FanDuel Mini: Week 6

Photo: Chuck Cook, USA Today Sports

This season, FanDuel kicked off its NFL contests with a new format called "FanDuel Mini." In a Mini NFL contest, you pick five players - one quarterback, two running backs, and two wide receivers (tight end included). FanDuel Mini comes in two styles, Mini and Mini Unlimited. In the standard FanDuel Mini contest, you just have to pick five players and stay within the salary cap ($60,000). It is similar to the regular FanDuel contest but just a smaller version with five players instead of nine players. In a Mini Unlimited contest, every player is priced so that there are no salary cap restrictions, so you can roster any combination of players you want. 

The lobby is loaded with Mini games at all different price points and there is also a free Mini game called "FanDuel Golden 5" which you can enter each week to try to chase the week's perfect starting 5 lineup. Each week, the grand prize will increase by $20,000 until it's claimed, then it starts over at $20,000. FanDuel will award whatever cash is remaining on Week 17 to that week's top finisher - which will make for a guaranteed season-long payout of $340,000. 

WEEK 5 FANDUEL MINI - REVIEW

Anyone can pick the top projected players each week at each position, but that would have landed you with a Week 5 team of Aaron Rodgers (24.04), LeVeon Bell (14.30), Ezekiel Elliott (13.70), Jordy Nelson (9.40), and Antonio Brown (20.70). These contest are run on the Sunday only main slate and do not include Thursday or Monday Night games. The key is to be able to think outside of the box and find the players that are in good matchups and mix them in with one or two star players on the week. Aaron Rodgers was clearly one of the top choices at quarterback and he came through with 24.08 points and finished as the 6th best quarterback on the week. This week the stack was Deshaun Watson to DeAndre Hopkings who both found their way onto the winning 5 lineup. None of the top projected players made their way onto the perfect lineup, telling us that in a format like this you want to be different and look for lower ownership plays. This was a little easier week to land the perfect lineup as it had a stack at QB/WR and had A.J. Green as the other WR with volume hogs of Melvin Gordon and Leonard Fournette at RB.

WEEK 6 - PROJECTIONS (DAVID DODDS)

Looking ahead to Week 6, we will use Dodds projections to see what players will likely be the highest owned in this type of format. In order to win one of these FanDuel Mini games, you are going to have to identify 1-3 of the top projected players from all the positions and likely pair them with a few lesser obvious plays. After three weeks we already see that there is a trend that you want to have a quarterback and stack him with one of his wide receivers and build around that. In Week 5 that trend continued with the pairing of Deshaun Watson (top scoring quarterback), and DeAndre Hopkins (second-ranked WR/TE).

TOP QB/WR STACKS FOR FANDUEL MINI - WEEK 6

• Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins (Will Fuller), Houston Texans
• Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers
• Tom Brady and Brandin Cooks (Rob Gronkowski, Chris Hogan), New England Patriots
• Drew Brees and Michael Thomas, New Orleans Saints
• Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona Cardinals
• Philip Rivers and Keenan Allen (Tyrell Williams), Los Angeles Chargers
• Matthew Stafford and Golden Tate, Detroit Lions
• Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson (Davante Adams, Randall Cobb), Green Bay Packers
• Jameis Winston and Mike Evans (DeSean Jackson), Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, Atlanta Falcons
• Alex Smith and Tyreek Hill (Travis Kelce), Kansas City Chiefs
• Trevor Siemian and Demaryius Thomas (Emmanuel Sanders), Denver Broncos

It will be hard to throw in a single entry into these Mini contests as there will be so many options that you will want to use to help you cover all your bases. I like trying to narrow it down to your favorite stacks on the week and playing those. You are going to want a QB/WR combo in your lineup and another option would be to stack the teams opposing WR with your QB/WR combo. For example this week you could look at a Drew Brees/Michael Thomas/Golden Tate stack or switch it up with Matthew Stafford/Golden Tate/Michael Thomas. You could also do the same with the Pittsburgh versus Kansas City game which has a close point spread and one of the higher over/unders with 46 points. That would cover three out of five positions for your team and you would have to look at plugging in a pair of running backs to complete your team. For choosing my running backs I want a combination of someone who has a high projection for the week but also someone that has already shown that they will get a high volume of touches (rushing attempts + receptions).

RUNNING BACK VOLUME

With both Ezekiel Elliott and LeSean McCoy on bye this week the focus for chasing volume running backs will be on LeVeon Bell, Todd Gurley, Leonard Fournette, and Kareem Hunt. These four guys need to be mixed and matched in your lineups this week as they are seeing more volume than any other running backs in the league. The tricky spot is with Todd Gurley and Leonard Fournette actually facing off against each other this week. If you want to dig a little deeper you could also think about using Lamar Miller, Melvin Gordon or Jordan Howard who are all predicted to have big roles this week and will be much lesser owned than any of the first four names that I mentioned. Remember to be different when constructing your FanDuel Mini lineups and try to think outside the box. Maybe for this week you want to fade the Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins stack and plug in Lamar Miller instead. In this type of format those are the kind of plays that could win you a big payday.

Don't for get to take your Free shot at "FanDuel Golden 5" contest for Week 6 and chase the $120,000 perfect lineup. The other main contest that should get your attention is the $10,000 Fumblerooski that is a $2 entry fee and has a first place prize of $1,000.

Best of Luck in your Week 6 DFS contest!