All season long, in this space, I have tracked the roster construction of the most successful FanDuel rosters. Patterns start to emerge, and each week there are some guys who are widely owned.
FanDuel: One Hill to rule them all, one Hill to bind them
Sure, my headline gives away a bit of the surprise of my first few paragraphs, but come on, that’s an amazing headline.
John Grieshop
Well, in Week 9 we finally did it. There was a player who was owned on all of the top 10 rosters. I’ve had several guys on nine teams, but this is the first time all season one guy was owned across the board. And that wasn’t even where it stopped -- this player was on all of the top twenty-eight rosters in my 68,965-entry tournament.
He shouldn't be that difficult to figure out. It has to be someone who had a monster game last week. So let's call it one of the players in my regular Best of the Week column. It has to be someone on the affordable side, because inevitably someone like Rob Gronkowski, even when he is great, just doesn't fit into the budgets of all the rosters. And it has to have been someone who, despite being cheap, was obvious, because there's little way for a bunch of guys to find the same *subtle* bargain. So, someone who became the starter late in the week, after the prices were set.
Hill, with 154 rushing yards, two touchdowns and a $5,200 price tag in last week's game, was the roster-maker. And he wasn't alone -- Antonio Brown was on nine of the top 10 rosters. Jeremy Maclin was on seven. Ben Roethlisberger and Travis Kelce were on six.
As a result, the No. 2 running back on the top rosters took up the smallest chunk of the overall salary cap that it has all season. Those savings, as far as I can tell, went to the receivers. All three wide receiver positions were richer this week than they had been all year, which explains how Brown and Maclin could fit on so many teams.
I, too, dived on Hill in my rosters. Thursday, when I wrote my week's roster breakdown, I didn't have him in my big tournament, but Thursday, it looked like Giovani Bernard would be playing. As I've mentioned in the past, you need to be ready to change your lineup on the weekend, which is why I don't advocate joining games that include Thursday night.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done this, so it’s time for another look at the average roster. First, a look at the average salary across all nine positions across all nine weeks. The first group is them ordered by position; the second is ordered by salary, highest to lowest:
| Position | Average salary | Percent of cap | Position | Average salary | Percent of cap | |
| QB | 8460 | 14.1% | QB | 8460 | 14.1% | |
| RB1 | 8187 | 13.7% | WR1 | 8276 | 13.8% | |
| RB2 | 6329 | 10.6% | RB1 | 8187 | 13.7% | |
| WR1 | 8276 | 13.8% | WR2 | 6687 | 11.2% | |
| WR2 | 6687 | 11.2% | TE | 6399 | 10.7% | |
| WR3 | 5683 | 9.5% | RB2 | 6329 | 10.6% | |
| TE | 6399 | 10.7% | WR3 | 5683 | 9.5% | |
| K | 4902 | 8.2% | DEF | 4940 | 8.2% | |
| DEF | 4940 | 8.2% | K | 4902 | 8.2% |
And using that, a sample roster from Week 10, using that basic template:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Matthew Stafford | Miami | 8500 |
| RB | Andre Ellington | St. Louis | 8100 |
| RB | Chris Ivory | Pittsburgh | 6300 |
| WR | Dez Bryant | @Oakland | 8400 |
| WR | Percy Harvin | Pittsburgh | 6600 |
| WR | Jordan Matthews | Carolina | 5700 |
| TE | Martellus Bennett | @Green Bay | 6500 |
| K | Phil Dawson | @New Orleans | 4900 |
| DEF | Detroit Lions | Miami | 5000 |
I don’t expect anyone to use that particular roster this weekend. I mean, I guess you could, and it’d be neat as all hell if it ended up being successful.
No, what you ought to do is keep an eye on changes as the weekend goes on. Maybe the Dolphins have to scratch Lamar Miller late in the week, and Damien Williams ($4,600) or Daniel Thomas ($4,800) becomes a nice play. Maybe the Buccaneers name Charles Sims ($4,800) the starter.
Heck, maybe you want to play in a starts-on-Thursday game and use Jeremy Hill again. Unfortunately for you, the word is out now. He was $5,200 a week ago. Now he’s $6,900.
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