This article is part of our DFS Soccer 101 series.
Choosing a defender on FanDuel can sometimes feel like a hope and a prayer. You take a center-back against a strong attacking team hoping to get a number of blocked shots, interceptions, tackles and clearances but all you end up with is one of each and a yellow card, while a center-back on the favorite finishes with 30 fantasy points.
It's important to focus on defensive stats to help establish fantasy floors for defenders on FanDuel, as most don't take a high number of shots or create a high number of chances. While there are some defenders who excel in those categories when compared to others at the position, they are usually inconsistently produced, making them difficult to rely on week to week.
FanDuel scoring is very different from DraftKings, with more points awarded for certain actions and more actions being scored. As a result, the range of outcomes is significantly higher and fantasy floors are greater. Here is a breakdown of the fantasy-point ranges for all players who started in defender positions (center-backs, right-backs, left-backs) this season:
The difficulty with grouping all defenders together is that center-backs tend to account for more clearances and blocked shots, since they play closer to their own goal, so it's important to separate defenders who play inside versus those on the wings:
Unsurprisingly, the floors from center-backs are generally higher because they accumulate most of their fantasy points from reliable defensive stats. As shown above, more than 55 percent of center-backs score at
Choosing a defender on FanDuel can sometimes feel like a hope and a prayer. You take a center-back against a strong attacking team hoping to get a number of blocked shots, interceptions, tackles and clearances but all you end up with is one of each and a yellow card, while a center-back on the favorite finishes with 30 fantasy points.
It's important to focus on defensive stats to help establish fantasy floors for defenders on FanDuel, as most don't take a high number of shots or create a high number of chances. While there are some defenders who excel in those categories when compared to others at the position, they are usually inconsistently produced, making them difficult to rely on week to week.
FanDuel scoring is very different from DraftKings, with more points awarded for certain actions and more actions being scored. As a result, the range of outcomes is significantly higher and fantasy floors are greater. Here is a breakdown of the fantasy-point ranges for all players who started in defender positions (center-backs, right-backs, left-backs) this season:
The difficulty with grouping all defenders together is that center-backs tend to account for more clearances and blocked shots, since they play closer to their own goal, so it's important to separate defenders who play inside versus those on the wings:
Unsurprisingly, the floors from center-backs are generally higher because they accumulate most of their fantasy points from reliable defensive stats. As shown above, more than 55 percent of center-backs score at least 12 fantasy points, whereas left-backs and right-backs don't even reach 33 percent. Raising the threshold to 15 fantasy points, we see center-backs reaching that mark 34.5 percent of the time, whereas full-backs can't even do it half as often.
"But what about attacking points?" Well, full-backs create chances every so often, but they are generally inconsistent. In fact, the highest number of chances created in a game by a defender this season is five, done once each by Christian Fuchs, Nathaniel Clyne, Patrick van Aanholt (when he was with Sunderland) and Kyle Walker. Expanding the number of instances, defenders have created four chances nine times, three chances 39 times, two chances 145 times, one chance 511 times and no chances 1,476 times. Shots on goal (FanDuel doesn't reward points for just shots) happen even less frequently, as no defender this season has gotten five shots on goal and Harry Maguire is the only one to get four on goal, and he didn't create a chance that game. Meanwhile, only two defenders have put three shots on goal, 24 have put two on goal, 277 have put one on goal and 1,880 have failed to do so at all.
If we combine the stats, looking at players who have at least two shots on goal plus chances created, we see seven instances of five (so, three shots on goal and two chances created, for example), 16 instances of four, 59 instances of three and 223 instances of two. See why it's better to rely on defensive stats for establishing defender fantasy floors?
52 times this season a defender created at least three chances in a game, which is worth nine fantasy points. How many times has a defender registered at least nine clearances (also worth nine points)? 314.
As we did with the piece examining defenders on DraftKings, let's see if any specific teams happen to produce lots of solid floor defenders on FanDuel, as well as any teams that have allowed plenty of defenders to rack up clearances, interceptions, blocked shots and tackles against them:
Seeing teams like Burnley, Bournemouth and West Ham regularly having defenders score in the 21.0-23.5 fantasy-point range isn't overly surprising, as they've haven't been the strongest defensive teams this season. One surprise may be Manchester City having just one fewer defender than Bournemouth in the 18.0-20.5 range, though City's defenders drop off considerably after that.
Looking at teams that have allowed solid floor performances from defenders, Burnley may be the most surprising, as they've allowed the most players in the 24.0-26.5 range and the third-most in the 21.0-23.5 range. Given the perception that Burnley are a fairly poor side, it's surprising to see such a high number of defenders perform well against them. However, a simple look at the detailed table shows that while they may rank last in the Premier League in away points (three, all draws), they are seventh in home points (29), a better record than Manchester City, Manchester United and Southampton. With that knowledge, the home/road splits of how well defenders have accumulated interceptions, tackles, blocked shots and clearances against Burnley is expected:
Sticking with that theme, only four defenders have scored more than 20.5 fantasy points from defensive peripheral stats against Chelsea this season, which coincides with what we found in our goalkeeper analysis earlier this week. Chelsea don't take a ton of shots and don't create many defensive opportunities, and yet they have been extremely efficient finishers this season, and they easily top the table. While the theory of using defenders against teams near the top of the table does make sense in many circumstances, it rarely does against the league leaders.
Here's a breakdown of each team home and away:
