Unlock More Content Like This With A
Footballguys Premium Subscription
"Footballguys is the best premium
fantasy football only site on the planet."
Matthew Berry, NBC Sports EDGE
Footballguys has partnered with FanDuel and as part of that deal, I will be penning a weekly piece that tries to cover some of the finer points on beating their contests. This article will usually appear on Saturdays and not include the early Thursday games.
My approach to FanDuel's Daily Games
In salary cap games where other companies are determining prices, I like to see where their thoughts differ substantially from my projections. My value chart below matches my projections against FanDuel's prices:
Some explanation of my Excel manipulation is in order:
- Everything is sorted by position
- I have converted my projections to FanDuel Fantasy Points. These figures appear in the FP column.
- The Price column reflects FanDuel's Week 18 Price
- The Ratio column reflects the expected points multiplier (per thousand of salary). The higher the value the better.
- H-Value represents our own proprietary formula that matches the price and expected fantasy points (the higher the value the better).
- ETP = A team's expected points via the Las Vegas spread and under/over totals. The higher the better.
- In the 2017 Cracking FanDuel book, I demonstrated that selecting players who were in the upper half of the Ratio, H-Value, and Expected Team Point indicators at their positions led to the best fantasy success. I call these three factors the Criteria.
- I have highlighted the player's names (in green) that should be strong considerations for your lineups. Most of these players meet the criteria factors. These selections generally reflect the most bang for the buck at their respective positions. Players in yellow represent other selections that I rate slightly worse than the top plays at their position. Players in blue represent potential boosts due to others scratching.
General Thoughts
Situations that stand out to me this week.
- Offensive scoring has been up all season long, but this week's games feature a lot of teams with above average defenses. Only Houston, Chicago, and Indianapolis have implied team totals above 23 points. Make sure you get your shares of players involved on teams with expected high team totals. Listed by descending expected team points:
- Houston Texans (vs IND) - 25.00 points
- Chicago Bears (vs PHI) - 24.00 points
- Indianapolis Colts (at HOU) - 23.50 points
- Indianapolis Must Throw - The Colts have faced division opponent Houston twice this season and in those games, Andrew Luck threw for 464/4 (week 4) and 399/2 (week 14). Since week 10, Houston is allowing the 4th most fantasy points per game to quarterbacks while holding running backs to a league-low 16.6 fantasy points per game during the same span. This is the definition of a funnel defense. Houston is especially vulnerable to tight ends and has allowed 15.6 FanDuel fantasy points to tight ends per contest since week 10. If Luck and the Colts have success throwing as expected, the Texans will also likely be forced into playing their brand of uptempo Deshaun Watson scrambling style offense. Get as many Colts and Texans into your lineups. This has the high-scoring contest written all over it.
- RB Ezekiel Elliott is Rested - In a week 17 game, Dallas had nothing to play for but played QB Dak Prescott the whole contest. It's telling to me though that Ezekiel Elliott was a healthy inactive as they tip their hand as to how they plan to attack the Seahawks at home. Seattle is allowing 25.0 fantasy points per game to running backs since week 10 and Ezekiel Elliott combined for 138 yards against the Seahawks in week 3. Look for the Cowboys to have a rested Elliott involved early and often.
Cash+ Stacks I am targeting
- QB Deshaun Watson / WR DeAndre Hopkins / WR T.Y. Hilton
- QB Andrew Luck / WR T.Y. Hilton / WR DeAndre Hopkins
- QB Andrew Luck / TE Eric Ebron / WR DeAndre Hopkins
Sample Roster 1 ($60K) - Cash+ HOU Stack (Projected Points = 118.7)
- QB Deshaun Watson, HOU ($8,400)
- RB Ezekiel Elliott, DAL ($8,800)
- RB Lamar Miller, HOU ($6,400)
- TE Eric Ebron, IND ($6,600)
- WR DeAndre Hopkins, HOU ($8,800)
- WR T.Y. Hilton, IND ($7,700)
- WR John Brown, BAL ($4,700)
- Flex RB Nyheim Hines, IND ($4,800)
- TD Indianapolis Colts ($3,700)
Sample Roster 2 ($60K) - Cash+ IND Stack (Projected Points = 118.1)
- QB Andrew Luck, IND ($8,000)
- RB Ezekiel Elliott, DAL ($8,800)
- RB Nyheim Hines, IND ($4,800)
- TE Eric Ebron, IND ($6,600)
- WR DeAndre Hopkins, HOU ($8,800)
- WR T.Y. Hilton, IND ($7,700)
- WR John Brown, BAL ($4,700)
- Flex WR Taylor Gabriel, CHI ($5,000)
- TD Chicago Bears ($5,500)