NFL Week 6 Master thread on Analysis, Leverage and Data Galore Oct 2025

Starting a lil early this week, and as I told my discord crew, I typically spend more time between Monday and Thursday reviewing the past outcomes than I do in prep for the upcoming week. Why? Everyone else does the brunt work of diving as deep as the titanic trying to find the edge to come. But I believe past behaviors do predict future outcomes, and so I have taken what I have been learning, and packaging it up into tools and insights that you will ONLY find here. It is timely and somewhat expensive but one day it will pay off for someone reading (or writing) this!

This blog will grow vertically with lots of stuff, so I will try and start with the stuff that is unlikely to change and work my way to the latest at the bottom of the thread by end of weekend so continue to check back. The first section is using Thursday through Monday data, which has some overlap to the main slate. I will try to have the main slate done sometime Saturday / Sunday morning, as ownership numbers and leverage strategies can change drastically with the inactive reports.

If what you see here helps you in some way, dont forget to like the post that brought you here, or tip a dollar in my Venmo if you got it like that.

Thurs through Monday Slate Ceiling Finder

Last week, a few games were expected to shoot out, thanks to Vegas expectations, public expectations and projection systems everywhere. However only a few unexpected games actually did it. Lots of chalk hit as well. But one thing is consistent and that is workload matters. This chart measures the workload over time for each player this season. CMC is by far leading the way, and I fully expect him to be chalk as a result. Mahomes and Puca are the others at their position clearly leading the way in expected workload. Those not so expected -> Caleb Williams, who might be lower owned in the Thursday slate because, no one likes him or the Bears really. I dont talk about the 3 charts at the top much, but the first bar chart is a list of names of players who have higher workload than points in the games played. Trevor Lawrence just played Monday but he, Spencer Rattler, and Kyler Murray all have room to blow up so keep an eye on them between now and the next few weeks for opportunity. I measure that at the team level as well where SF, CAR and TB (who just blew up last week) all have potential as well.

Vegas vs My Vegas

The Vegas lines on the left are how the public tends to play. I try to estimate the scores through my system on the right, just using data points (no weather or injuries). This is because teams who do exceed the Vegas totals tend to do so by 7-10 points, which is value. Playing teams with high totals means you are playing around the chalk in some way- which is ok as well. KC vs Detroit has the highest game total on the week per Vegas (Sunday night), whereas I project that game could potentially go under, so I would play this slate looking more at Dallas vs Carolina, or Baltimore vs Rams instead first. Last week, the sheet was able to also show that Denver had a good chance to upset Philly and they did just that, by forcing the Eagles into passing while causing pressure on Hurts. It wont always be right but when you get some games right, thats nice leverage.

I want to add a note about Tampa vs Seattle last week that may be relevant to this week. The final score had both teams scoring over 70 points combined and just about everyone expected more defense and wayyy less offense to come from it. The reason it shot out likely had to do with the defensive injuries on Seattle, as well as ingame injuries to the defense. Projection systems will have a tough time accounting for them so there could be value in targeting Seattle if they remain short handed (aka Trevor Lawrence and co).

Offensive Lines vs Defensive Lines

This is a DFSed exclusive as this is my own calculation of who is going to generate the most/least pressure in the passing game, as well as run blocking or lack thereof. Negative situations are super interesting to me, such as Philadelphia vs NY tonight. Can they slow down Barkley in a revenge narrative game?? I think they could actually, but one secondary note to keep in mind, is that opportunity trumps the matchup. If they feed it to Barkley 25+ times, even a good defense will eventually fold over, or let up a big play here and there. That is especially true for bad offenses, as they can put the defense in bad spots. SO for those in showdown, there is a very interesting advantage there if you want to take a shot on NY defense or the lack of Barkley even who I suspect is chalk due to the narrative. But its just a reason to be different in the largest of fields where you have to get weird somewhere.

Game Scripts

I don't always pull this one out, but since we are early this week, this is a look at some indicators that can help us determine the most likely game script for success to each team. I sorted it by the games I project to be the highest pace at the top (Indianapolis vs Arizona), as that can lead to more possessions for each team. Then showing DVOA ranks for the offenses and defenses in order to find which defenses funnel to the pass. New Orleans might see a bit more success passing the ball this week than running it for example. Surprisingly (not surprisingly) the Giants actually rank 32nd vs the run, despite the run blocking advantage. Something has to give there but I trust the 32nd rank more than the run blocking.

Defense vs Receivers

Last week, Rashid Shaheed went off and it was glorious. Maybe 2% ownership at best, and he was on my top WR list as number 2. Why? This chart led to him for my projection sheet. Its a shame that all of the chalk also hit and overshadowed that big win potential. This should list all of the games, and while the WR alignment may be off, pay attention to others on the team who could also get the same type of play against the defense when building lineups. Tonight, the Giants defense looks better for Jahan Dotson or Devonte Smith than AJ. I do consider AJ to be elite though so that could possibly not matter in this case, as AJ has been crying for the ball a lot this year. Again, volume trumps the matchup so we will have to see if Hurts feeds into that squeaky wheel narrative or not. The Giants should be able to best dump off to RBs and I believe Tyrone Tracy is back so we will have to see how he is used in the offense without any WRs going.

Projections

This is how things are shaping out to start the week at each position. More details will be available for the main slate as we get closer to it, but this is how things fall on the surface. An Eagles WR in the top 6 makes me a bit nervous that we will need one in showdown lineups tonight. Devonta not projecting extremely high ownership on the big slate so maybe worth a shot if you think AJ Brown gets overlooked for the better matchup.

Sim Results

This is a look at the way things executed in the sim s to start the week, with the TE and QB positions filtered down to the range of salary that likely fits. In the main slate I will be using this in conjunction with the positional breakdown to find pivot spots. For now, its just to give an idea for the Thursday slate if playing it.

The Optimal Lineup

I uploaded my projections and optimized to the salary to see this surprisingly OK lineup. It has a stack, a secondary stack and sorta hits on the plays that stood out (minus CMC). The optimal never truly works out for GPP takedowns so ideally you can find the plays that simply wont work out and swap them out. Infact, next I will optimize by ownership because this was an interesting find in my twitter feed this week for those following me on X. That is, optimizing on chalk, that lineup scored 157 points because so much of the chalk actually hit last week. If you were to remove the 2 or 3 lowest scoring pieces of the lineup (QB, WR, Flex TE), it had potential of reaching 223 points.

The chalkiest Lineup

This is the skeleton to the biggest chalk lineup you can build on Thurs-Monday. If you believe in the chalk, identify 2-3 pieces that you want to swap out and then see what happens! The chalk is a bit expensive this week so there are some tight squeezes with that build, but Ill double check it come Monday night or Tuesday.

**************New Showdown Insight Tool to come!*************

I built a text based tool to help me out pre contest in producing some insights. It has only been tested on two slates so far, Buf vs NE and KC vs JAC and I must say the results were impressive. Just gonna show the results so far that I saw in back testing as I may reference them this weekend as I get more confidence with it.

Ownership Projections

The new tool will do its own ownership projections for both captain and flex positions. This is actual output from the test cas.

Showdown Contest Sim

Then this is where things get different for us. I break down the top 1% of lineups in the sim tool to see what players popped the most. Again ^^ actual output from tests.

Toxic combinations

Then I look at what pairings from my sims have toxic pairings, aka they failed the most often together.

Best Pairings and Recommended Stack types

Leverage

It will identify the top leverage plays. In this test, I am quite excited for the potential, why? Because this was the lineup that won the large GPP to compare those results with, granted that is just 1 week.

*****************Recap of Thursday Night***********************

In order to be better, its important to understand what worked and what didn't. In this case some context in this article panned out. The Giants not only covered the spread, they won outright, which gave that Giants stack some wings (4-2). Not only that, they did infact shut down the run game as my oline vs dline chart strongly suggested. I believe Robinson and Goedert both made the redzone report, and both got touchdowns.

Things that didnt work:

1. Theo! Ya bum. That was my fault as I made a personal rule not to put trust in players who had a big game the week before, where he had 2 touchdowns that I didnt know about.

2. Neither AJ nor Devonta Smith got real work as they stopped Barkley from doing much. Instead it went to their only usable TE Goedert.

3. Speaking of Goedert, injuries matter so much towards projections. I believe he absorbed extra snaps with the TE 2 being out, but I didnt adjust his projection to account for that. Same for Lil Humphrey, at 200. He was not even in my player pool since he showed a projection of 0 at the time I ran my sims.

Carrying those thoughts forward to -> the main slate!

----------------------------MAIN SLATE-------------------------------

Understanding the Chalk/Optimally Owned

I'll be starting this segment of the writeup off a bit differently. We should keep the chalk in mind as some form of foundation in my opinion. The chalk is there because of the research of many who do the dirty work for us and find reasons to play these guys, whether its matchup or opportunity driven. As we go through the writeup, we may find reasons to pivot from the chalk as we go, as opposed to simply avoiding everything chalky. I should also note that CMC is a top chalk as well but his price likely filtered him out of even this lineup at 30% ownership. Maybe that is a bit of foreshadowing.

Expectations vs Salary

And here we are, showing CMC as the player with the most actual usage and opportunity on this slate, after 5 weeks of football have been played. That includes Puca which I find interesting, but he is likely lower due to not getting goal line carries like CMC would. Other players atop of this list show QBs and RBs. What I find hilarious is that once again, Matt Stafford falls to 3% ownership as a top usage play, with the chalkiest WR - Puca at 30% ownership. If you are playing Puka you should also be playing Stafford imo, or at least some other Ram / Raven in a stack to subsidize the ownership, but most players love to pick their QB prior to their WR, and that shows it. As far as TE, Jake Ferguson appears to be atop of the list in terms of usage.

Summary of Situations

These are some key metrics that typically will help drive predictive success by position. I will reference them throughout the writeup.

Top Projections

This week, it seems the Rams and Browns (or Steelers) are who project as the best defenses. I'm sorta surprised the Saints show up here, and even the Dolphins towards the bottom, which is the chalk defense this week apparently. So we can't quite fade them, but we can take some chances on 3 other defenses with them in our pool. We should also keep tabs on who had big weeks the previous week, so we don't fall victim to projection boosts that are unlikely to pan out 2 weeks in a row. Baker, Waddle, and Diggs all stand out for doing that. Some players like Puka do it every week so I won't apply the same rules for him or CMC.

QBs

The highest usage on this slate appears to be Trevor Lawrence's usage of his finger up his nose. JK but not really. The issue I have with him is that his ownership is up on a shortened week after a big win on his birthday. I dont know that he is going to show up 2 weeks in a row, although the sims like him. The top play to me based on chasing the optimal build is Mac Jones, under 5% ownersihp with good value usage, and CMC being a chalk pairing that might be relevent. His pass protection ought to hold up as well vs Tampa, who just gave up 35 to Sam Darnold's Seahawks. He projects as someone who could reach the 28 pt target score for QBs this week. Aaron Rodgers, Tua, and Geno could all be interesting too based on having stackable top WRs this week, in that price range.

RBs

The goal with RBs this week predicts that roughly 6000 (aka pay up) average is going to be spent on RBs in the winning lineup this week. The 5K section appears to be quite heavy on low owned RBs. I circled that section in case someone stands out to you that might do well. For example I know the Pitt and Cle defenses both show up as potentially causing issues for the other team, but maybe one of them gets the advantage and extra touches there? Otherwise Rico Dowdle is in another good spot unless someone else vulchers his touchdowns. Josh Jacobs chalk makes sense except it wont be easy with the run blocking disadvantage, and Ashton Jenty all have a path to success. There might be a path for one of the Chargers backup RBs to step in and do well vs a bad Miami run defense, but their offensive line isn't likely to help them either.

RB Scores

I forgot that I created a scoring system for RBs when I did the TE and WRs -> these are the ones I project as contenders this week. I was surprised to see Travis Etienne on the list, which now makes sense why he is in the next section below.

Combination Tree

Just looking at trying to get to the next level of using my projected salary ranges, this seems to do the trick for the RBs who have a combined ceiling in range of the salary and overall ceiling Im targeting.

WRs

I underlined a list of different WRs in a good spot. For this week the sims are showing a lessor spend at WR than RB, so it makes me wonder if some secondary WR options are going to pan out this week. Davonta Adams is the 3rd highest usage in 5 weeks on this chart, while 1/3 of the Puka ownership. Maybe a double stack opportunity. The Chargers have several expecting high usage as well with no RBs. I think Carolina and the Raiders are interesting on here too for low ownership. Ideally you can get about 21 points from each WR on your list, and possibly game stack the Carolina Dallas game with relatively low ownership and high upside.

WR Redzone Report

These are the WRs most likely to score on this slate. Not sure I trust Miami or Cincinatti a whole lot but they both have high skill in the position.

TEs

The expensive TEs are all projecting the best for me as expected, but the sims are recommending a pay down. The teams falling into that category are either ran by Flacco or used to be ran by Flacco. There is some merit to playing a Cleveland TE since Cedric Tillman is out, leaving just Jeudy at WR.

TE Redzone Report

This is my TE list of peeps most likely to score a touchdown, thus making them more playable. The Saints (Juwan Johnson) would normally be an ideal candidate, however most of his productivity took place without Taysom Hill being available. AJ Barner scored twice last week so I'm less likely to expect him to do that again this week of this list.

Updated Ownership Report

After refreshing roughly at 9am CST, I am double checking where ownership is falling. The main ownership is floating between Puka and then about 5 RBs interchangeably. Most ownership is going to those who have the highest floors today which is an interesting concept for GPP as floor isn't as important as ceiling. Therefore I am looking at someone like Rachaad White as a pivot position potentially.

(without allowing players vs the defense:)

Just verifying that White was part of the optimally owned lineup- which btw might be OK to play in cash. However if building on what I saw last week, we will peel out the flex position (White), and potentially the TE and/or QB which naturally stacked.. lets start with White:

I circled a few names that fall in the same price range but with more opportunity of points based on their workloads up to date. Granted it may not be fairly representing White's workload as someone stepping into a workhorse role after 1 week, but from an ownership perspective + knowing White got 2 touchdowns last week makes me comfortable taking a shot that he doesnt score twice this week.

Secondary Stacks

Using the defense to dictate the stacks, these are my top 6 scoring stacks whether you add a QB or not to them. The player pairs have good matchups vs the defenses they face. I like the idea of Jeanty + Jacobi as a secondary stack, if not playing Geno (who might be playable as well).

More to come as the week unfolds -> but check back on X for showdown threads, and back here for main slate!