Betz’s Small Field GPP Review: Week 12 (Fantasy Football)
Welcome to a brand new article for the 2025 DFS season! I get most of my action in cash games and small field tournaments for DFS, shying away from the large field lottos. In this article each week throughout the NFL season, I’ll recap my lineup for small field GPPs on DraftKings, highlighting my process and strategy. For the 2025 season, I’ll usually be playing in the $100 Single Entry Spy on DraftKings.
*Note – For this week, I played in the $75 Single Entry End Zone the third week in a row. I’m not sure if DK is no longer offering the 334 person Spy, but if that’s the case, I may switch the the End Zone permanently for this article. Either way, let’s jump in!
Contest Format
- $100 Single Entry
- Total Entrants: 334
- Placed Paid: 71/334 (20.6%)
- Rake: 9.9%
Week 12 Small Field GPP Lineup
The Thought Process
– It was another tightly priced slate on DraftKings this week, so most optimal builds had us spending down at QB once again. So far in 2025 DFS on DraftKings, that’s been right the vast majority of the season. The chalk QB for cash was once again King Jacoby, and it’s not that I didn’t think he was a good play, I just didn’t want to play the same stack as everyone else two weeks in a row, especially since Brissett, McBride and Michael Wilson were all more expensive this week.
– I opted to pivot down in the cheap range for a Mason Rudolph – DK Metcalf stack with Luther Burden on the other side. When the cards flipped, I was very excited to get Rudolph (1.6%), Metcalf (10.1%) and Burden (9%) at contrarian roster percentages. In NFL DFS, we usually don’t get “late news” very often; It’s not like NBA where news is flying in fast and furious throughout the entire slate and we have to adjust with minimal time to digest the information. With inactives being released an hour and a half before lock, we generally don’t get news that alters the slate in a drastic way. This week, I think a lot of us (myself included) thought Rodgers would play, but when we found out he wasn’t going to play, I didn’t think many people in the NFL DFS world were excited to play Mason Rudolph….for obvious reasons :)
– However, I actually really liked this potential ceiling spot for Metcalf as Rudolph is actually willing to push the ball down the field whereas Rodgers is doing everything he can at this stage of his career to get the ball out quick and avoid being hit. Chicago was down multiple corners and all three starting LBs, so I really thought Pittsburgh could find success offensively. Unfortunately, most of that production went to the RBs as both Warren and Kenny Gainwell found the end zone. On the other side of that stack, Luther Burden was a cheap correlation piece who was coming off a game where he finally overtook Olamide Zacchaeus in playing time. I wanted to play him before we knew for sure that he was ascending into a new role.
– Once I built a contrarian stack, I knew I could put chalk around it – like the rest of the DFS field this week, the Lions were atop the priority list back home with a 30+ point implied total against a struggling Giants defense. Obviously, the runout here to get a wild back and forth game that went to OT was not in the projection/expectation, but sometimes you get lucky in DFS. I viewed both Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jahmyr Gibbs as strong chalk this week, and knowing I was going with a unique game stack, I felt fine playing into the projection. Because I was leaning into that DET game, I decided to correlate with Wan’Dale Robinson on the other side. Honestly, I was shocked to get him at 9.3% in this contest as I viewed him as a strong cash consideration (I played him in cash on both sites).
– I think what’s happening here is some leveling in DFS…the idea of “I’ll play him in cash but not in tournaments.” Or perhaps, it’s the negative connotation association with guys like Robinson who theoretically lack ceiling. This is how I used to think about DFS and fantasy as well, but as I’ve noted in previous episodes of the DFS Pod, we as fantasy players really aren’t good as identifying who’s a “floor play” versus a “ceiling play.” Sure, we can understand range of outcomes on players and understand that certain players are far more likely to access a big game, but being able to predict when those big games are going to happen is really difficult in this game we play. Obviously, very fortunate to run into a huge game from Wan’Dale here. #JameisForever
With the Benefit of Hindsight
– This lineup did have enough money to get up to Jameis Winston at QB for just a couple hundred bucks more. Obviously, looking back, it’s really hard to win a DFS tournament with a 9 from your QB. Perhaps I should have just gone full DET/NYG game stack with four pieces from a game I really liked. It’s not that I’m upset with the Rudolph-Metcalf stack, but when I think about Pittsburgh games, it’s kinda tough to see these wild shootouts hitting very often as they obviously would prefer to run a balanced offense and play good defense. DET/NYG was in a dome, and I felt quite confident that Detroit would do their thing here…maybe I should have just gone all the way in.
– If I knew post-lock at Emanuel Wilson was going to be 40+%, I’m honestly not sure if I would have played him. He was cheap for his potential role without Josh Jacobs (Knee), but there were a number of interesting pivots in that range (Ken Walker, Aaron Jones, D’Andre Swift, David Montgomery) that weren’t going to carry any roster percentage. I thought Wilson might come in at maybe 25-30%. With nearly half the field playing him, I’m honestly not sure if he was a “good play” in this contest. Obviously, I got really fortunate with the runout here.
Weekly Results:
- Week 1: 35th place, $250
- Week 2: 72nd place, $150
- Week 3: 242nd place, $0
- Week 4: 28th place, $150
- Week 5: 312th place, $0
- Week 6: 319th place, $0
- Week 7: 237th place, $0
- Week 8: 287th place, $0
- Week 9: 271st place, $0
- Week 10: 72nd place, $150
- Week 11: 15th place, $250
- Week 12: 16th place, $250