Jason Mezrahi

“Ifwinning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?” –VinceLombardi

NFL DFS is a shorter season than other sports, with each team only playing sixteen games, so you have plenty of time for research, but every game counts quite a bit more than in baseball. There are certain statistics you should focus on to be successful. First, take a look at a player’s fantasy points per game. You can see how many fantasy points players average and what their totals are from week to week. If you’re looking for a place to start, here you go. This is where you’ll begin to get a feel for who the top performers are. As you get into your research, you can make the distinction between them and your value picks that may be less obvious.

Sites like RotoGrinders also provide NFL DFS projection models that estimate weekly scoring for each player on the slate. There are a bunch of sites out there with different projections, so I do my best to import as many projections as I can to see where all the experts and optimizers stand on each player in the player pool. I make my own personal adjustments based on my research and update that daily as the week goes on.

Where to begin your NFL DFS Research?Pinpointing Your Players

My goal is to narrow the playerpool down by Saturday night. Of course, the more time I have on a given weekaffects the number of players I may have to choose from. Football is a sportwith a great amount of variance, so I try to be selective with my player pool.At the same time, though, I want to add in potential low-owned high-value playersthat could be in line for a breakout game.

To get a sense of a NFL DFS player’s consistency, take a look at their variation from week to week, which is usually represented by standard deviation. When you draft a high-priced player, you want to be sure that even if they have a down week, they’ll bring you at least fifteen to twenty points and won’t kill the rest of your lineup.

The NFL DFS QB View

Quarterbacks (QB’s) are essentialand less volatile than other positions in your lineup because they get so manyopportunities to succeed each week. Not all QB’s are consistent, of course, butyou won’t see many QB’s get pulled out of games at halftime or see theirattempts fluctuate too wildly from one start to another. Typically,quarterbacks on losing teams perform better in fantasy than quarterbacks onwinning ones. This makes sense because when teams are losing, they are going toadopt a more pass-heavy game plan in order to score as quickly as possible, andwhen they are winning, they will turn to the running game to drain the clock.

However, this fact doesn’t mean you should target every underdog quarterback over the favored ones. If the NFL DFS matchup looks great for a certain quarterback, you should take him even if he’s favored to win the game. The team may shut down the passing game with a lead later on, but they likely will have built that lead with a strong aerial attack. Game script matters, but not so much to keep you from taking a great matchup.

More on Passers

Ideally, you want a good QB on ateam with a weak defense and no good RB’s. That way, the team will be downfrequently in games and have to throw more often. Because fantasy points areall about accumulation, it doesn’t matter if his completion percentage isterrible, as long as he’s racking up yards and TD’s for you.

Mobile quarterbacks are great picks for NFL DFS because they can rack up points for you in multiple ways. Passing yards are worth 0.04 pts/yard, but rushing yards are worth 2.5 times more at 0.1 pts/yard. So, if you’re choosing between two QB’s, you should take the one who might be able to get outside the pocket and break out for fifty yards rushing at some point during the game—if he does, that scramble would be worth five points for you. On good days, a dual-threat QB like Cam Newton will rush for eighty yards with a rushing TD, giving you a fourteen-point boost in addition to all his passing yards and TD’s.

Touchdowns are hard to predict on a week-to-week basis but there are certain factors we can look at with QB’s to help us predict who’s going to rack up TD’s that week. First, you can look at scoring rates. What percentage of the team’s scores come from the passing game? What percentage of the red-zone scores are through the air? Looking at scoring rates of both the quarterback’s offense and the defense he’s facing that week can give you an idea of how often he’ll get into the end zone.

Surveying NFL DFS Snap Totals

As you choose your NFL DFS RB’s, WR’s, and TE’s, take a look at snap counts, touches, and targets per game. You want guys who are on the field, get handed the ball, and get thrown the ball a lot.

Snap totals are really importantfor offensive players. If a player is in a timeshare situation or is battlingan injury that’s affecting his snaps each week, he may not be out there whenthe defense shows a weakness and the offensive coordinator figures out how toexploit it. You might have a guy in a new system who hasn’t won over hiscoaches yet, or is dealing with a nagging injury, or is just getting outplayedby somebody else at his position.

You can also see how those snap totals are trending. If a player is staying on the field more and more in recent weeks, that’s great, as he’s keeping himself in a position to rack up DFS NFL points. However, if he’s seeing less and less time, you should fade that player, even if he’s a big name. Go with the guys who are going to be in the middle of things all the time.

Running Back Insights

Remember that fantasy points aren’tbased on averages. If a certain back is averaging four yards per carry, that’sgreat, but doesn’t do much for your fantasy team if he only gets ten touches ina game. Avoid these kinds of timeshare players who split their action withanother guy in their position. A bell cow-type RB who gets closer to threeyards per carry but gets the ball thirty times a game is the type of guy youwant to target. Volume, volume, volume. Take a look at those touches per gameand target those guys week in and week out.

Something to remember as you look at your NFL DFS options, though, is that just like with QB’s, many factors can affect a back’s touches throughout the game. If a team is up a lot of points early in the game, even the most pass-heavy offenses will pull back in their offensive approach and start handing the ball off more frequently to their running backs. The converse is true, as well. If you target an RB who usually gets thirty touches a game but his team is down twenty-one points heading into the second half, it’s unlikely that the player will get many rushes. His teams will likely try to make up the difference with downfield passing plays, leaving him out of the offensive scheme unless the team has dual-threat receiving backs.

Wide Receiver NFL DFS Tips

The same is true for receivers: go after the guys who get targeted a lot. The number of targets a particular receiver totals indicates how useful he is to the team. With receivers, you should consider Receiver Air Yards (RAY). The statistic adds up the total number of yards thrown toward a receiver on plays in which he’s targeted—both completed passes and incomplete ones. Basically, it gives you a raw number of what would happen if all his targets had turned into catches. This gives you a sense of how much a receiver is a part of his offense’s scheme and helps you compare value between different types of receivers.

An important thing to note about choosing a NFL DFS receiver, though, is that the two systems reward different types of receivers. With the yardage milestone bonuses and a full point per reception, DraftKings rewards possession receivers who get targeted a lot. For instance, a guy who gets ten catches for one hundred yards, basically just moving the chains, would rack up twenty-three points on DraftKings compared to fifteen on FanDuel. So, on DraftKings, the better pick isn’t the exciting player who can stretch the field on long passing plays once or twice per game, tempting as they might be to add to your squad.

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