I crunched the top 100 optimal lineups from each week and combined the data to find these which players were the most optimal from last season. This might help provide some thoughts towards what it would take to produce a GPP winner in 2022 in addition to the common rules.
Fanduel:
Many pages will show you that stacking is helpful, that using up the salary is best, and that a certain ownership is important to leverage the field. This post looks at yet another unique angle when pulling the lineups that rarely get reached. Might come in handy before the milli maker lineups are finalized. What do these charts tell me about Fanduel players to target?
Aside from Cordelle Patterson (RB/WR), Defense is the best position to find value. Paying up is not likely to net that value since the average score is 17 pts.
Dallas had the most optimal plays of everyone last year (kinda surprising)
The ceiling of the quarterback is important. Higher Ceiling plays have (not surprisingly) ended up more optimal, especially at QB.
Draftkings
A lot of the same data story shown on draftkings. Getting into the details,
Dallas defense scored enough to be optimal more times than any other defense (likely due to being priced around 3200 on average)
In draftkings, QB, Rb and WR all seem to hint at having a ceiling close to 30 pts is ideal.
Paying down at TE seems to be best for true optimal lineups. Cheaper TEs seem to end up in the optimal build more often likely because of the upside of a WRs. It also seems much more likely to occur based on some opponents so DVP is likely something to consider at this position.
I filtered the data down to week 1 on both sites to get an idea of viable stack options last year in week 1. It is color coded to show what the stacks were that worked out and which teams were stackable against:
Week 1 2021 optimal results
Last year, Arizona, Detroit, Tampa and Dallas were the best stacks out of the gate. Honorable mention to KC because Hill and Mahommes combined for the most points of any two player combo, with a potential runback of Chubb as well.
Detroit would be the biggest shocker for week 1, as they put it to San Fran out of the gate. Will they be able to do that again? Other players on bad teams who did well to start can be found below based on their salary:
Pairing it up with 2022
WRs (Fanduel Pricing)
When looking at some viable WRs based on last year's productivity, I cant help but call out a couple names on Fanduel. Kadarius Toney and Kendrick Bourne. Two guys who have produced without costing a ton of money. Using PFF's Yards per Route Run stat, I can see that these two are capable of a breakout week even if they weren't priced crazily. Last year's optimal lineup overall had Sterling Shepard in it. Bad teams can produce good fantasy results when the opportunity is high. The same two names stand out the most for Draftkings under a different pricing structure. The key is assuring that they will get the opportunity to run routes.
TEs
As mentioned with last year's optimal success, I believe that TE is very much defense vs position specific. Therefore if we look through the rankings of last year, we can find the worst 10 teams at covering the TEs and hope that at least 7 of them are still bad at it. Of the list, I like Indianapolis the best. Both good and bad QBs love to target TEs -> Matt Ryan is definitely one of the two. Over the years his TEs have eaten well. The only thing of concern is whether or not there is a TE by committee still in place in Indy. I'm also intruiged by TJ Hockenson. Perhaps I will let ownership decide my fate on the two.
One thing for sure about pass catchers is that I will not play a pass catcher if I don't believe the QB is in a good spot. Goff is intruiging enough to try a little bit on Week 1.
Quarterback and Game environment
Site Neutral
Similar to last year, Tampa faces Dallas in what looks to be a high paced passing funnel game. I went looking through the rosters and can see that Tampa is set to throw the ball all over the place similar to last year - with 3 WR1 quality receivers and an overweight Fornette. In fact, Brady has the best QB situation of all teams going into the week and its by a wide margin when looking at it based on last year's data. Of course this also means that Dallas defense will be pretty cheap again...
Defense
Taking a peek at some of the rankings of the offensive lines and defensive lines for 2022, getting a look for perspective at how things are shaping up. Looking for cases where
defense is cheap
defense is lower owned (due to the nature of what you need to happen)
defense has a good pass rush vs a bad pass rush
San Fran has one of the best matchups ahead, against an offense that I dont even understand. I cant imagine SF goes low owned or is cheap, but new orleans might be, vs Atlanta who I think could also be the worst team in the league this season.
There are other cases to be cautious about - such as NYJ vs Baltimore. This is a great gpp candidate BUT a strong pass rush vs a mobile quarterback doesnt usually work out well. If it does though.. who else would be on the Jets with you? (me.)
RBs
Over the years, I've paid close attention to running back performances in DFS. Some very key things I pay attention to when it comes to choosing one for DFS slates:
Usage - I do my own calculation for usage but essentially you dont want to play anyone who isnt touching the ball at least 20 times in a game. Anything short of that is going to require luck and huge plays for a touchdown.
oline vs dline - this is what ultimately creates extra opportunity for the runners. Gotta hold onto the ball and stop the other team from running it up
Number of splits in the backfield - because some teams like Baltimore have way too many players to try and predict which one might get the work or touchdowns
Ownership - I dont remove a player just because hes chalk from this position but i do prefer leverage on good plays when it is available.
Based on last year's stats, the above RBs had the highest usage on a per game basis. With that, I can see that Najae Harris has the value potential off the bat for fanduel pricing. David Montgomery might also be cheap enough to warrant a play vs SF, if you believe the oline-dline matchup is better than previous year's then join me in a gpp leverage opportunity. With Allen Robinson gone, his targets will roll down to someone right?
Main Slate
Projections
When combining last year's stats with this year's rosters, things start shaping out like this for the main slate. Between scores, usage, situation and price, there are pieces we can see pulling in as targetable without guessing far.
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