week 4 is nuts.
Relatively, because volume looks to be more variable.