2018 Football Draft Kit: DFS Strategy for Experienced Players

A lot of information emerges every NFL Sunday in the 90 minutes before kickoffs that impact DFS lineups. The obvious is inactive lists, which confirm the status of those who were questionable to play. This can help you decide on a player who was a little bit banged up, but the more important takeaway is finding opportunities to roster a cheap running back or wide receiver who falls into a starting assignment or more snaps because a teammate is inactive.

Now, any serious player will notice if a starting running back is out and consider his backup, but dive deeper and check for No. 3 receivers who are inactive. If there is one, it often will open the door for a minimum-priced WR to become the third or fourth option in his team's passing game.

Also study the defensive inactives. If an important defensive lineman is out, it can greatly change the outlook of an opposing running back; if a starting cornerback is out, you can often increase the projections of the opposing wideout.

For example, Tampa Bay's Gerald McCoy, a consensus top-five defensive tackle, was inactive Week 15 last season and it resulted in the Bucs giving up 201 rushing yards to the Falcons, their most allowed all season. From a DFS angle, Devonta Freeman piled up a season-high 126 yards rushing and a touchdown, also adding five catches for 68 yards. Moving Freeman into your lineup last minute based on McCoy's status would have been a huge win.

In Week 14, the Steelers faced a Ravens defense without star cornerback Jimmy Smith, who had suffered a season-ending Achilles injury. Antonio Brown had his worst game of the season against Smith and the Ravens in Week 4, catching four passes for 34 yards. Fast forward to the second matchup and Brown had his best yardage game of the season with Smith watching from home, totaling 213 yards on 11 catches.

The other item to account for on Sunday mornings (especially later in the season) is the weather report from each outdoor venue. Don't overreact, but be ready to adapt to extreme situations. Light rain, cold, even snow flurries are not big worries – they can even lead to big plays for the offense if a defender slips and allows a short gain to turn into a long one – but I always avoid anyone involved in the passing game if the forecast calls for high wind or heavy precipitation. Not only does this impact quarterback accuracy and make it tough to throw deep, but NFL coaches, who tend to lean to the conservative side anyway, often run the ball more in these conditions to avoid mistakes.

In DFS where we can pick anyone, I don't see the wisdom in bringing conditions like this into play. This is paramount for high-salary players, who must contribute huge games to your lineup. Likewise, avoid kickers facing any sort of wind or bad weather, as it makes every kick tougher and coaches often opt to go for it on fourth down rather than risk a long kick in adverse conditions.

Quarterback ... Be More Flexible than Patient

Quarterback is the position that differs the most strategically between season-long leagues and DFS. In DFS, one should target quarterbacks playing well at the moment in the right matchup, as opposed to sticking with established elite players. When an elite player struggles or his offense changes, there is no reason to stay patient the same way you would in a season-long league.

The prime examples of this in 2017 were veteran mainstays Drew Brees and Matt Ryan. A month into the season it was clear New Orleans had changed offensively from a high-volume passing attack to a run-first scheme aided by the addition of rookie Alvin Kamara.

Brees had three touchdown passes in a game once all season, a year after he had eight games with at least three. He had 10 games in 2016 in which he totaled more than 20 points on both FanDuel and DraftKings, but only four such games last season – none with more than 30 points. Ryan, amazingly, failed to throw more than two touchdown passes in a game last year while the Falcons adapted to a new offensive coordinator.

The beauty of DFS is you're not tied to players and can simply skip once-elite players when you discover how much the team's offense has changed. Staying flexible with your opinion at quarterback is important, so you can quickly shift to find the right players to attack each week.

You only get one quarterback in each lineup, and you have to do well at the position to compete in DFS tournaments. I study the Las Vegas betting lines closely. I am not only looking for a game projected to be high scoring, but also one with a close point spread. Always target a QB in a projected shootout.

For a QB to really go off, he needs to throw all game, and that can only happen if the other team cooperates and puts up some points. So, if your QB's defense isn't great, that's helpful. Even the most aggressive of coaches is likely to run the ball with a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter to burn clock.

The massive improvement of the New Orleans defense last season was a huge contributing factor to the drop in Brees' passing volume. The Saints were middle of the pack in yards allowed and top 10 in points allowed after being the league's worst defense the previous three seasons.

Running Backs … All About that Game Flow

Anyone can roster elite running backs, most of whom are game-flow resistant as they play three downs and get touches whether their team is ahead or behind. The top players are expensive for a reason; they are not just talented but also touch the ball a ton.

But we all know about the top players. It's correctly picking from the next couple tiers that separates winners and losers. And that requires studying each matchup to predict game flow.

Before considering mid-range or cheap running backs in a given week, I project how each game might evolve to determine which running backs will get touches throughout the game. There is nothing worse for your DFS running back (and your DFS frame of mind!) than a large halftime deficit that causes the opponent to run clock while he watches the third-down back catch dump-offs as his team tries to catch up.

However, game flow can work both ways for a running back depending on skill set and usage. If I use someone like Jordan Howard, it must be in a matchup likely to produce a reasonably tight game or a Bears victory. In those scenarios, I can be confident the team will lean on Howard in the second half. My goal is that his first-half production either gives the Bears the lead or at least helps them keep pace, which would guarantee a steady stream of touches in the second half. With someone like Howard, who only had 23 catches in 2017, there isn't much upside if his team is trailing by double digits at halftime.

On the other hand is a player like Christian McCaffrey, who I want to avoid in a game the Panthers are likely to win by a comfortable margin. A deficit or a close game will ensure a full complement of targets as the Panthers lean on their passing attack, throwing the ball with C-Mac on the field nearly every play.

Wide Receiver … Play the Stud wR Bounce back

Wide receivers are volatile (on and off the field!), with game flow, defensive coverage, pass interference and play calling important factors in whether they have big games.

Like most, I look heavily at anticipated game flow, implied totals and opposing cornerbacks when choosing among the top receivers. But I also love to target big-salary wide receivers the week after they have a quiet game, looking to take advantage of reduced ownership due to recency bias.

There were 12 games in 2017 in which a wide receiver had at least 175 receiving yards. Nine came from players who typically were selected in the first four rounds of fantasy drafts last year. How did those receivers fare the week before? Not counting Antonio Brown's 182-yard Week 1, only once did one of those receivers have 100 yards the previous week (and, of course, it was Brown), and six of 11 came after the receiver had less than 50 yards in his previous game.

DeAndre Hopkins was the top fantasy receiver in FanDuel points last year, with Brown edging him in DraftKings due to full PPR scoring. Hopkins' lowest yardage game came in Week 6 when he totaled 19 yards, catching two of four targets. All Hopkins did the next game was catch eight of 11 targets for 224 yards and a touchdown in a tough road matchup against Seattle.

Brown had three games last season with less than 70 receiving yards and no touchdowns (he had a fourth due to injury). In each of the subsequent games following his three worst games, he caught exactly 10 passes for more than 100 yards, including a 144-yard, three-score game in Week 11.

Julio Jones had seven games last year in which he posted more than 90 yards (including a massive 253-yard game in Week 11) and for six of those seven games he had less than 75 yards and no touchdowns the previous week. Granted, Jones had an up-and-down season, but it's interesting that almost all of his big games came after weeks when he was not an especially useful fantasy contributor.

Perhaps it's coincidence, or maybe star receivers become squeaky wheels the week following a bad game, or perhaps offensive coordinators gameplan to get their No. 1 receiver more involved after a down week. Clearly, this is not an exact science, but if nothing else, it's a useful tiebreaker when debating which elite wide receiver to target.

The strategy also gets a boost from lower ownership among those receivers. When an elite wide receiver has a bad game and burns people, his ownership drops a bit the following week.

Tight Ends … Stars & Scrubs

When it comes to tight ends, I am a big proponent of a stars-or-scrubs approach. If you are going to spend at the position, go all the way up top, but if not, then look for value at the bottom of the salary scale. Don't mess with the middle tier – those tight ends are not much better than dirt-cheap players and are markedly worse than the top tier.

One simply has to look at last year's FanDuel points to see how it worked out. There were two tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and Travis Kelce, who had more than 190 FanDuel points for the season. After those two, you have to drop down 50 points to get to the fourth-ranked TE, Jimmy Graham, who had 142.5.

The difference between the top two players and Graham is the same as the difference between Graham and the 18th-ranked tight end, Charles Clay. The elite are huge difference makers, no doubt, but in the weeks when your cap is already used elsewhere, find the cheapest player you like. You can usually save $2,000 from an upper mid-range tight end to a lower mid-range one and still get a player who falls in the same overall tier.

When choosing among lower-salaried players, look for a tight end priced near the bottom of that large group who can be counted on for at least three or four targets and is used as a weapon in the red zone. With cheaper tight ends, the difference is often touchdowns, so make sure to pick someone who gets those looks near the goal line.

More so than at other positions, it's important to study the opposing defense's year-to-date points allowed to tight ends. It seems there are a few defenses each year, thanks to a mixture of scheme and personnel, that struggle mightily to cover tight ends. The Giants, Browns and Dolphins were among the teams to pick on last season, each allowing at least 81 catches, 880 yards and 10 touchdowns to the position. Those teams inevitably will emerge again this year — look for defenses with linebackers or safeties who struggle in coverage.

Defense … Don't You Forget About Me

Trust me, I know how it works. We spend copious amounts of time breaking down the skill players and then we get to the defenses and proceed to just toss one in that looks good at a quick glance. It is tempting to think of defense as only requiring luck, but so many weeks the owner who finishes near the top of a GPP nailed the highest-scoring unit. And while it is difficult to predict defensive and return touchdowns, you should not play a defense just hoping to get lucky.

First, target situations where sacks are likely to come into play. A defense stout in quarterback pressure facing a team that struggles to protect the passer builds in a solid floor of production that can protect you from a lack of turnovers. Additionally, sacks can create points beyond the actual sack points. They lead to fumbles by the quarterback, and consistent pressure can cause hurried and poor throws, which often turn into interceptions.

After identifying the best sack teams for the week, I put those games into a game-flow formula to narrow down the options. The formula looks for a home team favored by a touchdown or more facing a below-average quarterback or one who is at least prone to mistakes. With this formula, the hope is the underdog is forced to throw the ball a lot in the second half and is more likely to take risks. When you get a non-elite QB in that situation, this is where the big plays often occur and lead to a huge score for your defense, which hopefully propels you to the top of the leaderboard.

Stacking … Jump Up the Leaderboard

We mentioned the necessity of doing well at quarterback to compete in DFS tournaments. This is true more so than at other positions because you should almost always stack your quarterback with one of his receivers. The goal is to put together a high-upside lineup with correlations between players, as most large tournaments only pay out the top 20-25 percent of the field, with the vast majority of that money concentrated in the 99th percentile.

When you settle on a quarterback you think will have a big game, you're implicitly predicting big numbers from one of his team's pass catchers. Hitting on the double-dip touchdown, particularly on a deep ball, is a great way to move up the leaderboard quickly.

I also often will stack a cheap tight end from the same team to get another piece of the action with my quarterback. Just remember that it's hard to get value from two high-priced pass catchers in the same offense – there is only so much production to go around. For example, I might play a Deshaun Watson/DeAndre Hopkins/Stephen Anderson stack, but I usually will avoid a Patrick Mahomes/Tyreek Hill/Travis Kelce stack.

Furthermore, if you project the game from which you are stacking players to be a shootout, use a player from the opposing team's passing game to really cash in on the back-and-forth action. If your stack comes up big in the first half, you'll need someone on the other team to score some points or else your quarterback will spend the fourth quarter handing off.

Aside from the popular QB/WR stack, my favorite stack is a running back and team defense. This one is all about game flow. I target a team that is favored and also facing a shaky quarterback. If the favored team jumps out to an early lead (hopefully due to my running back or defense scoring), the second half lines up really well for both plays. The favored team's offense is likely to run a lot with the lead, while the trailing team's offense is likely passing a lot, which can lead to sacks and hopefully turnovers.

Those turnovers can then set up my running back in good field position to score more points, further reinforcing the other team's need to chuck the ball around. This stack is a beautiful thing to watch when it lines up correctly.

This article appears in the 2018 RotoWire Fantasy Football magazine. Order the magazine now.