David’s Week 6 FanDuel Lineups: Shorter Stacks

October 16, 2015 - by David Hess

[UPDATE: As mentioned in the original post, I reevaluated some plays Sunday morning in light of the latest injury news and inactive/active projections. I’ve made the following changes:

Sub in Mike Wallace for Marquess Wilson. Wilson’s WR teammates Alshon Jeffery and Eddie Royal are going to play, which knocks his value down substantially. Meanwhile, Mike Wallace is Minnesota’s #1 receiver against a Kansas City defense that has been poor against the pass so far.
In my Giants stack, replace Odell Beckham, Dwayne Harris, and Antonio Gates with Rueben Randle, AJ Green, and Travis Kelce. Beckham’s status is still very questionable, so I’m going with Randle instead. And with the extra money that move saves, I’m upgrading from Harris to Green, and from Gates to Kelce.
In the lineups where I had the extra cash (i.e. $200), I switched from Danny Woodhead to Charcandrick West. After reviewing Green Bay’s performance against pass-catching running backs, I no longer was so high on Woodhead. West seemed like a good high-upside play in a tournament lineup.]

Week 4 was a another negative week for my lineups, making it my fourth losing week out of 5 this season. I’m now down for the season, despite my great Week 3.

My primary 50/50 lineup, the one I spend the most time on each week, was positive overall for the week, earning +$19.80 on $75 in entry fees. Unfortunately, no other lineup turned a profit.

New Lineup Research Sources

As was the case last week, I spent some time Thursday looking for new information sources or strategy breakdowns online.

I found two more interesting resources:

Thursday player ownership data. Another Reddit user (a different one than the person who posted the positional scoring correlation data I highlighted last week) put together a survey and accompanying spreadsheet that allows people to report the player ownership rates they see in their Thursday contests. The idea here is that Sunday rates should be similar, once you account for the absence of the Thursday players.
“Congruent” strategy analysis. The same user investigated the ownership rates of the players in winning 50/50 lineups, and found that in general the winning lineups featured more popular players than the losing lineups. Based on that data and some other logic, the user laid out the case for picking popular players in 50/50 or double up contests. It makes sense to me.

Hopefully some of you find those links useful.

Week 5 Results Recap

Initial 2015 NFL Bankroll: $1,000.00
Bankroll Entering Week 5: $1,075.80 (+7.6%)

Head to Head & 50/50 Entry Fees: $150 (13.9% of bankroll)
Head to Head & 50/50 Net Winnings: -$42.60 (-28% ROI)
Tournament Entry Fees: $70 (6.5% of bankroll)
Tournament Net Winnings: -$60.00 (-86% ROI)

Total Entry Fees: $220 (20.4% of bankroll)
Total Net Winnings: -$102.60 (-47% ROI / -9.5% of bankroll)

Bankroll Entering Week 6: $973.20 (-2.7% for the season)

What worked:

Devonta Freeman (RB) … again. Last week was the third week in a row where Freeman was a dominant fantasy player, ending up with 29.2 points. And then last night, Freeman scored 31.6 in the Week 6 Thursday Night Football game. Over his last 4 games, Freeman has averaged 173.75 yards from scrimmage and 2.25 touchdowns. It’s been an amazing stretch.
The two clear consensus picks from the RotoWire and numberFire proejctions. Philip Rivers (QB) and Le’Veon Bell (RB) were at or near the top of their positional value rankings at both sites. They ended up scoring a combined 42.3 points on $16,500. I’ll take 2.6x from my QB and stud RB every week, thank you very much.

What didn’t work:

My too-cute Washington stack. I got only 25 points out of my QB/RB/WR stack. Yeah, it was cheap, but no 3-player stack is cheap enough to make 25 points look good.
TE-against-the-Raiders. For the first time all season, the Raiders didn’t allow a career day to their opponent’s tight end. Luckily, I didn’t have Owen Daniels in too many lineups.

Week 6 Lineups

Head-to-Head & 50/50s

As a quick reminder, the original strategy here was to be willing to pay for volume points at QB & RB, even at the expense of a little bit of value.

In addition, it would be nice to pick RB’s on opposing teams if possible, but that’s not a requirement. And I’m trying to avoid choosing players whose projection errors are likely correlated, based on the positional scoring correlation data I found last week. Aside from the recent changes, you can read more background about my current strategy if you’d like.

Here’s my primary lineup for Week 5:

Some notes on this lineup:

Danny Woodhead is the consensus best value at RB, according to RotoWire and numberFire. However, I’m not in love with that pick. The Packers haven’t allowed many receptions or passing yards to running backs, and Woodhead gets a lot of his value via the passing game.
There wasn’t as clear of a consensus on the best value at quarterback. However, both sites did rank both Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers among the top three projected scores. Brady is the cheaper of the two, and going against a defense that has performed worse against the pass.
According to Thursday ownership percentages, DeAndre Hopkins is super popular this week, with good reason.
Jordan Matthews and Kendall Wright are consensus value WRs, and Martellus Bennett is a consensus value TE.
The Jets are a consensus good value at defense, plus project to be relatively popular.
At kicker, Matt Prater and Robbie Gould seemed to be the best bets at the $4,500 price tag. I used Gould in my secondary lineup, since I already have a Chicago Bear in Bennett at tight end here.

Here’s my secondary lineup:

Notes on this lineup:

There was some disagreement between RotoWire and numberFire about the best mid-priced QB. But RotoWire’s projection for Dalton was an outlier compared to their others, while numberFire didn’t have a really strong take on any one player being head and shoulders above the rest, so I went with Dalton.
San Diego and Jacksonville have both allowed a ton of fantasy points against running backs this year, particularly over the past few weeks. That contributed to my choosing Arian Foster and Eddie Lacy over other options like Matt Forte or Dion Lewis.
Julian Edelman is about the most consistent wide receiver around, so I feel OK spending a high salary on him.
Larry Fitzgerald is a consensus good value, plus Pittsburgh has allowed some big games from receivers.
Originally, I thought Marquess Wilson might be the top healthy receiver for Chicago. However, reviewing reports just now, I saw that Alshon Jeffery and Eddie Royal may be active. I’m going to monitor the wires Sunday morning, and if Jeffery and Royal seem like they’re going to play, I’ll likely sub in another low cost receiver here. (Maybe Carolina’s Ted Ginn, Jr.)
With Jamaal Charles out, it seems likely that the Chiefs will have to rely slightly more on their other main weapons, Travis Kelce and Jeremy Maclin.

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. Some of these stacks were based on fantasy-points-allowed to each position from this season (using RotoGuru as my source), and others were keyed on a particular player or two who were well-projected by consensus sources.

As an extra step this week, once I identified the quarterbacks I wanted to stack on, I spent some time going over previous results, to see what other offensive skill players have tended to score well when that quarterback has a good game. I also relied heavily on Football Outsiders’ receiving stats broken down by type of receiver, to try to project which of a QB’s targets might be seeing the easiest coverage this week.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Philadelphia — Sam Bradford (QB), DeMarco Murray (RB), Zach Ertz (TE). The Giants have allowed the 7th-highest average QB fantasy points so far, plus the Eagles seem to be turning the corner. DeMarco Murray complained about touches prior to last week, and promptly was force fed the ball. I’m hoping for that to continue, plus the Giants have been worse than average in terms of receptions and yardage allowed to running backs in the passing game (which was a big part of Murray’s game last week). The Giants have allowed the second most average yards to tight ends, so I wanted to include either Ertz or Brent Celek. Picking Ertz was a bit of a gamble, given that Celek has scored the TE touchdowns recently. However, I expect Ertz’s yardage totals to be a bigger beneficiary of New York’s poor tight end coverage than Celek’s.
Arizona — Carson Palmer (QB), Larry Fitzgerald (WR). Palmer has been finding the end zone consistently, and the Steelers have allowed a couple of big days to wide receivers. At least one Palmer-to-Fitzgerald score seems likely, but beyond that it’s not clear who else might score for the Cardinals, so I limited this stack to only a single receiver.
Green Bay — Aaron Rodgers (QB), Eddie Lacy (RB), Richard Rodgers (TE). The Chargers have actually allowed more receiving yards per game to running backs than to #1 wide receivers this season, according to Football Outsiders. And the same is true for tight ends. Rodgers is adaptable, and will take what the defense gives him, so I hope to see some non-WR passing TDs this week.
San Francisco — Colin Kaepernick (QB), Anquan Boldin (WR). The Ravens have allowed the second most fantasy points per game to wide receivers, and the yardage they’ve given up has been concentrated on #1 and #2 receivers. They’ve been average or better against #3 receivers, tight ends, and running backs. That fits well with Kaepernick’s tendencies, as #1 receiver Boldin seems to be a consistent high-volume target in the games where Kaepernick has thrown the ball well. I considered adding WR Torrey Smith here, but it seems the chance of Kaepernick having a good game without Smith really benefiting is high considering his 11 receptions in five games this season.
New York Giants — Eli Manning (QB), Odell Beckham, Jr. (WR), Dwayne Harris (WR). The Eagles have allowed the third highest average number of fantasy points per week to wide receivers. They’ve been poor against #1 receivers and against “other” receivers, which is anything beyond the #2 receiver. For the Giants, if the pattern holds, that translates into big games from Beckham and Harris (with Rueben Randle being the #2 receiver). In addition, Harris’s involvement in the offense is trending up. There is some injury concern with Beckham here. If the reports by Sunday don’t look promising, I’ll probably sub in Randle for him, and then upgrade another spot in the lineup.
Buffalo — EJ Manuel (QB), Sammy Watkins (WR). With Manuel likely getting the starting nod this week, and having only a $5,500 salary, I have to take at least one flyer on him. The problem is that there’s no obvious option to pair with him, if Watkins doesn’t return this week. If reports on Sunday indicate Watkins won’t play, I could play LeSean McCoy at running back in place of Adrian Peterson, and upgrade Watkins’s wide receiver spot. McCoy is listed as probable coming off a hamstring injury. I thought about adding McCoy to this stack from the start, but Manuel’s upside doesn’t seem high enough to support two stud performances from his receiving targets.

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

As I did last week, I’ll be entering these 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 6 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.

Hugely Exciting New Feature: My Wife’s Lineup

As I was working on my lineups last night, my wife wandered into the room and saw FanDuel’s Upcoming page, which has pictures of all the players you’re set to play. Her first question was “Are you on a dating site?”

Once I proved to her it was just FanDuel, she decided she wanted to make a lineup. I didn’t give her any player or strategy suggestions, but I did answer questions like:

“Who is the tiny guy that Eli threw the ball to last week?” (That’d be Shane Vereen.)
“What’s a tight end, again?” (They’re the ones that are big enough to block, but can also catch the ball, honey.) “Oh, like Gates?” (Yep.)

Here’s her lineup, which we entered in a $1 GPP:

Tune in next week, when I may or may not have to write an embarrassing post about how my wife’s first ever DFS lineup beat all 8 of mine!