FanDuel advice: Shoot for the moon, settle for anything good
Winning life-changing money is great. But take out “life-changing” from that first sentence, and it’s still good times.
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Editor’s Note: FanDuel is running a $1,500,000 fantasy football league in Week 4. The top 66,000 teams win cash with $100,000 paid to first place on Sunday. Join now!
I get the same question fairly often from those who know I do fantasy football stuff as much as I do. “Oh, you do FanDuel?” they say. “How much have you won?”
I can’t win, really. If I tell them I’ve made a lot of money, then I’m the jerk who made money the “easy way.” If I tell them I’ve lost a lot, then why the heck am I doing this to begin with?
And if I tell them the truth — that I do pretty well, that I’ve won a little bit of money but break even in the vast majority of weeks — then I’m just boring. Little is worse than boring.
It’s true, though. Most weeks in FanDuel fantasy football, I don’t do much beyond break even. I play a handful of games, lose some, win just enough to offset the losses. And then two or three times over the course of the season, I come down with a win that is actually meaningful.
Last season, I had big wins in two different weeks. It means that, for the season, I ended up octupling my overall money. No, that’s not going to get me in any TV commercials, but it’s the most realistic approach.
You aren’t going to win every week. Even if you follow my guidelines exactly (and you should!), I’ll be wrong. You look to keep your money even or a little above, lying in wait for the week you pick your roster just right.
It’s not that exciting, not that sexy. But it’s the smart approach.
Every week in this space, I run through what I see as some of the good and bad matchups for some interesting players. It’s a starting point for filling out your lineups.
Best of luck. Aim high and accept a break-even. Good luck in Week 4:
Quarterbacks
Good situations
- Two of the three quarterbacks who have gone against the Lions so far this year have thrown the ball 40-plus times. One was Philip Rivers, who had to come from behind. The other was Peyton Manning, who for all intents and purposes has no running game at this point in the season. The quarterback who barely threw against the Lions was Teddy Bridgewater, who (a) has a strong running back and (b) looks just awful so far. Well, Russell Wilson ($8,200) plays the Lions this week, and while he might not need to come from behind, he is unlikely, with Marshawn Lynch banged up, to have a strong running game, and he's definitely better than Bridgewater. Look for a big game.
- Bears defense. That's more or less the argument for Derek Carr ($7,000) this week. Also, he has 20-plus fantasy points in every game he's played this year that he didn't have to leave for injury. I was low on him, and I still think the jury's out long term, but for this week he looks like a great option.
- Oh god. I'm about to recommend Kirk Cousins ($6,100), and it hurts. But for all his flaws, Cousins comes into Week 4 super cheap, and the last time he faced Philadelphia (well, the only time), he threw for 427 yards and three touchdowns against a lone interception. Not having DeSean Jackson hurts, but Cousins has a chance at big production at a super-cheap price.
Bad situations
- I've seen a lot of people trading for Cam Newton ($8,300) over the last week. And hey, he's quieted a lot of the worry in his post-Kelvin Benjamin injury world. But a huge chunk of Newton's production the last couple weeks has been on rushing touchdowns (one each game for the last two), and that's not something you can reasonably bank on to continue. I'm fine with Newton in a season-long league, but in daily, those touchdowns will dry up at some point.
- You know when I want to use Philip Rivers ($7,400)? Week 5, against Pittsburgh, in a Monday night home game. That looks like a great matchup, with Antonio Gates making his 2015 debut. Outside of that, though, Rivers is averaging fewer than 300 yards passing a game and has five touchdowns against four interceptions. It's not been much of a start to his fantasy season.
Running backs
Good situations
- It looks like Drew Brees is going to go Sunday. If he does, there's not a lot of chance he'll be at full strength. If he doesn't ... well, then it'll be Luke McCown, and it's not like that is exactly invigorating. But this is what the Saints geared up for in the postseason. Mark Ingram ($8,100) is there to take the load off of Brees. And heck, the Cowboys gave up a bajillionty-seven fantasy points to the Atlanta running game a week ago, and Ingram is better than anyone on that team.
- I've been touting Karlos Williams ($6,300) all week. Then again, so has everyone. With LeSean McCoy shelved, and Williams priced as though he's still a backup. Sometimes, there are players who will be very popular FanDuel plays because of price and situation. You have two choices: You can invest in the guy like everyone else is doing and keep pace, or you can zig when they zag and try to pop elsewhere. With Williams playing so well and going so cheaply, I think this is a situation where you get in to fit in. (I hate that phrase and now hate myself for using it.)
- I wrote about Lance Dunbar ($5,600) earlier this week in the Week 4 PPR running back rankings, but it bears repeating: Yardage-wise, Dunbar has been fine this season, but not much more. But he's catching passes at a crazy rate (21 so far, good for 13th in the league and tied with Jason Witten for the must by a non-wide receiver). FanDuel is a half-point PPR game. If you assume Dunbar's pass-catching will continue at at least a comparable rate, he's got a head start on most of the rest of the position.
Bad situations
- Granted, the Texans haven't played a murderer's row of running backs so far this season. Doug Martin a week ago has been disappointing again, as has Jonathan Stewart in Week 2. Still, the Texans have allowed only 13.7 fantasy points per game to opposing running backs, including Jamaal Charles in Week 1. Add in that Devonta Freeman ($7,200) got a "he was awesome last week" FanDuel salary bump for his over-his-head Week 3, and I'm not excited about him.
- It looks increasingly like Andre Ellington will play Sunday. That alone would be enough to shy me away from Chris Johnson ($6,700), who had what will probably be his best game as a Cardinal in Week 3. His stock will fall.
Wide receivers
Good situations
- The Bills have allowed more fantasy points to opposing wide receivers than any team but the Chiefs and Ravens. Admittedly, a lot of that has come from junk-time production by the Colts and Dolphins when those games were out of reach, but that still bodes well for Odell Beckham Jr. ($9,100), because there's no real reason to think the Giants can keep pace with Buffalo. Beckham could get all sorts of garbage-time looks.
- So Rueben Randle was terrible in Weeks 1 and 2, then he got to play Washington in Week 3 and had a huge game. Not really a coincidence there, and it could mean big things for Jordan Matthews ($7,000) in Week 4. Washington is good against the run. It really, really isn't good against the pass.
- At some point, if this whole James Jones thing continues, I'll have to start reconsidering my position. But for now, this is a dude with four touchdowns on 12 catches, on 15 targets. That rate can't realistically keep up (even in his big 2012, Jones caught a touchdown on one of every 4.6 catches, and that was crazy high. If you assume regression out of Jones, and an unhealthy-if-he-plays Davante Adams, the Packers will be looking to Ty Montgomery ($4,700) Sunday. It's no great thing, but he's crazy cheap, with higher touchdown potential than most at his price range.
Bad situations
- I said in my Periscope chat Thursday (come watch them! I give advice and say interesting things and sip on Gatorade!) that I thought my co-rankers were going overboard in their hate on Calvin Johnson ($8,100) for Week 4, that having him outside the top 10 even on the road against Seattle was a bridge I wasn't willing to cross. And I stand by that; if you have Johnson in basically any size season-long league. Daily, though, is a different beast, and while I still think Johnson should be ranked higher, he's not without risk. I'd avoid.
- So Andrew Luck is questionable for Sunday. As a Colts fan, I have a lot of bad words to say about that. Matt Hasselbeck seems like a cool dude, but lord is he not exactly Andrew Luck. Meanwhile, T.Y. Hilton ($7,600) has seen some of his targets go to Donte Moncrief. An inferior quarterback or, best-case scenario, an injured star, plus targets going down, equals a Hilton avoidance.
Tight ends
Good situations
- Either Jimmy Clausen or a just-back-from-injury Jay Cutler will start for the fire-sale Bears this week, and that's horrifying. The flip side, though, is that the Bears play the Raiders. The Raiders have given up five touchdowns to tight ends who have a total of one touchdown against everyone else through three weeks. Heck, the Raiders made Gary Barnidge look good. At some point, that team will figure out how to stop a tight end, but Martellus Bennett ($5,500) is already a good player. He's definitely not Gary Barnidge.
- I loved the potential of Owen Daniels ($4,600) being paired with Peyton Manning in the preseason, investing in him in several leagues. That didn't work out so well through Weeks 1 and 2, as Daniels had five catches for 24 yards in the two games combined. But in Week 3, Daniels had a touchdown. It was only with 28 yards, sure, but he's seen his targets go from two to five to nine in three weeks. He's becoming more a part of that offense as Peyton Manning has looked better and better. He'll continue to get better, too.
Bad situation
- Are we sure Tyler Eifert ($5,700) is special? Take out his Week 1 against Oakland (and you just saw my Gary Barnidge diatribe), and Eifert has four catches for 49 yards and a score in two games. And heck, all of those numbers came in Week 2; he had no catches on three targets against Baltimore. Yes, he had what was probably a touchdown called back on review, but still, if you take out that Oakland game, he's been no great shakes. I think he'll be fine long run, but let's see a big game against not-the-Raiders before he gets back into the daily rotation.
Defense/special teams
Good situations
- Remember when we thought the Miami offense would be good? Well, through three weeks, Jarvis Landry and Rishard Matthews have each reached double-digit fantasy points twice apiece; no one else (Ryan Tannehill excepted) has done so even once. Lamar Miller and Jordan Cameron have disappointed; the team's mess of secondary receivers have yet to see much. The New York Jets' defense ($4,700) has been good against better offenses than Miami's.
- Remember earlier, when I mentioned that Matt Hasselbeck might be a starting quarterback in 2015? That bodes well for the Jacksonville defense ($4,000).
Bad situation
- The Kansas City defense ($4,300) still has name value, and it's been at least adequate twice in three weeks. But, while I have my reservations about the Cincinnati offense long-term, that team has made three defenses look bad in three weeks. The Chiefs might be adequate on D, but there are better options out there.
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