Betz’s Small Field GPP Review: Week 2 (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.
*Full disclosure: For Week 2, I played in the $75 single entry $30K End Zone. The Spy ended up being well over 500 entrants, as DK changed the format compared to Week 2, and this tournament I played had a better payout structure (See below).
Contest Format
- $75 Single Entry
- Total Entrants: 454
- Placed Paid: 114 (25.1%)
- Rake: 11.9%
Week 2 Small Field GPP Lineup
The Thought Process
- There was one clear game that looked like it had the best chance of going off: Cincinnati and Jacksonville. The total closed at 49, easily the highest on the main slate. I definitely had interest in stacking up other games, but this one looked really intriguing given the game total and two defenses that could struggle. Joe Burrow was a fringe cash game play, and all three of Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Chase Brown were some of the best plays on the slate for cash games. As a result, I knew the Burrow double would be quite popular, so I decided to stack up the Jacksonville side instead.
- DFS players are quite reactionary. Just last week, Trevor Lawrence was one of the most popular QB plays on the slate, yet after a disappointing outcome, no one wanted to stack the Jags despite the tight 3.5-point spread in the best game environment (on paper at least) on the slate. I plugged my nose and went with the T Law double. There were some rumblings that Travis Hunter might play more defensive snaps this week, so I thought, “okay if that happens, and Lawrence hits, it’s very likely BTJ and Strange are having a nice game.” Turns out, that wasn’t right! (lol). Even still, very happy to get Lawrence, BTJ and Brenton Strange at a combined 31.8% of my salary cap and a combined 26.5% ownership. Once I landed on that double, I knew I wanted to play a Bengal to complete the game stack, which is why I landed on Tee Higgins at just $6,100. Given his insane ceiling, that salary was one that I was willing to play, even if it came with some elevated ownership.
- At RB, it was very similar to last week where 3-5 backs were going to run away with projected roster percentage in small field tournaments. DeVon Achane, Christian McCaffrey and Chase Brown were our top RB plays on the slate for cash games. I knew I wanted to limit my exposure to at most two of those three in an effort to get unique. As I mentioned on the DFS Podcast when I made Jonathan Taylor my Slate Breaker, Taylor played every snap in the first half of their first game against the Dolphins, yet his box score didn’t pop in Week 1. Despite the tough matchup with Denver, that workload should have been priced closer to $8K, so I really wanted to play him, especially in small field where I knew he was on the outside looking in in terms of the ‘top plays.’ Very fortunate to get a ceiling outcome from him, but even happier to get him at just 4.6%.
- You’ll noticed I played a 2TE lineup here with TE in FLEX. I almost never do that, just because of the fragility of the non-elite TEs in fantasy. That said, when looking at pricing this week, there really weren’t many cheap WR plays to make this lineup work. I debated for awhile with this decision – Should I use Strange as direct leverage off Harold Fannin at $3,100 or play them together in a 2TE build, something that not a lot of the field was going to do. I decided to stick with the projected points from Fannin and roll with 12 personnel. Fannin came out in Week 1 and was an immediate focal point in the Cleveland pass game. He shared the field with Njoku in 2-TE sets, they split him out in the slot at times, and he was used as a mini Tyler Warren in some aspects, even getting a snap as a wildcat QB. He ran 31 routes a week ago and also led the team with nine targets. With Cleveland double digit underdogs against the Ravens, I knew there’d be plenty of pass attempts from Flacco to go around, so I ate the chalk here. I’ll note – if Fannin was $4,000 or more, this would have been an easy fade. It was more of a salary savings play than anything else.
- At DST, we were already betting on regression from Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers offense after that wild Week 1 PIT/NYJ game. The field was going to zero in on LAR at $3,100, DAL at $3,000 and NO at $2,500, leaving the Seahawks as a contrarian DST play despite the fact that they played very well in Week 1 against the Niners and registered the league’s highest pressure rate. Obviously, I was very fortunate that Kaleb Johnson didn’t know the new kick off rules.
With the Benefit of Hindsight
- I felt so strongly about Christian McCaffrey this week after he saw 31 touches in Week 1 despite the mid-week calf scare. With Jauan Jennings battling a shoulder injury, no George Kittle and Mac Jones under center, there was a really good chance Kyle Shanahan was going to feed his workhorse in this spot against the Saints. However, like last week with Drake London, if I had seen this 58% (!!) roster percentage coming, I likely would have opted for one of the other top RB plays (perhaps Achane). In small field, I’m willing to play chalk as long as I have some contrarian pieces in there, but any player can fail at 60% ownership. And quite honestly, maybe I didn’t consider ceiling outcomes here well enough. SF was down their starting QB, George Kittle is a massive difference in the run game, and LT Trent Williams was playing at less than 100% in Week 1 and came into this game questionable. Moving forward, I want to do a better job of trying to get a read on these situations. I figured CMC might come in at 40ish%…way off there.
- If I knew CeeDee was going to come in at 20%, I probably would not have played him. Puka was projecting better for just $200 less, but because he was a top cash WR play on both sites this week, I thought he would get steamed in small field. I was dead wrong. He came in at just 9.7% in this contest. My goal was to try to get CeeDee at like 10-15% with Puka getting well north of 20%, and obviously the opposite happened. Perhaps the rest of the folks in this contest had the same thought as me: “I’ll pivot off him in GPPs and get leverage.” Sometimes there’s leveling going on with DFS players…who knows? These situations are tough to read, but in hindsight, I should have just stuck with Puka given that no one was stacking up LAR/TEN. In tourneys, we tend to see players involved in game stacks get elevated in roster percentage because so much of the field is stacking these days. No one was stacking up Stafford or Cam Ward this week, a potential signal Puka wasn’t going to get too crazy in roster percentage.
Weekly Results:
- Week 1: 35th place, $250
- Week 2: 72nd place, $150