We won’t be providing individual showdown slate analysis this year, but you don’t really need it. Individual analysis doesn’t matter as much as your general roster construction.
Showdown slates aren’t quite like lottery picks, but they’re close. You’re really playing these in one of two ways:
Approach 1: Trying to find the most likely optimal lineup and expecting to tie for 1st place if you hit it.
Approach 2: Trying to find an outlier (or at least much less common) optimal lineup and trying to win 1st place alone. This is obviously the higher variance, lottery-pick approach.
The key to showdown slates is ensuring your lineup tells a story. Just pick a story, any story, and build to that.
If you’re building for approach 1, your story may be, “I think the favored team gets out to a lead through a balanced scoring effort, giving their RB a lot of volume and goal-line opportunities but also getting a WR and their K some nice scores as well. And I think the other team’s QB and a WR get some volume trying to catch up.” You’re predicting the most likely game flow and making your lineup match. And you’re looking for the favored team’s RB or WR to be in your captain/MVP spot. Here’s what it looks like:
That’s with the RB in your captain spot. But, this game we’re using is actually a perfect example of when you may choose to use a WR as your captain instead. In this particular game, there’s still a lot of uncertainty around whether Jones or Fournette gets the most RB carries or whether they split the work pretty evenly. That’s enough uncertainty that you may opt to build around a WR instead.
In this story you’re saying Mike Evans continues getting an outsized share of red-zone targets, pairing him with his QB. And you still think Jones gets some work, you’re just not confident it’s enough work to be in your captain spot. You throw in a TD to Gronkowski and you come back on the other side with Amari Cooper getting a lot of volume in the catch-up effort. Now, our third captain option comes into play, QB. Because you’re using both Evans and Gronkowski, you may decide to make another lineup that has Brady instead of Evans at captain.
Note: this lineup also works with Ezekiel Elliot instead of Cooper; you may prefer the safer volume of the RB and the potential for a lot of RB receptions later in the game. But, you may also think Tony Pollard gets all that work, so you opt to go with Pollard and Prescott as well.
Now you’ve worked yourself into a lineup that is more fitting for approach two. There won’t be many lineups that feature both RBs from the underdog. And, more so, there won’t be many that also pair the two RBs with the QB. But you’ve told the story of how it happens. Is it the most likely scenario? No. But is it a scenario that is within the realm of possibility? Yes. And is it a scenario that can get you 1st place alone if it hits? Yes.
This brings us to some other alternative builds I like. I like to play for approach 2. I’ll have some approach 1 lineups, but it’s more fun shooting for 1st place alone. Some outlier builds that I like to include:
- WR2 as captain.
- K as captain.
- Double-K lineup. Every year I see a couple of field-goal fests where a double-kicker lineup works.
On FanDuel, in approach 1, I also like to build three or more permutations of my main lineup. Meaning, building the same lineup, but swapping out the captain spot. You simply have to get the captain spot right to win on FanDuel. The pricing is the same whether in the captain spot or not. To ensure I get it right, I’ll take the same lineup and use RB, WR, and QB in the captain spots in three different lineups. There’s nothing worse than losing a share of first or even solo first with the right lineup but the wrong captain.
Note, on DraftKings you don’t need to do this. The captain pricing is different, so you’re making a conscious value decision on who to use at captain. Tell your story, build your lineup, and play around to see what captain makes the most sense in the context of the salary and the story you’re telling. The captain spot doesn’t have to be the highest-scoring player on your roster, just try to make it the most points per dollar on your roster.
These examples were all based on the narrative of the favored team winning. But you can start your lineup story wherever you want – if Dallas jumps out to a lead, how do they do it? Through some big passing plays, perhaps? What if the game isn’t as high scoring as expected? Think about who benefits in that scenario and tell that story with your lineup.
You’ve now seen how you can develop your lineups by telling the most likely story, then telling an alternative story, and working your way all the way to a not-likely-but-possible story.
Pick your story and build it.