Slate Overview
Better Late (Swap) Than Never
Week 5 brings the first byes of the season and, with them, the smallest main slate so far. Similar to last week's 11-game slate, ownership will condense a bit, but the added wrinkle this week is timing. The two highest-total games don’t kick off until the late window, a dynamic that demands we build lineups with late-swap in mind.
Late swap is the ability to change players in your DraftKings lineup after the slate has started, as long as the individual player’s game hasn't kicked off yet. Being able to adjust your lineup based on the results of the early games can provide a huge edge in tournaments (and cash games) that often goes underused by the field.
If you had lightly owned players from the early games who posted big scores, you can swap to safer, higher-owned options in the late games to protect your position. And if your early players failed, you can swap onto contrarian, low-owned plays before the late games, since you can no longer move up the standings by rostering the same players the majority of your opponents are using.
A few practical ways to maximize the edge this week (and every week):
- Know the salaries ahead of time. Identify clusters of late-game players with similar price tags and projections, so you are prepared with contingencies (Hint: Ja'Marr Chase and Jahmyr Gibbs are priced within $100 of each other, both have GPP-winning upside, and only one will be popular).
- Think in player combinations, not just individuals. You want to give yourself correlated ways to catch the field if you're forced to chase points after a disappointing early window.
- Always put a player from the late window in your flex spot, if possible. Having players to choose from at multiple positions gives you more paths to either gain leverage or protect your position.
- Understand ownership. Your swaps aren’t just about ceiling projections. They're about how many people will be on the same play, and how that affects your chances to move up in the standings.
If you’ve done this work before lock, making late swaps won't feel like frantic guesswork, and you'll give yourself an edge while most of the field sits on dead lineups going into the late window.
Top Game Environments
DFS is less about picking players in isolation and more about targeting the games where fantasy scoring can snowball. High totals, fast pace, and exploitable defenses all create environments where multiple players can go off together. Identifying these spots is the foundation for building winning GPP lineups.
Games in bold are lower-total games with the potential for higher-than-expected scoring. Stacking these games at a higher ownership level than the field will add leverage to your lineups if they exceed their implied totals.
- Raiders @ Colts (-7) - O/U 47.5
- Cowboys (-1.5) @ Jets - O/U 47.5
- Lions (-10.5) @ Bengals - O/U 49.5
- Commanders @ Chargers (-2.5) - O/U 47.5
- Giants @ Saints (-1.5) - O/U 42.5
Identifying Common Roster Construction
Understanding what your opponents are most likely to do is just as important as spotting the best plays. Common roster builds form naturally when popular players are combined into a lineup. Recognizing the "chalky" construction helps us anticipate what the majority of rosters we're up against will look like, and allows us to decide the best ways to build differently for leverage without sacrificing ceiling.
QB: The crowd just watched Justin Fields ($5,600) break a highlight-reel 43-yard touchdown run and score 28.1 DraftKings points on Monday Night Football. It was his second 28-plus point performance in three starts with the Jets (don't ask about the other one), but his price only increased by $100 since the slate was released before the game ended. In a perfect storm for high ownership, the Jets are at home to take on the Cowboys, who are allowing 33 points per game this season, as well as the most fantasy points per game to enemy quarterbacks. Fields is the clear chalk at the position, and with Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes II off the main slate, and Lamar Jackson hurt, no other quarterback is particularly close.
RB: There are too many enticing running backs and not enough roster spots to fit them this week, which makes getting the position right the linchpin of this slate. Jonathan Taylor ($8,000), Jahmyr Gibbs ($7,700), and De'Von Achane ($7,300) are all in appetizing matchups. Injuries have opened up featured roles for Breece Hall ($5,600), Rachaad White ($4,700), and Rico Dowdle ($4,300), giving entrants an embarrassment of riches to choose from at every salary tier. Ownership among the expensive backs will be bunched, but the most common build is likely to include Taylor and Achane, with Dowdle or White in the Flex.
WR: Garrett Wilson ($6,100) is quietly the WR7 in total DraftKings points through four games. Fields' popularity and the Dallas matchup will bring his ownership along for the ride as a no-brainer stacking partner. Heavy spending at two running back positions means balanced spending at wide receiver. Miami's newly minted WR1, Jaylen Waddle ($5,400), is still priced as though he's the Robin to Tyreek Hill's Batman. The field will be all over Waddle in a winnable matchup against Carolina. On the topic of nascent WR1s, our opponents are probably ready to recognize Quentin Johnston's ($5,700) hot start as more than a fluke. LA draws a Commanders defense that was creamed by Tre Tucker (9-8-145-3) in Week 3 and Drake London (10-8-110-1) in Week 4.
TE: Jake Ferguson ($4,800) and Tyler Warren ($4,700) will cannibalize each other's popularity due to their similar salaries and bankable roles in their respective offenses. The common build should more often contain Ferguson, who leads all tight ends in targets, is an easy run-back in Fields stacks, and faces a Jets defense that couldn't keep track of Darren Waller in the red zone on Monday night.
Flipping the Common Build: Two paths immediately jump out. The easy one is to curb your spending at running back and devote more of your cap to wide receivers. High-end wideouts like Amon-Ra St. Brown ($7,900), Ja'Marr Chase ($7,800), Jaxon Smith-Njigba ($7,100), and Nico Collins ($6,800) won't be lightly owned (besides Chase), but the overload of expensive running backs makes it less likely we'll see two of them paired together often. The other option is to mimic the crowd's running back-spending, but using different players. As an example, building around a combo of Gibbs and Omarion Hampton ($6,500) offers a similar ceiling to Taylor and Achane, while adding a pinch of salary relief to get up to those high-end wide receivers who have the greatest chance to put up slate-breaking scores.