FanDuel: Should you pair a QB and his target?
It’s a real hit-or-miss proposition when you only have those guys for a week. If their team gets shut out, you’ve just wasted your investment. So is it worth it?
Matthew Stockman
In my main league, my buddy Nate (also the commissioner and my boss, so I have to be nice to him) had Philip Rivers and Keenan Allen, and he was mad about it. Most fantasy players I talk to love to combine a quarterback and wide receiver in a good offense; you get double credit whenever they work together.
Nate, though, saw it from the opposite side: You can win when your quarterback has a bad game, or when your wide receiver does. But if those two are teammates, and that team just gets shut down? You’re screwed.
So Nate made a trade. He packaged those two and Montee Ball for Randall Cobb and Jamaal Charles before last week's games. Obviously, considering Charles' injury, that didn't work out, but he just liked his team more after the trade, and that counts for a lot.
FanDuel players are faced with a similar conundrum. If you go all in on, say, the Bears, and you grab Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall, it's basically an all-or-nothing proposition. If the Bears get shut down, you can write off your investment that week. But if they combine like they did Sunday night? You get double credit, and so long as the rest of your roster doesn't go in the toilet, you're probably set.
But then there's the third option of not pairing teammates. Take Jay Cutler, but put, I don't know, Antonio Brown in at receiver. It's less reward, but much less risk as well.
So what is the best strategy? Once again, this week I ran through the top 10 teams in the FanDuel freeroll, which is a huge tournament, meaning the people who finish in the top 10 had great weeks instead of just pretty good ones.
Most-used players and price points
In Week 1, Matthews Stafford and Calvin Johnson, Nick Foles and Jeremy Maclin, and Peyton Manning and Julius Thomas were all common choices among the top finishers, but only Stafford and Johnson were that popular.
In Week 2, though. Well, let’s just say it was easy to track:
- Aaron Rodgers was on nine of the top 10 rosters. Jordy Nelson? He was on all 10 of them. Heck, Randall Cobb was on five.
- The one team that didn't have Rodgers had Nick Foles, and not-so-coincidentally, also had ... Darren Sproles.
So we’re two weeks into the season, and both weeks, the top FanDuel teams made a point to pair teammates who could connect on a passing touchdown (which, yes, Sproles is a running back, but c’mon).
Now, this ignores the hundreds upon hundreds of rosters who paired Andy Dalton and A.J. Green, or Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, or heck, Stafford and Johnson again.
Basically, when you’re swinging for the fences in FanDuel, playing the big tournaments that require huge production, it’s pretty clear that you need to pair teammates like that. It means you could strike out (Dalton and Green) of course, but splitting the difference and avoiding teammates seems like a great way to finish in the middle of the pack, and out of the money.
Below is a look at the average salaries paid for each position through two weeks. The chart breaks it down by position on the left, and in descending order of salary on the right:
| Positon | Average salary | Percent of cap | Position | Average salary | Percent of cap | |
| QB | 8970 | 15% | QB | 8970 | 15% | |
| RB1 | 7675 | 12.8% | WR1 | 8435 | 14.1% | |
| RB2 | 6005 | 10% | RB1 | 7675 | 12.8% | |
| WR1 | 8435 | 14.1% | WR2 | 6760 | 11.3% | |
| WR2 | 6760 | 11.3% | TE | 6600 | 11% | |
| WR3 | 5655 | 9.5% | RB2 | 6005 | 10% | |
| TE | 6600 | 11% | WR3 | 5655 | 9.5% | |
| K | 4875 | 8.1% | DEF | 4895 | 8.2% | |
| DEF | 4895 | 8.2% | K | 4875 | 8.1% |
(An interesting note from Week 2 is that, of the top 10 finishers, only four used their full $60,000 cap -- you don’t have to spend every penny if you have a cheaper team you like more.)
If you’re going to follow that template for Week 3 - and if you’re going to try to pair teammates - this is a look at a sample lineup for this week.
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Matthew Stafford | Green Bay | 9000 |
| RB | Frank Gore | @Arizona | 7700 |
| RB | Darren Sproles | Washington | 6000 |
| WR | Calvin Johnson | Green Bay | 9000 |
| WR | Reggie Wayne | @Jacksonville | 6800 |
| WR | Marques Colston | Minnesota | 5600 |
| TE | Jordan Cameron | Baltimore | 6200 |
| K | Nick Folk | Chicago | 4900 |
| DEF | St. Louis Rams | Dallas | 4800 |
In a 50/50 game, where all you need to do is finish in the top half of entrants, you can grab nine players from nine teams. But if you’re swinging for the fences, you gotta pick a duo you think will combine for a touchdown. Maybe two.
Oh, and I picked the wrong one. I had Peyton Manning and Demaryius Thomas in my big tournament, and that was a loser. My 50/50 team, though, won. Wooooo, money.
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