David’s Week 4 FanDuel Lineups: Back In The Black

After two negative weeks to start the season — and, quite frankly, feeling super rusty when creating my lineups — I was getting a little worried that last season’s success was helped by a solid dose of good luck.

That still might be true, but a great Week 3 has my confidence back up:

  • Both of my 50/50 lineups returned better than a +30% ROI
  • One of my tournament stacks won $250 on $10 in entry fees (finishing 1st place in a 100-Player League, and 610th out of 344,827 in the $1.5 Million Sunday NFL Rush)

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the week was that the stack featured three Packers, so I got to watch my net winnings climb throughout the Monday Night Football game, and didn’t have to worry over whether I’d be knocked back down by later games.

Week 3 Results Recap

  • Initial 2015 NFL Bankroll: $1000.00
  • Bankroll Entering Week 3: $844.20 (-15.6%)
  • Head to Head & 50/50 Entry Fees: $120 (14.2% of bankroll)
  • Head to Head & 50/50 Net Winnings: +$50.50 (+42% ROI)
  • Tournament Entry Fees: $60 (7.1% of bankroll)
  • Tournament Net Winnings: +$220 (+367% ROI)
  • Total Entry Fees: $180 (21.3% of bankroll)
  • Total Net Winnings: +$270.50 (+150% ROI)
  • Bankroll Entering Week 4: $1114.70 (+11.5% for the season)

What worked:

  • Aaron Rodgers (QB) to Randall Cobb (WR) & James Jones (WR). This stack scored 90.12 points on $23,000 in salary, for a 3.9x multiplier (in DFS parlance, X = points per $1,000). Generally, you hope for a 3x day to cash. A 4x day is great. Rodgers & Jones were also in one of my 50/50 lineups, and helped that one to a good day as well.
  • Devonta Freeman (RB) & Greg Olsen (TE). I used each of these players in 4 of my 7 lineups, and both had ridiculous days. Freeman scored 39.8 on $6,500, for an amazing 6.1x. Olsen scored 29.4 on $5,900, for a still-great 5x. Both were in the league-winning lineup.
  • My most-chosen running backs. The only running backs I used in multiple lineups were Devonta Freeman, Le’Veon Bell (22.7 on $8,800 for 2.6x), and Jamaal Charles (28.7 on $8,700 for 3.3x). They all held up their end of the bargain.

What didn’t work:

  • Matt Forte (RB) & LeSean McCoy (RB). Truth be told, I didn’t feel great about this running back pairing in my secondary 50/50 lineup. I think I may have tried too hard to shoehorn some picks into my “pay for running backs” strategy. They both scored in single digits.
  • Semi-fading the Seattle DEF. I only used the SEA defense in one tournament stack, partly because I thought they’d be super popular. So I was hoping they’d have a bad day and I’d get ahead of a good chunk of the public. Plus, I tend to shy away from paying so much for a defense. However, they ended up producing 18 points on $5,300 salary, for 3.4x.

Week 4 Lineups

Head-to-Head & 50/50s

As a quick reminder, the strategy here is to be willing to pay for volume points at QB & RB, even at the expense of a little bit of value. In addition, I want to pick RB’s on opposing teams if possible, and to avoid choosing several players from the same team, in order to reduce correlated performances (and by extension, variance).

You can read more background about my current strategy if you’d like.

Here’s my primary lineup for Week 4:

FanDuel_2015_Week_4_Head_to_Head_Lineup_1

Some notes on this lineup:

  • I ended up selecting both Derek Carr (QB) and Latavius Murray (RB) from the Raiders, despite my general guideline to avoid choosing several players from the same team. That’s not a concern here, because QB’s and RB’s generally compete for yards and TD’s. So if Carr doesn’t pass for very many yards, it’s likely that’s partly because Oakland relied more on their ground game, and Murray probably had a decent day.
  • Martellus Bennett of the Bears was actually my initial choice for TE here. However, with three players already from this game, I decided to push him to my second lineup.

Here’s my secondary lineup:

FanDuel_2015_Week_4_Head_to_Head_Lineup_2

 

A note on this lineup:

  • I almost put both Amari Cooper (WR) and Michael Crabtree (WR) from Oakland here. In a vacuum, having two WR’s from the same team is fine. They compete for targets from the QB, so there is a bit of a smoothing out of points that results; maybe one has a bad day because of few targets, but hopefully not both. However, with me already having used David Carr in the first lineup, and with WR scoring being correlated with QB scoring, I decided to stick to only the cheaper (and hence less of a problem if he busts) Crabtree here.
  • Similar to the QB/RB combo mentioned above, the RB/WR combo I used from the Bills ought to be in competition for yards, TD’s, etc. So hopefully that combo raises my scoring floor, even if it lowers my ceiling.

Tournament Lineups

As was the case last week, my first step this week was to come up with some single-team stacks that seem to have the potential for a big day.

Now that we’ve got a few games worth of data, I am relying more heavily on fantasy-points-allowed to each position numbers from this season (using RotoGuru as my source), and trying to only stack against teams that have given up high scores to this point.

Here’s what I ended up with:

  • Green Bay — Aaron Rodgers (QB), Randall Cobb (WR), James Jones (WR). Yes, again. San Francisco’s pass defense is arguably worse than Kansas City’s in real life, though maybe not if you based your ranking solely on fantasy points yielded so far.  They’ve been particularly hot garbage against #1 and #2 receivers, according to Football Outsiders.
  • Oakland — Derek Carr (QB), Amari Cooper (WR), Michael Crabtree (WR). I’m throwing a bunch of the Raiders players mentioned above together in one lineup. I’m also playing Chicago’s Martellus Bennett (TE) in this one. The theory here is that if Oakland scores bunches, Chicago will be forced to pass a lot, and Bennett will benefit. So his scoring should be correlated with Carr’s, increasing the chance for a monster day from this lineup. Plus, as pointed out by Seth this week, the Raiders have been abysmal against tight ends this season.
  • New York Giants — Eli Manning (QB), Odell Beckham (WR), Rueben Randle (WR). Buffalo has given up high points to every wide receiver group they’ve faced so far. Plus Beckham is a stud who could have a huge game at any time.
  • Cincinnati — Andy Dalton (QB), A.J. Green (WR), Marvin Jones (WR). The Chiefs have allowed a ton of fantasy points to receivers so far. Then again, they’ve faced Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers (and a slightly less scary Ryan Mallett/Brian Hoyer platoon). So this is somewhat of a gamble on the quality of the Chiefs’s defense. With this play I’m hoping that the big points they’ve given up so far are not entirely because of the opponent, but also somewhat because of a weak defense.
  • Dallas — Brandon Weeden (QB), Lance Dunbar (RB), Jason Witten (TE). This is one of the weirder stacks you’ll see, with zero wide receivers, and no salary above $6,400. However, Dunbar and Witten were Weeden’s top targets last week. And this stack only costs a total of $18,000, allowing me to load up on wide receivers. I’m taking Julio Jones, A. J. Green, and Randall Cobb. (Plus the Saints’ defense hasn’t performed well on a per-play basis.)

Filling in around the stacks with solid consensus values, here’s the result (click to enlarge):

FanDuel_2015_Week_4_Tournament_Lineups

As I did last week, I’ll be entering these five lineups in a FanDuel Sunday Million tournament, as well as a smaller 100-person or 250-person tournament. The idea is that if they do astronomically well, I’ll be rewarded for that in the Sunday Million, but if they just score in the top 1% or so, I’ll get a better return in the 100-person tournament.

The most likely outcome for any specific tournament lineup is that I win nothing, but with 5 stacks, hopefully at least one will still do well enough to recoup my buy-ins, and let me tread water while I wait for a big payout. That strategy worked to perfection in Week 3.

Tune in next week for the results!