GPP Leverage: Week 1

After an exciting down-to-the-wire thriller of an opener on Thursday Night Football, we’re already second-guessing all of the things we thought we knew over the summer and at least one person in every fantasy league is tilting their selection of Mark Andrews as an early-round pick. We are so back!!!

Welcome to the first NFL GPP Leverage column of the season. I’m super excited and honored to be writing this classic ETR article this season. I’m especially honored because I’m inheriting the column from two former Milly Maker winners, Drew Dinkmeyer and Gary Hartman. I can only hope that with this column, I also inherit the crown DFS achievement of winning a million dollars.

Since this is the first week of the season, I want to start out by covering the purpose of this weekly article for those that are new to ETR, new to the article, or maybe just need a refresher. Also, if you have not yet listened to the “How to Win NFL DFS Tournaments in 2024” episode of the podcast, I highly recommend you do so before reading on. 

The Leverage article is intended to focus on broad macro concepts while discussing some micro options, primarily as examples. I generally play small-field, single-entry, and three-max tournaments on DraftKings, but the broad concepts discussed here should be applicable to any contest size, entry limit, or DFS platform. To quote one of my favorite lines from one of Drew’s past editions of Leverage: “The examples I highlight will be in my portfolio of lineups, but if you want to improve considerably as a GPP player, mastering the concepts are more important than copying the answers.”

The Leverage article is also intended to be an early-week look at how to gain leverage in NFL DFS tournaments. I emphasize “early-week” because, even though this article is published just two days prior to the slate, projected ownerships and market sentiment will always move from Friday to Sunday, sometimes drastically. Many players don’t do their NFL DFS “homework” until Saturday, and there’s a significant amount of content that is not available until late Friday or Saturday, so it is expected that some of the micro examples discussed here will no longer be contrarian by Sunday morning. I strongly suggest that you follow our ownership projections, check in on Silva’s Change Log, and tune into our Wake n’ Rake and Last Minute Livestream shows on Sunday morning, in order to keep up with market movements. If you focus on the broad ideas discussed here rather than the individual leverage spots, you should be able to adapt with (or against) the market by the time projected ownerships settle in on Sunday morning.

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Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, let’s dive into the slate. Week 1 provides much uncertainty, as our projections and expectations are all based upon assumptions that we have not yet actually seen. Every team in the league has made changes over the offseason and we will not know for sure how those changes will manifest until we actually see them in action. As a result, Week 1 is all about embracing that uncertainty while still constructing intelligent lineups. Just because we want to embrace uncertainty doesn’t mean we want to take on too much risk and play for situations that are too unlikely to happen for them to be +EV. In other words, we should construct lineups in Week 1 as if only some of our assumptions are wrong. Not all of them.

I joked about the Mark Andrews situation in the intro, but the Thursday Night Football opener was a great example of a typical Week 1 game from an assumptions perspective. Most of our assumptions were correct, but we got one spot very wrong in Baltimore’s TE usage, and that proved to be the difference-maker in the game. 

Most of the time, at least some of the chalk is going to hit, and that’s okay. If we’re building smart lineups that are appropriately incorporating leverage spots alongside our strong chalkier options, we can find our way to the top of leaderboards more often than the field does.

On NFL DFS main slates, in which we typically see at least eight NFL games included, we can generally find leverage in many different ways. This week, I want to continue focusing on the Week 1 uncertainties and go position-by-position through last year’s Week 1 DraftKings DFS results to demonstrate what types of “uncertainty leverage” have actually come to fruition in recent history.

2023 Week 1 QB Results:

In Week 1 of last year, Tua Tagovailoa was overlooked in part because DFS players were excited to attack the Chargers’ run defense, as everyone was sure that it would still be terrible after watching it in 2022. But what if that run defense improved or Miami could succeed throwing the ball regardless of the run defense? Looking back, Tagovailoa was a perfect leverage option from a structural perspective: He was projected for low ownership, his own RB (Raheem Mostert) was the highest-owned RB on the slate, and his own WR (Tyreek Hill) was the highest-owned WR on the slate. By stacking Tagovailoa with Hill, you could gain leverage in multiple spots. First, against the chalky Mostert, because if Tagovailoa scored then it probably would not be through Mostert. Second, against other owners of the chalky Hill, because if Hill scored then Tagovailoa probably would as well.

This week, we see the same situation playing out with Kirk Cousins and the Falcons. While we are already projecting high ownership for Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Kyle Pitts, we are not expecting Cousins to come along for the ride. Even if Cousins’ projected ownership rises throughout the weekend, stacking him with at least one of London or Pitts provides excellent leverage against lineups with Robinson and other lineups with London and/or Pitts. I like that.

We could also see history repeat itself again this week with the same stack of Tagovailoa and Hill, as Hill is once again expected to be the highest-owned WR on the slate and Tagovailoa is expected to go overlooked.

Jordan Love also went overlooked in Week 1 last season, and this was likely due to the uncertainty around his ability to create consistent fantasy production. He was a young QB entering his first season as a full-time starter and we weren’t yet sure exactly how good he would be as the Day 1 starter. That same uncertainty situation applies to Will Levis this week.

2023 Week 1 RB Results:

Christian McCaffrey went largely underowned in Week 1 last season all because head coach Kyle Shanahan was adamant that McCaffrey would start the season in a timeshare with Elijah Mitchell. Ultimately, our assumptions were wrong, as Mitchell barely played and McCaffrey had a smash week.

We have numerous opportunities to attack unknown RB workload situations once again this week. In both Chicago and Denver, we are projecting RBs D’Andre Swift and Javonte Williams to be lead backs of a committee. However, if it turns out that the coaches want to use them as workhorses and our assumptions are wrong, they will be significantly underowned relative to their upsides.

We also have opportunities to take advantage of unknowns with the RB rooms of Cincinnati, Dallas, Los Angeles (Chargers), Tennessee, and Washington. All of these teams have newly-assembled RB corps in which we are expecting close to 50/50 splits. But once again, if we’re incorrect on our assumptions and any of these RBs end up with the lion’s share of the touches, they will have the potential to break the slate at low ownership and a discounted salary.

2023 Week 1 WR Results:

In Week 1 of last year, Brandon Aiyuk and Jakobi Meyers broke the slate when we perhaps didn’t fully appreciate entering the season how large their roles would be or how efficient their offenses could be. Of course, had we realized the opportunity that each WR would have in