Welcome to the 2016 version of The Daily Grind, a look at Daily Fantasy Football from several vantage points. Together we will look at many different topics this season – from managing expectations and bankroll to what Footballguys has in store for 2016 and how to best use what this site has to offer to maximize both your enjoyment and your bankroll by Super Bowl LI. So let’s jump right in with some thoughts on both expectations for playing this year and also a first take at a guided tour for Footballguys’ DFS coverage this season:
Chalk Up Another Week
Over the past several weeks, a lot of talk about NFL DFS has swirled around “the chalk,” or the most common players that are going to be in DFS lineups. Every expert is lamenting that pricing is too soft and that everyone is going to be on the same guys – but is that really the reality? If it is, is it so bad for DFS players? These are the questions I wanted to tackle this week.
First, not everyone reads all the DFS articles or listens to what the so-called experts have to say. People do have their own opinions and make up their own minds regarding their weekly lineups, so not everyone is going to have Devontae Booker in their roster for Week 8, no matter how many pundits tell people to do so. When FanDuel and DraftKings finally post their ownership percentages, no player is ever 100% owned. Footballguys, ESPN, NFL.com and every other major fantasy sports outlet could take out ads across the globe with Booker’s name on it in big, bold letters – yet he would still be 75% owned at the most. I won’t even try to answer the “why” to that question, but I do want to delve into the relative scariness of having lots of players in your lineups that have elevated ownership percentages. This seems appropriate with Halloween on Monday, so let’s see if we should get spooked by these numbers.
So here is what I am about to evaluate:
Should big ownership numbers frighten DFS players for cash game lineups?
The best way that I like to test these theories is by creating an extreme example of this condition, and then to see if that severe instance of this potential situation gives reason for concern. So here is my proposed extreme lineup: Imagine that all but one of my cash game players is 70% owned, and to make matters worse, the final roster spot is filled by a player that is in everyone’s lineup. Now, this NEVER HAPPENS*, but if it ever did, would I be afraid of using that lineup in a cash game?
(*Note that I never like to say never, and there are extreme examples in small slates where this is possible – but again, it almost never happens due to salary cap or other reasons – but theoretically, sure it could happen – but work with me here.)
Table 1 represents an example FanDuel lineup with eight players at 70% ownership and the final spot at 100%:
Roster Position | Chalk Ownership % |
QB | 70% |
RB | 70% |
RB | 70% |
WR | 70% |
WR | 70% |
WR | 70% |
TE | 70% |
K | 70% |
D/ST | 100% |
Combined Ownership Numbers: | 5.76% |
Roster Uniqueness: | 17.35 |
Table 1 – FanDuel Extreme Chalk Ownership Roster Example
Take note of the two numbers at the bottom of the table. The “Combined Ownership Numbers” represents the product of all the ownership percentages. What I did here was to just multiply 70% eight times, which gives an answer of less than 6%. I specifically chose 70% for two reasons – one, the number is high – very high – for ownership, and the product of 70% with itself is roughly 50%. That helps to break down the analysis, which I’ll get to next.
Let’s start with just two players at 70% ownership in a cash game contest. Is that scary? Well, if 100 teams have 70% ownership of two players, the odds of BOTH of them being on any given roster is 49% (70% x 70%), so half of the lineups will have this pairing of players. That math can be expanded to our extreme example, starting with four players at 70%, which works out to be 25% of the teams having all four of these players on the same roster. Doubling that number again works out to be just one in 16 teams (25%, or one in four, times 25% again). One in 16 is roughly 6%, which comes close to the actual math in Table 1 of 5.76%.
There’s one more element that is not in this example, and it is a big, big assumption. I did not consider if the salary cap would impede owning all of these highly owned players. What I did assume is that they all could fit, which is again the worst case scenario. If players’ salaries get in the way of fitting all of the Top 8 players that everyone wants to put in their lineups, that 5-6% number only goes down, not up.
So here is the conclusion – only 5.76% of the teams are going to have “all the chalk” players. That works out to be about 1 in 17 teams in any cash tournament or contest (see Table 1 again, “Roster Uniqueness”). Would you be afraid if you were in a 113-man double-up that had six other teams that matched your roster? How would you feel about knowing that if one or two of your players underperforms, about two-thirds of the rest of the contest feels that same pain? I would love this personally, as it would take some monster variance against that lineup for it to drop below the cash line.
This Halloween – Do Not Fear The Chalk.
A DFS For All Seasons
I first wrote about playing DFS in other sports last year, but given that it is late October again and we have not just one, or two, or three but four major sports now in play, I think it is worth noting once again that DFS is not just for football. DFS basketball continues to grow, and it is pushing for the top spot in daily sports. If football is the #1 sport in the U.S., why is it basketball is vying for the top spot in DFS? The key is the first word in that acronym – DAILY. Basketball, along with hockey and, prior to the playoffs, baseball are all truly daily sports. Want to play on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday? You certainly can with these other major sports. That’s the big difference. If you enjoy the puzzle of putting together winning lineups in a salary cap format, I strongly suggest that you try the NBA, and take a long, hard look at our debut of Hoopsguys.com where we are branching out to DFS basketball coverage. Slates run every day of the week until almost June, so jump right in and enjoy all the fun and action!
A GUIDED TOUR TO FOOTBALLGUYS’ DFS 2016 COVERAGE (FINAL EDITION)
Over the past three weeks I have provided you a guided tour to all the DFS coverage Footballguys is providing this season. Here at Footballguys, we have dedicated a good amount of the staff and resources to give you the best DFS content possible, and the intent of this tour was to highlight as much of the content and how to use it as possible. As a courtesy to you the reader each week, I will leave this placeholder so you can find the tour in the future and can find the articles and tools you use the most. Just remember to check the week number in the link, as it will take you to Week 3 content.
Here is the final version of the tour:
Good luck to you in all of your contests!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.