Slate Overview
Playing the Hand You’re Dealt
The Week 10 main slate is shaped more by who isn’t playing than who is. Three of our favorite punching-bag defenses, the Bengals, Cowboys, and Titans, are on bye. Without those juicy matchups available, we're left with very few teams expected to overperform expectations.
In addition to more neutral matchups than usual, we're also missing several elite players. Patrick Mahomes II and Rashee Rice also have a bye. Bijan Robinson and Jonathan Taylor square off at 9:30 EST in Berlin. Justin Herbert and Ladd McConkey play on Sunday night. And finally, Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, and Josh Jacobs are on the Monday night slate.
It leaves us with a handful of ugly games and several with fairly high totals that should be competitive, but there is no clear "must-stack" game. Here are a few pointers for building lineups within the context of this week's slate:
Build around ceiling outcomes, not game environments.
Switch your focus to individual players who can create spike weeks on their own. Think explosive running backs with heavy workloads, WR1s with big-play ability (not just PPR merchants), and dual-threat quarterbacks.
Correlate smaller pieces instead of full stacks.
Mini-stacks (QB + WR, RB + DEF, WR + opposing WR) are enough to capture correlation benefits without overcommitting to a specific game environment. You still get upside if that piece of the game hits, but your lineup isn’t sunk if it doesn’t.
Play for differentiated roster construction.
Look for leverage through positional spending (see Identifying Common Roster Construction below) or by building lineups that tell a different story than Vegas' implied game scripts.
Don’t force stacks.
Each lineup should always tell a cohesive story, but you’re prioritizing efficiency and ownership leverage over correlation.
Bottom line: When there’s no clear game to stack, target individual ceiling outcomes, use smaller correlations, and lean on lineup construction to separate from the field.
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.
- Ravens (-3.5) @ Vikings - O/U 48.5
- Patriots @ Buccaneers (-2.5) - O/U 48.5
- Giants @ Bears (-4.5) - O/U 47.5
- Rams (-5.5) @ 49ers - O/U 49.5
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: In the worst of Jaxson Dart's ($5,700) six career starts, he scored 18.6 DraftKings points, which would be good for a solid 3.26x return on his current salary. Considering Dart faces the same Chicago defense that Joe Flacco just flamed for 42 points, he's got the sturdy floor and matchup-elevated ceiling the crowd will chase on a tightly priced slate. Jacoby Brissett ($4,600) and Mac Jones ($5,000) are other top point-per-dollar plays who will appear in variations of the common build.
RB: With Taylor and Robinson facing each other in Berlin Sunday morning, Christian McCaffrey ($9,000) is the uncontested RB1 in both projected scoring and ownership. Chalky lineups will feature Rico Dowdle ($6,300) in the RB2 spot alongside McCaffrey. Dowdle is fresh off his third 20-plus carry game and 30-plus DK point performance of the season as he heads into a home matcup against the Saints' lousy rush defense. Last week's injury fill-ins have seen their salaries adjusted, leaving no standout value plays at the position.
WR: Jaxon Smith-Njigba ($8,600) has scored below 20.6 DK points just once in eight games. His torrid pace and unmatched consistency should make him more popular than Puka Nacua ($8,700) and Amon-Ra St. Brown ($8,400), but not by much. From there, most entrants will turn to the mid-range, where Wan'Dale Robinson ($5,300) pairs easily with the chalky Dart, Zay Flowers ($5,900) remains underpriced in the wake of Lamar Jackson's return, and Marvin Harrison Jr. ($5,300) is priced as though his breakout Week 9 never happened. The WR3 and Flex spots are where we'll see low-priced value plays like Parker Washington ($4,700), Jauan Jennings ($4,600), Tez Johnson ($4,500), and DeMario Douglas ($4,000).
TE: Jamming McCaffrey and a top-shelf wide receiver into the same lineup necessitates thrifty spending at tight end. David Njoku ($3,200) is the name to watch if Harold Fannin Jr. can't play through his hamstring injury. Otherwise, Hunter Henry ($3,500) and Cade Otton ($3,900) are every-down players in quality offenses who will at least be on the field. That's about the nicest thing we can say about any tight end not named Trey McBride ($6,000) on this slate.
Flipping the Common Build: Speaking of McBride, he costs $1,500 more than the TE2. Starting your build with two expensive running backs alongside him and foregoing the Smith-Njigba/Nacua/St. Brown-tier of wideouts in favor of balanced spending is the most direct path to salary leverage. Conversely, pairing two expensive wide receivers should also get you building in a different direction than the field.