Showdown Breakdown: Cowboys at Ravens

NOTABLE INACTIVES

SHOWDOWN STRATEGY & TRENDS

Nearly 3/4 of the way through the 2020 season, we’re gathering a large enough sample to confidently review contests through the first 12 weeks and identify where we have an edge and how we can improve our overall process. It’s important to keep in mind, that while it’s growing, we’re still working with a relatively small sample. We recommend reviewing this article before building lineups. You’ll find our thoughts on proper captain selection, optimal roster construction and some ideas on how to ensure your lineups are unique. Like most DFS lineups, the best showdown lineups are created where uniqueness + optimal correlation + max projected points meet. Below you can review winning lineups to better familiarize yourself with optimal construction.

DST & Kickers

After being a major talking point in 2019, we’ve seen DSTs and kickers have mostly gone overlooked through Week 12. The average ownership for DSTs in 2019 was 20.69% at an average salary of $4100. Over half way through the 2020 season and DST ownership has dropped to just 11.98% at an average salary of $3900. We know from the work Levitan did in the offseason, projecting DST fantasy scoring is not an easy task. If the field continues to underown defenses, there’s an edge in taking an overweight stance in large-field tournaments.

DraftKings finally priced up kickers following a full 2019 season where they consistently projected as the top PT/$ options on any given slate. Now averaging $4000 compared to $3700 in 2019, they no longer project as positive value plays on every slate and thus have carried lower ownership; 22.32% last season compared to just 15.94% through 12 weeks in 2020.

Salary

46.3% of the field used less than or equal to $49,500 when building lineups. The average number of duplicates per lineup for all lineups at or under $49,500 was 4.86 compared to 23.68 average duplicates for lineups that used greater than $49,500. In a format that rewards uniqueness, it’s important to consider the context of the slate and the size of the contest we’re playing if setting caps on total salary used. In some cases it’s acceptable to play lineups well below $49,500 in an attempt to be different.

Stars and Scrubs

A lot of showdown decision-making revolves around whether we should be considering ‘punt’ plays paired with higher-priced players or a more balanced approach. Defined as all players priced $2000 and below, the field has been slightly overusing ‘scrubs’ through 12 weeks as 32.27% of top 1% lineups used at least (1) such player compared to 38.3% of the total field. The stars and scrub approach is generally thought to bring with it a reduced amount of duplicates but that has not been the case this season. Top 1% lineups that rostered at least one sub-$2000 player were duplicated on average 26.01 times compared to 24.19 times for top 1% lineups that utilized a more balanced approach.

Using Ownership To Be Unique

Most discussions surrounding how to use ownership to build unique showdown lineups revolve around cumulative ownership. Cumulative ownership is easy to calculate, understand and is what lineup optimizers use when creating lineups. Unfortunately, the correlation between cumulative ownership and number of duplicates is pretty weak (.24 r-squared). We’re actually better off using ownership product, multiplying each roster spot’s ownership % together, to determine how unique our lineups will be. Ownership product has a much stronger correlation with number of duplicates (.56 r-squared) and isn’t extremely difficult to implement when building lineups. For example, a three-player group of 60% + 40% + 20% = 120% cumulative ownership, will generally be higher owned than a three-player group of 80% + 30% + 10% = 120% ownership.

Historical Winning Lineups

When we review winning lineups, we can think backwards and determine what game-script ideas and correlations went into constructing each roster. In the Week 1 MNF matchup between the Titans and Broncos, pricing was incredibly soft and it was easy to lock in top projected player, Derrick Henry, into the captain spot without making additional sacrifices to the rest of our lineup. The field followed suit, owning Henry in the captain spot at a 31.4% rate. At elevated ownership, it made sense to look for paths where Henry could be outscored by another option; one such path was to assume the Titans had success through the air. Corey Davis at captain immediately provided leverage off of Henry and fellow WR A.J. Brown who was also highly owned. The winning lineup paired Davis with QB Ryan Tannehill and included Henry in the flex, locking up a majority of the team’s offensive production. Davis’ cheap $9000 captain salary and lack of high-priced options from the Broncos side kept the lineup’s total salary ($47000) well below the cap without sacrificing too many projected points and ensured it wouldn’t be duplicated despite high cumulative ownership (268.48%). These are the types of decisions we have to think through during showdown lineup construction in an effort to maximize correlation and uniqueness.

TEAM-SPECIFIC ANALYSIS & NOTABLE PRICE CONSIDERATIONS

Another wild week around the National Football League closes out on a Tuesday with an interconference battle as the Cowboys head to Baltimore to face the Ravens as 8-point road dogs in a game with a middling 45.5-point total. In Weeks 1-5 with Dak Prescott under center, Cowboys OC Kellen Moore led the league’s pass-heaviest offense when games were within one score (64%). Since the injury, Dallas’ situation-neutral pass rate has plummeted to just 54% since Week 6. Even while adjusting for QB talent, Moore has shown some sensitivity to game script cranking up the pass volume when trailing (64%). On the other side, OC Greg Roman is the mastermind behind the league’s run-heaviest offense when games are within one score (54%). Largely unfazed by game script, Roman’s play calling has stayed within +/- 5% of his situation-neutral average this season, meaning we aren’t overadjusting for projected game flow, at least on the Baltimore side.

Off since Thanksgiving, the Cowboys’ pass-catching corps comes in rested and fully healthy headlined by Amari Cooper ($9600). Since Dak went down in Week 5, the Cowboys’ receiving opportunities have been so evenly distributed it’s difficult to distinguish one receiver from the other. Cooper and CeeDee Lamb ($6600) are tied for the team lead in target share (20%) while Cooper holds a slight edge over Michael Gallup ($4400) and Lamb in Air Yards share (26% to 25% to 22%) and WOPR (.48 to .46 to .45). Cooper has easily been the most efficient of the group, converting his 43 targets into 32/424/2. Likely benefiting from the team’s ‘easiest’ WR/CB matchup, Cooper offers Tuesday night’s safest floor among the Dallas receivers. Gallup will run into plenty of Jimmy Smith coverage, who is allowing Week 13’s second-lowest yards per route covered (.38), but does offer low-owned upside as a member of the Hermsmeyer Week 13 Buy-Low Model and is the cheapest of the Cowboys’ trio. Landing between Lamb and Gallup on the pricing spectrum, Dalton Schultz ($5200) may wind up going overlooked despite a modest 16% target share and 14% Air Yards share. The matchup for TEs against Baltimore is completely neutral (0.0%), per our DvP tool, and the Ravens are getting targeted by the position at the league’s 11th-highest rate. Should Baltimore’s perimeter CBs lock down the Cowboys’ WRs, Schultz could run into a few additional targets at low ownership. Having gone under 10 DraftKings points in four of his last five games, Ezekiel Elliott‘s ($10200) ineffectiveness behind a makeshift offensive line could once again be exposed against a Ravens defense, that as Silva noted is due to get run-stuffers Brandon Williams and Calais Campbell back. Surprisingly, Elliott’s usage isn’t far off his 2019 averages, handling 65.5% of the team’s rushing attempts to go along with an 11.2% target share, good for the league’s eighth-highest total opportunity share (32.7%) through Week 12. Zeke has also remained the go-to back near the end zone handling 79.2% of the team’s carries inside the 5-yard line. As 8-point road dogs facing a Ravens defense that has allowed the league’s eighth-fewest fantasy points to opposing RBs, we tend to think Elliott once again struggles to get things going though paths exist for him to produce a slate-winning score on volume alone. Brandon Thorn’s 12th-ranked DL will face off against his 27th-ranked OL that will also be without LT Cameron Irving (knee) and Zack Martin (calf), making life difficult for Andy Dalton ($10000). With no rushing upside and quarterbacking a team with a paltry 18.5-point implied total, it’s difficult to get excited for Dalton outside of flex usage in Cowboys pass stacks. 

Nearly a week removed from their COVID outbreak, the Ravens’ offensive depth chart is slowly returning to full health but will still be without key pieces Tuesday night. We couldn’t dream up a better spot for Marquise Brown‘s ($7200) Week 12 4/85/1 encore than a matchup against the Dallas secondary that has allowed the league’s most fantasy points to WRs and grades out as the position’s seventh-softest matchup in Week 13 (+1.2%).  With Willie Snead (COVID) and Mark Andrews (COVID) still out, Brown’s competition for targets is thin, setting him up to dominate pass-catching volume Tuesday night. Behind Brown, Devin Duvernay ($800) appears to have taken firm control over the team’s WR2 role for as long as Snead is sidelined, playing on 77% of snaps and running a route on 95% of Week 12 dropbacks. Because of the collective dud the Ravens’ offense produced in their Week 12 matchup at Pittsburgh, the secondary pieces have been priced down leaving Duvernay as a screaming value against the Cowboys’ inept secondary. Dez Bryant ($1000) catches a Tuesday night revenge game against his former team operating as the Ravens’ WR3 playing on 60% of snaps and running a route on 72.7% of dropbacks. Comfortably ignoring Week 12’s RG3-induced stinker, the entire Ravens receiving corps is playable at their respective price tags in what looks like an obvious get-right spot. With Andrews out and Nick Boyle (knee) on IR, Luke Willson ($1800) filled in playing on 70% of Week 12 snaps, running a route on 81.8% of dropbacks. While the 6’5”, 251-lb TE is no Mark Andrews, he should run into plenty of opportunities as the every-down TE for a team that targets the position at the league’s fifth-highest rate (27%). With J.K. Dobbins ($8600) and Mark Ingram ($5600) activated off the COVID list, they’ll once again join Gus Edwards ($5400) to form Baltimore’s three-headed RBBC. With the trio active, we suspect the backfield will look a lot like it did in Week 11 where Dobbins led in snaps (63%), rushing share (50%) and target share (10.3%). As an 8-point home favorite on the league’s run-heaviest offense, we don’t even need Dobbins to see a bellcow share of the team’s rushing attempts in order to produce a slate-winning score; we just need him to outpace the other members of his own backfield. As Silva noted in matchups, enemy quarterbacks have tormented Dallas for a combined 24:4 TD-to-INT ratio and 7.3 yards per pass attempt, a bottom-10 clip across the league, setting up Lamar Jackson ($11600) to get the Ravens’ offense back on track. Far from the fantasy monster we became accustomed to last season, Jackson still offers unmatched upside. Since the Week 6 bye, he’s cranked up the rushing volume, turning 53 carries into 229/1 on the ground. Now we get an opportunity to roster him at his season’s low price tag in the best possible matchup.

TOP PLAYS

Given the importance of maximizing raw points, correlation, and uniqueness, we’ve grouped our top plays into three categories: top overall plays, top value plays and top leverage plays. Our top leverage plays are ones where we identify a player that has a higher chance to be a necessary piece of a winning lineup than ownership projections would indicate. 

STACK IDEAS

*Captain Lamar Jackson + 2 Ravens Pass Catchers – Given how DraftKings priced the secondary pieces on the Ravens’ offense, the slate as a whole is fairly loosely priced, making it easier to build teams we like around CPT Lamar without making too many concessions. Because of this, we should be willing to leave more salary on the table than we’re generally comfortable with, by pairing Jackson with at least one of Duvernay, Bryant or Willson in an effort to be more unique.

*Captain Marquise Brown, Lamar Jackson, CeeDee Lamb – Last week Brown proved the talent was still there as he pantsed the Steelers’ secondary on his 70-yard touchdown catch and run. Now back with Jackson and still without Snead and Andrews, Brown has a clear path to double-digit targets. The rare perfect storm of price + talent + opportunity + matchup.

*Captain J.K. Dobbins, Andy Dalton, Michael Gallup – We’re less concerned about the downside risk here with Dobbins and more focused on what his box score would look like if he once again handles a lion’s share of the team’s backfield touches. If he, not Lamar, secures the carries near the goal line, there is legitimate 100-yard + TD upside.

*Captain Ezekiel Elliott, Lamar Jackson, Devin Duvernay – We don’t expect Zeke to go unowned but he does offer leverage off popular roster construction if we slot him in at CPT and build assuming a Cowboys victory. In these lineups, we’re unlikely to get the type of garbage time PPR production that can lift multiple pass catchers from the Ravens. Therefore, we should be heavy on the Cowboys to maximize our leverage should they pull off the upset. 

*Captain Amari Cooper, Andy Dalton, Mark Ingram – The most likely candidate from the Cowboys’ pass-catching corps to run into a captain-winning performance, Cooper leads the team in target share (22%) and Air Yards share (26%) since Dak went down. Even with Dalton under center, the Cowboys have been willing to air it out when trailing, offering PPR-specific paths even if the Cowboys’ offense struggles to put up points.

PROJECTIONS/OWNERSHIP