Wildcard Building Blocks

Wildcard Weekend – SUNDAY

As we talked about for yesterday’s slate, you need to have some differentiation on these slates; you can’t be afraid to go off the board a bit. Don’t go all-in with your bankroll but take some tournament shots with a few different lineups. You’re treating these like lottery tickets and can consider these thoughts for FD and DK.

Again, we’re looking for three types of lineups:

1. Chalk lineup – fill your lineup with the best, most popular plays.
2. Balanced lineup – get some of the popular plays but have some off-the-radar plays mixed in.
3. Contrarian lineup – go completely contrarian and focus on a game scenario that no one expects.

The winning lineup yesterday was a balanced lineup. Chalk with Allen, Diggs, Akers, Metcalf, Godwin. Some lower-owned plays like Brown and Knox. Then some contrarian plays with Fournette and Rams DEF. You have to think creatively on these slates and really focus on what-if game scenarios. What if the Rams win and the Seahawks are forced to play catch up? Akers, Metcalf, and Rams DEF. What if Washington keeps it close? What if the Colts keep it close? These are the playoffs – there aren’t supposed to be giant blowouts and there are always teams that surprise.

What does all that mean for us today?

1. Chalk Lineup

QB: Jackson

RB: Kamara, Conner, Chubb, Montgomery

WR: M. Brown, Thomas, Johnson, Robinson, Landry, Smith-Schuster, AJ Brown

TE: Andrews

DEF: Saints, Ravens

What stands out here? Henry isn’t in the top-four in popularity. We’ll see what that means for our lineups below.

2. Balanced Lineup

QB: Roethlisberger, Brees, Tannehill

RB: Henry, Dobbins, Edwards, Hunt

WR: Claypool, Davis, Sanders, Higgins, Miller

TE: Smith, Ebron, Hooper

DEF: Steelers, Titans

This slate points to some clear things. Chalk with a Jackson build. Balanced with a Dobbins and Henry build. Then pick your favorite QB stack to add in – I’ll probably go with Roethlisberger. Diontae and Juju are popular, you can go there with the double stack or can mix in Ebron and Claypool to get some differentiation. Then maybe it’s Hunt playing catch-up rather than Chubb.

You can go to Brees and Sanders perhaps, rather than Kamara and Thomas. Or you can get some leverage on Jackson lineups by going Brees + Kamara + Thomas/Sanders.

I’ll be playing Henry in most places – even against the Ravens, he’s too good to be the fifth-highest-owned RB. If you don’t play Henry though, a Tannehill stack makes a lot of sense, then you can add some chalk pieces from the other teams, like Marquise Brown and Kamara.

3. Contrarian Lineup

This is the spot to go wild. Maybe the Bears blowout out the Saints? Maybe they keep it close enough that a Trubisky stack can win.

Maybe the Browns are for real. Maybe they beat the Steelers. Maybe that game turns into a shootout and it’s a Mayfield stack you need, not a Big Ben stack.

Maybe Snead, Dez, or Boykin gets a score this week. Boykin has seemed like that guy recently and they all come at tiny ownership percentages. Perhaps one of them is the Fournette from yesterday.

If I’m building a non-Jackson QB stack for my balanced lineup, I’m going to build one version that has Marquise Brown and I’ll build another version that has one of those other Raven WRs.

Maybe Kmet or Graham steals a TD or two from Allen Robinson. We saw Knox and Doyle steal the spotlight yesterday. TE is a great way to get differentiation without sacrificing salary at the other positions.

Final Thoughts

Whatever approach you take – chalk, balanced, or contrarian – make your lineup tell a story. If Jackson busts, maybe it’s because Dobbins got all the TDs. If Kamara busts, maybe it’s because the passing game dominated. Normally, we shy away from playing a DEF when we have an opposing player on our roster. It’s nearly impossible to build that way on these small slates, so it’s okay to pair them – maybe Allen Robinson gets two TDs but Trubisky also throws a pick-six so Robinson and Saints DEF is fine. You can tell a similar story across all the games.

There are no clear blowout spots so RB + DEF isn’t a primary correlation today, but if you think a team does dominate, tell that story with the RB + DEF stack. Maybe it’s Kamara + Saints. Maybe it’s Chubb + Browns. Conner shouldn’t be as popular as is, perhaps people are discounting the Browns and targeting a Conner + Steelers stack.

Good luck!