Draftkings GPP Tips and Week 1 Picks
Playing Draftkings Football GPP’s is pretty tough. The tournaments only pay out around 20% of entries and are extremely top heavy. That being said, betting on sports is fun and winning money betting on sports is really fun. Hopefully I can help you do just that.
5 Tips for Football GPP’s
- Know where to start your research
There are so many good free tools out there to get a quick base of knowledge for each week. I always start by looking at Vegas lines and totals because as anyone who’s bet on sports knows, they’re smarter than us. From there some of my favorite places to check out with some free info are Football Outsiders, Pro Football Focus, Rotogrinders, and Youtube videos posted by AwesomeO DFS, Pat Mayo, and DFS on Demand.
2. Know what to look for
In football, volume is king. While looking at catch and touchdown totals, we want to look at target, carry, and pass attempt totals to give us a better idea of the opportunities players are getting to have good fantasy games. Additionally, we want to search for players that have had lots of opportunities but not much recent success for good leverage plays. An example of this would be going overweight (having more ownership of a player than field average) on a player who the previous 3 weeks had 15 red zone carries but no touchdowns. The average person just clicking buttons would see that the player doesn’t look like a touchdown threat and would avoid them. However, we see the opportunity is there and that the player has a good chance to regress to a more realistic red zone carry to touchdown ratio. The same goes for receivers getting tons of targets but not many catches and QB’s throwing tons of passes but not getting many touchdowns. Obviously there are other skill and coaching factors to consider with these factors, but this is a good thing to look at to see who really has the best chances to perform.
3. Game Theory
In my March Madness preview I talked about the importance of taking calculated risks to differentiate from the field. This is even more important in DFS, especially large field tournaments. Football can be highly variant with things like injuries and unexpected 3rd string RB 80 yard touchdowns happening at what feels like the most inconvenient times. You want to weigh player projections against potential ownership and find the right combination of chalk plays (highly owned) with sleepers. Historically the vast majority of teams that have won the big tournaments on Draftkings have had a few sub 5% owned players on their teams. If you play a lineup full of just chalk players you are giving up a huge amount of win equity. Additionally fading (not playing) chalk players who have poor performances can immediately eliminate a large amount of the field. One last point to pay attention to with game theory is choosing low owned defenses. Defensive scoring is so highly variant that you rarely want to use the chalkiest defense. Get creative on defense and look to pair your defenses with your running backs, I’ll talk about why later.
4. Building a Core of Players
When multi entering tournaments in DFS, you want to a relatively tight to very tight core of players. This can depend on a combination of risk tolerance and research information week to week. The most simple reason to build a tight core of players is because you want to be well overweight compared to the field on the players you think will do the best. Trying to cover all bases with players might feel safe but it is a losing strategy long term. Having more combinations of the players you think will do well rather than spreading yourself thin on players you might not believe in as much gives you significantly more expected value. In some sports like golf and basketball, I’ll go 100 percent owned on a player some weeks, but with football I don’t recommend doing that just because of injury risks and I’ll play a slightly bigger core to account for the variance in the sport. That being said my highest owned player each week tends to be around 50–60 percent, so trust your research and build a core of a few players at each position to mix and match with.
5. Stacking
Stacking is when you play multiple players from a certain team or game where their successful outcomes will correlate. The most common stack to play in football is a QB and WR stack. For a QB to score well, they’ll have to get a lot of passing yards and touchdowns. That means that at least one of their receivers (or sometimes a pass catching running back) will have to score well too. In tournaments you want to make high risk high reward decisions so playing two players who’s success rates are correlated is logical. An even higher risk version of this is playing a QB with two offensive weapons from the same team. This is something i advocate doing with some teams in massive field GPP’s as it is a way to get leverage on people playing a more chalky QB plus WR stack, and though it is not successful very often it has a huge payoff when it hits. Another stack type to play is a game stack where you play a QB and offensive player or players from one team and then play at least one player from the team they are playing. If a team gets out to a huge lead, they can be prone to simply running the ball or putting their backups in. You want your players to be active the whole game and QB’s stay passing either when they are down or in a relatively close game. This means a QB’s and offenses scoring success is somewhat tied to if the team they are facing can score the ball too. A final stack to consider is an RB and Defense stack. When a team has the lead, they want to run out the clock and thus their RB gets more carries. While it’s not guaranteed that a defense is playing well when their team has the lead, it is more likely that they are playing well than not. Additionally, a team that is down is more likely to be passing more so while on offense your RB is getting more carries than usual, your defense is getting more opportunities for interceptions. Analytics show that these two positions success rates are relatively tied together so this is a way to get another edge over the field.
There are tons of other things to consider for football GPP’s but I think this is a good base of information to start with. Now I’m gonna go over a few of my favorite core plays and GPP plays for the week.
QB:
Core Plays: Drew Brees $6,800, Case Keenum $5,100
Typically I am not a fan of paying up at QB but Brees is in such an amazing spot this week. He has huge home/road splits and it going up against a terrible Bucs defense. I love pairing him with Thomas, Watson, or Kamara or a combo of two of them. Keenum is a great cheap option who is going against a overrated Seahawks defense. The public may still perceive the Seahawks to be a good team which could give us some leverage. In addition he showed great rapport with Sanders in the preseason so I like stacking those two together.
GPP Plays: Andy Dalton $5,800, Jimmy Garoppolo $5,700
Andy Dalton is going against the Colts who were last in the NFL in DVOA (defense adjusted value over average) pass defense. They are also playing in a dome which increases value and against a team that throws a lot too which should stop the clock more often. Jimmy G could be a very sneaky option this week going against a highly regarded Vikings defense. However, the Niners are short on RB talent right now and should be inclined to throw the ball as that is the only way they can keep up with the Vikings. The Niners put up 44 points against the amazing Jags D last year showing they are capable of huge offensive outbursts against good defenses. Earlier I talked about how important volume is in NFL DFS, so even though it’s a tough matchup, the opportunity will be there.
RB:
Core: David Johnson $8,800, Lamar Miller $5,200, Christian Mccaffrey $6,400
There are so many good RB plays this week that it is coming down to ownership leverage for my core. Except for Mccaffrey that is, he’s going to be chalk but I don’t care. In a part time role last year he was nearly top 20 in passing targets out of any position and got a dozen or so carries a game. Now he’s the full time back so I simply can’t pass up how many touches he’s going to get. While I do like Alvin Kamara and Rex Burkhead as chalk plays (and I will still play a good amount of both of them), I prefer pivoting to Johnson and Miller who should get just as many touches as them but at a third of the ownership. They will both be 3 down backs this week and could actually benefit from playing from behind as they are elite pass catchers.
GPP: Peyton Barber $4,100, Melvin Gordon $6,800
Peyton Barber is another great pivot from Burkhead this week as he will also be 3 down back who should get plenty of touches in an up tempo game against the saints. The saints were 23rd DVOA against the run so we can take advantage of the public perception of them being an all around good defense when they truly have a weakness. The Chiefs were last against the run in DVOA last year which should give Melvin Gordon a prime opportunity to explode.
WR:
Core: Antonio Brown $8,600 , AJ Green $7,300, Keelan Cole $3,800
With Leveon Bell being a huge question mark this week, Brown should eat up all the targets this week. Also he’s playing the Browns, so there’s that. Green is going against a terrible Colts secondary and makes for a great stack with Dalton. Cole is simply too cheap for a number 1 receiver and should get tons of targets, even though most of them will probably bad passes from Bortles, but it’s all about opportunity.
GPP: Marquise Goodwin $4,600, John Ross $3,900, Kenny Stills $4,700
Goodwin has Olympic level speed, like he was actually an Olympic long jumper, and can reach value from one play. He should be relatively low owned because he’ll be up against a good corner in Rhodes but I’m willing to take a risk on an explosive player. John Ross is another burner who can reach value from one play and he is very cheap for a starting WR going against a bad defense. I will have tons of Dalton, Green, and/or Ross combos this week. Kenny Stills is another deep threat that should go forgotten this week as people don’t want to play WR’s that are getting passes from Ryan Tannehill. This Titans vs Dolphins game feel very under the radar, and while the Titans offense seems tough to judge, Stills is the clear number 1 this week as Devante Parker is out for Miami. He is also priced in a very weird region where many people won’t look to.
TE:
Core: Jordan Reed $4,000
Alex Smith loves throwing to his tight ends as evidenced by how many targets Travis Kelce got from him last year. While Reed is always an injury risk, he is an explosive player and should play similar to a number 1 receiver for Washington.
GPP: George Kittle $3,300, Ryan Griffin $2,800
I am a big proponent of paying down at tight end and these two players fit that bill as they are near the minimum price but are still starting. Kittle is simply a correlation play with Garoppolo and is a very underrated athletic talent having run a 4.5 40 at the combine. I know he went to Iowa, and Iowa is literally the worst school in the worst state in the country, he’s pretty damn good and very few people know it. Griffin is going against a Patriots team that loves taking away opposing teams number 1 target. With Hopkins likely being double teamed all game, targets should open up for Lamar Miller and Griffin amongst others.
Defense:
Core: Chargers $2,800, Saints $3,600
I always try to be contrarian at defense because of the high variance scoring of the position and while it’s very tempting to play all the Ravens Defense against the Bills, I will be underweight on them simply as a game theory move. My favorite Defense this week is the Chargers going against the Chiefs. They are an elite defense, are quite cheap, and are facing a rookie quarterback playing on the road. These are all recipes for a pick six or two. The saints are pricier but are another elite defense that is playing at home. The Chargers and Saints should be playing with the lead all game so the other team will be passing a lot giving us more opportunities for turnovers
GPP: Broncos $3,300
I love playing defenses against running QB’s as they are prone to more sacks and erratic plays as they try to extend plays they probably shouldn’t. While Russell Wilson is a great QB the rest of the offense is pretty weak and the Broncos have a great pass rush.
Thanks for reading everyone. Remember to build a strong core, stack players, and take risks.