For I believe the first time since we started these analysis articles, we are coming off a week in which a three WR build took down the main Battle Royale slate and more interestingly - there was a three way chop for first. In order to score well you needed to have Josh Allen and the three top scoring WRs in Puka Nacua, Tee Higgins and Michael Wilson. RB scoring outside of Tony Pollard was fairly flat and then the winning teams had a correlated TE in Dalton Kincaid. There really isn't a ton from a strategy standpoint that we can take away from this week so let's just dive into the sims.
For all of these data points, the sims and ADP is run as of Friday morning.
For up-to-the-minute updates on injuries, lineups, roster changes and more, head to RotoWire's Fantasy Football News & Latest NFL Updates or follow @RotoWireNFL on X.
Roster Structure
RBs | WRs | TEs | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
2 | 2 | 1 | 75.74% |
1 | 3 | 1 | 20.77% |
1 | 2 | 2 | 3.49% |
Since we have been doing these analysis articles this is the highest WR in the flex rate we have seen. Over 20 percent of the time we are seeing a repeat of last week's winner up top. This does feel accurate to me in the first few drafts I've done as RB thins out fairly quickly.
What ADPs to Draft
No adjustments to the rules for the sim, so for a refresher read up
For I believe the first time since we started these analysis articles, we are coming off a week in which a three WR build took down the main Battle Royale slate and more interestingly - there was a three way chop for first. In order to score well you needed to have Josh Allen and the three top scoring WRs in Puka Nacua, Tee Higgins and Michael Wilson. RB scoring outside of Tony Pollard was fairly flat and then the winning teams had a correlated TE in Dalton Kincaid. There really isn't a ton from a strategy standpoint that we can take away from this week so let's just dive into the sims.
For all of these data points, the sims and ADP is run as of Friday morning.
For up-to-the-minute updates on injuries, lineups, roster changes and more, head to RotoWire's Fantasy Football News & Latest NFL Updates or follow @RotoWireNFL on X.
Roster Structure
RBs | WRs | TEs | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
2 | 2 | 1 | 75.74% |
1 | 3 | 1 | 20.77% |
1 | 2 | 2 | 3.49% |
Since we have been doing these analysis articles this is the highest WR in the flex rate we have seen. Over 20 percent of the time we are seeing a repeat of last week's winner up top. This does feel accurate to me in the first few drafts I've done as RB thins out fairly quickly.
What ADPs to Draft
No adjustments to the rules for the sim, so for a refresher read up below.
Just a reminder here are the buckets and the rules on how they can be "drafted".
- ADP <= 6
- ADP > 6 and <= 10
- ADP > 10 and < 28
- ADP >= 28
By no means are these buckets at all perfect but we need some rules to allow the sim to build "reasonable" teams. Per the rules, you are allowed at most ONE player in Bucket One, TWO players in Bucket Two, THREE players in Bucket Three, and FOUR Players in Bucket Four. Additionally you may only take TWO players across Bucket One and Two and THREE players total across Bucket Two and Three. Again, this is not perfect but it does the job for what we are trying to accomplish. Let's take a look at how the sim actually built teams.
Bucket One | Bucket Two | Bucket Three | Bucket Four | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 26.59% |
1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 12.76% |
0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 11.48% |
1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 9.35% |
1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 7.76% |
0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7.56% |
1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6.28% |
1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 4.82% |
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3.96% |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3.82% |
0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1.68% |
0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1.63% |
0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.23% |
0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 1.08% |
A lot of these numbers look similar to last week but the strength of Bucket Four stands out relative to the previous week. I think a huge part of this is the depth of the QB slate as over 76 percent of the time the winning QB comes from the Bucket Four options. Due to correlation a lot of these guys bring a late pass catcher along with them.
QB Analysis
Josh Allen is the only Bucket Two QB and unlike last week, he doesn't stand out quite as much as he did last week. He comes in a little over 10 percent percent optimal this week which leads QBs but still doesn't separate as much as he did in previous weeks. Lamar Jackson and Matthew Stafford are the Bucket Three options and both have seemingly good matchups making their ADPs seem reasonable. Stafford has a lower relative optimal rate a little under five percent, but he usually is a safe bet to bring a pass catcher along with him so despite the low numbers he is a strong play.
Just like usual, the Bucket Four QBs are flat but as stated before their optimal rate is at 76 percent which the highest rate since I started writing these articles. Jaxson Dart, Drake Maye and Jalen Hurts lead the way at above six percent each and all do not need to be correlated with their pass catchers. Brock Purdy is likely my favorite of these options and the projections do like him enough to justify the picks. There are a ton of ways to play Purdy, but he has shown the ability to spread it around enough where he does not need to be stacked.
TE Analysis
Once again, Trey McBride leads the TE optimal rates at 21 percent but he is joined in Bucket Three this week by three other TEs. Brock Bowers and George Kittle both are optimal over 12 percent of the time and Harold Fannin who hits eight percent. Beyond this, the Bucket Four guys all come in below five percent. I think I like the later picks at WR, so I am fine with attacking the Bucket Three group at TE and if I miss those options I am in to correlate with my QBs.
RB Analysis
There are only two Bucket One RBs in Christian McCaffrey and Jahmyr Gibbs. CMC has a fantastic matchup versus the Titans and the Gibbs one versus the Rams is tough, but his receiving volume really helps raise the floor. Then in Bucket two all we get is Derrick Henry in the best possible run game matchup. These three players are only optimal under 40 percent of the time which is definitely lower than most weeks.
Bucket | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
ONE | 1 | 27.83% |
TWO | 1 | 10.91% |
THREE | 1 | 38.96% |
THREE | 2 | 3.42% |
FOUR | 1 | 56.82% |
FOUR | 2 | 17.19% |
Bucket Three is fascinating, headlined by Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley. Barkley finally looked explosive last week and has a fantastic matchup versus the Raiders. Taylor lost his QB and is likely to be part of a far less efficient offense with a difficult matchup. The floor is gone, but I don't think that multiple TDs are out of the realm of possibility for him. The price hasn't dropped enough to really make him a discount, but I will be taking some shots on him. Bucket Four options are viable in around 75 percent of lineups but there are lots of question marks around the backs down there. Josh Jacobs and Woody Marks have injury questions and other guys we were taking highly before like Kyren Williams and Chase Brown have usage questions. Personally, I do not feel great with any of these late clicks so I will likely be trying to fill my RB slots before reaching this part of drafts.
WR Analysis
Bucket One WRs project exceptionally well with Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Puka Nacua and Ja'Marr Chase all project as optimal more than nine percent of the time. This is also with Tee Higgins as in, so its reasonable to think that Chase should be just as high as the other two. Once we hit Bucket Two, we add Amon-Ra St. Brown and Nico Collins who both also project as optimal almost 10 percent of the time. We also have two other WRs who project for over nine percent optimal rates in Bucket Three which really reinforces that this is a strong WR slate up top.
Bucket | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
ONE | 1 | 39.73% |
TWO | 1 | 21.43% |
TWO | 2 | 0.59% |
THREE | 1 | 29.82% |
THREE | 2 | 1.82% |
FOUR | 1 | 53.31% |
FOUR | 2 | 33.10% |
FOUR | 3 | 1.82% |
However, there are still some interesting players in Bucket Four and once again one is taken in this range on over 85 percent of optimal teams. There are 12 Bucket Four WRs who are optimal at least four percent of the time which supports the idea that we should be mixing and matching these different players back here. I feel significantly better about these plays compared to the late RB options and as a result I will likely be making lots of bets on these options. Terry McLaurin may be my favorite of these options late and with a 35.1 ADP, he won't be anywhere near 100 percent rostered.
I am going to be heavily drafting the RBs in the top two buckets when presented with the opportunity to do so and pairing them with one of the Bucket Three TEs. This likely means I will be heavily attacking that late WR group which I am extremely comfortable with based on the strong projections down there.
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