Last season, the Arizona Cardinals were historically bad against tight ends. They allowed 13.1 points per game to opposing tight ends; the Minnesota Vikings were second-worst, at 9.1. In a similar vein, after a decent start to the season, the Chicago Bears' run defense fell off the map. They allowed almost 26 points a game to running backs from Week 4 on. Any running back you started against them basically became a Jamaal Charles-and-a-half.
A quick look at FanDuel fantasy football
We all know the season-long fantasy game. We’ve played it for years. But it’s not the only game out there. Here’s a look at another option.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
In regular fantasy football, this was helpful information. I had Coby Fleener and Jordan Cameron in Week 12, and went with Fleener almost entirely because the Colts played the Cardinals that week, despite the fact that Fleener had 60 points on the season to that point, and Cameron had 94. Fleener scored 11 points in Week 12; Cameron scored three.
So yes, it can help you pick a starter in regular fantasy. But it’s a tiebreaker at best. If I had Cameron -- who was much more highly ranked -- and Fleener was on the waiver wire, I couldn’t have justified the pickup, because it would have left me in rough shape the rest of the season.
Where the information becomes much more helpful, though, is when playing non-standard fantasy football -- namely, FanDuel.
If you aren't familiar, FanDuel is a daily fantasy game. Scoring happens in the same way it does in a full-season game. Roster selection, however, is different. Instead of picking a full-season guy, you can pick a player just for a given week. Jimmy Graham is clearly our top overall tight end, even though Rob Gronkowski performs nearly as well on a per-game basis. It's Gronkowski's injury risk that lowers him. In any given week, if the matchup is right, there's no reason Gronkowski can't be started over Graham, even if everyone's rest-of-season rankings would still have Graham higher.
The caveat is that players have salaries, and you have a salary cap (generally $60,000). With that, you take a full, regular fantasy roster, one like you would normally start. So you can't take Peyton Manning, Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson in a single week. They're too expensive. This is where situations like "Arizona against tight ends" come into play. Single-week sleepers, guys who have a cheap salary but a great matchup, or a cheap salary but the starter got hurt, are gold mines.
As an example, I’m going to pick three different possible rosters from Sunday games. The game I’m using includes all players who play Sunday or Monday, but there are some that use every game of the week, or that use only Sunday early games. There are 50/50 games, in which everyone in the top half of finishers wins, and there are regular ones, where the prizes are top-heavy. But here are three theoretical rosters:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary | Player | Opponent | Salary | Player | Opponent | Salary | ||
| QB | Peyton Manning | IND | 10,200 | Colin Kaepernick | at DAL | 8,500 | Ryan Fitzpatrick | WAS | 6,100 | ||
| RB | Bernard Pierce | CIN | 6,100 | Reggie Bush | NYG | 7,800 | Adrian Peterson | at STL | 9,300 | ||
| RB | Knowshon Moreno | NE | 6,100 | C.J. Spiller | at CHI | 7,600 | Doug Martin | CAR | 8,100 | ||
| WR | Demaryius Thomas | IND | 8,700 | Calvin Johnson | NYG | 9,200 | Michael Crabtree | at DAL | 6,500 | ||
| WR | T.Y. Hilton | at DEN | 6,400 | Emmanuel Sanders | IND | 6,400 | Eric Decker | OAK | 6,400 | ||
| WR | Marques Colston | at ATL | 5,700 | Brandin Cooks | at ATL | 5,700 | Rueben Randle | at DET | 5,500 | ||
| TE | Dennis Pitta | CIN | 6,200 | Ladarius Green | at ARI | 4,500 | Jimmy Graham | at ATL | 8,100 | ||
| K | Stephen Gostkowski | at MIA | 5,400 | Robbie Gould | BUF | 4,700 | Brandon McManus | IND | 5,000 | ||
| DEF | Cleveland | at PIT | 5,100 | Carolina | at TB | 5,500 | NY Jets | OAK | 5,000 |
Roster 1 snapped up Peyton Manning and his top target, Demaryius Thomas. It also gets a single-week starter in Bernard Pierce, and one of the top kickers in Stephen Gostkowski. In return, it took a bunch of mid-level guys. After the quarterback and top receiver, it's not full of stars.
Roster 2 has Calvin Johnson, which is great. It also has Colin Kaepernick going against an awful Dallas defense. Carolina is a top defense, and Emmanuel Sanders could be good, considering Wes Welker’s injury. The rest are unproven guys like Brandin Cooks and Ladarius Green, and two second- or third-tier running backs in Reggie Bush and C.J. Spiller.
Roster 3 starts out with a low-end quarterback -- Ryan Fitzpatrick -- who has a nice matchup against Washington. By saving there, I could get the top tight end, Jimmy Graham, and Adrian Peterson and Doug Martin, two of the top running backs. It also has Michael Crabtree against a bad defense. On the other side, Brandon McManus will likely be the kicker for the high-scoring Broncos, but he's not proven, and Rueben Randle is a low-end receiver as well.
There are pros and cons to each of these rosters. You don’t love Fitzpatrick, or you’re worried about Hilton and Colston, or you don’t trust Green and Cooks. That’s part of the game: taking guys you don’t trust to balance out the ones you trust a lot.
It's a different game than the one we're used to. Is it a better one? Heck, I don't know. I do know that, last season, I had Doug Martin and Ray Rice as my two keepers in my primary league. When both were awful -- and then Rice got hurt -- my season was over. I spent the rest of the year trying whatever I could to get back into contention. I failed. Pretty badly, as it turned out. It was one of the least fun fantasy seasons I've ever had. FanDuel didn't offer that.
With FanDuel, that stress goes away. Yeah, if your quarterback and receiver both go down on the first play of their games, you’re screwed. But you’re screwed for one day, and you can start over a week later.
We’ll be writing on FanDuel over the course of the season. It’s a different sort of game, but one that can be just as relevant as the regular one that we all play. If you want to give it a try, they are currently offering a 100 percent deposit bonus.
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