Noto's NFL DFS Core Plays: Week 1
Introduction
Isn’t it strange how you can sense the time of year? It’s starting to get dark earlier and the temperatures are dropping, which means it’s football season. Everyone wants to get off to a hot start in Week 1 and I hope I can help in that regard.
In the past, this article has been focused on my three or four favorite plays of the slate. While technically that’s all you need for a core plays article, it doesn’t take the entire slate into account. Injuries often change the landscape of the slate and it’s hard to go back and re-do the article. Rather than honing in on a few individual plays, I want this to be more of a free-flowing article where I go over my thoughts for the slate as a whole. I will still list my core plays for each site (DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo) at the bottom of the page and will update them throughout the week, but I think this format will be more valuable to you, the reader.
Additionally, I am always looking to evolve my content with the times. I have been providing DFS content for nearly 10 years and a lot has changed during that stretch. We used to pride ourselves in writing 10,000 word articles every week, but who has the time to and read that when there is so much other great content. Personally, I like shows and podcasts that are under an hour and I like articles that I can quickly read while sitting on the toilet or picking my kid up from school. Even more, I want the content that I consume to be informative, entertaining, and up to date. So this season, my goal is to provide you with just that.
This will be the only week all season I harp on bankroll management because it’s hard to resist not going all-in for Week 1. I’m not going to sit here and and say that I haven’t tilt-entered a showdown slate, or that I haven’t chased overlay, or that thrown way too much of my bankroll on a lineup that my gut happened to like one week. I’ve been around long enough that I’ve made all of those mistakes and honestly, I’m sure I’ll do it again. However, we can be smart. There’s not a person in the world that looks forward to clicking that deposit button on DFS sites, so resist the urge to go overboard in Week 1. Map out a plan and stick to it (or at least try to).
As far as contest selection goes, this really comes down to personal preference. There isn’t one right answer for everyone. It depends on how many lineups you are building each week and what your risk tolerance is. Knowing where you fit in the equation will allow you to enter the right contests. If you are playing cash games and like the double-ups and 50/50s, the best piece of advice is to enter the largest single-entry contests you can find. The multi-entry double-ups tend to have a higher cash line because pros can enter their cash game lineup a bunch of times. If you are playing H2H contests, limit the number of times you can face each opponent.
If you are build one lineup and like to enter it into tournaments, try to stick to single-entry contests. This is my main focus each week, as I have gotten away from being a heavy cash game player over the last few years. While chasing the massive payouts is enticing, your best bet is to focus on tournaments that don’t have 100,000 entries in them. This has at least been my sweet spot over the last couple of seasons. And hey, if you like building a bunch of lineups each week and don’t mind buying a lottery ticket to the Milly Maker, by all means go for it. Know your goals, know the type of player you are, and adjust your contest selection accordingly.