This season marks year four of our SimLabs tool being available to the public. It’s a powerful feature that allows casual players to build competitive lineups effortlessly — or serious players to leverage their convictions more effectively. We’ve also added the feature of being able to export lineups from SimLabs directly to our models for easy tweaking of lineups.
I broke down some general uses of the tool from an evergreen perspective last season. Moving forward, we’ll be checking out some suggested starting points for building lineups.
The process is simple: from the SimLabs home screen, first select the field size and desired range of outcomes for your lineups. The field size depends on the contest type, while the “results range” allows you to customize how unique you want your lineups to be.
Then, find the box titled “include players” and type your preferred options — then sit back and let the sims do their thing. You can generate as many or as few lineups as you want, then upload directly to DraftKings to be entered into contests.
For more on what SimLabs is and how it works, check out our user guide.
Let’s check out some potential starting points in Week 9.
Jayden Daniels + Puka Nacua + Antonio Williams
This is a fairly bifurcated slate, with five of the 11 games having totals of 47.5 or higher and the other six checking in below 44.5. Of those top five contests, the tightest spread is in Rams-Commanders. For my money, that makes up for a slightly lower total than some of the likely blowouts, as we need both offenses to produce for either one to have a true ceiling game in most cases.
Given the Rams’ wide receiver situation, Nacua is an obvious choice. If they’re forced to stay aggressive, the offense will flow through him. He’s averaged 13 targets per game since coming back from injury, and some of those games involved him competing with Davante Adams for targets.
They would be forced to stay aggressive if Jayden Daniels can outperform his projection. He’s topped 24 DraftKings points in two of his three games since his elbow dislocation, with the one outlier being a Commanders blowout win, which is fairly unlikely here. Daniels probably has more rushing upside than any QB on the slate. That normally would lead me to suggest him “naked” since he doesn’t have to bring a pass-catcher with him.
Not this time, though, mainly due to the price of Antonio Williams. Williams is just $4,100 but seems to have stepped into Terry McLaurin’s role as the Commanders’ #1 wideout. He drew seven targets on 29 Daniels passes last week, and I’d bet a lot of money Daniels attempts more this week.
Drew Lock + Jaxon Smith-Njigba
The last time the Seahawks met their division-rival Cardinals, Drew Lock was under center. In that game, he threw for 235 yards and three touchdowns. One hundred fifty-five of those yards and all three scores went to Smith-Njigba.
All in all, JSN has had a target share of just under 50% with Lock, who isn’t trying to get fancy when forced to take over for Sam Darnold. With Darnold being a late add to the inactive list, Lock is locked in at a stone-minimum salary this week, so he doesn’t need to do a ton to pay off his price tag.
This is the inverse of the Commanders situation I mentioned above, in that I’d normally fade the QB when the bulk of their production flows through one player, but the cheap price tag on the QB makes it worthwhile. They combined for 67 DraftKings points in their last game together – in this exact matchup – and cost $13,300 combined. That’s more than a 5x salary multiplier, which is a pace of more than 250 DraftKings points.
Plus, this is where SimLabs can decide if we need a bring-back or another Seattle player alongside this build. I’m not confident in either decision myself, so I’ll let the sims handle it.
Jahmyr Gibbs + Greg Dulcich
I like to include one somewhat off-the-wall pick in this column, and this week’s pick has the added benefit of being a block you could add to either of the other listed suggestions since it doesn’t include a quarterback.
The thesis here is fairly simple. Jahmyr Gibbs is by far the most productive fantasy running back. The most productive fantasy tight end this season is “whoever is playing the Lions,” with Detroit allowing 21.9 DraftKings points per game to the position. The leader as an individual player is Brock Bowers at 21.8.
Dulcich’s $3,100 price tag frees up the salary to afford Gibbs at $10,000, giving this pairing a combined cost similar to the Lock+JSN block at $13,300. There’s also some obvious correlation. Gibbs’ ceiling would be capped in a blowout, but a Dulcich touchdown (or two, if we dare to dream) would keep things close enough that Gibbs has to stay in.
Pictured: Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Photo Credit: Imagn
