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Fading Thursday night plays
One of the most profitable plays in daily fantasy football is to play Thursday night GPP’s but to fade the players that are playing. The rationale for this is pretty straightforward as it applies all of the same thought processes that I set out in week 1. If you missed that article I would recommend taking a look through. But in short you should compare the odds that you think the player reaches GPP value to their ownership levels.
The reason this becomes so profitable on Thursday games is because a good portion of the Fanduel user base loves to watch their own players play so they can sweat their game. Since the Thursday night game is the only game on and everyone has access to watch it these owners will incorrectly allocate their funds more towards the Thursday night games.
This week’s games are a perfect example of this phenomenon. I like to look at the $15k Thursday Scramble because it only allows one entry so a handful of people entering multiple lineups can’t skew our results. For this tournament we notice the following things.
Out of 1,724 entries 1,340 (77.7%) rostered at least one player from the Thursday game. This occurred despite the fact that there was really only one player worth considering in the game had a low over under of 44. In reality only one player should have even been considered and that was Jeremy Hill. All other players were poor value.
Speaking of Jeremy Hill here is where Thursday ownership and recency bias come together to equal a huge fade. Last week Hill was one of the most popular picks of the season in both cash games as well as GPP’s and was owned approximately 35% of the time against the Jaguars. He rewarded owners with 28.8 points on a salary of $5,200 and was a must play if you wanted to win a big GPP.
However, this Thursday he was owned in 65.8% of the Thursday Scramble lineups! This despite the fact that his price had risen by $1,700 all the way to $6,900. Hill was also playing the Browns this week which while still a good matchup wasn’t nearly the matchup he had last week against the Jaguars. Put it all together and last week he was rightfully the best pick but this week there was no way he should have been owned by twice the number of teams. I approximated the odds of his success to be approximately 25-30% before the game. Don't get me wrong these are great odds. But being owned by 65.8% makes him one of the most over owned players all season.
By fading Hill there was a risk that if he blew up for something like 35 points you would have been in a position where there was no way that you were going to win. That’s a disappointing position to be in before your players have even started their games. However, even if he scored a very strong 28.8 points like last week you weren’t totally out of it due to his higher price point this week.
On the other hand there was a decent chance something like what actually did happen would occur and he would score 4.6 points. Now it is almost assured that a lineup with Hill will not win. As such we have cut the contest pool of potential winning entries from 1,724 to 590. With so many people in these large scale GPP’s we need to take risks to make sure we can win. When the odds are on our side it’s best to take these calculated risks and fading Thursday players in GPP’s is one of the best ways to do this. Please note this analysis only applies to GPP plays. Fading these same highly owned players will increase your variance in cash games and may not necessarily be advisable. For example, I played Hill in all my Thursday cash games but none of my GPP’s.
Fanduel GPP plays
Below are my weekly GPP plays at Fanduel. Throughout the season I will be employing strategies mentioned in Week 1 about contrarian plays. My goal will be to highlight players owned less than 10% to give you a contrarian option unless the player is such a good value that you should play him anyway. But remember that if you think a player will score three times their salary at a higher rate than their ownership level they are still a good buy. It is also important to remember you don’t need to go contrarian on everyone one of your positions. Additionally I will take the approach outlined in my preseason article about the best approach to allocating money in my lineups. In this article, I showed that in general it was best to spend on studs at wide receiver and to a lesser extent quarterback and save your money at running back and tight end.
This week has a ton of prime matchups for a handful of quarterbacks. Ben Roethlisberger (26% owned!), who if you haven’t noticed threw for 6 TDs in both of the last two weeks, plays the New York Jets who are getting gashed through the air by everyone. Matt Ryan gets a rematch against the Buccaneers who he threw for 3 TDs in the first half during their first matchup and the Falcons cruised to the win from there. Mark Sanchez (14%) gets to play in a Chip Kelley offense against the Panthers who are being passed on the 8th most this season and Sanchez only costs $6,600. I haven’t even mentioned Aaron Rodgers (6%) who has a favorable matchup against the Bears or Peyton Manning (10%) who is all but guaranteed to throw for 3 TDs against the Raiders.
I have no problems using any of the guys above. In fact, I will be owning them in a lot of my GPPs but I am going to go the contrarian route with two options this week given how heavily owned all of these options are such that if you hit on one of these lower guys you will be in great shape of winning.
Josh McCown $5,700 1.8% - McCown gets the other side of the game with Matt Ryan and will most likely be trying to keep up with the Falcons passing attack. So far this year teams have been very run heavy against the Falcons as teams are third most run heavy against them. However, teams have had a lot of success when they actually do pass against the Falcons with NYPA allowed 25% above league average. If the game script goes as planned and McCown is forced to pass at a high rate at only $5,700 McCown has the best chance of hitting value of any player this week and at 1.8% owned is a great value.
Colin Kaepernick $7,500 2.8% - Last week Kaepernick was one of the hot picks and let everyone down. As such recency bias comes into play and Kaepernick is only being owned by 2.8% of owners. This week Kaepernick gets the Saints who are allowing 11% more NYPA than league average. Additionally, Vegas has actually installed the Saints as 6 point favorites. The 49ers have historically been run heavy but they don’t have a problem passing if the game script calls for it and this may be the week it does. Finally, if Kaepernick is dropping back to pass a lot more often that will allow him to take off and run a lot more as well making his upside higher this week than normal.
Andre Ellington $8,100 6.2% - I will continue to bang the Ellington drum until he gets to a higher ownership level. Last week Ellington rewarded us with a very respectable 21.4 points. This week Ellington has yet another favorable matchup against the Rams. The Rams defense is being ran on the 7th most often and are allowing 12% more yards than league average per attempt. Ellington continues to heavily involved in the passing game as he added 39 yards through the air which makes Ellington game script proof. Finally, Stepfan Taylor continues to be out this week which should increase the odds of Ellington scoring multiple TDs
Davante Adams $5,200 5.8% - Adams played 96% of the snaps during the Packers last game and played 78% and 79% the previous two. Those extra snaps have resulted in targets of 8, 1, and 9 in his last three games. Adams is now a full time player with Jarrett Boykin only seeing 21% and 12% of the snaps since his return. The Packers spent a second round pick on Adams and are already seeing that investment paying off. Any time you can get a talented wide receiver in an Aaron Rodgers offense at this low of a price and this ownership level I would go all in each time.
James Jones $5,400 2.4% - Even after adjusting for game script teams are passing the second most against the Broncos so far this season. The Raiders also check in at the 7th most pass happy team. The Raiders are 11 point underdogs against the Broncos which means it doesn’t take a big leap of faith to believe that the Raiders will actually lead the league in pass ratio this week. Andre Holmes will be primarily matched up against Aqib Talib leaving Bradley Roby to cover James Jones which should be the path of least resistance for Derek Carr. The garbage time minutes make Jones a boom or bust option that I think is worth a shot in a large GPPs.
Jared Cook $4,800 2.5% - The Cardinals have improved significantly against tight ends compared to last year but they still represent a favorable matchup to Cook. Cooks targets have dropped the last few weeks to 3, 3, and 5 which has helped lead to his low ownership and price point. But a lot of that has had to do with the low amount of pass attempts the last few weeks. If we go with Vegas’s proposed game script which shows the Rams losing they may be forced to lean more heavily on Cook which could lead to 10 targets which he had in several games earlier this year and could result in the chance for multiple TDs.
As always please send any questions to Buzzard@footballguys.com or follow me on Twitter Follow @SteveBuzzard