First off, in response to last week's "don't get cocky," I am going to amend that to "I have no idea whether to be cocky or not." A week ago, I had a FanDuel roster I thought was stout, so I went against my regular ways and used the same roster for my tournament and my 50/50 game.
FanDuel: Don’t reinvent the wheel
Maybe you’ll find a particular bargain in your weekly FanDuel game, but in the long run, the mold is the mold for a reason.
Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports
The roster failed. Stupid LeSean McCoy.
This week, I took the lesson not to invest too much in a single roster and, when I found a roster I liked just as much for my tournament, I specifically made the point to avoid using the roster in my 50/50 as well.
The roster succeeded.
I mean, I profited. No complaints. But I coulda profited more, dangit.
So do get cocky. Or don’t. Heck, I don’t know. If your roster is going to win, use it everywhere. Figure that out, and you can have my column.
I've tracked roster construction in the big FanDuel events for four weeks now, and we're reaching some level of stasis. Through three weeks, the average No. 1 running back went for 13.2 percent of a team's cap; through four, it's 13.3. With 40 rosters (10 a week), and a fairly set template for expenditures, not much is going to change in those numbers, unless there is some week when a lot of cheap players get bought and explode with production - I'm talking Matt Asiata and Eli Manning this week, but turned up to 11.
So I’m taking a break from that setup for this week at least, and I’m going to look at whether anything does change week to week in how winning rosters are structured.
The following chart shows the week-by-week average salary of each position in the winning rosters through four weeks, in terms of percentage of salary cap used (since the FanDuel salary cap doesn’t change, average salary and percentage will stay fairly unified:
| Position | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 |
| QB | 14.88% | 15.05% | 14.2% | 14.75% |
| RB1 | 13.18% | 12.43% | 13.94% | 13.43% |
| RB2 | 10.685 | 9.36% | 11.18% | 10.18% |
| WR1 | 14.83% | 13.32% | 13.23% | 13.16% |
| WR2 | 10.5% | 12.06% | 11.39% | 10.84% |
| WR3 | 8.68% | 10.2% | 9.51% | 9.58% |
| TE | 10.9% | 11.15% | 9.64% | 11.26% |
| K | 8.16% | 8.11% | 8.39% | 8.44% |
| DEF | 8.19% | 8.14% | 8.52% | 8.36% |
If you don’t want to break that chart down yourself - and I don’t blame you - here’s the takeaway: quarterback first. Top receiver and running back next. A mix for a while. Kicker and defense last. There were some swings at RB2, WR2, WR3 and TE, but nothing drastic.
I’m not rebuilding the Parthenon here. The game itself structures salary similarly - the average of the top 10 at each position (11-20 for RB2 and WR2; 21-30 for WR3) yields basically the same percentage breakdown, with the exception that the game puts a much lower priority on tight end (10.51 percent, seventh among nine positions) than winning rosters tend to (10.73 percent, fifth).
In the long run, you aren't going to beat the system. Some week, sure, you get a feeling about Brian Hoyer ($5,800 this week, well outside of the expected quarterback range) and he goes off, maybe you get lucky. But a long-range strategy of "I'll save at the expensive positions and splurge later" - something like "Three super high-priced receivers, then a middling quarterback" - is a long-range strategy to be broke.
Find a bargain if you can. The occasional Coby Fleener (on one of last week's top 10 rosters, and well below the normal tight end price point) will help you, sure, but in general, you're looking to capitalize on the system in place, not build a new system of your own.
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