DFS Payline Analysis: NFL Week 10 Review

With Week 10 now in the books, we’ve blown past the halfway point of the NFL season for daily fantasy purposes, which is hard to believe! For the third straight week we saw the top scores and paylines rise in most tournaments on FanDuel and Draft Kings, and in some cases scores from this week topped scores from the very formidable scores from Week 7.

When comparing this week’s data with last weeks, the top scorer in FanDuel tournaments scored ten percent more points on average than they did last week, and the payline was seven percent higher as well. On Draft Kings, the top scorer put up six percent more points than last week on average, and the payline was 13 percent higher, which is worth paying attention to.

Unlike previous weeks, if you wanted to win the top prize in a tournament this week you were able to do so a number of different ways due to the fact that there were a large number of players that had fantastic weeks. There was no single prevailing roster construction that you needed to have this week, which made Week 10 one of the most enjoyable weeks for daily fantasy this season.

Not all weeks will be like Week 10, where nine games ended up having a total score of more than 43 points, but it is refreshing to have a week where truly anyone had a shot at winning.

FanDuel

Per usual, we lead off with the FanDuel portion of yesterday’s slate. In the lower buy-in portion of the slate, which includes the $2 Snap and the $5 Sling TV Rush, the winning lineups had very little in terms of overlapping selections. Both winners used the Bucs defense and Ezekiel Elliott but outside of that they didn’t share a single selected player. User easton1021 was able to win $25,000 with a lineup that consisted of moderately-owned options such as Ben Roethlisberger, Ezekiel Elliott, and Jordan Matthews. Easton1021 was able to distance themselves from the field by hitting big on Doug Baldwin, Stefon Diggs, and Martellus Bennett, who each had less than ten percent ownership.  User jpb2911 was able to take home $100,000 by going completely off the radar and selecting five players that had less than five percent ownership. The results in the lower buy-in selection of FanDuel this week serve to remind us how important it is to find low-owner players with high upside as both of these tournaments were won in such a way.

Moving onto the medium buy-in portion of the slate, which includes the $12 NFL Kickoff and the $25 Sunday Million, user soonerlarr20 was able to win $50,000 by fielding a lineup in which six out of his seven position players played in games where the total points scored was over 59. In the Sunday Million, user vincent1976 was able to win $200,000 with a lineup that consisted of a two-man Seahawks stack with Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin, who both had less than 3.5 percent ownership.

In the high buy-in portion, user gotj dominated by getting first place in the $100 Blitz and the $1,000 Gunslinger while also coming in second in the $300 Monster for a total of $150,000. Their lineup consisted of a three-man Steelers stack which included Roethlisberger, Bell, and Brown, which makes this the second week in a row that someone has won a major tournament stacking a quarterback, running back, and wide receiver from the same team. Gotj also had Ezekiel Elliott and Stefon Diggs who both had less than 7.5 percent ownership and the two of them combined for a whopping 62.8 points.

Payline scores rose seven percent across the FanDuel GPP slate this week, which is slightly less than the nine percent increase we saw last week. In the lower and medium buy-in tournaments you needed to break 136 in order to cash, which was tricky but manageable to pull off. For the highest buy-in tournaments the line to cash was over 139, with the toughest tournament to cash this week being the $300 Monster which you needed over 142 to make money.

GPP

Draft Kings

On Draft Kings this week, the site offered a different slate of games, due to it being the midway point of the DFS football season. In the lower buy-in offerings on the site, which includes the $3 Play Action, $4 Mini Midseason Celebration, and $9 Slant, it took between 236-243 points in order to come away with the top prize. User rikkidee was able to win $10,000 in the afternoon only version of the Play Action tournament by loading up with a QB-RB-WR Steelers stack and they also had significant points from Ezekiel Elliott, Tyrell Williams, Jeremy Kerley, and Michael Floyd. In the Midseason Celebration and the Slant, which included all of Sunday’s games, the winning teams both had similar roster constructions as they utilized Marcus Mariota, Darren Sproles, Doug Baldwin, Stefon Diggs, and Delanie Walker.

For the medium buy-in tournaments, we’ll examine the $20 3-Max Midseason Celebration and the $44 Medium Midseason Celebration. In the 3-Max tournament user Kopy24 was able to put up a 228.12 point total, which is excellent for a tournament in which you can only play three entries. Similarly to rikkidee, they utilized a three-man Steelers stack and then hit big on Ezekiel Elliott and Cameron Brate. Six of the players utilized by Kopy24 had more than 10 percent ownership, which is to be expected in a tournament where you can only enter a few times. In the Medium Midseason Celebration, user jeffk1717 was able to win by scoring 236.92 points while utilizing five players who had less than ten percent ownership which includes Tyreek Hill, Eli Rogers, Delanie Walker, and Kyle Rudolph. It’s interesting to note that they used a tight end in the flex spot, which sometimes daily fantasy players are rightfully apprehensive to do.

Draft Kings had a special offering specifically for this week, the Main Event Millionaire, which was a $444 buy-in with the winner taking home $1,000,000. The tournament was unbelievably close with user zbb123 edging out SaahilSud by just two tenths of a point. Both teams used Mariota, Brown, and Delanie Walker, but zbb123 was able to win despite playing J.J. Nelson who netted just 3.9 points.

As far as the payline comparison goes for the Draft Kings slate this week, both the Play Action and the Slant saw an increase in the payline as it took more than ten percent more points to cash than it did last week. This can be contributed to the sheer number of games that had very high point totals, and I’d expect the payline to go down a bit in Week 11 on Draft Kings.

Shifting gears quickly, we’ll take a look at the Double Up Midseason Celebration, which was a cash game that cost $15 and had 45078 entries. When compared to last week’s $25 Double Up, the payline rose slightly from 141.98 to 146.7. Users that implemented a strategy with multiple chalky plays generally finished towards the middle of the field. The last person to cash, which was a user named FantasyCannibal, had a lineup which featured eight players who had more than thirty percent ownership with David Johnson, Alshon Jeffery, and Melvin Gordon all netting over 53.4 percent. When using so many chalky options you really need to hit on those players that you do use who see less ownership because those plays are the ones that will differentiate yourself from the field.

GPP

Cash Games 

In Review

Last week I recommended playing in the $5 Sling TV Rush tournament because it appeared to be soft and easy to cash, and I still feel this way after Week 10. The top scorer in the tournament put up 10 percent more points than last week but the amount of points that it took to cash rose only five percent. What this signifies to me is that there’s still a large portion of the field that is underperforming compared to the players at the very top. The $5 buy-in tournament had a lower payline than $2 Snap for the third week in a row, and I expect this trend to continue.

All-in-all, this was an incredibly exciting week for daily fantasy due to the number of high scoring games. Not all weeks will be like this but it’s important to recognize when contests are truly wide open to win. That’ll do it for this week, and good luck in Week 11!