Hello fellow fantasy football fanatics! Welcome to the last installment of Old Dog Learns New Tricks - I hope that everyone had fun over the recent Holidays. As Week 17 is a very unpredictable week in the NFL, with some teams playing for the post-season, some MAYBE alive for the post-season (depending on what happens in other/earlier games), and some teams evaluating talent with an eye to 2015, I am declining to play Daily Fantasy Sports during Week 17. Therefore, rather than focus on the upcoming games during Week 17, I'm going to look back over the 2014 season and discuss my lessons learned in the DFS space this year.
First and most importantly, it is vital that DFS players try to find a potential fantasy star at EVERY position during any given week. As I went through the year's slate of games at FanDuel, I realized that skimping at place kicker or defense in order to upgrade (by just a few hundred dollars of cap money) at positions on offense was wrongheaded. The top defenses in any given week can very easily score three times their cost in cap dollars, while finding offensive players who triple their cap dollar cost is a good bit more dificult. As my friend and fellow Footballguy Aaron Rudnicki has shared with me (speaking of the Eliminator Pool feature at Footballguys), one good way to pick defenses (or winning teams each week) is to have a short list of awful offenses for the current year in the NFL. Then you simply pick the best team/team defense that plays against one of the awful teams in any given week. Look for turnover-prone quarterbacks paired with ham-handed receivers or teams that have issues at running back/fumblers at running back. One great example of such an awful team was the 2009 Raiders (JaMarcus Russell/Darius Heyward-Bey - a more disastrous QB/WR combination is hard to imagine) - another example would be the 2014 Browns with Johnny Manziel under center.
Picking high-scoring place kickers is an inexact art, but one big factor is home field advantage. Place kickers get to know the wind currents/quirks of their home venues and have an edge over visiting teams' kickers in their home stadiums. I aim to roster place kickers playing at home in games that are anticipated to be high-scoring. This year, Cody Parkey has been a great pick at place kicker (number two in fantasy points this year) more often than not.
Paying attention to injury news is vital, as the player moving up into the starting lineup is often a great value in the DFS space. Just last week, Marquess Wilson (in for the injured Brandon Marshall) was available on FanDuel for $5600, and scored 10.1 points - Hakeem Nicks ($5100) scored 11.7 in T.Y. Hilton's absence in that same week (one of my top lineups on FanDuel last week had both guys in the lineup, allowing me to afford C.J. Anderson ($7800, 23.8 points) and Eddie Lacy ($8600, 16.9 points)). Nicks and Wilson contributed to most of my teams last week, and I went 37-21 in 50/50 contests and cashed in three-out-of-five GPP tournaments, finishing the season during Week 16 at 40-23 (63.5% winning percentage). If I were playing this week, Chase Daniel ($5000) would be a player in a lot of my lineups due to his opportunity to start for Kansas City due to Alex Smith's lacerated spleen. Ditto for Jamaal Charles, who is likely to see a lot of short dump-off passes (and a steady diet of carries) in this situation. Personally, I would avoid Connor Shaw/Josh Gordon as I do NOT like what I've seen of Shaw's game tape/read about his abilities. Knowing when NOT to insert a cheap player is as important as knowing when to do so...
Finally, look for potentially high-scoring games when choosing your DFS players! I want to pull the trigger on good running backs facing bottom-10 rush defenses or good quarterbacks/wide receivers facing bottom-10 pass defenses. There are lots of other factors in play on any given weekend in any given matchup, but I like to start my research with basic information like that linked above.
I've had a great time playing Daily Fantasy Sports this season, and I hope that the readers of this column have gained an edge in their leagues - I hope YOU win all YOUR leagues this weekend and going forwards.
GOOD LUCK!
