The Daily Grind - Daily Fantasy Contest News: Week 15

Photo: Brian Spurlock, USA Today Sports

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 - VALUE

This week I wanted to discuss a word that is thrown around quite a bit in fantasy football, but not very well defined.  That word is “value”, but ironically, that word is not well quantified when it comes to using it properly.  I will attempt to give a much better definition of the term, first for fantasy football in general, and then specifically for DFS contests. 

So what does “value” mean?  Prior to daily fantasy sports, the term was used in fantasy football to discuss both picks and players when it came time to discuss a fantasy draft.  A player that could be drafted late in a draft (or purchased cheaply at a fantasy auction)  would be deemed a sleeper or a “value” player, because he offered a lot of upside and could be obtained at a very low price (literally in an auction) or for a late draft pick. 

Now fast forward to present day fantasy sports, and the DFS world has redefined what it means to declare a player as a “value”.  Every player now has a price associated with him, and the term relates more to how many fantasy points he can (or should) produce for the next contest.  These values can and do change every week, but the value is only about translating fantasy production into point per dollar (PPD) or dollars per point (DPP).  This is where fantasy players with auction history have an advantage, as they are used to translating a player’s worth into a price tag.   Value no longer means getting a player late in a draft – it is all about how much he is worth in your lineup and if he is worth the dollars you have to spend that week.

Okay, so now we have an idea of what value really means in DFS – so what’s the problem?  I am glad you asked.  The issue here is that the context of value changes based upon the type of DFS contest you are playing.  To say it another way, a player that might be a value play in a cash game (50/50, double-up) might not be a value play for a GPP tournament, triple up, or a league contest.  That is a very important distinction, and one that is often misunderstood.  If you really want to understand what it takes for a player to “reach value” for a given contest, you must know what value really matters for each type of game.  That is why I wanted to share Table 1 below, which summarizes what I believe to be the best rules of thumb for value plays at the two biggest DFS sites in fantasy football today, FanDuel and DraftKings.

Table 1 – Value Metrics for FanDuel and DraftKings

Let’s break down what Table 1 summarizes.  First, there are three different types of games – “cash games” (50/50, double-up, head-to-head), leagues and triple-ups, and finally big GPP tournaments.  As I have discussed before here in The Daily Grind, the goals of cash games are different than tournaments – in a cash game, you want to guarantee a lineup that posts a point total that keeps you in the Top 45-50% of a cash contest for the best success, and a first place finish is no better than the final spot in the payout zone for the contest.  That is not the same as tournament play, where the higher you finish, the more money you can earn.  That’s where you want the best (highest) possible score for your lineup.

Looking at many previous results (and after conferring with other Footballguys’ staff), I tried to make simple rules of thumb for each site.  FanDuel is pretty simple – you want twice the fantasy points of the price (in thousand dollar increments) of your player for a cash game, and three times for a GPP tournament.  Scoring 120 points in FanDuel should, on average, result in a win for a cash game, while a score of 180 or so should have you at or near the top of the standings of a GPP contest.    Leagues and triple-ups fall in between these two, so the best rule of thumb is to split the difference of the two marks and shoot for 2.5 times the salary of a player. 

Going back to Table 1, DraftKings has much higher multipliers.  Why is it three times a salary for cash games and five times for a GPP tournament?  The simple answer is the salary cap and scoring differences at DraftKings and FanDuel.  First, DraftKings uses a $50,000 salary cap budget, while FanDuel is $60,000.   That accounts for some of the disparity, but the scoring methods matter even more.  The two major differences at DraftKings is full PPR (1 point per catch vs. 0.5 at FanDuel) and the 3-point bonus rule for 100 yards rushing or receiving and another 3 point bonus for 300 or more yards passing.  Those can add up quickly, especially in tournaments, where the typical Millionaire Maker result has the leaderboard full of scores in the 230-250 range most weeks. 

Let’s break all of this down a little further with two examples.  First, let’s take a stud wide receiver like Antonio Brown.  His price can be in the $8,500-9,500 range, so let’s just use a price of $9,000.  For Brown to reach value for a cash game, he needs to produce twice his salary (in thousands) at FanDuel and three times at DraftKings.   That works out to be 18 points and 27 points, respectively.  A  typical stud performance by Brown in the range of eight catches, 100 yards and a touchdown reaches those fantasy totals on both sites (20 on FanDuel, 27 on DraftKings with the 3-point bonus) but falls well short of 4-5x of his salary value.  That is why a stud receiver has to have an enormous game to “reach value” in a tournament on DraftKings, as it would take a stat line more like 12-180-2 for Brown to get to those fantasy numbers.  Not impossible of course – after all, that’s why he is a stud receiver with a big salary – but it is not that easy.

The second example comes from the same team as Brown – Martavis Bryant.  This young receiver is your typical “boom or bust” type of player, as he is a threat to score an 80-yard touchdown on any given play.  Bryant’s salary is usually relatively cheap ($6,000-7,000 on FanDuel, even lower on DraftKings at $4,000), and that makes him a tempting play in most formats – but by the very nature of his production, he is really only a potential value play for GPP games.  The reasoning is that Bryant rarely gets more than a handful of catches (he has just one with more than four receptions in seven games so far this season), but when he finds the end zone, he almost always reaches value from a GPP standpoint.  One long scoring catch at a $4,000 price point can equal 16 points alone, which would put Bryant at close to GPP value levels (4x $4K).  However, his “low floor” of possibly not finding the end zone and finishing with 1-2 catches and a handful of yards makes him a very bad cash game option.    

Value is an important part of the DFS discussion, but it is meaningless without context.  A player that is a cash game value play may not have a realistic shot of reaching 3-4 times his salary that week, so he is not a true value play for GPP contests.   Conversely, a GPP value player may be a complete “boom or bust” option, which severely impacts his likelihood to be a guaranteed 2-3x of his salary that you want a cash game value player to have.  The two types of games are very different, just like the advice can be for how to win each type of contest.  Hopefully this explanation offers you some value as well, and leads you to even more wins and profitable weekends.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Final Weeks for NFL Regular Season Contests

As the NFL regular season winds down, many DFS sites are still rolling with several big contests and tournaments throughout December.

Be sure to frequent your favorite sites and see what end of calendar year tournaments are on the slate for this week and for Week 16.

Also be on the lookout for NFL playoff contests as well, as many sites offer additional contests for postseason play.  As long as there are at least two NFL games, there will be a DFS contest associated with those games.  Ring in the New Year with some extra winnings!

FanDuel Punt Block Touchdowns - Scoring Change for 2015

DAILY CONTENT AROUND FOOTBALLGUYS.COM

NFL WEEK 15

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 15 BIG CONTESTS

All of these contests can be found in the lobby at FanDuel.

In addition, here are their featured contests.