Every week, the FFA Lineup Optimizer builds the lineup with the most projected points it can fit under the cap. Every week, the question is whether a human can beat it. In Week 3, Chris and Jesse went head to head with the Optimizer, building $60,000 lineups using FFA projections, the Optimizer suggestions, and intuition. Builds were locked in prior to Falcons vs Packers on Thursday night.
The results flipped the projections. Jesse’s lineup carried the lowest projected total and finished first with 185.24 points, beating its number by 55.9. The Optimizer finished second at 163.56, just 0.30 ahead of Chris at 163.26. Jesse’s margin came from two spots. One was his Purdy-Kittle stack combining for 65.5 points. The other was his pass catchers outrunning their projections, Jaxon Smith-Njigba scored 35.36 (projected 22.8) and Wan’Dale Robinson added 18.7 at $5,100 (projected 9.41).
This lineup went the other direction, and the stack did the heavy lifting. Purdy scored 39.3 and Kittle added 26.2, and with both on the roster, every completion between them paid off double. The pair accounted for 65.5 points, 35.3% of the lineup’s total. Purdy opened the season with 28.1 points against the Rams and 32.5 against the Dolphins, throwing five touchdowns and leading the league with an 80.4% completion rate through two weeks. Kittle was still ramping up from his January Achilles tear, but he caught all four of his targets for 80 yards and a touchdown in Week 2, and Arizona looked like the spot where his workload would take the next step. It did, as he saw seven targets and caught two fourth quarter touchdowns.
The lineup also hit big on two receivers. Jaxon Smith-Njigba had scored at least 26.2 points in each of the first two weeks with Drew Lock at quarterback, and Sam Darnold’s return from injury reunited him with the quarterback who fed him a league-leading receiving yardage total last season. Against a Washington defense giving up over 30 fantasy points per game to receivers, he scored 35.4 on a 22.8 projection.
Wan’Dale Robinson was the buy-low. After drawing 140 targets with the Giants last season, he had seen just seven through two games in Tennessee. A game against the Giants’ 24th ranked pass defense was the spot to bet on the volume coming back, and it did. He led the Titans with 11 targets and scored 18.7 at $5,100. Together, the two receivers beat their projections by 21.9 points.
The rest of the roster held its ground, combining for 65.7 points. With the 49ers stack and JSN carrying the ceiling, the lineup didn’t need a monster game from its running backs.
The Optimizer’s result came down to where its projection misses landed. Its three highest projected players (Allen at 28.4, Gibbs at 24.8, St. Brown at 21.8) took up 45.5% of the cap, and they went one for three. Gibbs scored 41.4, the best score on any of the three rosters. Allen and St. Brown combined for 29.36 points on $18,100, a return of 1.62 points per $1K, while the rest of the roster produced 3.20 per $1K. When a lineup concentrates salary this heavily, two misses become the whole story no matter how well the value plays perform.
Allen’s week was a case where skipping the stack protected the lineup. He threw for 204 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions, and Buffalo’s passing game went down with him. DJ Moore led the Bills’ receivers with 12.7 points on 10 targets, and no other Bills WR or TE scored more than 4.7. Allen salvaged 17.46 points with two rushing touchdowns. Correlation cuts both ways, it’s what made Jesse’s lineup lethal with the Purdy-Kittle stack worth 65.5 points, and the Optimizer avoided a major dud by rostering Allen alone.
The three back structure was where the Optimizer earned its keep. With Rico Dowdle missing Week 3, Warren took 17/19 carries and turned them into 20.6 points against a 13.9 projection. Love’s 26 touches produced 21.9 points at a great value of $5,800 and will certainly be valued higher in Week 4. RB volume is the most projectable commodity in fantasy football, loading three backs let the Optimizer bank on floor while spending up elsewhere. Gibbs, Warren, and Love combined for 83.9 points on $21,300.
The head to head with Chris was razor thin. The two lineups shared Allen, Gibbs, Love, and Kelce, so the race was decided by the remaining pieces. On offense, Chris’s Olave, Lamb, Egbuka, and Sadiq outscored the Optimizer’s Warren, St. Brown, Watson, and Douglas by 14.7 points. Defense flipped it, the Titans scored 9 while the Cardinals finished at -6, a 15 point swing that gave the Optimizer second place by 0.30.
This lineup shared its foundation with the Optimizer, with Allen, Gibbs, Love, and Kelce in both builds. The difference was in how it spent the rest of the cap, a second TE in the flex and a heavier investment at receiver.
The two TE build ended up being the lineup’s biggest edge. Using Sadiq in the flex alongside Kelce was admittedly an unusual structure, but capitalized on undervalued points. Sadiq saw three targets in each of the Jets’ first two games, and with Mason Taylor out Sadiq’s workload jumped to eight targets. He caught seven for 105 yards and a TD, scoring 23.5 points against a 6.88 projection. At $4,700, his 5.00 points per $1K was the best return of any player in the three lineups. Kelce and Sadiq combined for 37.4 points on $10,200, nearly double their 19.68 point projection.
The WR spend delivered volume without the ceiling. Olave and Lamb cost $16,700, 27.8% of the cap, combining for 16 catches on 21 targets and 219 yards. Both slightly beat their projections, but neither scored a touchdown, so their 39.9 combined points came out to 2.39 per $1K. A solid floor, but paying up at WR is in hope of TDs and this week they went elsewhere.
The gap to Jesse traces back to one position. Allen gave this lineup the same 17.46 points he gave the Optimizer, while Jesse’s Purdy scored 39.28 at $900 less. That 21.82 point QB difference almost exactly matches the 21.98 point final margin between the two lineups. The rosters essentially played even everywhere else, separated by just 0.16 points across the other eight spots.
Chalk Angle
Jesse’s winning lineup was the only one built away from the chalk (the players projected to be most heavily rostered across the field). Footballguys’ pre-lock FanDuel projections had Gibbs as the most popular player on the slate at nearly 37%, with Allen at 14% and St. Brown at 16.5%. The Optimizer and Chris both built around Allen and Gibbs. Jesse paired Purdy (projected 6 to 7%) with Kittle (7%), a low owned stack that produced 65.48 points. Gibbs delivered 41.4, but at that ownership he kept lineups level with the field instead of separating them from it. The best leverage the two losing lineups had was Love, projected at just 3.7% and returning 21.9 points on $5,800.
Week 4 Carryover
Jaylen Warren is one of the first Week 4 decisions on the board. Pittsburgh plays Thursday at Cleveland, so Dowdle’s toe will be a key watch. After playing a career high 89.8 percent of the snaps in Week 3, Warren had an 87 yard run wiped out by a holding penalty with 20.6 points underselling the workload. If Dowdle is still out, that role is worth paying for again. If he’s back, the split from the first two weeks likely returns and Warren’s projection takes a hit.
Love’s role change looks the most durable. After Tyler Allgeier out snapped him over the first two weeks, Love out snapped Allgeier 55 to 31 and out touched him 26 to 6. If Arizona keeps that split against the Giants, check whether his Week 4 price has caught up.
Wrap Up
So, can a human beat the Optimizer? This week, one did with a correlated stack.
The lesson heading into Week 4 is that the best values came from role changes the prices and projections haven’t caught up to. Sadiq and Warren stepped into bigger roles, and Love seemingly took over a backfield he had been splitting. Pair that with the chalk lesson where the winning lineup was the one that avoided one of the slate’s most popular QBs, find weekly role changes before prices adjust and leverage the QB position.
Build your own Week 4 lineup with the FFA Lineup Optimizer, and check back next week to see how the Optimizer fares.
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