With the NFL regular season less than a week away, it is also time for fantasy football to kick into full gear. With fantasy football, also comes daily fantasy sports, or DFS for short. If you happened to miss it last Thursday, Dan Brown and I kicked off the Sons of DFS Podcast, brought to you by Sons of Dynasty, found on the True North Fantasy Football Network on Youtube. You can find episode No. 0001 below!
While the episode had its fair share of technical difficulties, it was an absolute blast. The feedback and support we have received have been absolutely amazing. I feel comfortable speaking for Daniel when I say this:
Thank you all, so much!
Be sure to give the video a like and TNFF a sub on Youtube so we can help you win some money in 2021 and beyond.
Without further adieu, Dan and I are back again, with what is essentially a 2021 NFL DFS Strategy Guide. It’s designed to help novice players or newbies better understand the pass-time that NFL DFS. We’re going to cover terminology, scoring, strategies, and other areas that will set you up for success on Draftkings.
This article is a collaboration between both of us, we hope it helps. Let’s start with the basics.
NFL DFS Terminology
DFS: Daily fantasy sports, typically one-day contests that allow you to pick a lineup of players to compete against other users. FanDuel, DraftKings, etc.
GPP (a.k.a tournaments): Guaranteed Prize Pool, a contest in which the prize is guaranteed, regardless of the number of entrants.
50/50: A contest in which the top half of all entrants get paid and the bottom half lose their entry fee. These contests are considered safer based on the odds of winning.
Cash Game: Also referred to as 50/50s, but can also include head-to-head matchups with individual DFS players, and double-ups.
ROI: Return on Investment
Fade: The action of avoiding a particular player or game within your lineup entry.
Exposure: The number of lineups you have a specific player included in. Having a player in a higher percentage of your lineups is riskier.
Overlay: When a daily fantasy site loses money on a contest (e.g. if $50,000 is guaranteed but there are only $45,000 worth of entrants, the overlay is $5,000.)
Floor: The lowest projected outcome for a specific player.
Ceiling: The highest projected outcome for a specific player.
CPP: Cost Per Point is calculated by taking a player’s salary and dividing it by the projected points the player is set to score in their matchup.
$ Rank: A player’s $ Rank is determined by their salary when compared to other players at their position. The player with the highest salary at their position will have a ranking of one (1).
Punt: When you “punt” a specific position, you spend the minimum on that position in your lineup. This strategy is used when a position is harder to predict or low-scoring relative to other positions. This allows you to fit other higher-salaried players in your lineup.
How Should You Adjust Your NFL DFS Strategy for GPPs?
Since a large portion of the prize pool is reserved for the top few finishing positions in most GPPs, you want to adjust your strategy to maximize your chances of finishing at the top of the field. While you still don’t want to completely forego safety in your lineup, there is a large potential payoff for embracing risk and volatility that doesn’t exist in some other contest formats.
Player ownership is also an important part of GPP strategy. One way to think about this is to think in terms of finding points that your opponents don’t have. If every person in a GPP has the same player in their lineup, it doesn’t matter if he scores 100 fantasy points — you still won’t have an advantage over everyone else. If you’re the only person with him, however, you have a great chance to win the tournament and earn a large payday. It is important, therefore, to weigh a player’s chances of success against their expected ownership.
Another way to look at this idea is to consider situations in which you’ve been trailing in a tournament. When you’re in, say, 50th place in a big GPP with two players remaining, it certainly feels a whole lot better if those guys aren’t in lineups ahead of you, right? If there are multiple lineups ahead of you with the same players left to go, you have no shot at winning. At that point, you’d certainly trade in those two players for a pair that is unique and gives you a shot at the win, even if they’re slightly less valuable, right? Of course. Being contrarian leads to less fantasy scoring over the long run, but it also gives you more “outs,” so to speak, in the event that you need to jump other users (which happens almost all the time in a GPP).
Tournaments to Target
If you feel like you’re ready to play with the heavy hitters, or perhaps you’re just comfortable with the risk involved, there are some things you should keep in mind when selecting which GPP to enter. If you are just beginning I strongly encourage you to look for single entry tournaments. Single entry is basically just as it sounds — you can only enter one lineup. There are a limited amount of these generally, but the entry fees range from a dollar to upwards of a thousand. There are some GPPs that allow you to enter up to 150 times, and the experienced players are not afraid to do it. Your odds of winning are already reduced if you enter one line against a player who is entering 100-plus times.
Take your time to filter through the many tournaments available. Check the number of max entries and check the payout-out structure for each. Not all GPPs payout the same percentage of winners. Be diligent, do your homework, and if you know ahead of time that you’re playing this weekend, go in reserve some spots. They often fill up quickly on Sunday morning — especially the single entries. Just make a note that you need to fill your roster prior to kick-off. Most DFS platforms are not big on refunding your account if you forget to set your lineup.
Who to Target
The style in which we as fantasy football owners set our lineups is often different from person-to-person. Truthfully, there is no right or wrong answer, but there are some things worth focusing on during roster construction — particularly in DFS.
Let’s take a look at some things you should attempt to do, as well as some more terminology, (more in-depth) you’ll want to become familiar with to make your life easier.
Stacking
Personally, I have always been someone who is a fan of stacking in fantasy football to an extent. Stacking is essentially when you have two or more players from the same team. By doing so, the risk is increased so to speak — but so is the reward. For daily fantasy, whether it is cash or GPP, I usually make it a goal to pair my quarterback with one of his wide receivers. For example, if you roster Stephon Diggs as one of your wide receivers and he has two touchdown receptions, that probably means Josh Allen has also thrown for two, (or more) scores. If you have Diggs and Allen on your roster, you’re maximizing your upside.
This correlation has proven to be optimal in tournaments more times than not. You can also add a second wide receiver, a running back (preferably that records receptions), or even a tight end. What you probably do not want to do is over-stack, or put more than three players from the same team in one lineup. I’m not saying it has never proven to be profitable, but if one or two guys are getting a majority of their team’s scores then chances are that accounts for most of the scoring in that particular game.
Chalk and Contrarian Plays
The terms “chalk” and “contrarian” are very important in DFS. Chalk means players projected to be highly owned and contrarian means players projected to be lower owned. What you want is to find a guy who has a good matchup and play him. If Dalvin Cook is facing a team with poor run defense, you want him in your lineup, however, a lot of other owners are going to be thinking the same thing. Chalky players are often your studs and/or players filling in for an injury at a lower price.
An example for Week 1 of the 2021 NFL season could be tight end George Kittle vs the Detroit Lions defense. Kittle is a stud, and the Lions’ defense is not very good.
The term contrarian means you want to find a guy who is going to have a good week, but not everyone is playing him. Obviously, this is where things get tough. You’ll want to look at matchups once again, but then instead of going with the obvious play on the opposing team, take a second or third wideout.
An example from the same game above would be Deebo Samuel instead of Kittle. You might miss, but if you do hit on a player that isn’t highly owned you’re already going to have an advantage over everyone else. Contrarian plays are not as important in cash leagues but are very important in GPPs. A good balance of what you might want is five studs and the rest contrarian. The formula changes from week to week, but you get the idea. You want to differentiate yourself from the field in tournaments.
Value Plays for NFL DFS
Value is another important aspect of DFS and usually directly correlates with chalk and contrarian plays. As mentioned above, if a second-string running back is filling in for a player due to injury and the matchup is good, it is a good place to save money during roster construction. Oftentimes, when these situations unfold on a weekly basis a player like the one mentioned above can quickly become chalky as everyone has the same goal in mind as you. It’s a fine line, and ultimately you have to make that decision of if that great value play is worth it.
Again, in cash, it’s not as important to be different, but in GPPs you may make the decision to fade a player in this situation.
Use “Late Swap” To Your Advantage
DraftKings allows you to swap out players right up until their kickoff, while other sites will lock the roster at the first game. I think a late swap is a great option because a lot of times, across all sports, players will be game-time decisions – and nothing sucks more than rostering an injured player.
The first way to utilize late swap is to make sure you’re putting the player with the latest start time in your flex position, that way if you have to swap that player out you can swap him with any of the skill positions. For example, let’s say you have Antonio Brown in your lineup and he’s playing in the Monday Night game. Put him in your flex position, so that if say he came down with the flu Monday morning you would be able to choose a WR, RB, or TE in that Monday Night game to take his spot, instead of being forced to pick a WR.
The second way to utilize late swaps in DraftKings in a strategy is to change the player based on how you’re doing in the DraftKings contest. Let’s say that you are far out of the money in a contest but you have a Monday Night player in your lineup. If you think they are going to be highly owned and you won’t be able to make up enough ground even if he does have a productive night, you could try swapping him out for a player that will have very low ownership hoping for a breakout performance from that player.
It works the other way too. Let’s you are safely in the money and don’t think you have an opportunity to move up big time. One player in your lineup is playing Monday Night that you chose as a “risky”, contrarian pick. You could swap that player out for a more consistent fantasy scorer to hopefully get the cash and move onto the next one.
Use Vegas Lines
Vegas bookmakers and the sharp bettors that move the lines know what they are doing and you should always be looking into their totals, team total, and even spreads when doing your weekly research. If one team has a team total of 27.5 points set for a week, there is a good chance that the players on that team are going to score more fantasy points than a team with a team total of 14.5. Of course, pricing at DraftKings will reflect that, but you should always be paying attention to the lines.
Not only opening lines but also line movement. There has been a correlation between line movement and expected fantasy points. If a team total moves from 23.5 to 25 on a Sunday morning, you may get some value from players on that team. Or if you’re debating between two defenses and one of their opponent’s team total moves down a point, you can use that as your deciding factor.
Best of Luck
When it comes down to it, there is a lot of luck involved in being successful in daily fantasy sports. Is there also some skill required? Sure, but you’re going to need some luck too. Unfortunately, luck is something I cannot teach — although I wish I could. Take your time, do your homework, grab your rabbit’s foot, and have some fun. It takes experience to be profitable in DFS, but I am proof that it can be done. There are many tools available to help you along the way. Check back to TrueNorthFFB.com throughout the week, listen to your favorite DFS podcasts, (SODFS), and follow your favorite experts on Twitter. Most are more than happy to answer any questions you have.
The most important aspect is simply that you have fun. Good luck out there!
