Analysis, in full

UPDATED SEP 23, 2026

Shawn Childs’ Week 3 Projections: September 22 Update

By J. Grant

Shawn Childs’ Week 3 player projections are ready. This is a preliminary, single-game release sourced September 22, not a new season-long forecast. The current revision includes 412 identified players. The member projections page organizes quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends by their Week 3 numbers. It shows PPR, half-PPR and DraftKings scoring alongside a ShackScore explicitly labeled WEEKLY. The figures describe projected performance, not a guarantee of playing time or fantasy points. The September 22 Week 3 source…

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UPDATED SEP 23, 2026

Falcons at Packers: Reading Week 3 Projections Against the Market

By J. Grant

Atlanta at Green Bay provides a useful way to read the Week 3 research. Shawn’s preliminary stat projections are fixed to the September 22 source. Market thresholds and quotes can move. A comparison should always show which number is frozen and when the market was last observed. If a player’s projected passing yards and a contract’s yardage threshold differ, that difference is measured in yards. It does not say how often the contract wins. Touchdown projections and touchdown thresholds have…

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UPDATED SEP 17, 2026

Lions vs. Bills DraftKings Showdown Week 2: Shawn Childs’ Lineup Breakdown

By Shawn Childs

Each week, DraftKings has three big showdown events, giving daily gamers a chance to take a massive prize if there is a solo winner. On Thursday night, the Detroit Lions travel to Buffalo to take on the mighty Bills and the soaring Josh Allen. Before I talk about the players, I want to talk about the game from a horse-racing perspective. Most of my racing experience came at Raynham Dog Track in the 80s, where I traded dollars and time…

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UPDATED SEP 14, 2026

How Did the Top End of the Running Back Pool Do in Week 1?

By Shawn Childs

Five running backs scored more than 30 PPR points in Week 1: Derrick Henry, D’Andre Swift, Jahmyr Gibbs, Ashton Jeanty and Bijan Robinson. That is a strong opening result for the top end of the running back pool. There were 39 running back scores above 30 points across all 18 weeks last season. Thirty came from backs who finished the year ranked inside the top 16 at the position. The scoring leaders did not all get there the same way.…

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UPDATED SEP 11, 2026

Shawn Childs’ Week 1 Projections: September 11 Update

By Sportshack Research

Shawn Childs updated his Week 1 player projections on September 11. These are single-game numbers for this week, not season totals. The new weekly store covers 322 players with verified IDs. It includes PPR, half-PPR, standard, DraftKings and FanDuel scoring. ShackScore was recalculated from the weekly projection and is labeled WEEKLY. Projection value and player availability are separate. Check injuries and official inactive lists before setting a lineup. Open the Week 1 projections to compare players and scoring formats.

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UPDATED SEP 10, 2026

49ers vs. Rams DraftKings Showdown 2026: Shawn Childs’ Matchup Breakdown

By Shawn Childs

In the first showdown game of the season at DraftKings, there were two significant injuries (Sam Darnold and A.J. Brown), changing the outcome of this slate quickly. The highest-placing team with Drew Lock ($7,400) finished 153rd, with two game managers entering the same lineup. There were 23 matching rosters that tied for first place, leading to a $54,065.22 check for each winning ticket. In tonight's matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia, the Rams…

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UPDATED SEP 9, 2026

Stop Building Sports Projections From Scratch. Plug Into Sportshack.

By J. Grant

Sports platforms do not win by displaying the same stats everyone else already has. They win by helping users decide what those stats mean. That is why Sportshack.ai is making its projection infrastructure available to other providers. Fantasy apps, sports media companies, research teams, newsletters, communities and emerging sports-tech products can use Sportshack data to power sharper rankings, comparisons, alerts, content and decision-support tools—without spending years building and maintaining an entire projection operation from zero. The opportunity is bigger than…

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UPDATED SEP 8, 2026

10 NFL Week 1 Yardage Leans: Model, Role and Defensive Context

By J. Grant

Ten Week 1 yardage lines cleared Sportshack’s projection and probability screens. The next question was not simply whether each opponent was good or bad in 2025. It was whether the player’s projected role, the historical distribution and the defense’s current personnel and coaching continuity told the same story. One distinction matters before looking at the results: defense is a confidence modifier, not an invented probability adjustment. Sportshack tested its current defense-yardage adjustment across seven holdout slates. The adjustment was not…

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UPDATED SEP 9, 2026

Patriots vs. Seahawks Showdown Picks: 5 DraftKings Lineups, Projections & Props for Tonight

By Shawn Childs

And so it begins where it all ended in last year's Super Bowl. The Seahawks kicked their way to a 12-0 lead through three quarters while Drake Maye lost his passing mojo. Kenneth Walker carried Seattle on the ground (27/135), while AJ Barner (4/54/1) was their best receiving option. With the Seahawks up 19-0 with about 13 and a half minutes to go in the fourth quarter, New England started to show an offensive pulse (Mack Hollins 35-yard touchdown), but…

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UPDATED SEP 8, 2026

10 NFL Week 1 Player Props Our Model Says Are Mispriced

By J. Grant

Ten Week 1 yardage lines cleared Sportshack's projection and probability screens. The next question was not simply whether each opponent was good or bad in 2025. It was whether the player's projected role, the historical distribution and the defense's current personnel and coaching continuity told the same story. One distinction matters before looking at the results: **defense is a confidence modifier here, not an invented probability adjustment.** Sportshack tested its current defense-yardage adjustment across seven chronological holdout slates. The adjustment…

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UPDATED SEP 3, 2026

2026 Circa World Championship Draft Results and Recap

By Shawn Childs

The high-stakes fantasy football market reached new heights on August 28th when Circa Resort & Casino hosted a live draft at the famous Stadium Swim. Twelve daring and deep-pocket game managers ponied up $100,000 to compete for $1.15 million in prize money. 1st Place: $600,000 2nd Place: $250,000 3rd Place: $200,000 4th Place: $100,000 (money back) Each team in this contest bid part of their $1,000 free-agent budget for their choice of draft spot. The winning bidder claims their draft…

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UPDATED SEP 3, 2026

What Happened to Handcuff Running Backs?

By Shawn Childs

In 2026, much of the fantasy football market has lost the art of handcuffing running backs. Maybe they haven’t thought through each backfield situation, or possibly they don’t have the draft club in the fantasy bag. Each year in the NFL, the running back position shifts the power of a fantasy roster. One injury can kick out one of the legs of a top roster while rewarding another with an uptick in value. Injuries run rampant at the running back…

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UPDATED SEP 1, 2026

The Rebirth of Patrick Mahomes: Why His QB17 Price Could Be a Gift

By Shawn Childs

Apparently, Patrick Mahomes is no longer worthy of being a top-12 starting quarterback in the NFL in 2026. He is coming off a significant knee injury, but the Chiefs expected him to play in Week 1. Kansas City has had a great coaching staff while being the best NFL franchise over the past eight seasons, with Mahomes starting at quarterback (95-31 with 14 wins over 17 matchups in the playoffs). The Chiefs come off their worst season (6-11) since 2012…

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UPDATED AUG 30, 2026

Inside the $100K Legacy League: Our Model’s Favorite and Week 17 Forecast

By Sportshack Research

Twelve fantasy managers put up **$100,000 apiece**—$1.2 million in entry fees—for the sold-out 2026 NFFC Legacy League at Circa in Las Vegas. First place pays $600,000. With that much riding on one 20-round draft, we wanted to answer a simple question: who built the strongest team? So we rebuilt the draft pick by pick, valued every roster under the league’s actual scoring and simulated the complete season 100,000 times. The result is a fair, no-vig title market—not a promise, and…

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UPDATED SEP 1, 2026

2026 NFL Roster Cuts and Moves: Every Team’s Cutdown-Day Transactions

By Sportshack Research

NFL cutdown week reshaped depth charts across the league. Sportshack reviewed the official roster-cuts tracker, transaction ledger, practice-squad tracker and league roundup to assemble one searchable record of every team’s moves through the evening of August 31. The review captured **1,125 cutdown departures**, **1,352 unique official transaction-ledger rows**, **287 published practice-squad entries** and **123 official team notes**. Cross-team moves are shown under each affected club, producing **1,380 team-level transaction listings** below. For fantasy players, the important next step is not…

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UPDATED AUG 31, 2026

2026 Green Bay Packers Backfield: Josh Jacobs, MarShawn Lloyd, and Kaleb Johnson

By Shawn Childs

In the early days of fantasy football, drafters had minimal teams, with their drafts coming the weekend before the regular season. As the fantasy market has grown over the past three decades, the quest for big prizes and more drafts has become a way of summer life for die-hard NFL fans. Each year, injuries happen late in August, crushing some fantasy teams, but the dark passenger in the room is self-inflicted off-the-field issues. All summer, Josh Jacobs has had the…

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UPDATED AUG 29, 2026

2026 NFL Deep Sleeper Team

By Shawn Childs

For my sleeper and deep sleeper articles, I focus on players drafted in rounds 11 to 15 as sleepers, and anyone after that range falls into the deep sleeper range. Each fantasy football draft season, there will be a couple of late quarterbacks and tight ends that climb into the top 10 in scoring at their position. The running back position can offer the most help in the sleeper area due to the high number of injuries to backs each…

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UPDATED AUG 27, 2026

The Seven NFL Signals I’m Tracking Every Week in 2026

By J. Grant

The first set of NFL projections is never the final answer. The preseason model establishes team scoring, expected plays, run/pass mix, depth charts, and player opportunity. Once the season begins, every game gives me new information. The challenge is deciding which changes are meaningful and which ones are one-week noise. A player can score twice on six touches. A wide receiver can lead his team in targets because another starter left early. A defense can rank last against the pass…

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UPDATED AUG 28, 2026

2026 NFL Sleeper Team

By Shawn Childs

For my sleeper and deep sleeper articles, I focus on players drafted in rounds 11 to 15 as sleepers, and anyone after that range falls into the deep sleeper range. Each fantasy football draft season, there will be a couple of late quarterbacks and tight ends that climb into the top 10 in scoring at their position. The running back position can offer the most help in the sleeper area due to the high number of injuries to backs each…

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UPDATED AUG 26, 2026

A Projection Is Not a Probability: How NFL Prop Forecasts Should Be Built

By J. Grant

Fantasy football players are comfortable with projections. A quarterback is projected for 275 passing yards. A wide receiver is projected for 72 receiving yards. A running back is projected for 4.2 catches. Those numbers help rank players and build lineups. They do not answer every prop question. If a quarterback projects for 275 yards, what is his probability of reaching 250? What about 275, 300, or 325? The same projection mean sits behind every question, but the probability changes at…

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UPDATED AUG 25, 2026

Chalk Core, One Leverage Valve: How I’m Applying 18 Tournament Winners in 2026

By J. Grant

I reviewed 18 winning six-player tournament lineups from the 2025 season. The finding that stayed with me was not a player name or a single winning score. It was the shape of the lineups. The winners were not trying to beat the field at all six positions. Most of the time, they accepted the players everyone wanted and made one meaningful decision that separated the build. That does not mean I can copy last year's winners into 2026. It gives…

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UPDATED AUG 24, 2026

Defense Matters—But Not for Every NFL Prop

By J. Grant

Every fantasy football player has seen the same type of matchup argument. The opposing defense ranks 29th against quarterbacks, so upgrade the passer. They rank third against running backs, so lower the rushing projection. A wide receiver has a favorable color on a chart, and suddenly every part of his outlook gets moved higher. Matchup data belongs in the weekly process, but one defensive ranking should not move every statistic in the same direction. A defense can allow plenty of…

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UPDATED AUG 23, 2026

Football Model vs. Quant Model vs. the Blend: Which Was Most Accurate?

By J. Grant

The football model builds projections from the ground up. Team scoring, coaching tendencies, depth charts, player opportunity, injuries, offensive line play, and expected game flow all have to fit together. If the team numbers don't add up, the player projections don't mean much. At Sportshack, that football work still has to answer to the results. A projection is supposed to be tested. If another method sees a player or statistic better, the correct response is not to defend the original…

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UPDATED AUG 23, 2026

The Fade Review: Sportshack’s Fair-Value Layer for Kalshi and Polymarket

By J. Grant

**The Fade** is not a Kalshi or Polymarket trading terminal, copy-trading bot, or automated execution product. It is Sportshack’s independent fair-value and calibration layer for sports prediction markets. The basic idea is straightforward: match a prediction-market contract to a Sportshack model probability, compare the market’s implied probability with the independent model, surface the disagreement, timestamp the forecast before the event, and grade it after settlement. The public product is live at fade.sportshack.ai. Its current model-supported coverage is per-game MLB player-stat…

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UPDATED AUG 22, 2026

2026 NFL All Value Team

By Shawn Childs

Winning in fantasy football requires finding edge players, staying healthy, and finding value options in each draft. Each fantasy format has a different draft flow, and each cast of drafters will have a different view of the player pool and their team builds. Here’s a look at my list of top value players at quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and tight end: Over the past week in the National Fantasy Football Championship Primetime event (five drafts), Murray is the 18th…

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UPDATED AUG 17, 2026

Want to Know How to Win $1 Million Next NFL Season? This Is How They Did It Last Year

By J. Grant

Want to know how to win a million dollars over the next NFL season? I started with the simplest question I could think of: How did people actually do it last year? Not what the optimal lineup theoretically should have looked like. Not which DFS strategy sounds smartest on Twitter. Not which player had the highest projection on Sunday morning. I went through the winning DraftKings Millionaire Maker lineups from last season and looked at the actual structures that produced…

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UPDATED AUG 17, 2026

What 18 Winning Battle Royale Lineups Actually Looked Like

By J. Grant

Everyone who plays large-field tournaments carries some version of the same instinct: if you want to win big, you have to get weird. Fade the chalk. Find the 2% player nobody wants. Differentiate wherever you can. Build something that looks uncomfortable enough that, if everything breaks correctly, you are standing somewhere the rest of the field is not. I understand the logic. I have thought that way myself. But I pulled the winning lineup from all 18 weeks of Underdog's…

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UPDATED AUG 14, 2026

2026 Top12 Rankings All Positions

By Shawn Childs

2026 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet, Depth Charts, and Projections I left it behind the paywall until I know where I stand for work in the fantasy market. To view the cheat sheet, a request is required. The difference between the seventh- and twelfth-ranked quarterbacks is about 20.00 fantasy points, which puts most options in a coin-toss situation in drafts. Question Marks: Conclusion: Foundation stud who projects as a value in the National Fantasy Football Championship. Question Marks: Conclusion: Maye makes…

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