DFS Football 101: Important Tips for New Players, Round 10

DFS Football 101: Important Tips for New Players, Round 10

This article is part of our DFS Football 101 series.

I'm really loving writing another article in this series that is focused on helping new players improve their DFS game. It has become my favorite piece of the week and I could write ten of these if RotoWire needed them!

I have written about the quarterback position, running backs and wide receivers in how to approach them in GPPs. For the next three weeks, I will repeat this process but instead looking at "Cash" games. Cash games are defined as "contests in which 50% of the field win".

For this series of articles, the site I am focusing on is DraftKings. DraftKings is a full-point PPR site, with a FLEX, no kickers, and 3-point bonuses for 300 passing yards and 100 rushing/receiving yards. The salary cap is $50,000 and the average cash game score most weeks is around 150 points. The reason that is important is because we need to determine what "multiplier" or "value" is required to hit. A "multiplier" is calculated by taking the players' score, dividing by the salary, and multiplying by 1000. For example, Sammie Coates was $3600 in Week 5 and scored 34.9 points. The multiplier calculation would be (34.9/$3600)*1000=9.7x value.

So if we know that 150 points is the target and $50,000 is the salary cap, the target for any projection on a player needs to be at least 3x. The challenge in this is finding the most consistent players from week to week that will hit 3x value. It is a balance between

I'm really loving writing another article in this series that is focused on helping new players improve their DFS game. It has become my favorite piece of the week and I could write ten of these if RotoWire needed them!

I have written about the quarterback position, running backs and wide receivers in how to approach them in GPPs. For the next three weeks, I will repeat this process but instead looking at "Cash" games. Cash games are defined as "contests in which 50% of the field win".

For this series of articles, the site I am focusing on is DraftKings. DraftKings is a full-point PPR site, with a FLEX, no kickers, and 3-point bonuses for 300 passing yards and 100 rushing/receiving yards. The salary cap is $50,000 and the average cash game score most weeks is around 150 points. The reason that is important is because we need to determine what "multiplier" or "value" is required to hit. A "multiplier" is calculated by taking the players' score, dividing by the salary, and multiplying by 1000. For example, Sammie Coates was $3600 in Week 5 and scored 34.9 points. The multiplier calculation would be (34.9/$3600)*1000=9.7x value.

So if we know that 150 points is the target and $50,000 is the salary cap, the target for any projection on a player needs to be at least 3x. The challenge in this is finding the most consistent players from week to week that will hit 3x value. It is a balance between what positions to pay up for versus where you decide to take value. Often times the matchups and pricing will dictate your weekly strategy.

Let's look at the wide receiver position and build a system to cash game targets.

WR Stats (1019 total through Week 10)
Average Score: 10.65
Average Salary: $4631
Average Value: 2.38

WR (Hit at least 3x – through Week 10)
Average Score: 19.34
Average Salary: $4429
Average Value: 4.44
Average Percent Hit Value: 30%

If you look at this chart below, the sweet spot to find value is between $3100-$4900, but also in the $6000-$6900 range. Ideally if you can find three wide receivers in that $6000-$6900 range each week that have a low standard deviation and good matchup, those are the best cash game plays.

SALARY RANGE

AVG SCORE

AVG SALARY

AVG VALUE

# 3X

TOTAL

% HIT

$3,000

6.9

 $3,000

2.38

78

245

32%

$3100-$3900

8.8

 $3,490

2.56

87

271

32%

$4000-$4900

10.8

 $4,403

2.52

58

163

36%

$5000-$5900

11.7

 $5,485

2.1

23

92

25%

$6000-$6900

14.5

 $6,448

2.2

30

105

29%

$7000-$7900

15.4

 $7,412

2

19

89

21%

$8000-$8900

19

 $8,508

2.2

8

34

24%

$9000-$10,000

19.9

 $9,490

2.1

4

20

20%

Week – (# of players to hit 3x or greater)
Week 1: 34
Week 2: 31
Week 3: 31
Week 4: 31
Week 5: 24
Week 6: 39
Week 7: 29
Week 8: 31
Week 9: 27
Week 10: 30

Average per week: 30.0

As you can see, the amount of wide receivers that hit 3x each week is around 30 and the total pool is 100 or so.

Additional Statistics:


Wide Receivers (Week 1-10)

For cash games, you want wide receivers with the combined highest-average points per game and lowest standard deviation.

Player

Average Salary

Average Score

Average Value

StdDev of Score

Antonio Brown

$9,544

23.00

2.43

10.27

A.J. Green

$8,589

22.04

2.57

12.08

Julio Jones

$9,370

21.95

2.37

14.83

Mike Evans

$7,667

21.79

2.86

10.65

Larry Fitzgerald

$7,025

20.04

2.88

6.75

Stefon Diggs

$5,600

19.25

3.50

11.55

Odell Beckham

$8,933

19.14

2.13

11.36

Amari Cooper

$7,556

18.92

2.53

11.20

Jordy Nelson

$7,644

18.50

2.44

9.81

T.Y. Hilton

$7,400

18.23

2.52

12.15

Brandin Cooks

$7,544

17.48

2.31

11.12

Davante Adams

$4,600

17.01

3.80

11.21

Michael Crabtree

$6,389

16.96

2.68

9.62

Doug Baldwin

$6,378

16.17

2.58

10.32

Mike Wallace

$5,222

16.02

3.11

6.68

Michael Thomas

$4,622

15.92

3.53

6.79

Terrelle Pryor

$5,060

15.54

3.37

10.01

Jamison Crowder

$4,256

15.48

3.64

6.77

Allen Robinson

$7,567

15.32

2.07

8.81

Willie Snead

$5,800

15.15

2.78

10.15

Kenny Britt

$4,044

15.14

3.79

8.79

Jarvis Landry

$6,756

15.09

2.29

7.96

Demaryius Thomas

$6,564

14.85

2.28

5.99

Marvin Jones

$6,400

14.82

2.39

11.57

Dez Bryant

$7,800

14.80

1.95

10.70

Kelvin Benjamin

$6,967

14.63

2.16

8.89

Ty Montgomery

$4,575

14.53

4.18

8.28

Eric Decker

$6,667

14.47

2.20

11.99

Jordan Matthews

$6,344

14.11

2.24

7.18

Randall Cobb

$6,663

14.08

2.23

8.41

Cole Beasley

$4,189

13.99

3.47

4.76

Tyrell Williams

$4,355

13.98

3.15

8.71

Emmanuel Sanders

$6,464

13.62

2.14

8.55

Steve Smith

$4,857

13.53

2.87

7.76

Golden Tate

$5,533

13.08

2.61

10.27

Corey Coleman

$4,850

12.78

2.68

11.88

DeAndre Hopkins

$7,900

12.69

1.59

7.37

Eddie Royal

$3,657

12.46

3.49

7.95

Brandon Marshall

$7,367

12.44

1.70

7.99

Alshon Jeffery

$7,267

12.44

1.72

4.11

Will Fuller

$5,071

12.31

2.73

10.60

Donte Moncrief

$5,900

12.20

2.13

7.14

Sterling Shepard

$5,189

12.07

2.38

6.26

Rishard Matthews

$3,480

12.03

3.40

5.73

Cameron Meredith

$3,857

11.96

3.39

11.50

J.J. Nelson

$3,300

11.75

3.80

11.43

Robert Woods

$3,875

11.73

3.15

8.68

Travis Benjamin

$5,440

11.50

2.23

9.35

Tyreek Hill

$3,150

11.41

3.60

6.71

Jeremy Kerley

$3,578

11.38

3.27

9.00

Quincy Enunwa

$4,578

11.36

2.56

6.29

Taylor Gabriel

$3,067

11.33

3.68

5.70

Julian Edelman

$6,311

11.29

1.81

4.45

Eli Rogers

$3,650

11.00

3.12

7.15

Marquise Goodwin

$3,050

10.92

3.58

8.10

Russell Shepard

$3,100

10.90

3.53

7.56

Kendall Wright

$3,600

10.84

3.10

10.52

Pierre Garcon

$3,933

10.63

2.73

4.30

Anquan Boldin

$4,122

10.40

2.54

5.23

Adam Thielen

$3,411

10.38

3.08

7.30

DeVante Parker

$4,813

10.33

2.20

6.95

Tavon Austin

$4,211

10.20

2.49

7.83

Brandon LaFell

$3,678

10.17

2.90

8.16

Marqise Lee

$3,244

10.10

3.13

5.52

Mohamed Sanu

$4,830

10.10

2.20

7.54

Michael Floyd

$5,043

10.09

2.14

5.43

DeSean Jackson

$5,900

10.08

1.70

6.52

Allen Hurns

$5,000

10.07

2.26

6.44

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Rathburn
Known as “Rath” in the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) community, he has helped run operations for two prominent daily fantasy sports startups. Michael has taken his insider knowledge and expertise in daily fantasy sports to the content side. Rath won the 2016 FSWA "Baseball Article of the Year, Online" award and was a finalist for the FSWA Best Baseball Series in 2011.
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