GPP Leverage: Week 10

Welcome back for the 10th NFL GPP Leverage column of the season. If you missed the Week 1 edition of GPP Leverage, I recommend you take a minute to read the intro to get a feel for the goals of this column.

The central storyline of the Week 9 main slate was the Bears’ backfield, as D’Andre Swift was ruled out, and we expected Kyle Monangai to be in a workhorse role against the worst defense in football at just $4,600. Monangai paid off in a big way, scoring 25.8 DraftKings points, which was a 5.6x point-per-dollar (PPD) value (i.e., 25.8 / ($4,600/1,000) = 5.6). However, Monangai came with a considerable amount of ownership. While we projected him for ~60% ownership in small-field contests, he came in at a whopping 77.4% on average in the $100 Spy and $200 Double Spy single-entry contests on DraftKings. This begs the question: Should we always just roster the obvious best plays, even when they’re over 50% owned? The table below lists all instances where a player has averaged at least 50% ownership in the Spy and Double Spy contests since the beginning of 2023.

As we can see, the field does not always nail the best value plays. Just two years ago, Zack Moss failed at the same $4,600 price tag at even more ownership. (And then he did it again the following week!) The same can be said for expensive players who see outlier ownership, as just two weeks ago, we saw Bijan Robinson fail against the Dolphins after he steamed up to 67.7% average ownership. We can also consider the hypothetical case where D’Andre Swift wasn’t ruled out last week. If Swift had played, Tyrone Tracy Jr. would have likely seen over 50% ownership at $5,100 — he saw 22% ownership even with Monangai garnering 77% — and he would have been a dud similar to Moss in 2023.