Every week the First Look article gives you a taste of the slate and some of the more intriguing salaries that DraftKings releases. The goal is to identify early-week cash game considerations, as well as potential tournament plays before we piece together the stacking options. On Tuesdays, I share some of these insights on the Fantasy Footballers DFS & Betting Podcast if you want further commentary on some of the salary standouts.
Check back later in the week when Matthew Betz and I share our official DraftKings and FanDuel picks for cash and GPPs exclusively in the DFS Pass.
Overview
For newcomers, the Thanksgiving slate for DFS includes three games starting at 1:00, 4:30, and 8:20 EST.
I’ve also added a glossary of metrics at the bottom if you want a quick refresher or definition of some of the statistics used below.
Before diving into the salary standouts and how we view these games from a pace perspective, let’s go over a couple of high-level thoughts about this slate.
Roster Construction– You’re not going to be sneaky. Everyone is going to be playing everyone this week because of the nature of a 3-game slate. The combination of your players ultimately is what differentiates you from the rest of the field. Ask yourself the question: what do I gain if this player hits? But not only in regards to their points but the leverage it allows you to gain on other players involved.
For example, rostering Amon-Ra St. Brown at WR is essentially asking for him to be the WR1 on the slate ahead of CeeDee Lamb. But you’re also asking for a scoring output that more than pays off the salary you are allocating for him. Paying up at WR (and potentially even FLEXing another) is begging the rest of the field to have lower RB scores. You need Amon-Ra St. Brown to be a differentiator at his salary potentially putting up 20-25 DK points.
Salary Distribution– Three games on a slate can lead you to think about getting different from the field. I love it. But there’s a certain point where you are hindering your roster from accruing raw points. Based on our projections and historical data from these Thanksgiving slates, when you start leaving more than $600 on the table, you are also leaving fantasy points out there.
Looking Back at 2024– Here is how the field attacked the Thanksgiving slate in the Milly Maker last year courtesy of FantasyLabs.com:
FLEX Usage– Courtesy of FantasyLabs, here is 2024’s Thanksgiving Slate in terms of how the field attacked the FLEX in the Milly Maker.
WRs are often underutilized by the field but last year RBs won the day. The major caveat I will give about 2025’s slate is we have a ton of high-end WRs (Chase, St. Brown, Rice, Pickens and Lamb) and no elite TEs in the mix that will skew some of the numbers this year. FLEXing WRs is always an optimal move on DraftKings, a site with PPR scoring.
Game Stacking– This might be the most important bit to consider for tournaments this week. Normally, we employ stacking strategies to take advantage of simple correlation properties in DFS. In a 3-game slate, we are narrowing our player pool but the aspect of creating leverage is even more important. For example, if you are going overweight CHI-DET you are saying that game will be the most valuable for DFS while recognizing a lot of the roster percentages will flow from it. If you stacked Jared Goff with two Lions and brought it back with two Packers, you are asking Goff to be the QB1 on the slate. You want to create leverage situations in your stacks with three games at your disposal and everyone having some exposure to almost every team. Instead of saying I want to roster only the best Lion (Amon-Ra St. Brown), attaching two more Lions gives your roster more routes to success (or failure) compared to just playing one of the most popular WRs on the slate.
For contrarian large-field tournament players, write out the game scripts that you think the field will be using. For instance, BAL/CIN likely will be played with Joe Burrow or double-stacks with someone running it back with a player on the Ravens’ side. Flip the script if you want assuming Baltimore gets a lead through their defense and a TD on the ground. Stacking the Bengals side gives you massive leverage, especially if you think this team can put up enough points.
For a full write-up on the subject, check out Stacking: The Strategy & Thinking Behind It.
Quarterbacks
- As we’ve seen all year on DraftKings, the QB pricing is relatively cheap. Those salaries however do not reflect game totals that are popping 48+ for all 3) compared to how we have played QBs in the past on DraftKings.
- For the 1st time in his career, Lamar Jackson totaled ZERO touchdowns in back-to-back weeks. It’s obviously a great matchup for him to go off against the league’s worst defense but we just aren’t seeing Lamar run like he has in the past. He does crush the rest of the competition in fantasy points per drop back and all the efficiency metrics.
- The easiest clicks will be Mahomes or Dak in that middle range. You’ve heard me repeat all year long how Dallas games are averaging 58+ combined points per game.
- Of the 6 starting QBs (assuming Burrow is active), I do expect Goff or Love to come in the lowest in roster percentage.
Running Backs
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