In some daily fantasy leagues, NFL games are split up by day, and not per weekend. This weekend is a great example of this where you will find leagues for just Saturday’s games, just Sunday’s games, or both. You can play in any or all of these leagues if you’d like, but because there are only two games per day for this second week of playoffs, looking at just one day is going to be the more difficult choice. Looking at value players is going to be a good idea to give you an edge over the competition, especially if you are planning on adding an expensive player to your lineup first.
For Saturday’s games, Tom Brady is the most expensive player on FanDuel at $9,100. Let’s assume that you think he is the best choice for your team, so you draft him right away in your salary cap league. In this setting, you get $60,000 to spend on a team, and you spend almost 1/6th of that on Brady. Your average per-player expense now goes from $6,666 down to $6,363. You now have a lot less money to work with, and you haven’t even really begun the hard part. This is where value becomes the most important. You’ve secured yourself a great player, but now you need to fill up your team, but you don’t have as much to work with per player as your opposition does.
When you look at the Running Back position, there’s currently a big gap in price. The number one choice is Marshawn Lynch at $8,900. In #2 is Justin Forsett at $6,800. Lynch has scored more points per game according to FanDuel’s grading system this year with an average of 3.6 more points per outing than Forsett, but this isn’t the only thing you should be considering. Look at the stats themselves. Lynch only has 2.5 yards rushing per game more than Forsett this season. At a 16 game season, this adds up to 40 extra yards over the course of a season.–something that can be made up in a single half game if need be. In other words, the difference in total yards is not really enough to say that Lynch is definitively superior here. This should imply that Lynch is clearly not worth the $2k+ that you will pay to get him.
Of course, saving money doesn’t help you win. You need to put that money to use in order to accumulate stats so you can convert it to point in your league. Now that you have Brady and Forsett on your team, you should have $6,300 to spend per player for the rest. If you had gone with Lynch instead, that number would only be $6,000. You could draft both if you’d like, but this would drive your number down to $5,867. At this point, things become a bit difficult when considering other positions. Jonathan Stewart is the only other RB that has consistently scored more than 10 points per game in FanDuel’s scoring, and at $6,500, he is still overpriced. This gives you a ton of wiggle room for other players that are suddenly in positions to have great games. Look for the teams that have weaknesses against the running game and this will provide your answer for you. Carolina has the weakest rushing defense of the four teams, allowing 112.0 yards per game this season, which means that another Seattle player should be your choice. If you choose to not go with Lynch, then the second best producer on the Seahawks is Robert Turbin. He’s scored about 4.2 point per game with FanDuel’s scoring, and there is potential for him to go far above that this weekend. If you decide not to go with Lynch and Forsett, he is one of the better choices to put in that gap, and he is well below your par value at just $4,500, giving him a ton of latent value.
