We've reached the end of the road for the 2025-2026 NFL DFS season. Only one more game, only one more slate.

We previously covered our favorite picks to make on Underdog, but today we are going to focus on the Showdown DFS contests hosted by DraftKings.

It's a simple game on the surface—fill six roster spots (there are no specific positional designations) while staying within a $50,000 salary cap. The only other wrinkle is that one of the spots is a "Captain" slot, which will cost 1.5x their salary while simultaneously earning you 1.5x their fantasy points. TLDR: Ideally, you want your captain to be the highest scoring player in the game.

While building a lineup is easy, besting hundreds of thousands of other lineups isn't. That's right, I said hundreds of thousands. The flagship contest costs $20 per entry, pays out $1M to first place, and has space for 264,700 entries.

This article will focus on how to build sharp lineups in these "lotto-sized" contests, but if you want to play in smaller contests, DraftKings has a full menu of offerings.

Ultimately, the goal in these large-field contests is to build lineups with a ton of upside that are also unique. If you just jam the best plays, you'll be holding hands with hundreds of friends who did the same thing. If you try to get too unique (bro, imagine if Nick Kallerup scored, tho!), you won't score enough points to sniff the top of the leaderboard.

With that said, here are four tips for building unique lineups that can compete for a million-dollar top prize …

Super Bowl 60 NFL DFS Picks and Strategy for DraftKings

Get Creative At Captain

It should surprise no one that the players projected for the most ownership at the Captain position are Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Kenneth Walker and Drake Maye. They are the three players who project for the most fantasy points in the game and therefore have the highest likelihood of being the optimal captain suggestion.

But we are not playing a game of scoring the most points. Instead, we are trying to score more points than our opponents. And if 25% of the field rosters JSN at captain, which is currently projected across the DFS industry, then that means there will be nearly 70,000 JSN captain teams to compete with in the big contest.

It's not impossible to build sharp JSN teams—there are other uniqueness levers to pull, and we'll discuss those below—but the path to first will be much cleaner if we get off the board at captain.

My favorite sneaky captain plays:

• Rhamondre Stevenson ($13,200) - Stevenson will be the fourth most popular captain, but at 8%, he will be significantly less utilized than the Big 3. We know Stevenson has fully consolidated work in the New England backfield, and he has the ceiling to deliver a must-have fantasy performance.
• Sam Darnold ($16,200) - Darnold is my favorite contrarian captain on the slate. I understand the concern that in the scenarios where Darnold goes off, JSN is also highly likely to have a ceiling game, but it's also not hard for me to envision Sam spreading the ball around and eclipsing JSN in raw points at a much cheaper price tag and lower ownership.
• Kayshon Boutte ($8,400) - It can be dicey going too far off the board at captain, but when I do, I like it to be on big-play threats with solid target shares. Boutte fits this description perfectly. Not only can Boutte deliver a big fantasy outing on only a few deep bombs (he leads the Patriots in air yards per game), but his affordable salary allows you to jam in a ton of the other superstars in the FLEX positions.

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Leave Salary On The Table

It is natural to want to spend all of the $50,000 salary cap when building lineups. The top projecting lineups use the majority of the cap. But this means the lineups that come close to maxing out the cap will be far more popular (and duplicated) than lineups that intentionally leave some salary on the table. 

Let me give an example …

Say you build a lineup that has $8,800 remaining for a final flex position:

The obvious temptation in this example is to use up your remaining $8,800 by selecting Stefon Diggs for $8,600. Setting aside whether this is a good lineup or not (I hastily threw it together), it is much more likely for tens of other users to have the same lineup because it uses close to the full cap. 

To get unique on this team, I would strongly consider going down to AJ Barner ($4800) or Rashid Shaheed ($4200) and leaving between $4-$5k in salary remaining. 

Not only does this naturally make your lineup unique, but it also tells a logical story with a Darnold captain team that doesn't have JSN (the TDs flow to Cooper Kupp and another pass catcher, instead).

Go Dumpster Diving

No one likes clicking the super thin plays who only project for a few touches in a game, but if we are looking to get unique, we are going to need to be okay with getting uncomfortable.

The main thing we are hunting for with these bargain-bin players is TDs. On a one-game slate, a single TD from a cheap player can become a "need-to-have-it" piece.

Here are a few players with a salary under $4,000 who project for less than 20% field exposure that you can take stabs on in an effort to get unique:

• George Holani ($2,400) - As Dwain noted in Utilization, which I highly recommend reading for nuggets on these thin plays, Holani has a legit role as the two-minute back. We've also previously seen him get goal-line carries when Walker needs a breather. Holani is frankly too cheap and a great way to smartly get unique—especially in Seattle blowout scripts.
• TreVeyon Henderson ($3,800) - Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Henderson famously played only four snaps in the AFC Championship game, but I think it would be a mistake to over-index on that snowglobe game alone. He had a much better role in the previous two games (42% of the rush attempts). Hendo might be iced out again, but what if he isn't? We all know he has the talent to rack up fantasy points on limited touches.
• DeMario Douglas ($3,200) - The field is going to gravitate to Mack Hollins and Boutte as the preferred cheap NE pass catchers, which makes Douglas an intriguing pivot to me. Even with his routes down after Hollins' return, he still maintained a respectable TPRR (11%) and got used creatively out of the slot. 

Flip The Script

My favorite way to get unique on this slate is to fully flip the script on the popular build. 

Everyone and their mother thinks that Seattle rolls in this matchup. The field is jamming JSN and Walker at captain and playing at least three Seahawks in every lineup. Sure, that's how things are likely to play out based on the betting odds, but we can clear out a much less obstructed path to first by envisioning scenarios where the opposite happens.

To execute this strategy …

1. Start with a New England captain. Maye, Stevenson, or Boutte would be my preference.
2. Fill your flex with four other Patriots. If you don't use Maye at captain, I would include him in the FLEX. It's hard to imagine a world where the Patriots smash and he isn't providing a serviceable score. I would also make sure to include at least one of Patriots defense or the kicker (Andres Borregales) ... and I'm not opposed to both.
3. Select one Seattle player to round out the lineup. 

Here's an example of what that could look like:

This lineup uses the full salary, but because it includes a 5-1 Patriots script and a very low-owned Douglas, it is unlikely to be heavily duplicated. 

Final Thoughts

Be sure to consult our projections when building lineups and check out Dwain's awesome Utilization piece.

I also recorded a video with some of the top DFS players in the world, where they shared their strategies for building Showdown lineups.

Good luck, and please don't dupe me.

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