Second Shot at DraftKings Daily Fantasy Football

If you have listened to the Daily Fantasy Sports Advisor podcast or have watched the welcome video on the home page of this blog, you will know that I am just as new to daily fantasy football as you. I would love to provide tons of great analysis that will help you win your daily fantasy football leagues, but unfortunately I haven’t built a winning process that I can be 100% confident in. The process of building a winning strategy takes time. I will most certainly make mistakes along the way and learn countless invaluable lessons. Instead of doing this behind the scenes and rolling out a full fledged daily fantasy football campaign next year, I thought it would be much more valuable for you to see the process first hand. I know what this process looks like. I was not a profitable and successful NBA player at first but I got there. Surely my knowledge of daily fantasy sports will help make this transition quicker, but there will still be several similarities to what you will experience if you stick with whatever daily fantasy sport you are dedicated to.

In this series of blogs I will walk you through, step by step, the decisions I make around bankroll management, contest selection, roster construction, and all other decisions that are made throughout the process. I have deposited $100 on DraftKings to cycle through this daily fantasy football season. I choose DraftKings because of their weekly Quarter Arcade contest. This will allow me to practice putting multiple lineups in one GPP while staying within my budget. I will release the blog every Tuesday(sorry real life delayed the first edition a couple days) after the results of the week are finalized. The learning curve is sure to be large and I don’t expect to be a winning player right away. But in time I know that I will construct a process they we can all benefit from.

DraftKings Daily Fantasy Football Week 2 Baby Steps

It is always nice to start a week with more money that you did the last even if the bankroll bump is only marginal.  Our $100 bankroll has now taken a small leap to $105.  I decided to not increase my play too much and will only enter a few more lineups in the quarter arcade.  Below is how I have diversified my contests this week.  I actually ended up playing $10 again because I either forgot to enter a $1 league or it did not fill and got canceled.

• Cash Games: $7 (70%) – I have split this up into 4 H2H and 3 50/50s
• GPPs: $3 (30%) – I have entered 1 lineup into a $1 Single Entry GPP and 8 lineups into the Quarter Arcade

Each contest requires a different roster construction strategy but I always start by reviewing the slate and narrowing the player pool to Cash plays and GPP plays. Below I list the players at each position I targeted and the thought process behind it.

QB

A week in I was still looking to keep things simple when choosing my players.  I wanted to focus on a quarterback from a game with a high total and who had a good matchup.  This did not entirely put us on the right guys last week but Vegas is as good as anyone in predicting the flow of the game.  While there were a lot of players who played well week 1 I tried not to overreact and still stuck with my preseason research.  Below are the QBs I had on the target list for week 2.

 

 

 

 

Although Andrew Luck met a lot of the criteria, I had heard a lot of great things about the Jets D and I didn’t want to pay the premium when I had cheaper options I liked.  I was also off of Drew Brees because I was afraid of them getting up early and running the ball.  My favorite cash game play was Bradford again even though he burned me a little last week.  My absolute favorite GPP play was Andy Dalton.  He had a god matchup against SD who are better at stopping the run and had a decent team total.  Factor in a price of $5,800 which is way too low and I was all over Dalton for tournaments.  I also wanted to sprinkle in some Carson Palmer because of the great matchup but I felt like he would be highly owned so I did not go over board.

RB

Even more so than last week I felt very uncomfortable with the running backs on  DraftKings.  It seemed like all the guys that were in good spots were road underdogs.  Opportunity is the most important thing for a running back so I decided to try and give my RBs the most opportunities I could.  Below is the small list of guys I was looking at this week.

 

Lynch has as much of a market share on his teams running, receiving, and red zone work than anyone.  I felt like he was one of the better cash game plays and decided to lock him in to cash.  I also thought that Ingram was a no brainer seeing that the Saints were such big favorites and Spiller was still on a snap count.  I didn’t love Gio Bernard but thought he would be a good match with Dalton in a GPP.  Coleman was another guy whos price hadn’t gone up even though he clearly was the better play in his backfield.

WR

With DK being a PPR site I really value WRs who pile up the targets.  Receivers from teams with high totals is also important because that will mean more opportunities for touchdowns.  My WRs really played well for me last week and I feel like they are a good way to build a nice floor into your team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really liked Antonio Brown as a cash game play.  He is guaranteed for 5 catches 50 yards and with a good team total I felt like he could be in for a good game.  I also liked Jordan Matthews again as he will pile up the targets in a game where his team has a very high total.  I see Jarvis Landry as a poor mans Julien Edelman and wanted to fit him in where I could.  I liked both John Brown and Larry Fitzgerald but with Michael Floyd also there I was not sure who would score for Arizona.

TE

As I hear on pretty much every podcast I listen to, it always pays off to pay up for gronk.  I see the reasoning but at over 7,000 I felt like there were cheaper options that could cover value.  All of the guys below I felt would have a god market share of their teams targets and would have a chance at a TD.

 

 

 

Bennett and Witten were the top guys for me.  Witten and the Cowboys were playing up in pace against the Eagles and with Dez out I thought Witten would get a lot of looks including in the Red Zone.  Reed is a high target play as well but did not have a great matchup.  Eifert also with a tough matchup would really only be an option when stacked with Dalton.

Def

Defense was pretty easy for me this week.  I wanted the Raven, Saints, and Panthers where they fit as they had good matchups and besides the Ravens were at home.

 

 

 

Final Daily Fantasy Football Rosters for Week 2

Cash

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I went to the well again with Bradford and it did not pan out.  The Eagles offense just looks out of sink and I will not be running them out in cash games next week.  Due to the game flow of the Saints game, Ingram really didn’t get anything going.  Lynch as well underperformed and I really need to figure out how to narrow down good RB picks.  I was really bailed out here by my WRs.  All caught at least 8 balls and accounted for 62% of my score this week.  Jordan Reed also played well for his depressed salary and just further cements in my mind in cash you have to pile up on guys who get targets.  Ravens Def also disappointed against what we thought was a poor Raiders team.

We managed to fringe cash a couple double ups and took 3 of 4 H2Hs.  It was nice to see we took home some H2Hs but all scores were down this week.

Investment $7.00

Earnings $11.40

Profit/Loss $4.40

GPP

Dalton Lineup (1 x $0.25 Quarter Arcade)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I felt pretty vindicated that I was so high on Dalton as a GPP play and his lineup was the highest for me this week.

Pairing him with Gio and Eifert panned out but Bernard did a lot more on the ground then I would have thought.  We will take the points how we can get them but I was hoping he would be on the receiving end of a few more passing plays.  Odell Beckham was under owned after performing so poorly and had a nice game.  I am glad I was able to get Brown in as well but taking a 5 from Sporles and 0 from the Dolphins really kept this from being a huge cash.

This lineup was able to turn $0.25 into $1.50.

Andy Dalton Lineup (1 x $0.25 Quarter Arcade)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We cashed in again here with ODB and Brown.  Vereen and Decker really helped this lineup reach the cash threshold.  I really liked decker because Marshal was going to be covered by a shutdown corner in Vontae Davis leaving Decker with some extra targets.  This could have been an even bigger game but Decker left with an injury.  Beasley really underperformed my expectations as I felt he would get some of the Bryant production.

This lineup turned $0.25 into $1.

Andy Dalton Lineup (1 x $0.25 Quarter Arcade; 1 x $100K Daily Dollar)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here was my second Dalton Lineup.  He was the only QB I had in multiple lu’s and this one cashed as well.  I wanted to stack Dalton with Green in this one that way I had all three of his biggest targets covered at some point.  While Green did score it hurt having to take out ODB and ultimately this lineup did not do as well.  Playing 2 TEs is a way to differentiate your lineup and it helped as both of my guys put up good scores.

This lineup turned a $1.25 investment into $2.50.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again we pulled back more cash in GPPs than we invested but we are still waiting on that big hit.  I was very happy with turning a profit 2 weeks in a row and I am hoping we keep going in the right direction.

Cash

Investment $7.00

Return $11.40

Net Profit $4.40

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GPP

Investment $3.00

Return $5.50

Net Profit $2.50

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Cash Net Profit $4.40

GPP Net Profit $2.50

Total Week 2 Profit $6.90 – ROI 69% ($6.90/$10.00)

Bankroll Starting Week 2: $105.00

Bankroll After Week 1: $111.90

Thank you for reading the blog and I hope this helps prepare you for your dive into daily fantasy football. Have you already taken that step? Let me know how you faired and what players either came up clutch for you or have found themselves in your dog house after week 1. Leave your comments below I can’t wait to see how you all did.