DFS Football 101: Important Tips for New Players, Round 15

This week will be FanDuel, where the salary cap is $60,000 and the average cash game score in most weeks is around 120 points. The reason that is important is we need to determine what "multiplier" or "value" is required to hit. A "multiplier" is calculated by taking the players' score, dividing by the salary, and multiplying by 1000. For example, Rob Kelley was $5400 in Week 11 and scored 31.7 points. The multiplier calculation would be (31.7/$5400)*1000=5.9x value.

So if we know that 120 points is the target and $60,000 is the salary cap, the target for any projection on a player needs to be at least 2x. The challenge in this is finding the most consistent players from week to week that will hit 2x value. It is a balance between what positions to pay up for versus where you decide to take value. Often times the matchups and pricing will dictate your weekly strategy.

The first thing I do is look at the Vegas lines for the Sunday-only slate. Also, because it's December, I place a huge emphasis on weather and note any game that is outdoors. This will limit the number of options we have at each position. There were a lot of games with low totals which also helped narrow the field considerably.

Here was my Week 15 FanDuel cash lineup:

Target value to cash: 1.83x

My targets on salary allocation are usually by position:
QB – 15%
RB – 30%
WR – 30%
TE – 10%
K and DST – 15%
Total – 100%

My target points for each position are by group:
QB – 20
RB – 40
WR – 40
TE/K/DST – 20

The points are not going to come exactly this way, especially the TE/K/DST group because you might get nothing from your TE and DST, but Matt Prater goes off for 18 which bails you out. This is also why I spend the least on this group. QB and RB are more predictable so we allocate more salary to those players.

This is not a "hard" cap per se, but they are more of my guidelines for coming into doing my research. If I can make this allocation work and I feel good about it, then I will roll with it.

Getting back to the landscape of Week 15 and how I looked at the slate:

The first thing I looked at was the temperatures. I wanted no part of any game below 40 degrees. Then I looked at the highest totals.

Matt Ryan, Sam Bradford, Carson Palmer, Derek Carr, Philip Rivers were the players who made my short list. I wanted no part of Bradford, Carr, or Rivers. (Bad, and second division road game). So that left just Ryan and Palmer. I was leaning Palmer, but the Saints D has been decent lately so Ryan it was by default. I was not crazy about Ryan because of the -13.5 line, which meant if they were up big, he was not going to be throwing (which is what actually happened). But with Ryan, I felt like there was such a high chance of him getting to 18-20 points as a floor, I was willing to pay up. Also, he was at home in a dome which was a plus on this slate.

You might think that I was being extremely selective on player selection, but that is how you must play cash games. A tight system leaves itself to minimizing mistakes. Playing tournaments is a different animal altogether.

Running Backs

If you read my previous article about running backs in cash games on FanDuel, you know it begins and ends with two players: David Johnson and Le'Veon Bell. I was not huge on Bell because it was on the road and the second division game, but the only other options for me were Devonta Freeman and Demarco Murray. I was off Freeman automatically in cash because I already had Matt Ryan.

Both Bell and Johnson were in games that were going to remain close and they should get the workload in spite not having the upside of touchdowns with Bell. As I wrote earlier, I look at the running back position as a whole, so if I can get 40 points I really don't care if it's 20/20, 25/15, 30/10, just get me there.

There were two other cheaper running backs that were highly owned in Week 15: Kenneth Farrow and Kenneth Dixon. If you read my prior article, you know that the lower-priced running backs usually do not pay off on FanDuel so they were never in consideration for me.

The one player that I had not consider and wish I did was Ty Montgomery. When it became clear that he was going to see the ball and Rodgers' calf injury, but again more of a tournament play for me because of the variance of outcomes.

Wide Receivers

I spoke about my wide receiver strategy on Sirius XM with Chris Liss and Jeff Erickson earlier last week and the first name we brought up was Tyreek Hill. I said give me 60 yards and a TD for these $5000-$6500 receivers all day long. As long as he remained under $7,000, I was playing him. Because my budget for wide receivers is around $18,000 going above $7K just is not an option unless I was able to really hit on value with quarterback to save an extra $1000-$2000.

The good part about wide receiver this week was when news came out that Julio Jones was out, this made Taylor Gabriel an automatic play. Also, when Michael Floyd was released by the Arizona Cardinals, J.J. Nelson was the third receiver that fit my system who I wanted to use. Both were in high-total games at home and seeing a nice bump in targets.

The other receivers that were on my short list were Michael Crabtree, Tyrell Williams, and Dontrelle Inman who I actually had in my early lineup but took out when Gabriel and Nelson opened up. Also, like I said earlier, I'm not huge on that 2nd division game.

Tight Ends

Earlier in the week, I was locked in on Ladarius Green, but that second-division-game theory crept back in my head, so I pivoted to Antonio Gates. But again, second division game strikes again! So I landed on Kyle Rudolph at $5800 with a budget of $6000.

The Vikings cannot run the ball at all and the game was indoors. Also, the Vikings team total was just under 25 which is very high for them. The positives about Rudolph were his most recent game logs for targets (8, 12, and 10). Even though only one touchdown, if I can get 7 receptions for 60 yards and a 50% shot at that touchdown, that is 12.5 and it will cover value. Well, he did not get the touchdown, but 8 receptions for 97 yards got him to 13.7 points.

Kicker

I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to kickers which I have written about. $4500. That's it. Spend $4500. Now if you happen to have $100-$200 left over and you want to upgrade that is fine. But the data shows that paying up at the kicker position is not a good strategy. Kicker salaries do not change very much unless they have a couple monster games back to back, so you can always find that consistent kicker week in and week out that will get the field goals you need.

I went with Kai Forbath from the Vikings at $4500 because it was indoors, he was favored at home and the game was projected to be close (I look at -7 or less). Also, Forbath had three consecutive weeks of at least two fields goals made with 4/3/2. Now the game turned out to be a blowout, but Forbath came through with 8 points which is all I need.

Defense/Special Teams

When I first looked at D/ST last week, I jumped on the Bills facing the Browns and the Chiefs facing the Titans. Both were at home, one was in a great matchup (Bills), and the other has been the most consistent D/ST all year. But when I look at the Bills, they just were not putting up any points at D/ST and the Titans were not allowing very much at D/ST. Both of them felt like uber-chalk and fade-worthy.

So I looked at teams who were favored at home against weaker quarterbacks and priced under $4800. I landed on the Ravens. They were getting sacks, fumbles, and interceptions on a consistent basis and Carson Wentz has been struggling. Also, the Ravens needed the game to stay in the playoff hunt so motivation would be there. Unfortunately, they allowed 26 points which was the second-highest they allowed all year at home and only put up three points, but I hit my 20 point target from the TE/K/D group as Rudolph/Forbath/Ravens combined for a total of 24.7.

The other team I was looking at was the Giants because they were favored, at home, and get sacks every week. Over the last seven weeks they were averaging over 11 points per game and their salary was just $4600. Again another reason why if you really dig into the numbers and pricing on FanDuel, I'm not a huge proponent of spending up here either. I think you can find value but you really need to be meticulous about it and really dig into box scores not just for the D/ST but the opponent and what they allow to D/STs.