Fantasy Football Today - GPP/Tournament Strategy; NFL Preseason Week 1 DFS News & Notes (Fantasy Football Today DFS Podcast)

Episode Date: August 12, 2021

You can download and follow 'Fantasy Football Today DFS' on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Before we get into GPPs, is Carson Wentz really. going to be back for Week 1? What are GPPs (2:50)? Are they the same as tournaments? How does anybody project ownership in a given week (5:30)? Should there be any hard rules to ownership in GPPs? ... Why should you stack and why is correlation so important (10:00)? ... What are the different ways you can create leverage in GPPs (15:06)? ... What are the differences between single entry and MME (23:43)? How does your lineup construction change for each of the different formats (27:40)? .... How do you balance exposure when making a bunch of lineups (37:15)? ... We wrap up with some Preseason Week 1 news and notes if you're looking to play those slates (44:21).  Follow our FFT DFS team on Twitter: @FFToday, @Roto_Frank @Mike5754 @SiaNejad Watch FFT DFS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today DFS on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome in to Episode 2 of Fantasy Football Today, DFS, GPP Strategy. Let's get weird. Today is Thursday, August 12th. Frank Stample joined by Mike McClure and Sia Najad. How are we doing, Sia? Before we started, you had a bit of a take on Carson Wentz being ready for week one of the regular season. Would you like to share? Well, first of all, I love how you started the show with Let's Get Weird because honestly, in the GPP context, you kind of have to do that, especially in the bigger tournaments. So I thought that was a brilliant start. But yeah, you know, there's news. We're going to hear news trickling out every day. Some injuries, some, you know, progressing from

injuries. And we heard, of course, that Carson Wentz is trending towards playing in week one. I find that extremely hard to believe. I don't expect him to play week one or maybe not even week two or week three. But I guess it's good news. It means maybe he's on the shorter side of the timeline. To me, though, when it comes to foot injuries, especially at the quarterback position, you're going to want to be extra cautious. So I'm not buying that news. Yeah, we do have preseason week one starting up this weekend. So we'll get a good look at Jacob Eason and Sam Ellinger,

who could potentially be starting in week one of the actual season for the Indianapolis Colts. What's going on, Mike? How is Big Chief doing? I haven't actually met Big Chief yet. Big Chief is hanging out here on the floor. We're going to keep the AirPods in as it's a lot easier to run the show with Chief off of me here. So he might come at some point, but he's doing really well. I will chime in on the Carson Wentz news as well. While I think it's possible that he could play, I don't see any reason for them to take that risk. You got the

added game for the season anyway. I think it makes a ton of sense to let it get healed properly, but we will see what they decide to do. Yeah, I know they got a new coach, not a new coach rather, but they do want to hit the ground running, obviously with a new quarterback and same thing with Quentin Nelson, who they're hoping to be back. We got that report. They have similar injuries and trying to be back for week one. Obviously, it affects a lot of people on the offense. Jonathan Taylor, someone being drafted in season-long leagues in round one. So obviously, a lot of players being affected by these injuries early on. Today on the pod, we're going to focus on GPP tournament strategy. And my goal for this will be to weave together a web of concepts because it seems like things are very intertwined when it comes to GPP,

when you consider ownership, being contrarian, and creating leverage. All of those things kind of work together, and we'll talk about all of it. We'll have some news and notes to help you for preseason week one DFS if you're into that kind of thing. But let's jump right in and start off yesterday. I mean, rather, well, we're recording this on Wednesday, if we're just being completely honest. But in our first episode,

we spoke a lot about cash game strategy, GPPs and tournaments. If you've heard it before, you might be confused. Are they the same thing? Yes, they're the same thing. GPPs and tournaments are the same thing. When you go to DraftKings and you look at the side, there'll be a little tab where you can click tournaments.

Those are GPPs, which are referred to as guaranteed prize pools. And these are games where 20% of the lineups or less get paid out, whereas that number is around 50% for cash games. So higher risk, higher reward when it comes to GPPs. The prize you win is based on where you finish in the standings. You finish first in the Millie Maker, you win $1 million. Not actually $1 million because there's going to be a lot of taxes taken out, but the gist of GPPs or tournaments are that you want to score more points from players that are at

lower ownership. The more you can differentiate yourself from the field, the better chance you have to move up the standings. Is that a fair analysis, a fair definition of GPPs? Yeah, I think it's a fair definition of it. I mean, I think we could start even by going a little further and just basically breaking down the three letters. GPP is going to stand for guaranteed prize pool. It is a contest that is going to pay out no matter how many people join. They will guarantee an amount of money. If people do not fill the contest, that's what we will call overlay. But yes, it's guaranteed tournament. It's going to be very top heavy in terms of the payout structure. As you mentioned, only around 20% and oftentimes less than 20% of the field is going to

get paid out. But yeah, I think you did a great job explaining it. Oh, well, thank you, Mike. Ownership is much more important in GPPs versus cash. That's fair to say, right, Sia? Oh, absolutely. And I think in cash, you don't really need to consider ownership, period. Like full stop, as people like to say. In GPPs, I think it depends on the size of the GPP, of course. If you're in 150 max, for example, where people are generally using optimizers and using Excel and submitting their lineups, you're going to have to be a lot different in those tournaments. Whereas in a single entry or even a three max, you're going to have to be a lot different in those tournaments. Whereas in a single entry or even a three max, you can almost play those as if they're cash.

Now, you still want to be different here and there, but you're a lot less worried about ownership in the single entry versions of these tournaments than you would be in the 150 max, the MMEs. Yeah. So when we were talking about cash, we said, eat the chalk. You got to be willing to do that and play a lot of chalky plays because they're going to be in a lot of different lineups in cash games. And those are, you know, it's obvious play the best plays. That's what you hear a lot when it comes to cash games before GPPs, you'll often hear the term contrarian a lot, which basically means to go against group think and go against chalky plays and just marrying together again, these concepts of contrarian and ownership, being contrarian and doing something different,

I mean, how do you identify and project ownership, right? Because it seems like it's a lot easier said than done, and we're going to hear a lot of people say, oh, well, this player is going to be projected 15% ownership. How do you identify that? How do you project ownership to potentially find those contrarian that? How do you project ownership to potentially find those contrarian plays? Start with you, Mike. Yeah, it's going to come from a number of sources.

Number one, it's going to be the largest content creators in the space. That's going to be what drives a lot of those ownership decisions and those ownership numbers. And then for me, it's also going to be algorithmic. It's going to be looking at my projections. You're essentially sorting by points per dollar. You're going to find very obvious players that stand out. And it's going to be a combination of that. The best projected values, they're going to be popular for the reason that I just mentioned. They're the best projected values on paper. And then we're going to look at sources like other publications in the industry that we know make up a significant footprint. And that's where my data

is going to come from as far as where I project ownership levels to be. Sia, do you have any rules about ownership percentage when it comes to making GPP lineups? Because I've heard some people say, I can't have a wide receiver over 15% roster. Do you have any rules, set rules like that? No, not really. I mean, obviously, you don't want to play a lot of chalk. And again, it's contingent upon the tournament that you're in, but no, I don't think, I mean, I think probably Mike can speak to this too. When you're in those big MMEs, you probably don't want to have a collective ownership of more than, you know, 110, 120%. That can sort of vary on your opinion, but I think that's sort of the collective percentage range you probably want to be in,

maybe even lower. But when it comes to single entries or three max or even the bigger tournaments, I mean, listen, we have to identify that there's a difference between good chalk and bad chalk. You can absolutely play the good chalk and get different elsewhere. So for example, in week one, we've got, listen, I don't need to look at the ownership percentages. Kyler Murray is going to be really popular against Tennessee in week one. So are a number of other players there. If you want to play Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins and bring it back with, I don't know, AJ Brown or maybe Derek Henry, something like that. Well, those are going to be really popular guys. So you can get different elsewhere, or

you can get different in that game itself by adding on another receiver, a wide receiver, two or three, like Mike was talking about in our last show. So you can get different within that game, or you go somewhere else and gain your quote ownership leverage somewhere else. But don't get so cute that you decide, well, all chalk is bad chalk, because there are some guys that are game script proof. And if you see that path where Christian McCaffrey or, pass-catching running back or any highly targeted number one receiver, if you think they're game script proof, whether they're trailing or whether they're ahead, whatever it is, they are going to get the volume. Go ahead and play them.

Get different elsewhere. It's okay. Yeah, it was really interesting that you brought up that ownership percentage that you want for your entire lineup to be between 110% and 120%. Mike, does that number make sense to you as well? Is that something that we hear often for GBPs? Yeah, it definitely makes sense. And personally, I'm willing to go even higher than that, even all the way up to 130, 140 percent, as long as you're still getting different the right way. But to see his point there, there's definitely good shock and bad shock. I think what's most important is, again, if we're speaking about playing multiple lineups as well, is to really take a hard stance on it.

You know, we'll hear many people talk about, I can't play that guy because he's 40% owned. Well, the fact is he might be 40% owned, but the simulations or the data, the projections, whatever it may be that you're using, might indicate that he should frankly be 70% owned, right? And you're still getting a ton of value at that 40%. So that's the issue with creating hard rules like that is because everything again is slate specific. Everything's going to depend on where the value is shifting on those slates. But I don't have any hard rules like that. I don't have many rules. I will be cognizant of the overall ownership of a lineup, projected ownership of it. I actually have that data when I'm running the optimizer and it'll show me what the overall projected ownership of that individual team is. And then if I'm... So when I'm building lineups, we'll talk about this obviously many

times there, but I'll run everything on the computer and then I will still hand select which of the computer generated lineups I want to enter. And that can be a deciding factor in some of them, but I'm not setting hard rules where I have to have this lineup be only 100% total ownership. I'm not doing anything like that. I'm simply making the best plays and looking for the most individual player and positional leverage that I can and kind of ignoring the rest. You mentioned that word leverage. We're going to talk a lot about leverage. And before we get to that, we spoke about stacking a little bit in episode one, but let's expand a little bit.

In GPPs, you're trying to find a game environment that projects for lots of points, obviously, that people might not be as invested in, which, again, it sounds kind of counterintuitive because all the highest game total games, most people are going to be on those games. But for example, Tuesday's podcast, Mike, you brought up the Packers and the Saints game in week one, which starts at 425 Eastern Time. It's on the main slate because it's a later game.

You know, there might not be as many people on that game. It currently has a projected total of right around 50. It might be over 50 points, yet not many people are talking about that game. So a profitable GPP stack

might turn out to be something like Aaron Rodgers with Devontae Adams and Randall Cobb, two of his past catchers. And then you bring it back with someone like Trey Kwan Smith or an Adam Troutman or something like that. If it hits at lower ownership, you just created that leverage, which again,

we will expand on. But how do you identify those types of game environments where it has a high total, but people might not be as invested in those games? Start with you, Mike. Yeah, I mean, we identified it just from the fact that it's a later game and it's the same start time as that Kansas City game. There are several juicy games on the board. There's obviously been some offseason uncertainty around the Packers and really the other side of the ball as well. So knowing those things, I think that that makes a lot of sense. And then you obviously, you're looking at well-established high-priced players.

You're going to have Alvin Kamara there. You're going to have Devontae Adams there. Those guys, you're not getting a ton of value initially by playing those kinds of players. So that itself is going to lead to a lot of additional value or, as we would like to call it here, leverage to be had over playing some of the better players in terms of projected fantasy points per dollar. So that's really how I'm identifying it. I'm basically on an average week mid-season. I'm again, looking at projected ownership, compiling data from other sources, and then comparing ownership and the player's

probability of scoring excellent points or being in the top six or the top five at their position. And I'm looking for large discrepancies in, okay, these two players have a very similar chance of scoring the same number of points. However, one of them is twice as popular in the field. So we're going to be creating a lot of leverage that way. And I will look and try and find situations where there is a positive leverage value on more than one player in a game. And if that is a game, like if a game like that pops up, but everybody's eyes are going to be looking at Cleveland and Kansas City. This is why I actually like to play the main slate, but also the afternoon slate. If I like two games in the afternoon slate out of like, let's say the four or five that are out there, but I know most of the public and some of the pros, so to speak, are going to be on like

a Kansas City versus Cleveland type game. If I really think Green Bay and New Orleans are going to shoot out in the same way and have the same type of fantasy value, well, I just, I mean, I'm creating such a chasm between me and the rest of the field because I know, of course, everybody's going to gravitate to Mahomes and to Tyree Kill, maybe Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, Jarvis Landry, whoever it is. I left out Odell Beckham. I probably shouldn't have done that. But anyway, the point is, I love when you have a featured game like that, but then you have a game right next to it which has a similar total. And if you can figure out where the value is in that other game,

I mean, you are really racking up the points relative to the field. See, I'm going to go right back to you here. Talk to me about the importance of correlating your stacks. I mentioned, again, using just as an example, Rodgers and Devonta Adams and Randall Cobb and bringing it back with another player. Why is it so important to correlate your stacks, especially in GPPs? Well, because first of all, you're picking the game for starters. You're picking the game because it's a high total, typically with a high total, even if it's like a seven point spread or a three point spread, let's say in the case of the New Orleans game, it's a 50 point total and it's only two and a half point spread.

Well, you can look at the implied totals there and you got 26.25 on Green Bay's side and 23.75 on New Orleans' side. What does that tell you? It tells you that both teams are going to put up points. So, of course, if you think Green Bay is going to put up a lot of points, that's great. But that's not really going to help you if it's a low scoring game. Go with what the Vegas implied totals are trying to tell you and pick up Aaron Rodgers. Maybe you pair him with Devontae Adams or you get crazy with an Alan Lazard. Maybe you pair him with Aaron Jones because you think that'll be an interesting potential correlation. But then you bring it back with an Alvin Kamar.

Then you bring it back with a Marquez Calloway or a Troutman or a Trey Kwan Smith or two of those guys. Because the reality is if Vegas is right and this hits in that 50 or maybe it goes over the total of the 54, 55 point range, well, you've just picked up a ton of fantasy points. So that's why when you're picking a high scoring game, you have to play both sides of it. And that's sort of the correlation, the stacking you're looking for. Leverage and contrarian. Let's talk about how these two things go hand in hand. We've mentioned the word already multiple times, leverage. Being contrarian just means doing something different than the public. We can use that to create leverage on the rest of the field. Say everybody is in on Joe Burrow with one or two of his past catchers,

Jamar Chase, Tyler Boyd, Tee Higgins, whoever it might be. Everyone's in on those guys for week one, which is reasonable because they are underdogs. And there's a pretty good total in that game, 48-point total between the Vikings and the Bengals. You then create a GPP lineup where you have Joe Mixon in it. He goes off for 150 total yards, two touchdowns. The Bengals win this game handily.

Burrow and the pass catchers don't do much. You just created massive leverage against the field because you went against projected game script and you got Mixon at much lower ownership, which allows you to, in turn, climb the standing. So, Mike, does that make sense? Is that a good example of creating leverage? And is there anything else in that way that makes sense for you in terms of creating leverage? Are there other

ways outside of just going against projected game script to do that? Yeah, there's definitely other ways to do it, but that is a good example of it. What I would like to focus on typically is going to be at a positional level rather than changing game script in individual games. So I'll be looking at, you know, speaking of like top running backs, whatever it may be there, be looking at what happens when they don't land in the end zone. They still rack up their 70, 80 yards, but they don't land in the end zone. Can I find someone who's going to land in the end zone at a much lower price point? And that's where I'm typically trying to find. I'm typically trying to find leverage at individual position levels, less so on the game when it comes to the same team. Another way that I like to do it though, when it does come to the game, so we're all focused on

one side of the game. I like to run, like if we know that Kyler Murray is going to be popular, and we know that his handcuffs are going to be popular, I immediately want to focus on the opposing quarterback and opposing stacks on the other side because we know that on any given week, Kyler Murray's median projection, the average outcome, the average outcome for his pass catcher, that's not going to get it done in a tournament, right? It might work in a cash game,

but it's not going to win the tournament. So if you think you're going to win the tournament, that means they're going to have to significantly or meaningfully exceed their median projections in order for them to do that. They have to be pushed in some way, typically, which is likely the other team outperforming their expectations. So my favorite way to get different there in that sense is going to be

attacking it on the other side of the game. And still you can get pieces of that player. So like Kyler Murray, you can still take his number one pass catcher if you want to, but play the other quarterback is something that I like to do a ton because it's likely not talked about enough. We always talk about bringing it back with that one receiver. I like to bring it back with the actual opposing quarterback in those situations because I think it's a way to really capture the game environment. We know that the two opposing quarterbacks in high scoring games are actually positively correlated. So that's something to also keep in mind when you do that. But I think that's the best way to bring it back while still capturing that overall game environment and

gaining leverage on the field and getting unique in different ways. For what it's worth, I do like Ryan Tannehill quite a bit in week one. They're going up against each other, Tannehill there and Kyler Murray. See, it's tough for people and maybe not for like advanced players. Some people who might be listening, it might be tough for them to at times be contrarian and try and create that leverage if they're not making as many lineups. You brought up the term mass multi-enter where if you play in a GPP where you can enter 150 lineups, you have that luxury of getting weird, right? Let's get weird. Let's create different kinds of lineups, but talk about how hard it is. I guess sometimes mentally when playing DFS to go against the grain and try

and be contrarian and create that leverage. Well, the cool thing about NFL DFS is you can be contrarian and gain leverage in so many different ways. And by the way, you can select contests, and we talked about this, that will lessen the idea of just having to be contrarian for a majority of the lineup that you choose. For example, in a single entry versus an MME. But yeah, I mean, I guess it's hard, but there's so many ways to go, especially if you're playing a full slate, or even if you're playing like the one o'clock or four o'clock set, you're going to have four or five games to choose from. So there's not just going to be one spot to grab your players. There's not just going to be one game or two games. I mean,

and there's so many ways to get different. And this is what we said at the outset. If you want to play Kyler Byrne and DeAndre Hopkins, that's great. But just be, here's an example. And by the way, I love playing Ryan Tannehill in that game. I think that's a really smart way to sort of get off the Kyler Murray chalk. I mean, Tannehill will have some ownership as well, but not nearly as much as Kyler Murray. So flipping that, but you know, if you like, let's say the Kansas City and Cleveland Browns game, you can get contrarian there just by altering the game script. I don't want to get too much into game script because typically, you know, the Vegas lines are kind of telling you what the game script is going to be,

but that's not universally accurate. So what if Cleveland with their really upgraded defense and incredible offensive line, what if they're controlling the time of possession and Nick Chubb is completely going off? I think most people will think of that game as, well, let me get Mahomes. Let me get Tyreek Hill. Let me bring it back with maybe Kareem Hunt instead of Chubb because the Browns are going to be in passing mode. So I'll take Kareem Hunt with Jarvis Landry. They'll catch a bunch of passes. But honestly, I think Cleveland can win that game. I think Cleveland might be headed to the Super Bowl this year. That's an honest take that I have. And so, sorry, Mike, I shouldn't have said that.

You're a Chiefs fan. I hope Chiefs didn't hear that. But my bigger point there, of course, is that you can be contrarian in so many ways by picking different players, by picking different positions in a high scoring game, or by picking just a different game script. So if you think Nick Chubb is going to control the line of scrimmage with that offensive line, you can still bring it back with Tyreek Hill. Maybe you just get portions of that game instead of stacking the quarterback. So maybe you get Ryan Tannehill with, let's say, an A.J. Brown, and you bring it back with somebody super contrarian like a Chase Edmonds,

and then you get shares of this Cleveland and Kansas City game. So just by pulling a couple shares instead of stacking that game, it's not that you're being contrarian, but you're not kind of joining everybody else who's stacking the homes with Tyreek Hill or Kelsey or somebody like that. So my bigger point here, there are so many ways to get contrarian. There are so many ways to put in chalky pieces and then quote contrarian pieces and make sure that your entire lineup doesn't exceed what we talked about before, like 140% or 150% in total ownership. Yeah. And I don't mean to pick on Mike. It's hard to pick on Mike when he's a Chiefs fan, right? He's on top of the world right now. He has Patrick Mahomes as his quarterback, right? But let's just look at the Super Bowl. I think the Super Bowl is a perfect example of that as well, Sia, where a lot of people expected the Chiefs to go in there

and basically handle business. And look, if you're playing the showdown slate, I'm sure that you created a lineup or two or multiple of that, the way the game played out with the Bucks winning, you had that in mind, like that was a possibility, but not many people actually thought that that was going to happen. So if you actually went that route and you went with like a Tom Brady and his pass catchers and his running backs, then you obviously created leverage there because many people thought

the Chiefs were going to dominate that game. All right, no more bad Chiefs talk. We're sorry, Mike. We're going to take a quick break. When we return, we're going to talk about the different types of GPPs and tournaments and how it changes your lineup construction. We'll do that next here on Fantasy Football Today DFS.

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There are many different types of tournaments with the main thing being, the main things being field size, amount and price point price for entries can vary anywhere from 10 cents to as high as i was looking through some contests there was one that was like 26 000 an entry if you got the money go ahead have fun play with it but in terms of field size it could be a 10 person contest it could be a 30 000 person contest and that's a little bit different than entries. And we'll talk about that in just a second. Do you guys lean towards smaller or larger field contests, a mix of both?

Is there one that you have been more profitable on? Mike, we'll start with you. Yeah, I mean, I play both for sure. You know, we'll play the Millionaire Maker. It looks like there are, what, 100, I mean, almost a million entries in this first one, the $5 one. I'll play those. I'll play a lot of three max entry, which are going to have a lot smaller, and single entry, which is obviously going to have a lot smaller field of players overall.

But mostly, they're large enough now that the strategy is very, very similar. When it gets different is more so of the single entry 3 mechs versus 150 mechs and less so on the overall contest size just because it all kind of regresses to that same point when you're dealing with, say, 10,000 entries even versus a million, it's going to all kind of bunch in that same way just because you're building lineups with the same constraints. And it's still a significant number after you reach 10,000 plus entries. So I don't think there's a massive, massive difference. I think that that can be overstated just a little bit. Obviously, in theory, it's nicer to play with fewer people. It makes a ton of sense. However, you're just going to have so much overlap. You're really not competing against 1 million unique lineups as lineups are going to be duplicated significantly

in a contest like that. So I don't have a strong answer on whether I think you should absolutely be playing this, absolutely be playing that. I think it always is going to come down to, for me, the structure of the contest, how much is being paid to the top 10%, the winner, what percentage of the field gets paid out. I'm far more concerned with that than the number of people in the tournament itself.

Yeah, and that's why I'm looking forward to the podcast we've got coming later this month where we're going to run through actual games that you should be targeting and ones that our guys have been profitable with before. Sia, do you have a lean here? Smaller field contests, bigger contests? Yeah, my focus really, I play a little bit of cash, of course, which we talked about last show. But my focus is really the single entries and the three maxes, mostly the single entries

though. I mean, I'll literally go in there and just scoop up every single entry. And that is really not just my NFL DFS strategy. That goes for really all the sports I play, which is mainly NFL and PGA. But I'm really trying to sort of like, it's almost, we talked about poker last time. It's almost like, you guys remember back in the days with online poker when that was a thing and you could play like nine handed or six handed, for example. And I was always more comfortable playing six handed because I just felt like the hand

ranges were going to be less. And my expectation was greater with respect to the hands I was going more comfortable playing six-handed because I just felt like the hand ranges were going to be less. And my expectation was greater with respect to the hands I was going up against because there was less people in the field. So I kind of feel the same way about single entry contests where I just, I'm not, first of all, I know I'm not up against 150 lineups. That's great. And more importantly, I feel like I can make certain assumptions about what people are going to play. And therefore, when I do go for those leverage plays, I know I'm going to be different. So in particular, when it comes to those entry games, let's get into it now. For GPP is the most common that I've seen single entry. We mentioned three max entry. You can

have up to three lineups in a specific contest, 20 max entry, and then some go all the way up to 150 max entries, which is that MME, that mass multi-entry, which we've referenced a few times here today. Mike, this is a loaded question, and I don't know if there's an actual answer, or you can kind of nitpick a few things here, but how does your lineup construction change based on how many lineups you can actually enter in a contest? Single entry versus obviously a mass multi-enter 150 lineups. Yeah, so I think it's super interesting. I'm glad you asked this question.

I actually didn't read a little rundown if you were going to ask this question to me or not. But I love this question because I think that one of the biggest inefficiencies out there is the single entry contests, especially in a sport like NFL, really, really all sports, right? Because there are a number of people that are finding content similar to the content that we're generating right now. And everyone has typically associated a single entry contest with your optimal lineup, with your cash game lineup. You typically are playing a more conservative lineup like that. And as Sia kind of alluded to there, we can really get a pretty good understanding ahead of time where the field is going to go, where they're going to make certain decisions. I love it because again,

it's not a multi-entry. You know that most people are entering their optimal lineup. You know that they're going to be conservative type builds. So we can really take advantage of that and making some really strong, like we can eat the chalk in several of the top positions and get different in one to two spots. So I actually won't play my cash game team or my optimal lineup in my single entries. I will still throw that one in a large field tournament, but I'm actually making a specific lineup just for the single entry tournaments. That is going to be a little bit more of a hybrid lineup. If we know like, so what I'm trying to get at here is basically like my favorite way to do,

actually, I'll go ahead and share it. I like to, in single entry, I like to play double tight end a lot. We know that Travis Kelsey is typically popular. We know in week one, Kyle Pitts will be, I can almost assure you my single entry lineup that week will have a tight end in the flex. I'll be playing both of those two players,

which I know will be the two routes that most people will be going there. But the number of people that will have that unique combination with both of them in the same lineup instantly sets me apart from a majority of the field, but still gives me strong, conservative, high floor plays, which is what I'm looking for there. I like to just make a little tiny game theory difference, roster construction differences. We could have talked about this in the last segment, frankly, where we talked about ways to get contrarian and ways to get contrarian doesn't mean you have to play low on guys. It means simply pairing guys together that are more difficult and uncommon. Like, so it's sometimes it's really hard

to get the most expensive running back quarterback and wide receiver. You can do it. You sacrifice things in your lineup, but they're unique combinations. That is what I'm focused on when I get to a single entry tournament. Yeah. Same question to you, Sia. How does your lineup construction change based on if you're entering single entry versus mass multi-entry? Yeah, no, I love that answer because I do think your single entry lineup is going to not mirror your cash game lineup, but you can definitely have a few more sort of chalky plays in there. But just making a couple switches there, correlations that you know people really aren't going to have, or just low-owned guys that you think are going

to pop and you think the tendencies and trends are this guy's going to get targets. Just making a couple small changes in your single entry lineup is really going to be the difference in terms of making your kind of cash game lineup a little bit different and different enough to succeed in a single entry contest. So yeah, and of course, as you sort of pan out to your 20 maxes, for example, and your 150 maxes, obviously you need to change things up a little bit because those are generally going to have way more entries in there. And you're going to be more prone to having duplicate lineups, unless you really take a hard stand with a game or a number of players that are going to be different. And a good example of that is, well, maybe in 150 max, maybe you want to avoid,

or at least you want to avoid stacking maybe those point totals that are 51 and a half, 52, 55, or maybe you just want to get shares there, but then you stack a game that has like a 47 point total that you think is going to shoot over. So like, that's one way to maybe get different in a bigger contest, but I don't think you need to do that unless you have just a really hard stance. I don't think you need to do that in a single entry. For example, Mike, if you're entering a bunch of lineups, it doesn't even have to be 150.

It could be the 20 max entry. If you're entering max there, should your lineups be completely different or is it OK to have some overlap? I definitely have a ton of overlap in any format, even 150 lineups. You know, we'll get into it on showdown sites a little more. But there are nights on 150 lineups and showdown where I have 100% exposure to one player. In any given week, like playing 20 lineups. So typically on normal NFL weeks, I'm playing five lineups. We didn't mention it yet because they don't really post these tournaments

until later in the week, and they're a little smaller, but they do offer some five max entry tournaments. Those are some of my favorite because that's typically the number of lineups that I like to play the most where I kind of enter them broadly across the board. And then another tip really quickly, sorry, we're getting a little off topic there. But if you decide you only want to play five lineups, you can still enter the 20 max and enter each one of them four times. And then you still have the ability to go late swap them for just one player, one minor tweak if you're doing well later, right before those last set of games tip off. But do not be afraid to do that. It's something I've always seen people that I've talked to me

about. There's this $3 contest. I really wish there was a $6 to $10 contest. I don't want to play the $3 or jump up to the $20. And my simple answer there is you can always double up and make it a $6 contest if you want to, right? You can enter the same team twice. It's now a $6 contest for you. Those are things that I like to preach to people all the time because you can definitely, definitely take advantage of that. And then you leave yourself open to that ability to use late swap.

All right. Back to the original question, though. Hit me with the original question again. I got off on a little tangent there because there's something i wanted to squeeze in earlier before we moved on yeah it's how much are you overlapping lineups when you're entering multiple in in a gpp a lot though definitely definitely overlapping the lineups a lot um i'll typically on any given wide receiver like i said i'm playing five lineups each week i will have probably one player that I have in a hundred percent of my lineups. And then another two that are going to be an 80% of my lineups. I generally take really strong stances. Um, you know, unless I'm playing

150 lineups, then I'll be equal to the field on some players. But generally speaking, uh, I want to be what we will call overweight or underweight on several, several players. So the ones that I really have in my lineup core, I definitely want to be overweight to the point that I'm basically double the field on those players. All right. So this might be a stupid question. Some some points in life here. Oh, no stupid question. This one might actually be a stupid question. See it. If you're making one hundred and 150 lineups for these larger games, are you using an optimizer? Are you doing it all by hand? Look, admittedly, I've never made 150 lineups at a given week. So how do you do it? Frank, I regret to inform you that is a stupid question. No, I'm

joking, of course. No, you kind of have to use an optimizer. I mean, there's just, I've, I rarely, in fact, I don't think I've ever, I've entered some, some bigger entry tournaments, but I've never done the 150 max and I've used an optimizer. I mean, you can use an optimizer for five entries if you want, or 20 or 25, whatever you want to do. But yeah, you're going to have to use an optimizer for 150 max. And what you can do there is sort of mess with the ranges on the optimizer and the percentages. And it'll just kind of, you know, if you want it to, it'll pump out 150 lineups with the preferred percentages and preferred players that you put in there. All right, Mike, how stupid was that question? Let's be honest. I mean, it's not the smartest question in the world if you're talking 150. Now,

if you were saying 20, you know, I know many, many people that will still build all 20 lineups by hand, right? So it definitely depends. I will use an optimizer to build one lineup. It just depends on how familiar you are with the data, how comfortable you are using it. The beautiful thing about the NFL is you have a lot of time. It's not like the NBA where in the NBA, we have maybe 15 minutes to adjust for injuries, adjust for news. It's a lot quicker. NFL, not so much. We have obviously the 90 minutes with inactives ahead of the first game. So you

do have enough time to comfortably do 20 lineups by hand. But yeah, generally speaking, it's optimizer all the way. It just helps you not make mistakes, in my opinion. So I talked about taking hard stances on players, right? I'll have projected ownership and I will project Devontae Adams is going to be 25% owned. I will make my decision based on my data. Am I going overweight, underweight, or at the field? Say I want to go overweight on it. I will go in,

if I project him at 25%, I will put his minimum allowed exposure to like 30 to 33%. So that way, my optimizer will force him into 33% or more of the lineups, but I will make sure that I'm taking the stances on those players. In other cases, if I want to be totally off of them, I will set the maximum ownership allowed for him at, say, 15%. So we'll guarantee that I'm going to come in 10% under the field, but still have a little bit of exposure to them. Those are things that are very, very, very difficult to do by hand and very, very, very easy to do with the use of a computer. Yeah, that's me, the caveman DFS player. Speaking of exposure, I'm happy you brought that up. Professional broadcaster, Mike McClure. See, I'll throw this one your way.

How do you balance exposure, right? You'll often hear in DFS, I'll have 20% Kyler Murray this week. Is it as easy as, okay, I'm looking at projected ownership. Kyler Murray is projected 15%. I want to be overweight. I'll have him in 20% of my lineups.

Is it that easy? Or is there a different process for balancing your exposure among, you know, mass multi-entering or not even mass multi-entering? Like if say you have 20 lineups, how do you balance that exposure? Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have a sophisticated answer for you. And what I mean by that is if I really like, and I keep going back to this Arizona, Tennessee game, but if I happen to really like Kyler Murray, I'm going to play Kyler Murray. He's not going to be Arizona-Tennessee game, but if I happen to really like Kyler Murray, I'm going to play Kyler Murray. He's not going to be in all of my lineups,

but I'm probably going to be way overweight on him. If the field's at 30%, I might be at 60%. And it's just, that's the stance I'm deciding to take. I mean, as far as, you know, you never necessarily, it depends what you're doing DFS for. I mean, if you're doing it kind of for fun, you probably don't want to be a lock button on a guy and a hundred percent exposure. But if you really believe in a game and you really believe in a game script and a player, it doesn't bother me to have. In fact,

some of my biggest wins last year in GPPs were when I was overweight on a certain player. In fact, I might've addressed this last week or maybe in one of our, you know, pre-show conferences. But I was overweight on Kyler Murray in that game against the Bills where he threw that, you know, kind of Hail Mary looking ball to DeAndre Hopkins. I had Murray. I had Hopkins. I had Christian Kirk, who I think might have had one or two touchdowns in that game. I brought it back with Diggs and maybe somebody else. And I was way overweight on Kyler Murray. And in a bigger single entry, I finished in second place. So I obviously had a lot of combinations with Kyler. Some of them failed and one of them fell into second place. Mike, how do you balance that exposure?

Yeah, I'm looking at the projected ownership that I will have that I generate myself. Also look at other sources. And again, I'll look at my simulation data. I'll look at my projections and then make decisions on pretty much every player. Initially, I will run and just let the computer run, analyze what it spits out. And then I will go through and look at situations're going to be 17, 18% owned. I don't really like the situation. I'm not really on anyone else in the game. And because I'm not really on anyone else in the game, for that play to really pay off, it means they're going to do really well. Someone else has a correlation in that game. And if my simulations, my data is not telling me that I need to be on them, I can go ahead and get rid of it. So it's 10% that I can allocate to get overweight on a better situation. So that's something that I will do very, very frequently. Like I said, I take very hard stances on going

overweight to the field and then sometimes to the case where I'm just completely off the guy's 0% ownership. And that's even with guys that are 30 to 40 owned um so i don't get too cute with the trying to dial in every single exact player on that because the other thing that i see a lot of people make this mistake frankly that try to go in and play 150 lineups right they get the most accurate ownership projections in the world we try to dial them in exactly where they should be and then you're going to break even and lose the 10% to 15% rate. And you're going to do that week over week because you're going to be coming in almost identical to the field. You're not taking hard stances. You're not gaining leverage in either direction

on the field. And I think that's the biggest mistake that you can make. I think the best thing you can possibly do is to find your guys and take hard stances one way or the other. See, this might be impossible to do, but what is your overarching piece of advice strategy when it comes to GPPs, tournaments, single entry, multi-entry, whatever it could be, anything that we haven't covered yet either that you would like to hit on when it comes to this format? You know, I think it's just to take a stand on what you believe in that week and the games you believe in that week. Be willing to potentially alter the game script a little bit different than what somebody else might have. And you gave a really good example with the Super Bowl.

Even if you had the Bucs in that game, you probably didn't think the game was actually going to measure out like that. So other than that, I think people in GPPs, they try to be different. I'm guilty of trying to be out like that. So other than that, you know, I think people in GPPs, they, they try to be different. I'm, you know, I'm guilty of trying to be too different sometimes. And what I'll do is I'll throw in a guy that has a really high ceiling, but no floor instead of a high ceiling, but a low floor. So, I mean, again, it's GPP. So you're really just hunting for the high ceiling, but you know, don't fall into groupthink where you... McColl Hardman's a really good example. McColl Hardman has 4-3-3 speed, and he's on the Kansas City Chiefs offense. And every time like Demarcus Robinson or Byron Pringle or Sammy Watkins were

injured, everybody just assumed that McColl Hardman was going to go off because he's fast. Well, the problem with McColl Hardman is he's not a very good receiver. Not quite yet, at least. He's not a very good route runner, which is why Demarcus Robinson actually had more catches than him last year. It's why Byron Pringle, when he was healthy, was in the game almost as much as McCall Hardman. So don't just, you know, that's why you kind of like listen to this show, listen to other shows that are giving you real information instead of just kind of like repeating, you know, stats to you, which stats are really important. But make your own decisions. I think that's the overarching thing.

Listen to the data and make your own decisions. Apologies. I had a calendar invite. I got to figure out how to shut that off. Usually when I record the baseball podcast at night, I'm not getting any calendar invites at midnight or 1 a.m. So I don't have to worry about it. Now we're recording in the middle of the day.

This is weird for me. I'm not used to being awake at this time and doing stuff. So it's just kind of weird. Sorry, Mike. Again, like we said, we weren't going to bash the Chiefs anymore. And then Sia goes out. Oh, my gosh. What am I doing? Talking bad about McColl Hardman. How dare you? Come on, Sia. Maybe he has a different opinion. I don't think McColl Hardman is a very good route runner. I don't know. I've heard some good things come out of camp about about McColl Hardman's a very good route runner. I don't know. I've heard some good things coming out of camp about McColl Hardman. Mike, do you have a lean one way or another? I mean, look, I think that he's obviously talented. He was drafted for a reason.

He's still hanging around for a reason. We just obviously have yet to see it develop and materialize on the field in competitive games. I don't have a strong take on it. I think that he's fine. I think in the right environment, he could be very good. I think he's someone that will have a breakout at some point. Will it be an entire season or will it be two games?

We'll see. We've seen that from Sammy Watkins a lot too. I do think that that, if and when it happens, is still going to be more of a product of the system he's playing in and having Patrick Mahomes throwing you the football is never a bad thing. Yeah, no more Sammy Watkins. This could be the breakout that we're looking for from McColl Hardman. I've heard some people tout him, especially in best ball. I mean, he could have some massive breakout games this season. Let's wrap up with some preseason week

one DFS. And what do we need to know about preseason DFS? Well, it's nearly impossible to predict, right? There is flat pricing across the board that tells you everything that you need to know. Every single player and defense on DraftKings is $5,500. On FanDuel, every single player and defense is $6,000. That means they have no idea. They have no idea what's going to happen in these games. And this year, different than years past, preseason is only three games long.

And we were talking beforehand, we don't really know how playing time is going to be allocated this year with only three games long, and we were talking beforehand. We don't really know how playing time is going to be allocated this year with only three preseason games because in years past, we had a pretty set idea. It would be, all right, preseason week one, maybe the starters play a couple of drives. Maybe they get to the end of the first quarter.

Preseason week two, they'll play maybe the whole first half. Preseason week three, okay, they're probably playing three quarters. Preseason week four, okay, they're probably playing three quarters. Preseason week four, no one's playing. No starters are playing. Now there's only three games. So I don't really know how playing time

is going to be allocated. Do you guys have any idea what might happen here in week one? Is it similar to years past? A couple of series, a couple of drives, a whole quarter? Do you guys have any idea? I don't.

I mean, I think they're going to be really conservative with week one. I think if you're going to roll out like legitimate starters, you know, first team, second team guys, of course, second team guys are going to play. But I think that's probably best suited for game two is my guess

of this three game sample size that we have. Maybe a little bit in game three, but I think they're going to want to get the guys ready by game two. So if we're going to have sort of DFS takes and DFS value when it comes to that, I think it's probably going to be more geared towards week two and week three. And I think week one is kind of going to be a wash in terms of the knowledge we're going to have with respect to how much people are going to play.

More than any other preseason week and any week in general for NFL DFS, week one is you're paying attention to the news because we don't have any data yet. We don't have snap counts. We don't have targets. We don't have playing time. We don't know how much time players are going to play. So I do have some news and notes that we'll get to in just a little bit here. But pay attention.

Anything that you hear or see or read about, okay, this player is going to play the second half, then if a player's playing a whole half in week one, that's probably a player that you want to be on here for DFS. All right, let's start with every game on the slate has a total between 33.5 and 39.5, courtesy of Caesar Sportsbook. So we're not expecting a lot of scoring, obviously. And it looks like there's going to be a different slate for each day of games, at least on DraftKings. We're recording this on Wednesday. The only slate that I could find as of now is a two-game slate for Thursday, which features the Washington football team at the Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Philadelphia Eagles, the way that the rest of the schedule plays out in week one. We have three games on Friday,

10 games on Saturday. There's only one game on Sunday. So the news and notes that I found, particularly for the games on Thursday, if you want to play that slate, coach Mike Tomlin for the Steelers noted on Tuesday that he won't cap Najee Harris's reps during Thursday's preseason contest at Philadelphia, which already that's like a light going off in my head. If he's not capping Najee Harris, even if he gets 10 plus touches at his skill level, that's probably a player I want at $5,500. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Specifically for their quarterback situation for the Steelers, similar to the Hall of Fame game, Ben Roethlisberger will not start. Mason Rudolph will get to start in this one. Dwayne Haskins will close out the second half. So maybe we get one quarter of Mason Rudolph, one quarter of Haskins. Joshua Dobbs will play the entire second half for the Steelers. Last week, Dwayne Haskins led the team with 13 pass attempts, while Joshua Dobbs was the only quarterback on the team to throw a touchdown.

Jalen Hurts and the Eagles starting offense will play in Thursday's preseason contest against the Steelers. Tim McManus of ESPN.com reports. And I do have another tidbit from the Athletic. Eagles veteran starters don't seem likely to play beyond the first quarter, which, okay. That kind of fits in with where we've been at in years past with week one of the preseason. For the Washington football team, Ron Rivera said he's going to let his guys play on Thursday. He wants to see command of the offense from Ryan Fitzpatrick.

See, this is your team. I mean, Ryan Fitzpatrick, I don't know that we'll see much, but if he can throw a touchdown, if Terry McLaurin catches a touchdown, I mean, that's really all you need. Yeah, that's true. But honestly, I'm kind of liking Josh Dobbs after what you're telling me about him playing. It sounds like almost the entire second half and fighting for a job, which he's probably

not going to get. I mean, this is this is his only audition or one of his only auditions because there are four quarterbacks deep right now. According to Mike Rice of ESPN.com, he suggested that J.J. Taylor, a running back with the Patriots, could log plenty of second half action in Thursday's preseason opener against Washington. Some of those other tidbits I found on The Athletic. Mac Jones should conceivably get the majority of playing time against Washington. We know that he's in a camp battle right now with Cam Newton for the starting job, so they want to

see what they have in the rookie early on here. And then another rookie for the Patriots, fourth round rookie, Ramondre Stevenson should be on the short list of players who could have a big preseason opener due to projected playing time. Within that same article, they talked about how Damian Harris and Sonny Michel are the 1A and 1B running backs for the Patriots. But Mike, I'm thinking that we see a lot of Ramondre Stevenson

and J.J. Taylor in this preseason game on Thursday. Do you have a lean on either of those players? I do not have a lean on either of those players. I think that we might get some more news out of camp before the actual game on game day. But as of right now, I definitely do not have a lean between the two. Can I just admit that I'm all of a sudden excited to play the Thursday slate with those two games? I thought I was just going to completely bypass that. But honestly, I kind of like Ramondre Stevenson just as a player.

And there's such a lack of talent, at least not elite talent in that backfield. I mean, I could see me throwing a lineup with Stevenson and with Joshua Dobbs and Najee Harris. I mean, it's starting to get interesting, folks. There you go. We reeled one in. We got Sia ready to play. So Stevenson and J.J. Taylor could see some significant playing time there for the Patriots.

And then some other news for those who want to play over the weekend. Obviously, Saturday will be a pretty big slate with 10 games on the schedule. And Friday has three games, as I mentioned. Josh Allen will not play on Friday, opening up more work for Mitchell Trubisky and Jake Fromm. Aaron Rodgers is unlikely to play at all this preseason.

There's already a report that Jordan Love will see a lot of work on Saturday for the Packers. And according to what I've read, he needs it. Drew Locke will start preseason week one for the Broncos and will play at least one quarter. Teddy Bridgewater will start week two for the Broncos. Baker Mayfield will not play this week, so we could see some Case Keenum and Kyle Lauletta.

Jacob Eason, which I mentioned earlier, will start this week and will play at least one quarter. Sam Ellinger will follow him. Matt Stafford and his backup John Walford with the Rams will not play at all during the preseason, and that's pretty common for the Rams. They don't play a lot of their starters throughout the course of preseason.

Expect Bryce Perkins and our old friend Duck Hodges who used to be on the Steelers to play a bunch in week one for the Los Angeles Rams a couple other notes Tua will start for the Dolphins this week probably get a couple of drives maybe get a quarter in Tom Brady will only play a drive or two for the Bucs I don't know if that gives you anything else that you want to, do you want to play now on Saturday as well, Sia, based on what I just told you? No, I think that's too big of a slate. I think I want to do Thursday, Friday,

and then I'm going to get Mike's advice for the showdown on Sunday, it sounds like. All righty. Well, let's do it. Episode two in the books. That'll do it for Mike and Sia. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Football Today DFS.

We'll be back again on Tuesday with Showdown Strategy and preseason week one reactions. See you then.