A week ago, there were three popular “up and coming” running backs, and two wide receivers, in fantasy football. As I mentioned last week, guys who find themselves suddenly in increased roles make for great weekly fantasy plays in FanDuel. With that in mind, I entered my weekly FanDuel roster check curious about the usage of those big names.
FanDuel: The ‘smart’ investment might not be the ‘right’ investment
If you picked the wrong bargain player last week, just shrug it off and try again. These things happen.
Rich Schultz
First, the players in question. The running backs were Ronnie Hillman, Branden Oliver and Andre Williams. The wide receivers were Mohamed Sanu and Golden Tate. All five had at least one of the players in front of them go down with injury, drastically increasing their role for Week 6. And as I noted, roles often skyrocket before FanDuel salaries do.
So how were they used? This chart shows the Week 6 ownership percentage of each of the five players, as well as their standard fantasy score for the week:
| Player | Salary | Ownership | Standard Score |
| Ronnie Hillman | 5,900 | 4.1% | 11 |
| Branden Oliver | 6,200 | 39.8% | 18 |
| Andre Williams | 6,300 | 22.1% | 5 |
| Golden Tate | 6,400 | 37.5% | 4 |
| Mohamed Sanu | 6,000 | 20% | 18 |
Okay, so not a lot of people bought in on Hillman. That makes sense, with the specters of C.J. Anderson and Juwan Thompson looming behind him -- Oliver and Williams had no such worries. Oliver, getting to face Oakland, was the popular choice. But look at those salaries. If you're spending $60,000 on nine players/units, getting one of them for about 10 percent of the total means you have more to spend elsewhere, especially when you factor in that the average salary of a kicker/defense is much lower.
Regardless, four of the five were popular choices. And how did that relate to FanDuel success?
Each week, I look at the top 10 rosters in one of the super-deep leagues, seeing how the most successful FanDuel players do it. Well, among the top 10 rosters this week, Oliver and Sanu were represented eight times.
I would venture that, if I were to go to the bottom 10 rosters -- at least, the bottom 10 once you eliminate the "why the heck are you spending money on this?" guys like the last-place finisher, who had Tajh Boyd, Tommy Bohanon, John Conner, Paul Richardson, Cody Latimer and Jalen Saunders on his roster -- you'd find Tate and Williams owned in similar fashions. My roster -- which, yes, had both of those poor two -- finished well inside the bottom 10 percent.
As I said last week (and, you know, a couple paragraphs ago), a big key to FanDuel is finding that player whose role increases before his salary. But it’s also about finding the right one. I mean, yeah, that’s obvious. But if you were like me this week, if you invested in those ones that didn’t work out, that’s not a sign that the system failed you. It’s just a sign that you made the wrong investment. It happens. The only thing to do is get back on that horse.
See More:
