If you recall,
FanDuel: YOU get a roster, and YOU get a roster, and YOU ...
The more rosters you enter, the more rosters that could win. The more that could lose, too, but that point is depressing.
John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports
No, I’m starting over.
If you even read what I write (there, just rooting for clicks; you ain't gotta recall nothin'), last week I talked about the FanDuel strategy of entering the same tournament multiple times. I entered a single $2 tournament five times (for a total investment of $10), ultimately getting back $14 for a small profit.
That got me curious. Say you set your budget at $10 for a week, which is basically what I’ve done for these weekly pieces (I’m not beholden to it, but a budget is always nice). For a while, I entered two $5 events -- a regular, big-payout tournament, and a 50/50. In general, that worked for me. I pulled out $200 in one tournament, a few bucks in another, and I generally succeeded in enough 50/50s that my head was well above water.
Then I tried entering five $2 tournaments. Like I said, small profit. But as I detailed a week ago, putting out a handful of tournament investments might limit your top end, but it seriously limits the floor -- only one of my five rosters last week finished in the money, and I still profited.
So could I do it with 10 tournaments? Enter a $1 tournament 10 times and see what happens.
It should. It takes a special combination of players to nail one that will pay out big money. And the more times you try that, the better chance you’ll stumble across that particular arrangement of players.
Here’s the thing. Last week, the roster I had that finished in the money (but not quite high enough to turn out big bucks) was really good. Aaron Rodgers, Justin Forsett, Jordy Nelson, Julius Thomas. In essence, I nailed it. But then Charles Sims hurt me. Ultimately, that one probably didn’t matter, as Sims was my “save on this roster spot to spend big elsewhere” play. But I also had the Seattle defense, and while they did fine (seven points), I could have done better. Had I entered that exact roster with a different defense, maybe I clear a grand last weekend instead of $14.
So this week, I entered a $1 tournament 10 times. But what I did was pick out five different rosters first, then go back and tweak each of those rosters a bit.
In theory, you could do this a couple hundred times. I’m not smart enough to figure out where the risk outweighs the reward, where putting out $200 but getting back $204 is not worth it, whatever. But I do know the ability to enter multiple times is a really fun and interesting FanDuel wrinkle that’s just not available in any other fantasy game.
On to my rosters, with just a few words on each:
| Position | Player | Player |
| QB | Matthew Stafford | Matthew Stafford |
| RB | Ahmad Bradshaw | Steven Jackson |
| RB | Alfred Blue | Alfred Blue |
| WR | Calvin Johnson | Calvin Johnson |
| WR | Odell Beckham Jr. | Odell Beckham Jr. |
| WR | Greg Jennings | Larry Fitzgerald |
| TE | Travis Kelce | Travis Kelce |
| K | Cairo Santos | Cairo Santos |
| DEF | Philadelphia Eagles | Philadelphia Eagles |
- You'll notice the running theme of pairing a quarterback with one of his pass-catchers, a tactic I detailed early in the year. Hit on the right pair/group, and you can clean up. This time, it's Matthew Stafford/Calvin Johnson.
- I'll talk about this in Saturday's piece, but I am in love with Travis Kelce's value this week. With Anthony Fasano banged up and the Seahawks' tendency to let tight ends score, Kelce is one of my favorite plays of the week.
- Alfred Blue is in there with the thinking that Arian Foster might be out this week. Come Sunday, if Foster is active, that will be edited. I've talked about this before too.
| Position | Player | Player |
| QB | Tom Brady | Tom Brady |
| RB | Joique Bell | Alfred Morris |
| RB | Jerick McKinnon | Jerick McKinnon |
| WR | Demaryius Thomas | A.J. Green |
| WR | Keenan Allen | Keenan Allen |
| WR | Jordan Matthews | Jordan Matthews |
| TE | Rob Gronkowski | Rob Gronkowski |
| K | Blair Walsh | Blair Walsh |
| DEF | Minnesota Vikings | Minnesota Vikings |
- Pairing this time: Tom Brady/Rob Gronkowski. I generally try to save a few bucks on tight end, so splurging on Gronkowski was a luxury I don't normally afford myself.
- I guess I'm higher on Jerick McKinnon than the FanDuel price-setters, because I don't understand why he's still priced so low. Are we really thinking Matt Asiata is going to keep vulturing touchdowns at that rate?
- I liked adding Demaryius Thomas to the Brady/Gronkowski duo, but saving a few bucks by downgrading to A.J. Green in the edited roster let me upgrade from the dicey Joique Bell to the theoretically safer Alfred Morris.
| Position | Player | Player |
| QB | Mark Sanchez | Mark Sanchez |
| RB | LeSean McCoy | LeSean McCoy |
| RB | Alfred Morris | Jeremy Hill |
| WR | Jeremy Maclin | Jeremy Maclin |
| WR | DeAndre Hopkins | DeAndre Hopkins |
| WR | Kelvin Benjamin | Kelvin Benjamin |
| TE | Larry Donnell | Travis Kelce |
| K | Shayne Graham | Shayne Graham |
| DEF | Seattle Seahawks | Seattle Seahawks |
- Stickin' with the Sanchize. Pairing Mark Sanchez with LeSean McCoy and Jeremy Maclin is doubling down on the Eagles, but I believe in that offense, even in the struggling-of-late running back.
- I went back to the Travis Kelce and Alfred Morris well on a couple of these rosters. When you have a player you like, there's nothing wrong mixing them in multiple times.
- I don't talk much about kickers. I always scroll to the bottom of the kicker lists and find someone there. Because I don't know who will score well in any given week, and neither do you.
| Positon | Player | Player |
| QB | Andrew Luck | Andrew Luck |
| RB | Le'Veon Bell | Le'Veon Bell |
| RB | Tre Mason | Tre Mason |
| WR | T.Y. Hilton | T.Y. Hilton |
| WR | Vincent Jackson | Kelvin Benjamin |
| WR | Kenny Stills | Cordarrelle Patterson |
| TE | Jordan Reed | Coby Fleener |
| K | Nick Novak | Nick Novak |
| DEF | Cleveland Browns | Cleveland Browns |
- Pairing this time: Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton, and I added Coby Fleener in one of the rosters for good measure.
- Tre Mason is one hell of a wild card, considering the Rams' sporadic usage of him, but he's $5,300, so grabbing him let me also add Le'Veon Bell to that Colts' duo, making for a strong 1-2-3.
| Position | Player | Player |
| QB | Shaun Hill | Shaun Hill |
| RB | Matt Forte | Matt Forte |
| RB | Eddie Lacy | Eddie Lacy |
| WR | Emmanuel Sanders | Emmanuel Sanders |
| WR | Reggie Wayne | Roddy White |
| WR | Anquan Boldin | Marques Colston |
| TE | Jared Cook | Jared Cook |
| K | Billy Cundiff | Stephen Gostkowski |
| DEF | Houston Texans | Houston Texans |
- Okay, maybe investing in Shaun Hill is silly. But (a) I called this move by St. Louis early in the week, so I wanted to call attention to it again; (b) I can pair him with Jared Cook; and (c) at $5,000 for Hill and $5,400 for Cook, I saved a boatload there. Against Denver, who knows, maybe they can go for quantity-over-quality.
- Matt Forte, Eddie Lacy and Emmanuel Sanders on one roster? Good times.
- Here is one of the few times I'll invest heavily in a kicker. When I went to modify this roster for its second entry, I could save a few bucks in a few places, but I couldn't find an obvious upgrade that I liked anywhere but kicker, so I went with the scores-all-the-time Stephen Gostkowski.
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