In the inaugural matchup of the 2023 NFL Season, the Kansas City Chiefs (-4.5) face the Detroit Lions (O/U 53.5). This DraftKings Showdown Worksheet helps you build successful Showdown lineup(s). Each section is explained in detail on the sheet, but I will also provide a high-level overview here.
SIMILAR ROSTER CONSTRUCTION
I review every game for each team over the time period corresponding to when they have fielded a “similar” offensive lineup, purely from a fantasy perspective. Of course, this is slightly subjective. However, it also helps ensure a large enough sample size is considered.
HIGHEST SCORING POSITION
This section highlights how often each position has finished as the top scorer over the entire duration of “similar roster construction” (outlined above), which helps identify which position to put into the CPT spot. It also shows, on average how many of the other positions were included in the Top 4 and the Top 2 scorers for that team. The purpose of these charts is to help identify the optimal CPT position and what other positional team stacks to target.
Lions: Pretty concentrated at the RB and WR position here, where the top finishers have historically been D’Andre Swift and Amon-Ra St. Brown. We will have to decide which RB, David Montgomery or Jahmyr Gibbs, takes on the Swift role of years past. It’s surprising to see Jared Goff land as the top scorer only 12% of the time over the past two seasons.
Chiefs: No surprise to see Patrick Mahomes as the top scorer in 76% of the Chiefs games last season. Get used to him spreading it out again this year. Figuring out the 1v1 decisions at RB and WR will be critical.
PERCENT OF GAMES AS TOP X SCORER
The section helps identify how often each specific player or position finished as the top 1 through 6 scorers on their team in any given game throughout their similar roster construction. It also compares to 2022 season results to highlight any players/positions who were specifically performing better last season. As we get further into the 2023 season we will change the comparison lens. The goal of this section is to identify players to include in your Top 4 or Top 2 stacks when building your lineups. For example, if a team’s RB2 is only finishing as a Top 4 scorer 10% of the time and the team’s WR3 is doing it at a 30% rate, then it probably makes more sense to fill in a receiver in the fourth spot.
Lions: We can basically eliminate the Lions WR3 (whoever we think that will be). No shocker to see the strong Jamaal Williams season from 2022 really pop out in the Delta chart. If we think Montgomery takes on most of the RB load tonight while they slowly work in the rookie Gibbs, then I think he is a smart play.
Chiefs: There’s no world where fading Patrick Mahomes and playing more than 2 Chiefs really makes sense. He spreads the ball out too much in this new style of offense where they don’t have a dominant WR1. Of course, the Travis Kelce injury is extremely important to monitor today. If he plays, I am comfortable firing him up.
DRAFTKINGS SCORING CORRELATION
This section shows how each player does relative to one another in DraftKings scoring. If the number is closer to 1, both players generally perform similarly (bad or good). If the number is closer to -1, both players usually do not perform similarly. This should help solidify some of your choices when completing your stacks and may be critical when determining mid-range players to include with some of the studs you started your lineup with.
Lions: The strong negative correlation between Josh Reynolds and D’Andre Swift makes a lot of sense as they typically switch off as the secondary receiving option after Amon-Ra St. Brown. Depending on whether you think Sam LaPorta steps up in his first game as an NFL rookie decides how strongly you want to carry TJ Hockenson’s correlation over to him.
Chiefs: Again, this further illustrates that outside of Mahomes and Kelce, the Chiefs are really a grab bag of fantasy points. I wouldn’t get very locked in on any of their RB or WR options if I made multiple lineups. Instead, I would try and go for as many different combinations as possible.
Lineup Starting Point
Typically, I am always building 4-2 lineups. This means four players from one team and two players from the opponent. However, due to the spread-out style of these offenses and the correlation numbers above, I think it’s perfectly fine to go with a 3-3 build.
Here is a strong four-player shell that I am starting my build with tonight! Good luck, and I hope to see you atop the leaderboards.
