RADIO
The Super Bowl is finally upon us. The game that we've been waiting weeks for and if you're a fan of the Rams or Bengals you have to be thrilled that your team made it to the grand finale of this NFL season. Personally, I'm glad we have some fresh teams in there and I am really looking forward to this game. While I like the Rams to win, I think the Bengals certainly have a shot and that we should get a competitive game.
This article is all about finding an edge for GPPs by identifying which players on teams positively correlate with each other and which of those don't. We have a full season of data to process, though the Rams' core offensive pieces haven't been together all year. I went ahead and created a chart for each team that maps out the correlations and I attempted to identify some of the best 3-man stacks, too.
I'll be focusing mainly on the DraftKings Showdown slate since we can't play defenses on FanDuel and they don't have the dynamic captain pricing either. I'm also going to include two correlated lineups to give you an idea of how to use the data to make some GPP builds. Let's have some fun with these builds and see if we can't get an edge on the field in the process.
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DFS Correlations: Super Bowl LVI
Cincinnati Bengals
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There is a lot to break down so let's get right to it. I want to start with the underdog Bengals here first. After finishing the regular season 10-7, this team has gotten hot at the right team and reeled off three impressive and somewhat improbable wins to get back to their first Super Bowl since I was in elementary school.
Let's start with a few notes about the chart. I dug up the DraftKings points scored for all the major offensive players, kicker Evan McPherson, the Bengals defense, and the opposing QBs. The weeks that are yellow are games that the Bengals won. In an attempt to find the best 3-man stack, I totaled Burrow's output with Mixon's and each of the three main receivers (Chase, Higgins, and Boyd) as well as tight-end C.J. Uzomah. I also totaled the output of McPherson and the Bengals' defense. And then I found the correlational coefficient for each of the relevant pairings in the final two columns.
The first thing I'll highlight is that the obvious Burrow-Chase correlation is the highest on the Bengals (and beats any Rams' duo, too) at .67. If you're looking to pair them together, it certainly makes a ton of sense but they'll be a chalky combo. Burrow and Higgins had a very strong connection, too, at .48 which is better than some QBs had this year with their WR1.
Uzomah had a strong correlation with Burrow at .39 while Joe Mixon also was positively correlated at .22. Mixon had three receiving TDs this season and is utilized quite a bit in the passing game, so that number doesn't surprise me and I think pairing him with Burrow is definitely a viable strategy to try and gain access to every Bengals TD. Tyler Boyd was very hit or miss this year and actually had a negative correlation with his QB, which is not a good thing but not that uncommon for a third option in an offense.
What I did for the 3-mans was add Mixon to all the combos because there was not one single week where he wasn't one of the top three scorers among their offensive players. And while the Burrow-Mixon-Chase had the highest average over the course of all twenty games, it was the Burrow-Mixon-Higgins trio that had the highest raw total when they scored 119 combined DK points in Week 16. This is really interesting when you consider that Mixon and Higgins did correlate positively (.43) while Chase and Mixon did not (-.07)
The receivers don't correlate with each other much at all, which is another reason why I'm more interested in pairing Burrow with a Mixon and a pass-catcher than I am double-stacking him with two pass catchers.
Burrow's correlation with opposing QBs (.59) was right there behind his with Chase and so playing both QBs in this game makes plenty of sense, especially if you expect a shootout. It just gets tough to do that and get in some quality position players, too.
Luckily we have some potentially elite value in this game with both kickers and defenses being really solid options. Twice this season McPherson and the Bengals defense topped 30 DK points, which at their combined cost of $7,200 on DraftKings would be over 4x value. With a lot of folks expecting the Rams to win, the Bengals defense will surely be lower-owned than the Rams and we know Stafford turned the ball over a lot this season. With a .27 correlation, pairing McPherson with the Bengals' defense is supported here as solid play even if the positive relationship is fairly mild.
To summarize, if you're stacking the Bengals offense I think the math supports stacking Burrow with any of his pass-catchers (other than Boyd) individually but not with two of them. Run it back with Stafford and one of his pass-catchers if you want. And if you want a three-man stack then adding Mixon makes the most sense with the Burrow-Mixon-Higgins trio being my favorite and probably somewhat contrarian. The Cincy kicker and defense should not be overlooked
Los Angeles Rams
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As I mentioned in the introduction, getting some meaningful data for the Rams was a lot more difficult. Odell Beckham Jr. arrived in L.A. in week 10 and Cam Akers missed nearly all of the regular season with an Achilles injury. The running back position has been Akers for the taking during this playoff run, but he hasn't done much with the opportunity, and now Darrell Henderson Jr. is healthy. So will we see Henderson or Michel get some touches here? It certainly muddies things up a bit and for that reason, I didn't pull data on Henderson or Michel as they both had stretches of dominance and irrelevance this season and are used differently than Akers is. How Sean McVay will use his backs and distribute the touches is anyone's guess and I am not going to pretend as if I know either.
Let's start with what we do know - Cooper Kupp had one of the best seasons we've ever seen from a receiver in NFL history and was the most consistent scorer in this offense as produced even when Stafford wasn't at his best. In fact, the correlation between Kupp and Stafford was surprisingly low for a QB-WR1 at only .26. That doesn't mean that you can't stack them together, but what it really means is that Kupp is playable without Stafford and that pairing them together might be less necessary than the field thinks.
Stafford's best correlation is actually with OBJ (.50), although the sample size is half as big. And while OBJ and Kupp had a slightly negative correlation between them, the Stafford-Kupp-OBJ trio accounted for the biggest raw totals on the team in the last two wins of the playoffs (80.4 and 87.6 DK points) and had a higher overall average score of 62.57 than any of the Bengals trios, too. If you're looking to do an overload Rams stack, I think that's the way to go.
Higbee had a great year and it's a shame he probably won't play in this game. He was negatively correlated with Stafford, however, so it's not a spot we have to force with his replacement Kendall Blanton considering they priced him up on DK and he's no dirt cheap. The Bengals did allow the fourth-most fantasy points to tight ends this year so he has a solid matchup.
Van Jefferson could a sneaky play for larger tournaments as he had a .34 correlation with Stafford. If you wanted to stack Stafford with OBJ and Jefferson those correlations are solid as the two wideouts had a positive correlation of .20 together. Fading Kupp in your Rams stack would definitely make you different than the pack.
The Rams' kicker Matt Gay had an awesome year of his own and should be considered here, but he didn't have quite as strong a positive correlation with his defense as McPherson did although both kicking-defense combos averaged around the same number of points per game. The Rams defense should be popular, but makes for a solid play, too
Stafford's correlation with opposing QBs was pretty weak when compared with Burrow's but as I mentioned earlier, playing both QBs is definitely viable if you can find the value. I'm just not sure I'd make it a raw priority and fitting them both on FanDuel is really tough.
To recap, my favorite solo play here is Kupp and if I am stacking up multiple Rams, I think the Stafford-Kupp-Beckham trio is a potential slate winner as well as the Stafford-Beckham-Jefferson combo for the large field GPPs. I really don't know what to do with Cam Akers.
Sample DFS lineups
Lineup 1: Let's Get Crazy, Bengals win + Kicker Captain
- CPT: Gay ($5,700)
- FLEX: Burrow ($10,600)
- FLEX: Mixon ($9,600)
- FLEX: Higgins ($7,600)
- FLEX: Blanton ($4,600)
- FLEX: Kupp ($11,600)
Lineup 2: Rams onslaught, but Stafford turns it over + Bengals settle for FGs
- CPT: OBJ ($12,600)
- FLEX: Bengals D/ST ($3,200)
- FLEX: McPherson ($4,000)
- FLEX: Stafford ($10,800)
- FLEX: Kupp ($11,600)
- FLEX: Higgins ($7,600)
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