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FanDuel advice: One last shot at the big money
It’s been a weird year for daily fantasy. But here’s one more chance to make it a successful one.
David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
I had a reader start asking me questions about FanDuel and general DFS the other day on Twitter. The questions were pretty normal. Stuff like, do you like it, how often do you play, any quick tips, that sort of thing.
Like 10 questions in, though, he asked one that stopped me: “How do you do?” It’s a straightforward question, one you’d expect to come up in that line of questioning. The problem is, though, that this season has been rough.
I started playing FanDuel with any sort of regularity in 2013. I held fairly steady in football that year, finishing the season only a bit above where I started. But hey, profit’s profit. Then in the 2014 season, I did very well, cashing out at the end of the year with something like 30 times my starting investment. I’ll take that every season.
(I also play FanDuel baseball, somewhat sparingly. I just think daily fantasy baseball is more of a crapshoot. I have made money far more than I’ve lost, so maybe that’s dumb, but I just don’t find it as fun as football.)
This season, though. The best I can say in answer to the question about 2015 is that I haven’t gone broke. My account only had money deposited into it once, and that money still exists. But between injuries and increased unpredictability in the 2015/16 season, this is the first year I’ve ever played FanDuel that my end-of-season money is below my starting investment. (My money in another DFS provider-that-shan’t-be-named has done fine, so all told I’m not that sad, but the point holds.) I’ve lost money this season.
That is, I’ve lost money so far. There’s one week of FanDuel left, and one more chance for me to at least make a small profit this season.
I don’t consider this impugning my DFS bona fides. It’s been a crazy season. No one wins all the time. (And if I did, I’d probably just do that, rather than write for y’all.) But in a crazy, weird season, I’m taking one last swing in the conference championships. One decent week, and I know how to answer that guy’s question again.
Below, you’ll find my primary roster for the last week of the season. A defense for my selections will follow:
- Every week, I rank the FanDuel options at each position. Then, when filling out my lineup, I check the top guys at each of my position and wonder how close I am to my budget max. This week, I was $300 under! ... Aaaaaand then I realized I hadn't selected a defense yet. Oops. I had to make some adjustments.
- As I mentioned Friday, there are only three running backs I can legitimately envision using this week. The top two are Jonathan Stewart, who I stuck with, and David Johnson. Johnson hasn't rushed for even 40 yards in any of his last three games, and draws Carolina this week, so saving a few bucks by jumping down to my No. 3 running back, C.J. Anderson, worked for me.
- There was never a chance I'd be using any quarterback but Tom Brady or any tight end but Rob Gronkowski this week. They are, to me, head and shoulders ahead of the field, and even if it meant splurging, it was going to happen.
- That brought me to wide receivers. The first switch, going from Michael Floyd to John Brown, was easy. I like Floyd this week, but Brown is $1,000 cheaper and honestly, the Arizona receiving corps is a three-headed monster.
- My final change was a swap from Emmanuel Sanders to Ted Ginn Jr. Frankly, I don't love it. He'll face Patrick Peterson, he had zero yards a week ago. I just don't love the other Carolina options, couldn't afford either Denver receiver, already had two New England pass-catchers. I'll investigate this roster spot again before Sunday's games. My end-of-season results depend on it.
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