Betz’s Small Field GPP Review: Week 14 (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.
Contest Format
- $100 Single Entry
- Total Entrants: 334
- Placed Paid: 71/334 (20.6%)
- Rake: 9.9%
Week 14 Small Field GPP Lineup
The Thought Process
– Similar to lats week, it was a bit of a messy slate from a scoring environment standpoint as we had a few weather spots impacting scoring. There were two games above the rest from a totals perspective, which were BUF/CIN at 53.5 and LAR/ARI at 48.5. Outside of those games, the rest of the totals were hovering in that 44.5 to 41.5 range. I was debating going all in on either BUF/CIN or stacking up LAR/ARI, but the problem with both of those games was that pricing was tough. Allen and Stafford were two of the more expensive QBs on the slate, while Ja’Marr Chase, James Cook and Trey McBride were all very expensive on an otherwise already tightly priced slate. As a result, I opted to stack up TB/NO with the hopes that the Bucs could push the Saints’ pass rate.
– Here’s what I wrote up in Best Plays on Saturday in our ‘Favorite Games to Stack’ section:
“TB/NO doesn’t have the highest total on the slate, but I think the recipe is there for this game to go off if things click. Tampa can turn it on any week, this is a decent matchup at home, and both Bucky Irving and Emeka Egbuka are high ceiling plays who won’t get a ton of ownership. I made Bucky one of my slate breakers on Friday’s pod. On the Saints side, I’m interested in some #NastyBoy Tyler Shough stacks. He’s dirt cheap, the Q tag on Olave (back) will keep roster percentage off him, and both DeVaughn Vele and Juwan Johnson are cheap contrarian options. Teams have to throw on the Bucs, and the Saints have had no issues dropping back Shough over and over again recently with the rookie attempting 43 and 38 passes over the last two weeks.”
– With that idea in mind, I went all in on this game, double stacking a cheap Shough and playing both Bucky and Egbuka. I wasn’t super interested in the Saints over on FanDuel this week given their lower team total, but on DraftKings, you can really get there with cheap stacks if the reception volume hits thanks to the full PPR scoring. We’ve seen a similar concept in recent weeks with Jacoby stacks back when he was sub $5K and Wilson and McBride were both underpriced. A cheap Sough – Vele – Johnson stack only cost a combined $12,300, allowing me to spend up elsewhere.
– In general, happy to get Shough, Johnson and Egbuka as contrarian plays in this lineup. Unfortunately, despite the game total going over and Shough being a great play at cost, the scoring didn’t go the way I had hoped.
– Entering the late slate, I was just off the cash line due to the slate being low scoring. I opted to stay on Michael Wilson, Josh Jacobs and Denver DST despite knowing that Wilson was going to be uber chalk. The vast majority of the field was spending down for WAS or TEN DST or spending up for Cleveland. I had a bit of a unique build going with salary left over for the Broncos, so I was happy to get them at just 8% in a great matchup against the struggling Raiders where Geno has just crumbled under pressure this year, taking a ton of sacks and making mistakes. Overall, Jacobs and DEN DST were fine at cost (as was the rest of my lineup), but fine isn’t good enough to win GPPs.
With the Benefit of Hindsight
– I liked the construction of my lineup pre-lock, knowing I was going to get Shough, Johnson and Egbuka at low roster percentage. Because of those low rostered pieces, I was fine playing a chalky James Cook at home against the Bengals and a chalky Michael Wilson, who was underpriced for his role with Brissett sans Marvin Harrison Jr. I think my biggest regret after the early window games is not swapping off one of Jacobs or Wilson to a more contrarian option. I thought I had a decent chance to min cash if both of those guys had a nice game, but it was a thin needle to thread at projected roster percentages.
– The one thing I’m kicking myself for here is not adjusting in the final hour or two pre-lock to what was happening in TB. The rain forecast shifted quite a bit in the hours leading up to lock with conditions potentially looking worse and worse by the time we got to 1 pm ET. I did see some of the forecast in the final 20-30 min ahead of lock, but it kind of brushed it off as it didn’t seem like the rain would carry heavy winds. I’m not sure to what degree the rain impacted the scoring here, but it certainly seemed to affect some ball security with players dropping a few passes. Of course, if those guys make those plays (looking at you, Mr. Egbuka!), the outcome is totally different, so I don’t want to be too hindsight bias, but perhaps I should have looked at this weather situation more closely.
– That said, the field often over-reacts to weather. After all, we saw CIN/BUF (73 combined points), JAX/IND (55), and TEN/CLE (60) all put up huge scores in what were deemed “bad weather games.” I really think in the vast majority of cases, weather is baked into the game total. It’s not like the oddsmakers out in Vegas are clueless to what’s going on…each slate is unique when these things come up late in the season, but it’s very easy in hindsight to say “Look the game failed because of the rain” or “Of course, CIN/BUF went off in the snow. It’s Josh Freakin’ Allen!” My biggest take home here – don’t overreact to weather and double count. It’s already baked into the line.
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
- Week 13: 181st place, $0
- Week 14: 116th place, $0
Comments
Awesome article. I understand this article is dedicated to DraftKings. If feasible, could you also add a blurb on the FanDuel tournament you entered and your lineup.