FanDuel Mini: Week 10

Photo: Geoff Burke, USA Today Sports

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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 9 FANDUEL MINI - REVIEW

Anyone can pick the top projected players each week at each position, but that would have landed you with a Week 9 team of Russell Wilson (25.58), Todd Gurley (23.40), Kareem Hunt (8.10), Julio Jones (14.80), and Mike Evans (1.80). These contests 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. Russell Wilson was in a great spot at home against Washington but he did have weather against him in this game and that could have been your first hint to move off of him. Jared Goff took home the top honors at the position with 28.44 points against the New York Giants in a blowout type of game for the Rams. The top two running backs in Alvin Kamara and Corey Clement both come from RBBC backfields and trying to predict Kamara is one thing but no one could have seen this big game from Corey Clement. At wide receiver you have T.Y. Hilton and Marvin Jones at big deep threat guys down the field and they didn't disappoint this week as they were the top two scorers at the position. 

WEEK 10 - PROJECTIONS (DAVID DODDS)

Looking ahead to Week 10, 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 nine 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 9 that trend actually didn't come true with Jared Goff as the top quarterback but not one of his wide receivers at the top with him as it was T.Y. Hilton as the weeks top scoring wide receiver. 

TOP QB/WR STACKS FOR FANDUEL MINI - WEEK 10

• Ryan Fitzpatrick and DeSean Jackson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Tom Savage and DeAndre Hopkins (Will Fuller), Houston Texans
• Matthew Stafford and Golden Tate (Marvin Jones, Detroit Lions
• Drew Brees and Michael Thomas, New Orleans Saints
• Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski (Brandin Cooks), New England Patriots
• Dak Prescott and Terrance Williams, Dallas Cowboys
• Jared Goff and Robert Woods (Sammy Watkins), LA Rams
• Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, Atlanta Falcons
• Andy Dalton and A.J. Green, Cincinnati Bengals
• Jacoby Brissett and T.Y. Hilton (Jack Doyle), Indianapolis Colts
• Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown (JuJu Smith-Schuster), Pittsburgh Steelers

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 team's opposing WR with your QB/WR combo. For example this week you could look at a Dak Prescott/Terrance Williams/Julio Jones stack or switch it up with Matt Ryan/Julio Jones/Terrance Williams. You could also do the same with the New Orleans vs Buffalo game which has a close point spread and one of the higher over/unders with 46.5 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 roster. 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

The clear top three volume running backs this week are LeVeon Bell, Ezekiel Elliott and Todd Gurley. Bell, Elliott, and Gurley's usuage is crazy right now as Bell has 229 total touches and Elliott 210 touches while Gurley has 190. This is a great week for finding volume running backs as even after the top three obvious ones you still have big names in LeSean McCoy, Jordan Howard, Carlos Hyde, Melvin Gordon, and Mark Ingram that all have to be in consideration. Mark Ingram is only one in a RBBC right now as he is splitting his workload with Alvin Kamara but that doesn't mean he will see a decrease in touches. Melvin Gordon is coming off a bye week and should be fresh and ready for a big workload this week. One name that didn't make the list is Leonard Fournette who was suspended last week and missed another week with an injury and already had his bye week. So in just 6 games this year Fournette has 145 total touches (24.2 per game).

Don't for get to take your Free shot at "FanDuel Golden 5" contest for Week 10 and chase the $200,000 perfect lineup. The other main contest that should get your attention is the $15,000 Fumblerooski that is a $2 entry fee and has a first place prize of $1,500.

Best of Luck in your Week 10 DFS contest!