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Daily Fantasy Football Advice, week 8 – Do’s and Don’ts

The most important rules in Daily Fantasy Sports are:

• Do be lucky
• Don’t be unlucky

The same goes for all forms of sports betting. In fact, it goes for life to. Unfortunately Lady Luck has a weird sense of humor and likes to shake things up. But the harder you practice, the luckier you get.

You cannot change luck, but you can change your expected outcome and expected value, and you do it by preparing well and making the right choices.

Here is a set of rules for you to follow. They will make you luckier.

Do’s

• Do embrace randomness in tournament play. Gamble!

• Do shy away from risk in cash games. Play it safe!

• Do pick cheap running backs that will suddenly be fantasy relevant because of injuries.

This week you have two excellent examples of the principal:

1. Devontae Booker, Denver Broncos. Ranked 29th with $5,600 at FanDuel and ranked 33rd with $3,700 at DraftKings. RB1 C.J. Anderson is injured and talented rookie Booker looked excellent last week. He is a must in every cash game you play.
2. Jacquizz Rodgers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ranked 12th with $6,600 at FanDuel and ranked 10th with $5,800 at DraftKings. Has been excellent value the last couple of weeks. The biggest bargain is gone, but he will continue to get a lot of touches and is a great play until Doug Martin comes back from his injury.

• Do stack up players from the same team in GPPs’. A successful combo of QB-WR can really separate you from the pack. A bolder version is to go all-in with one more player on the same team. It’s called a “superstack”. The winner of the FanDuels weak 7 Sunday Million built his team around Indianapolis Colt. He had QB Andrew Luck, WR T.Y. Hilton and surprise TE Jack Doyle and was awarded with 68,92 points.

The most potent combo is the QB-WR. Adding a WR or TE can pay dividend, but never stack more than three players from the same team in your lineup. There just aren’t enough points to go around.

• Do listen to the experts. There are plenty of site that works with in-depth projections (like this one). Find a couple that you like and compare the projections. But don’t forget to spice it up with your own ideas. It’s the most fun, and it’s also the best way to separate you from the pack.

• Do trust your eyes. The experts are experts for a reason, but there are 32 teams with 54 players on every rooster. Nobody can keep track on over 1,700 players. If you see a player that looks good, put him in the lineup next week. It’s often not more complicated than that. Tampa Bays Buccaneers WR Mike Evans looked good last week, and he has a positive trend. The same goes for his QB Jameis Winston. That looks like a very sexy combo at home against Oakland Raiders not so lovely defense in a probable shoot out.


Don’ts

• Don’t set your lineup to soon. The weather can greatly affect a game, especially in November and December. Injuries have a paramount impact on every game. Injuries happen all week. The final injury information comes 90 minutes before the match starts. If you can wait: don’t lock up your line up until after that.

• Don’t stack several players from the same team in your lineups in cash games. In cash games you want to minimize the variance. A QB-WR combo is okay, but no more than that.

• Don’t be afraid to pay a hefty price tag for a stud that you like. With a gamble on another position that comes through you are already close to the finish line.

• Don’t be afraid to pick a player nobody else likes. It’s called a contrarian play, and it’s the way to win the jackpot.

Do pick these players this weak:

QB Josh McCown, Cleveland Browns. Better than people think, back from injury, at home against New York Jets.

RB James White, New England Patriots. Buffalo Bills cannot stop him even if they tried. Which they won’t because they will have their hands full with TE Rob Gronkowski and TE Martellus Bennet. Patriots is out for blood after the lost 0-16 to the Bills at home.

WR Ty Montgomery, Atlanta Falcons. RB Tevin Coleman is out and they used Montgomery successfully as a RB last weak. Will be used even more in an expected high-scoring affair against Green Bay Packers.

TE C.J. Fiedorowicz, Detroit Lions. Looks better and better every game. Has taken over as TE1, and that is not reflected in the price tag.

Don’t pick these players this weak:

QB Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers. He has lost a step, or two. Have not looked good all season.

RB LeSean McCoy, Buffalo Bills. Hamstring injury, might just be a decoy. New England Patriots very good at taking away a team’s best weapon.

WR Jordy Nelson, Green Bay Packers. Has lost a step, or two, after his injury last season. Have not looked good all season.

TE Dwayne Allen, Indianapolis Colts. Not even one good fantasy performance all season. Kansas City Chiefs good at stopping tight ends.

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