I've put together two FanDuel rosters for this week. And the biggest takeaway is that, when there are so many byes, things get funky.
FanDuel: Adjust when the schedule is rough
Between the byes and Thursday, we’re missing a lot of fantasy-relevant guys this weekend. Your weekly roster has to adjust as well.
Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
To start, let’s look at the fantasy- or FanDuel-relevant players on a bye or in the Thursday game this week:
| Quarterbacks | Running backs | Wide receivers | Tight ends |
| Drew Brees Jay Cutler Cam Newton Aaron Rodgers Matt Ryan Matthew Stafford | Joique Bell Reggie Bush Matt Forte Mark Ingram Fred Jackson Steven Jackson Eddie Lacy | Kelvin Benjamin Randall Cobb Marques Colston Brandin Cooks Alshon Jeffery Calvin Johnson Julio Jones Brandon Marshall Jordy Nelson Golden Tate Sammy Watkins Roddy White | Martellus Bennett Jimmy Graham Greg Olsen Delanie Walker |
That's conservative, really; maybe you could make an argument for Bishop Sankey, or Kendall Wright, or, I don't know, Theo Riddick. The point is, there are a lot of guys missing this week.
That means, in FanDuel, you have less room to mess around. When I made my full-weekend team -- players eligible in any Sunday game or the Monday game -- I knew that I wouldn't be able to find as many high-end options, so I saved as much as I could on the cheap positions. Literally, I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the kickers and defenses. For kickers, that meant "Hey, I'm using Greg Zuerlein," as he was alone at the cheapest kicker price point. At defense, I had the choice of the Raiders, Jets and Jaguars. The Jaguars' defense was miserable to start the season, but has performed much better of late, and now gets a Cincinnati team that will be without A.J. Green and Giovani Bernard -- or at least have limited versions thereof.
Literally, you can't save any more than that. I knew I wanted to take shots on Wes Welker and Julius Thomas this weekend -- Welker gets a going-back game at the Patriots, and Thomas is due for a touchdown. I rarely buy into such soft factors, but Peyton Manning (who I also bought) has often made use of them.
Here’s the roster I ended up with:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Peyton Manning | @New England | 10,000 |
| RB | Lamar Miller | San Diego | 7,300 |
| RB | Chris Ivory | @Kansas City | 6,700 |
| WR | Andre Johnson | Philadelphia | 6,900 |
| WR | Wes Welker | @New England | 6,300 |
| WR | Mike Evans | @Cleveland | 6,000 |
| TE | Julius Thomas | @New England | 7,800 |
| K | Greg Zuerlein | @San Francisco | 4,500 |
| DEF | Jacksonville Jaguars | @Cincinnati | 4,500 |
Mike Evans has seen his usage rise. Andre Johnson gets a bad Philadelphia pass defense. Lamar Miller and Chris Ivory are their team’s clear bell-cows. In a normal week, I might not super-love this roster, but in a where-are-all-the-players week, I think it’s strong.
Now, my 50/50 roster. I decided to join a game this week that consisted of only the 1 p.m. games. That meant that, in addition to the guys from earlier on a bye or in Thursday's game, there were no Rams, 49ers, Broncos, Patriots, Raiders, Seahawks, Ravens, Steelers, Colts or Giants. In other words, just for one position, of the top 12 quarterbacks in fantasy scoring per game this season, only Philip Rivers was available. If Tony Romo ends up scratched Sunday, Rivers is the only one of the top fourteen quarterbacks who plays at 1 p.m.
You aren’t going to splurge where you normally might if you play a 1 p.m. FanDuel game. So for my 50/50 roster, I went a little different:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Philip Rivers | @Miami | 8,800 |
| RB | Arian Foster | Philadelphia | 9,400 |
| RB | Jeremy Hill | Jacksonville | 5,200 |
| WR | Keenan Allen | @Miami | 6,700 |
| WR | Dwayne Bowe | NY Jets | 6,200 |
| WR | Mike Evans | @Cleveland | 6,000 |
| TE | Antonio Gates | @Miami | 7,100 |
| K | Nick Novak | @Miami | 4,700 |
| DEF | Cincinnati Bengals | Jacksonville | 5,600 |
For the first time all season, I splurged on a defense, grabbing the Bengals, the week’s top-salaried unit. Against Jacksonville, this is as close to supreme upside as a defense can get. And with Bernard such a question mark, I saved money on Jeremy Hill at running back (with the caveat that I can always edit my roster if the Bernard news changes).
When you end up in a week with so many players gone, your strategy by necessity has to change. If it’s a full league, like my big tournament, it means you have to save even more on the cheap spots. And if you take it a step further, and limit yourself to a pool of players that are even less impressive, maybe it takes you the other way, and you can actually spend on those exact same spots you saved earlier.
I mean, in essence, the answer is “there’s no hard-and-fast rule.” But be aware of your player pool. It can change everything.
See More:
