This season marks the third year 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 14.
Jordan Love + Boost Bears Pass Catchers
We’ve got a very interesting DFS game in Green Bay this week. Both the Bears and Packers passing games have been fairly difficult to target in DFS, since neither team heavily concentrates their targets on a true top wide receiver. That has meant that even when the QBs score well, it hasn’t necessarily brought along any of their pass catchers.
What’s changed this week is that the Bears’ leading receiver, Rome Odunze, is out for the contest. I’m projecting this as a sneakily high-scoring game, and we just might see Chicago’s offense narrowed down enough to produce a big score or two from their receiving corps — it’s just difficult to figure out who that will be.
DJ Moore has been the number two option and could see more targets, or he could continue to run the same routes he always has. Olamide Zaccheaus has been their #3 option, so he could slide up to number two, or he could remain as the “three-wide receiver set” player while Luther Burden fills in directly for Odunze. Plus, tight end Colston Loveland could draw a few extra targets.
I’ll be boosting all four while locking Jordan Love, in hopes that I’ve covered all of the bases in case this game shoots out. Love and the Packers should still have a fairly spread-out passing attack, so I’ll let SimLabs decide which, if any, Packers players to include.
Matthew Stafford + Puka Nacua + Davante Adams + Michael Wilson
While the Rams are favored by seven points against the Cardinals, they’re also a top-three team in Pass Rate Over Expectation (PROE) on the season, so as long as the game isn’t a complete blowout, they’ll continue to air the ball out. Their passing attack has been heavily concentrated on Nacua and Adams, who’ve combined for well over 50% of Stafford’s targets this season.
On the other side, Marvin Harrison is out for the Cardinals, which means Wilson is reprising his role as their #1 wide receiver. In the two games without Harrison this season, Wilson caught 25 of his 33 targets, going over 100 yards in both games. In both of those contests, he cleared 4x his Week 14 salary without scoring a touchdown, so there’s even room for a bigger score if he finds his way to the end zone.
The hope is Wilson finds the end zone early and keeps Stafford and the Rams receivers aggressive throughout this one. I’d also consider switching Wilson for tight end Trey McBride in some percentage of my lineups, though the salary gets extremely tight with McBride priced at $8,000.
Joe Burrow + Ja’Marr Chase + Tee Higgins
We haven’t had a game with Joe Burrow and two top pass catchers since Week 2, when Burrow exited the contest early due to an injury that kept him out most of the season. The band is all back together this week, and Burrow ranks as the #2 QB in SimLabs Optimal vs. Projected Ownership score thanks to his sub-5% ownership projection.
If he’s going to get there, at least one of Chase and Higgins almost certainly will too. They accounted for about 50% of his targets last season when healthy, and Burrow doesn’t provide much with his feet, so he’ll need at least one of his receivers to have a big game. Like Nacua and Adams, they can both have big games together.
I’m also interested in doing a few lineups with the Bengals wide receivers and Bills QB Josh Allen. There’s a solid chance that if both Bengals receivers go off, Allen is forced to play hero ball and ends up outscoring Burrow thanks to his rushing upside. That grouping is a bit more chalky due to Allen’s high ownership but could be effectively lower by “stacking” him with two players from the opposing team.
Pictured: Matthew Stafford
Photo Credit: Imagn
