NFL Week 13 - Odds, Leverage, and Unique Analysis for Thanksgiving / Showdown / Main Slate Draftkings Tournaments 2025
Updated: Dec 1, 2025
New England vs New York Expectations vs Salary
Tonight, we get two QBs atop of the chart which makes things interesting. It almost forces us to favor WRs and TEs for the most part if we are to build around the top usage. Henderson is projected to have the top chalk at captain so that kinda works out. Then I also see Hyatt floating out there on the cheap end for no ownership. Love that although it can change based on inactives, etc.
Vegas Totals
The total I have is slightly above what Vegas originally posted so that also supports the shootout potential.
Defense vs Recievers
The primary WRs happen to have the best matchups on each side, which might mean one of these 4 names could end up being a top captain play.
New England Stacks
May, Henderson or - Diggs (fav) could end up being the top captain for new england as there is the most leverage on Diggs right now while Hendersons captain ownership is 3 times higher than Diggs. The kicker has some positive leverage in the flex as usual. Hollins and Stevenson are lurking out there too.
New York Stacks
Either Dart, Wandale or Tyrone could be leveraged in captain tonight. Theo looks like flex leverage, along with Singletary.
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We are back with the most unique slate of the year. 3 gamer with essentially 3 individual slates built into one powerhouse. I'm sure most of you are building at least 1 entry in the $5 milli maker. I'd compare that contest to throwing a quarter in the wishing well, where you get the same odds of getting your wish as winning a solo ship. What I'm saying is - there is a chance! I am going to do my best to mix in insights between the showdown and main slate. Historically speaking, the strategy to gaining edge on this slate is simply to be present and continuously check in between games on what actual ownership is. Most ownership tends to go to the first game, and you likely just want enough plays there to remain optimal before game 2, and then same for game 3, where you have an option to pivot if you are not optimal up to that point. That is, I likely will recommend against the highest owned plays that are chalk in game 1 without even looking as a poker strategy. Let the field burn their entry and play to climb the late. Lets see how we can climb from a slate perspective first, and then I will check back for showdown leverage as time permits. I gotta eat too tomorrow ;)
Updated: 10:56 am CST (main slate)
I repulled these numbers to ensure I got at least 3 weeks of data. Brissett, Michael Wilson, Trey Mcbride and Achane have all led in usage per this chart for their positions over the past 3 weeks. 3 of them are from Arizona, but one change this week is MSH coming back for Arizona to dilute their work.
Vegas Expectations
Buffalo vs Pitt is the highest expectation on my scoring sheet, without injury considerations, followed by Indy vs Houston. Both games have QBs of interest so that is someting to watch for. Seattle and Tampa also have the highest team expectations.
Projections
Gonna trust in my top DST this week - Seattle, seeing that none of the minnesota plays are projecting in my top 5 this week.
Summary of Situations
I can already tell that through correlation to the defenses, this is going to be how I select my RBs this week. Need to see what the RB situation is in Pittsburg since they are favored to beat Buffalo. Jacksonville DST is in my top 5 situations which also opens up the potential for playing their RB. Cleveland gets a RB boost as well, with their RB in my top 3 projections.
Defense vs Recievers
Starting with where the WRs and TEs might succeed, JSN is the top projected and comes into a good spot on this chart, amongst the others you see here. As usual, his game environment matters towards his success.
Top WR Scores
Looking at the WRs who score the highest on the slate, I see these names as the primary contenders for stacking purposes. Some of them have low ownership projections as well.
Highest Ownership
I ran a lineup crunch to identify the highest owned lineup and to my surprise, this lineup came out with a double stack, a secondary stack and a couple interesting pieces to be toggled. This is the type of build I typically target and so I may enter it and then make a few swaps to it (defense, a rb, te and maybe a flex play to start. The purpose of posting this lineup is to help identify which chalk
Highest Projected
If projections alighed perfectly with results, this is what the optimal lineup would look like. Some of those pieces overlap with ownership and some do not. I see that Seattle is projecting well but that game environment i snot the best, with a new QB starting for Minn this week.
Low owned Stack Potential
Not looking at anything other than ownership and projections, I pulled the list of QBs that are expecting less than 5% ownership, along with a list of WR and TE who project less than 10% ownership, with a double digit projection. None will feel very good but there could be some tournament winning upside by taking the approach of finding one that makes sense. For example, Daniel Jones to Michael Pittman is in this list at a combined sub 10%. Not sure he is healthy, nor is the situation ideal vs Houston, but it should be mentioned.
Weather Concerns (rotogrinders)
8 games showing weather alerts this week, which explains the dip in projections for team totals vs mines (as my system doesnt factor that in).
Top Owned with pivots
The one chalk piece that stands out this week is Achane, who is approaching 40% ownership on this slate. That is a lot for any one player no matter how good the situation, so now the question is, what do we do to play against 40% of the field?
Some of those names make sense to me and some are a bit nuanced, such as Aaron Rodgers with broken bones. Cade Otton is interesting enough to where I am forcing him in my top lineup. The fades are a bit tougher though as I do like a couple of those plays, which means that fading Achane may not necessarily be the thing to do this slate, but I will do one with those thoughts in mind. Jonathan Taylor would go into my lineup if I take this on, but James Cook is always intruiging too.
Low owned everage Stacks for Large Field GPPs:
TREVOR LAWRENCE + BRIAN THOMAS JR. + PARKER WASHINGTON
#2: Baker Mayfield + Cade Otton + Sterling Shepard ($14,100)
#3: Tyler Shough + Rashid Shaheed + Devaughn Vele ($12,400)
Core Stack:
Darnold double stack is sitting there with shaheed and jsn atop of the sim OR skinny stack walker + wr. Then Trevor Lawrence stacks could go a few ways too, as the WRs are projecting under 5% owned.
One thing not mentioned here is that the SF 49ers DST is the chalk. Seeing the browns RB in the top projections makes me want to play that too for bonus leverage.
Good luck!
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Odds vs Expectations (3 week span)
Mahomes has the top usage on the chart, with Gibbs projecting more ownership and higher cost. Chase Brown and George Pickens/Josh Jacobs all seem to be the lowest owned of the very top -> with Kareem Hunt sorta floating up there too in single digit ownership. Hunt will be tricky if Dameon Pierce gets involved, especially after a big week of work on a short week. However if single digit ownership remains I may have to take a shot there myself. I also notice the cheap Baltimore WR/Te on the cheap end. That cant go overlooked especially when Lamar Jackson is top projected QB.
Vegas Odds vs My Projections
I'm estimating the most points to come from the night game, and the least number of points to come out of the first game, which aligns with expectations of how we should build. The ownership will be telling towards if there are any shots to take early or not. On the surface, it would seem that Baltimore, Dallas (neutral), and Green Bay are my leans to go over their team totals so I will give them some priority in lineups and stacks.
As a whole, it could have some value plays worth mentioning as the ownership is leaning towards Dal vs KC the most, in the middle.
Player Prop Projections vs My projections
I converted the player props available into scores to get an idea as to whether there could be some edge so this is just for show rn. However Lamar Jackson looks like the most upside at QB in that space while the others are going under. More to come in this later.
Defense vs Receivers
One name that stands out right away, is the same guy that burned lineups last week -Jameson Williams, in the ideal spot for Detroit in game one. Need to watch his price and ownership to make that call.
Viable Recievers
We will need a low owned WR/TE that has the ability to get points in every lineup so I wanted to lay out who is where first. Of the WR1 rankings, Romeo Doubs appears to be the lowest owned of the top plays, and I'm assuming he is WR1 for the Packers. Christian Watson is listed as WR1 and priced 100 more, although I see that Doubs has had 5 more targets over the past 5 weeks
Top Projected Plays by Position
Getting a first look at how players are projecting as a whole. Maybe Detroit defense or Packers defense will do welll vs each other as they are both in the top 2 of my defenses. Chiefs defense could end up being some form of leverage as they have been playing elite in regards to points allowed this year.
Summary of Situations
Looks like Baltimore and Dallas would be the top targets to choose from this week. Chiefs are on a short week so theres that.
Last Year's Optimal
The $5 contest existed last year actually and this was the optimal lineup. Of course someone built it but its worth looking at because you can see the dynamic of it. Aka no Detroit players in it (likely pretty chalky). 3 sets of stacks, with a game stack at the end of the show that stole it. I fully expect something similar to pan out this year.
2023 Optimal
Something I havent noticed til now is that Green Bay continues to be on this slate for the past couple years, as if they trying to take over the Detroit tradition. Anyways we see a secondary stack in both of these slates which I find interesting; the rb + wr stack. This ends up in many winning lineups so perhaps a combination worth investigating. Last week's main slate was Gibbs + ASB. Could it be Chase + Chase, Hunt + Rice, or Williams vs Pickens today?
2022 Optimal
We go back to 2022 where I cant even remember the role of some of these players. However we can confirm the 3 game slate has had yet another rb + wr stack in the winner and roughly 200 points to win, granted this one left 1000 salary on the table unlike the others. It is also the only one with a singular qb + wr stack in it as Josh Allen only threw for 2 touchdowns but put up 30. There is also a game stack involved in this one as well.
My Optimal
I'm definitely not playing this lineup but showing it because it shows projections favoring Dallas and Balitmore plays. Gotta figure out how to make em work though in real life. Double TE could make sense but so could having a WR3 type like Bateman in the mix.
Top Ownership and Pivots
It appears that Derrick Henry is still holding strong as top projected owned play. So as I did with showdown, I tried to see what lineups that fade him look like if gaining leverage, specifically understanding this is a 3 gamer, and understanding that RB + WR stacks have hit often in this environment.
First - not pictured is the defenses. The Ravens are the projected highest owned DST in the slate. What does that mean? Bengals offensive players will help you move up when they score as you also move other lineups down. That is some true leverage.
Many people are going to be afraid to do this, but Burrow is unprojectable really in his first game back so no one is going to really go after it. He does have 4 games of 30+ points against the ravens in his career, including 2 36+ pt games in his last 2. 41 points was his high. What if hes coming back in good shape? 4th highest owned QB in the game environment I like best..Chase Brown put up 16 and 23 pts in those two games so he is also capable. He had 11 targets vs the Ravens in his last game. Higgins is out. SO..... hes interesting, especially vs the Henry chalk, which brings up the next points.
These optimal percentages do not project Burrow all that high, which could easily put him in over Dak if he remains low owned. So key pivot plays if not playing Henry: 🎯 RB Pivots (Direct Henry Replacements)
Javonte Williams - +5.2% delta, 1.48x leverage (28.7% ownership)
Chase Brown - +4.7% delta, 1.19x leverage (31.1% ownership)
Josh Jacobs - +5.8% delta, 1.07x leverage (25.1% ownership)
🎯 Best WR1 Substack on the board
Javonte Williams + CeeDee Lamb (DAL)
With Henry:
Combined optimal: 66.2%
Public ownership: 63.8%
Leverage: 1.04x
Without Henry (Fade Strategy):
Combined optimal: 80.8% ⬆️
Public ownership: 63.8%
Leverage: 1.27x
Delta: +14.6% (biggest gain from fading Henry)
The Nuclear Fade Strategy:
If you want maximum differentiation, consider fading the entire GB/DET game. Look at this cluster:
Gibbs: 40.6% owned (28.9% optimal)
Amon-Ra: 35.2% owned (41.1% optimal) ⚠️ only one worth playing
Watson: 26% owned (1.7% optimal)
Jameson: 25.2% owned (21.5% optimal)
Jacobs: 25.1% owned (21.1% optimal)
Also notable fades (Watson potentially, in favor of Doubs, or vice versa), Ravens DST, Mahomes and Kelce, Gibbs, Gesicki and Derrick Henry as the top owned play on the slate.
Low owned stack options
Listed all the QBs next to all of the relatively best WR options that project under 20% ownership to get these lists. Maybe Lamar to Bateman is a low owned stack to do work today.
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