Astute readers will recall how much I loved my FanDuel roster from a week ago, going so far as to choose the same roster for both of my entries, which I am normally loathe to do.
FanDuel: Zig when they zag, and don’t get cocky
Most of the week’s winners found a special value at tight end. As for me, I decided I had the perfect roster, and I lost.
Alex Goodlett
Astute students will remember the definition of the term “hubris.”
It’s not that my team for the week was bad. With two small exceptions (I’ll get to those in a moment), every member of my roster scored at least 9.5 points in the FanDuel scoring. If you can get a group of guys to all put up respectable numbers, you’ll be in good shape ... as long as a guy or two goes off.
That was where I struck out last week. Yeah, seven of my nine selections scored at least 9.5. But other than my quarterback, no one on my roster did better than 13.2, and even my quarterback only put up 19.52. And then there were those two total drags, LeSean McCoy and the Houston D/ST. The less said about them, the better, besides this: Dagnabbit.
I don’t include all this information to whine. Okay, not only to whine. But I’m making a point here. It’s not enough -- even in a 50/50 league, where I did better relative to the field but still fell just short of the money -- to just avoid zeroes. Someone needs to buoy the roster, and no one did it for me.
If you could guarantee every player on your FanDuel roster would put up 10 points, 15 for the quarterback, you might think that’s a strong team. Heck, I wouldn’t mind it. Yet that is 95 points. Fiftieth place in my weekend 50/50 - otherwise known as the last spot that turned a profit - put up 95.94 points. You need a bellcow.
Most-used players and price points
So, roster construction. Every week I've been breaking down the top 10 rosters in the deepest FanDuel leagues, the players who did the absolute best. And some themes have developed. You ever read Moneyball? It's all about the market inefficiency. This week, the main takeaway was Martellus Bennett ($6,000). In a week where no other tight end put up more than 12 fantasy points (in standard scoring), and only one other put up more than 10, Bennett's two touchdowns carried him to 17 points. A difference-maker like that in FanDuel can make a week, which is why Bennett was owned on seven of the top 10 rosters in the deep tournament.
The other heavy-owned success stories were Jeremy Maclin ($6,300, eight of 10), DeMarco Murray ($8,700, six) and Andrew Luck ($9,500, five). In other words, that's a top-flight receiver whose salary hasn't made the leap yet; the best running back in the game through three weeks (and it's not very close); and a good quarterback against *snicker* the Jacksonville Jaguars. There was one roster in the top 10 that actually have all four of those top finishers, and if that person hadn't settled on Shane Vereen and the New England Patriots' defense, they might have finished higher than fifth.
So let’s take a look at the average salaries paid for each position through three weeks. The chart breaks it down by position on the left, and in descending order of salary on the right:
| Position | Average salary | Percent of cap | Position | Average salary | Percent of cap | |
| QB | 8817 | 14.7% | QB | 8817 | 14.7% | |
| RB1 | 7903 | 13.2% | WR1 | 8267 | 13.8% | |
| RB2 | 6237 | 10.4% | RB1 | 7903 | 13.2% | |
| WR1 | 8267 | 13.8% | WR2 | 6783 | 11.3% | |
| WR2 | 6783 | 11.3% | TE | 6327 | 10.6% | |
| WR3 | 5670 | 9.5% | RB2 | 6237 | 10.4% | |
| TE | 6327 | 10.6% | WR3 | 5670 | 9.5% | |
| K | 4927 | 8.2% | DEF | 4967 | 8.3% | |
| DEF | 4967 | 8.3% | K | 4927 | 8.2% |
And again, let’s look at a sample roster for this week’s games, using that basic structure:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Matt Ryan | @Minnesota | 8700 |
| RB | Eddie Lacy | @Chicago | 8000 |
| RB | Darren Sproles | @San Francisco | 6200 |
| WR | Randall Cobb | @Chicago | 8100 |
| WR | Vincent Jackson | @Pittsburgh | 6800 |
| WR | Kendall Wright | @Indianapolis | 5700 |
| TE | Vernon Davis | Philadelphia | 6200 |
| K | Mason Crosby | @Chicago | 5000 |
| DEF | Buffalo Bills | @Houston | 5100 |
I don’t include the sample roster there to give you a recommendation of a specific roster to use; I probably wouldn’t go with on-the-road Ryan or hasn’t-done-much Jackson or Wright or recovering-from-injury Davis this week. But abstract salaries are, I think, less helpful than the type of players those salaries translate to.
It's been a rough go for my FanDuel entries so far, with only one payout on the six entries I've tracked here. But heck, it lines up with my primary season-long fantasy team, where I'm 0-3. Give me a break, I drafted Adrian Peterson, Doug Martin, Dennis Pitta and Danny Woodhead.
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