There is absolutely no question that the biggest area of growth right now in fantasy football is with the explosion of Daily Fantasy Contests. With several top sites out there already and more entering this space each day, Footballguys is expanding the coverage in this arena to give Footballguys Insiders exclusive coverage of the latest news and information of Daily Fantasy Football.
Over the course of this football season, we will talk about numerous aspects of Daily Fantasy Football. From articles on these sites, strategies to win daily contests, bankroll (money management) strategy, different league and game types, signup and reload bonuses, players to target each week and even contests that look to be undersubscribed ("overlays"), we will cover it all. Welcome to the one-stop shop for Daily coverage.
Please note that even though the NFL has weekly Thursday games and DFS sites have contests that start on Thursdays, in general we will be looking at the majority of the contests and DFS games that do not begin until Sunday. Our weekly coverage does include Thursday DFS information if you are looking to get a jump on the DFS action for the week with the first game on Thursday.
DFS LESSON OF THE WEEK - ANTI-STACKING and COMPLEMENTARY STACKING
So last week I talked about stacking, where you can pair a quarterback with a wide receiver or a tight end to maximize value in a tournament. This week I wanted to discuss two similar concepts, one called “anti-stacking” and another I call “complementary stacking”. Once again, this is more applicable to tournament play, and in general you should avoid stacking in cash (50/50, double-up) games.
Let’s start with the “anti-stacking” concept. This one is a bit lesser-known, but it is a more intuitive to notice, and many tournament players understand this even if they don’t know the term. Anti-stacking refers to building lineups that are self-conflicting, which limits the potential score of a lineup – something you never want to do in tournament play. There are many examples, and I will walk through some good examples. Take choosing a defense, for example. I cannot think of any good example where you would want to build a team that has the defense your quarterback is facing. If Tony Romo plays Green Bay, you should not be rostering both Romo and the Packers defense, as there is no game flow for a Green Bay – Dallas matchup that gives big fantasy points to both Romo and the opposing defense. Similar arguments can be made for running backs, tight ends and wide receivers on your roster. Defensive selections should afford the defense (and special teams) to score on their own and rack up sacks and turnovers, which will greatly inhibit success for the opposing offense. Great tournament teams should not have this internal conflict built into the roster.
The second anti-stacking concept goes more towards subtler effects in roster construction. Let’s use Green Bay and Dallas once again. As Chase Stuart has pointed out in the past, running backs on winning teams usually correlate well to bigger fantasy production. That makes sense from a game flow point of view – teams with leads late in the game will run the ball and the clock, lending their starting tailback more touches, yards and points. The trailing team is usually throwing more in the fourth quarter, limiting running back value (unless it is as a receiver). It is not very often when two teams will square off and have both feature tailbacks for each team have great performances. This isn’t Dallas vs. the Giants back in the Bill Parcells and Jimmy Johnson days. Rostering two running backs from the same contest – even if they are on the opposing teams – usually limits the upside of the entire roster, even if it does not limit the individual player. That is why game flow analysis of a particular matchup is so important to understand. Tournament teams usually fare much better when the 2-3 running backs on the team are from different games.
Now, let’s talk about what I call “complementary stacking”. This builds on the anti-stacking concept, but in a positive way. If you believe a game is going to be a shootout, then it makes sense to take players from both teams involved in that matchup. Once again, if Dallas faces Green Bay, taking either Aaron Rodgers or Tony Romo (or both, if you are in a 2 QB league) along with a key receiver from both teams makes a lot of sense. If the game is a 37-34 type contest, both receivers could easily get over 100 yards and find the end zone that week. The game flow is complementary, meaning that a shootout favors both offenses and fantasy production.
Complementary stacking can go beyond passing matchups as well. A team with a lead often runs the ball late, as we discussed earlier, but they can also be dominant on defense and rack up some field goals towards the end of contests to build their advantage on the scoreboard. In the first month of the season, kickers facing Jacksonville racked up points after halftime, for example. Taking the running back and kicker against Jacksonville was a strong start for building a team in September. Defenses also capitalize late with a lead, as opposing quarterbacks take more chances late to try and get back in the game. Look no further than Arizona’s defense last week with two scores late in the fourth quarter against St. Louis. If you can predict a team that will have a big second half lead, taking either their starting quarterback, kicker or defense can be very advantageous. It is even possible that all three would make a strong lineup.
Rule #1: It is usually not a good idea to use more than two players from the same NFL team. If you choose to take two from the same side, make sure that the game situations that would benefit each one to score a ton of points do not conflict.
Rule #2: Seek out complementary stacks as well, such as the #1 wide receivers on opposing teams in a potential shootout. (Here the Las Vegas Over/Under point spread can greatly help).
Rule #3: Avoid taking players from the same game if the game situations that would benefit each one to score a ton of points conflict. For example, taking the starting tailback for each team in a single game usually limits the upside of your roster.
As a reminder, all of this is regarding maximizing a tournament (GPP) roster. When it comes to cash game lineups, these rules can fly out the window. Anti-stacking can actually help your roster for cash games, as it is much more likely that if you take two running backs from the same game that one of them will have a big day – just not both. This may limit your upside (“lower ceiling”), but it also raises your downside (“higher floor”) and helps your team to be more stable – a perfect recipe for cash contests.
INDUSTRY NEWS
DraftKings Freeroll
Last week I pointed out that several sites were giving away money via their "Freeroll" tournaments based on monthly play. DraftKings is also conducting a $100K Player Appreciation Freeroll this week, giving away $100K in prizes. Here is the link:
DraftKings' NFL $100K Player Appreciation Freeroll
As a thank you to all of our amazing players, we are hosting this $100,000 freeroll that boasts a $10,000 top prize and is FREE to enter. This contest pays out DK dollars, which just means that your winnings must be played in a contest before they can be withdrawn. Enjoy!
So be sure to enter a team for a chance at free money this weekend!
DraftKings' Millionaire Maker Series Changes Once Again
Last week, DraftKings adjusted their Millionaire Maker Series to a $40 entry fee, but it was very undersold (creating a big "overlay"), so now DraftKings has gone back to just a $27 entry fee for a shot at winning a million bucks.
Further Improvements to Footballguys' Tools for DFS Lineup Creation
Footballguys' own Maurile Tremblay has been at it again. This time, he has added informative descriptions and advice to his Interactive Value Charts at Footballguys. They are available as links on each of the pages, but I think everyone can benefit from reading the new information. Here it is:
How to use the value charts
Daily fantasy football contests can be loosely divided into cash games and tournaments. Cash games comprise contests in which roughly half of the field finishes in the money. Tournaments comprise contests in which a much smaller percentage of the field -- generally between 10% and 20% -- finish in the money. Tournaments are often referred to as "GPPs," which stands for Guaranteed Prize Pools. I prefer the term tournaments to minimize ambiguity because a lot of 50/50s and Double-Ups also have guaranteed prize pools.
(Head-to-head contests are cash games. Strictly speaking, they are very small 50/50s. Some contests fall in between cash games and tournaments, such as Triple-Ups, or five-person contests that pay the top two spots.)
Any lineup is capable of scoring a wide range of points. The top end of that range is often referred to as the ceiling, while the bottom end is referred to as the floor. Your primary concerns in putting together either a tournament lineup or a cash-game lineup are (a) to select players who present great value as measured by expected points per dollar, and (b) to spend most or all of the salary cap. Follow those rules, and your team will be expected to score a lot of points, which is how you win both cash games and tournaments (and anything in between).
There are some differences between lineups best suited for cash games and those best suited for tournaments, however. You are invited to click on the "Cash Games" and "Tournaments" links for advice concerning each type of contest, but the basic idea is that, in cash games, you are more concerned with achieving a high floor, while in tournaments you are more concerned with achieving a high ceiling.
In general, a lineup expected to score significantly more points than a competing lineup will have both the higher floor and the higher ceiling; so putting together a lineup with an above-average expected score is the first order of business in either type of contest. That's what we'll focus on here.
We will want to concentrate on value rather than raw points, so the first step is to click on "Value" from among the options below in blue. Then we'll sort the player pool from highest value to lowest using whichever set of projections you prefer. To do so, click on the appropriate initials in the table header.
Click on the various positional tabs and look for players near the top of the list who stand out as having large salaries. Those are the players we're most interested in because they'll help us achieve both of our goals at once -- finding great values and using up our cap space.
Once you've inserted a few such players into your lineup, let the app fill in the remaining spots. Its suggestions will maximize total expected points, but sometimes you won't be happy with its choices for whatever reason. Remove any players you're not comfortable with, exclude them from consideration (by clicking on the green "o" next to their names in the player pool), and let the app do its thing again. Repeat until you're happy with the results.
If you are entering multiple contests, you will likely want to diversify your lineups rather than choosing the same players over and over again. The multiple sets of projections come in handy here. You may, for example, want to choose some RBs based on Maurile Tremblay's projections, choose a quarterback based on David Dodds' projections, and then fill in the remaining spots using Sigmund Bloom's projections. To find a second lineup with different players, select a QB using Sigmund's projections, some WRs using the average projections, then fill in the remaining spots using David's projections. For your next lineup, try a different combination.
Cash games
We stated in the general strategy section that the first order of business, whether in a cash game or in a tournament, is to construct a roster that is expected to score a lot of points; but that in a cash game, we are more concerned with our team's floor than with its ceiling.
There are a few ways to increase our team's floor.
The most obvious is to select individual players with high floors. That is to say, we will eschew boom-or-bust players and focus instead on more reliable players. This is more of an art than a science, but there are some decent indicators of reliability. First, we will prefer a player if we are confident that we know his health status, and the health statuses of his teammates. (We don't want a player who might be a late scratch or whose role might be limited; we also don't want a WR on a team whose QB is ailing; and finally, we don't want a player who will get significant playing time only if his teammate, who is currently listed as questionable, sits out.) Second, we will prefer a player if his involvement in the offense is durable. A one-dimensional runner, for example, can be taken out of the game plan if his team gets behind early; while a running back who is also heavily involved in the passing game should get touches no matter the score. We will prefer a player whose fantasy production depends more on yards than on touchdowns, and we will prefer a player who steadily gets yards in small chunks over a home-run hitter who depends on the big play.
Another way to reduce a team's volatility (and thus increase its floor) is to avoid QB-receiver combinations from the same NFL team. If a team's QB has a poor game, most likely his receivers will, too. Avoiding such QB-receiver combos is a form of insurance: if our fantasy QB has a poor game, our fantasy receivers may bail us out by having good games. That possibility is slim if our QB and receivers come from the same NFL offense.
While pairing players who score fantasy points together (such as a QB and receiver from the same NFL team) will increase volatility, pairing players who generally compete for fantasy points (such as a QB and RB from the same NFL team) can reduce volatility, and therefore makes sense in a cash game. If we have the quarterback and the primary running back from a given NFL team, we are very likely to score points one way or another whenever that NFL team scores. If it scores a passing touchdown, we get points from the QB; if it scores a rushing touchdown, we're likely covered there as well. Add that team's kicker to the mix so that we're covered even when the offense stalls in the red zone and has to settle for a field goal. Feel free to add the opposing team's defense as well, so that if your QB, RB, and PK have bad games, at least your defense should get you points.
Other combinations of players who generally compete for points (and whose collective output is therefore relatively stable) include RB-RB, RB-WR, RB-TE and WR-TE combos from the same team. (It is difficult, however, to find two RBBC-members who are both good values, so the RB-RB combo will be rare.)
All of these factors should be considered tie-breakers more than anything else. When you're choosing among players with significantly different values (as measured in expected points per dollar), the player with the highest value is almost always the best choice. That's true in any type of contest, but especially in cash games. Only when choosing among players with similar values should these additional considerations come into play.
Tournaments
Whenever your team is expected to score more points than its target, volatility is your enemy. But when your team is expected to score fewer points than its target, volatility is your friend.
In a cash game, your target is the score earned by the median entrant in your contest -- and if you can't beat that more often than not, you shouldn't be playing. But in a tournament, your target will often be somewhere in the top 10% to 20% of the field. Nobody can expect to finish there most of the time. The goal is to finish there more than your fair share of the time, and a boost from volatility (which amplifies both your good results and your bad ones) can be rather helpful.
One way to increase the volatility of your roster is to load it with high-risk, high-reward players -- players with great upside potential relative to their projections. Look for players whose number of rushes or targets is inconsistent from week to week. Look for home-run hitters who can score bunches of points on relatively few opportunities. Look for players, other than quarterbacks, on offenses that are expected to score a lot of points. (The qualifier "other than quarterbacks" may strike you as odd. Quarterbacks on high-scoring offenses will be projected to score a lot of points, and will be valuable in any format. But they are not particularly likely to greatly outscore their lofty projections, so they are not especially valuable in tournaments compared to cash games. On the other hand, moderate differences in how looks are distributed among runners and receivers in a given week will have proportionately larger effects on their fantasy output if they are in higher-scoring offenses, making those players more volatile.)
Another common way to increase volatility is by "stacking" your lineup with a quarterback and receiver from the same NFL team. By doing so, you are increasing your chances of having a very high or very low score from that combination of players instead of a medium score. This makes sense in tournaments because a very high score is the goal, while a very low score is generally no worse than a medium score: you're out of the money either way.
Let's say you've got Kelvin Benjamin at WR, and now you're choosing between Cam Newton or Matt Ryan at QB. If you select Ryan, the QB-WR combination could be great-great, medium-medium, horrible-horrible, great-horrible, horrible-great, medium-great, and so on. All possible combinations are on the table because the QB's performance and the WR's performance are uncorrelated.
But if you select Newton, now certain possibilities that lead to an overall medium score (like horrible-great) are much less likely. The odds of great-great and horrible-horrible are increased, while the odds of great-horrible and horrible-great are decreased, and the overall effect is to make the combined score more volatile. Compared to the Ryan-Benjamin combo, the Newton-Benjamin combo is more likely to be very high or very low, and less likely to be medium. That's an advantage in tournaments, where medium scores are useless.
A further strategy that can be helpful in tournaments is to seek out uncommonly owned players. Your primary goal at each roster position is to earn more points per dollar than your opponents. You can't win a tournament without being successful in that respect at most positions. Taking it for granted that you'll have to outscore the bulk of your opponents at a given position, you'd prefer to do so with a player owned by 5% of the field rather than with a player owned by 40% of the field. To win cash in a tournament, you may need to beat 90% of your opponents. If you get a great performance from a player who is 40% owned, you just passed 60% of the field. That's nice, but if you get a great performance from a player who is only 5% owned, you just passed 95% of the field. That brings you significantly closer to your ultimate goal.
None of this is absolutely essential. You can have a successful tournament lineup without boom-or-bust players, without stacking, and without sparsely owned players. But at the margin, among many factors to consider, those things are generally points in favor of a tournament lineup.
Couple all of this with his "Top 20 Stacks" that are also available, and these pages are a gold mine. Well done, Maurile.
Another Major Live Event - Fantasy Aces - FINAL WEEK
Only one week left for this contest -the final entry to the Live Event will be given away this week!
Another major event in the DFS space is highlighted here with the FAFC (Fantasy Aces Football Championship) Live Event, which will take place on November 23rd. This is a remarkable event with a big prize pool, and all of it is available at the $109 entry fee. All 13 Fantasy Aces members who qualify will win the trip and a cash prize of at least $1,500, with a shot at the top cash prize of $40,000. Here are the details:
- 13 Fantasy Aces members will be flown out to Southern California for an all expense 2-night stay and compete in the $100,000 Aces Daily Fantasy Football Championship on November 23rd.
- 2 Night Stay at the beautiful Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach, CA (November 22nd - 23rd)
- Saturday Night Pre-Game Kickoff Yacht Cocktail Party on the Mojo (100ft Yacht)
- The Main Event - $100,000 Championship Party at American Junkie in Newport Beach, CA
- Include a plus 1 (pay for the cost of the flight and we will reimburse the costs via site credit)
Read all of the details and join here:
ON THE DAILY AND INTERACTIVE VALUE CHARTS
Footballguys' own Maurile Tremblay does not just do projections for Footballguys - oh no, far from it. One of the best innovations that he has provided since last year is his "On the Daily" column, where he takes his projections, David Dodds' projections, and Sigmund Bloom's projections and provides recommended optimal lineups for five major DFS sites (FanDuel, DraftKings, DraftDay, FantasyAces, FantasyFeud) based on those projections. How cool is that?
But what if you want to play at other sites or build your own lineup (or multiple lineups)? Once again, Maurile has you covered. He has provided interactive value chart pages where you can click on each player, sort by position, salary and value (points per $10K) to craft your own custom team. All of the links for these are provided below in our Daily Content on Footballguys table plus they appear weekly on Footballguys' weekly home page.
But wait - there's more! Maurile went even further by adding the ability to partially fill out a lineup and have the tool fill in the rest of your roster. From Maurile himself:
How cool is that?
DAILY CONTENT AROUND FOOTBALLGUYS.COM
NFL WEEK 11
Halfway into the NFL season, and we have had some big, big contests in DFS so far - and the fun continues. Let's dig into some of the big contests out there. If there are any that I miss, please drop me an email (pasquino@footballguys.com) and I will update this article.
FANDUEL - WEEK 11 BIG CONTESTS
All of these contests can be found in the lobby at FanDuel.
FanDuel Presents the Playboy Championship
This year our friends at FanDuel are offering you the chance to go on the trip of a lifetime to the world famous Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles! You and 75 finalists will compete for $1,000,000 in prizes, including a $150,000 first place prize as you sit poolside with Hef at this year’s hottest fantasy football event.
Not only that, they’ll be running contests for 25 additional trip-only packages to maximize your chances of getting in on this exclusive party. That’s 100 chances to win!
Qualifiers start at only $5 to enter, seats to this epic event will be going fast, so enter one of the qualifiers and punch your ticket now!
Click to enter PFC $5 Qualifier
Click to enter PFC $50 Qualifier
Click to enter PFC $535 Qualifier
DRAFTKINGS - WEEK 11 BIG CONTESTS
Are you interested in winning $1 Million Dollars in a single week? DraftKings hopes that you are.
NFL $2.2M Millionaire Maker - $1,000,000 to First Place. Another week, another guaranteed Millionaire Maker, where you can turn $27 into $1 Million! Over the past three weeks, the Millionaire Maker has paid out $1 Million to first place, and DraftKings is doing it again this week. First place will become an instant millionaire, and over 15,000 spots are paid out in total. Multiple lineups per player are permitted. Enter now!
NFL Sunday 300 Grand. $300,000 in total prizes. $200 to enter. Up to 1,667 entries with the top 350 getting a payout. $50,000 to first.
World's Biggest $50 50/50 - This 2,224-player contest boasts a $100,080 prize pool and pays out the top 1,112 finishing positions. All winners earn $90. Good luck!
World's Biggest $20 50/50 - This 6,668-player contest boasts a $100,008 prize pool and pays out the top 5,556 finishing positions. All winners earn $36. Good luck!
World's Biggest $10 50/50 - This 11,112-player contest boasts a $100,008 prize pool and pays out the top 5,556 finishing positions. All winners earn $18. Good luck!
Note from Jeff Pasquino: As of Thursday afternoon, all of these contests were less than 40% full. Keep in mind that this is a guaranteed prize, so there is definitely an opportunity here for a large overlay situation. Watch these closely, all the way to Sunday morning.
Future Big Contests:
"Four months, NINE millionaires": Nine contests where the top winner will win at least $1 Million. Weeks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15 and 16 of the NFL season. Direct entry is $27, but you can earn your way in for as little as a quarter - yes, $0.25. (Odds are certainly much steeper at $0.25 vs. $27, but hard to get more action for a quarter!).
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.