When looking to improve your daily fantasy sports game, solid assessment is just as important as the lineup building process and research.  It is easy to use the terms blasted off, or stinks, to describe how a lineup performed,  but the key is understanding why.  My goal when building a lineup is to have a valid explanation on how it was constructed, and how it will win.  I continue to urge everyone that if unsure about why you see or not see a player recommended, that you ask why.  After the slate is completed, it is always best to go back and re-assess how it performed. This strategy works for not just your lineups, but others as well.  Below is a look at the NFL Week 10 paylines for some top contests.

FanDuel:

NFL Sunday Double Big Up: $5 entry fee, top 7,500 win

https://www.fanduel.com/games/21842/contests/21842-212974283/entries/1320207543/scoring

The winning lineup scored 164.00 points, with the pay line at 93.88

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 114

News and Notes:  

Scores were much lower this week than in the past. This is due to some of the “chalk” plays not producing this week, starting with the Steelers.

Although Le'Veon Bell finished with 13.7 FD points, the 85.9% of users who took him were expecting much more. He fared better than his teammate Antonio Brown at least, as his 6.2 FD points hurt the 61.3% of lineups that he made it on. Finally, you always wish for some extra FGA from your kicker, but the Steelers couldn’t do that, as Chris Boswell’s 7 FD points weren’t anything great for the 19.8% of lineups that used him.

The Steelers weren’t the only team that kept the scored low, as those that trusted the Vegas belief that the Bears would show up on Sunday took a large hit. First, the Bears defense managed only 3 FD points, but checked in as the highest owned def at 69.2%. The typical Bears running game was missing as Jordan Howard managed just 5.4FD points on 26.8% of lineups.

Plenty were expecting some Fitz magic from Ryan Fitzpatrick against his old team, but a 15-10 final score didn’t provide much offense.  Fitz was the highest-owned QB at 43.4%, but hit for only 11.38 FD points.  On the opposite side of the field, Bilal Powell was on 25.8% of lineups, but his 2.1 FD points did nothing for those that took him.  A few other “busts” include Julio Jones and Marvin Jones Jr.  Julio’s 8.7 FD points were on 31% of lineups, while Marvin’s 2.7 FD points made it on 38% of lineups.

On a positive note, Sterling Shepard, and his 19.2 FD points came through for the massive 82% of users who rostered him.

$1.5M NFL Sunday Million:  Top 58,300 win, $300,000 to first.

https://www.fanduel.com/games/21842/contests/21842-212974190/scoring

The winning lineup scored 183.16 points, with the pay line at 110.74

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 115.78

News and Notes:

For the second week in a row, the winning lineup won with a Ram’s combo. Many lineups towards the top had different types of exposure to the Rams.  The winner went with my favorite type of stack, the RB, K, DEF pairing, while second place went with a QB, WR, K, DEF combo. Both combos obviously hit for anyone who used them.  

Todd Gurley (14%), Greg Zuerlein (13.3%) and Rams DEF (11.8%) didn’t win it for this user, but were also their three lowest point totals after Vernon Davis.  Second place hit for much higher points from their Ram combo.  Jared Goff (9%) and Robert Woods (8.8%) joined Zuerlein and the Rams def.  The winner had to make a move to make up those points, and even though less than one point separated them, the Mark Ingram over Alvin Kamara pick was a huge difference.  Ingram’s price was $100 less, but he came through for 31.1 FD points at only 3.1% ownership.  Kamara though, was over three times higher-owned than Ingram at 9.9%, and finished with 22.3 FD points.   

The reason why they worked was also do to some high owned players who didn’t fare well. Similar to the cash games, Le’Veon Bell was 35.6% owned, with Leonard Fournette not far behind at 30.2%. Howard stayed popular at 20.6%, while Antonio Brown and Marvin Jones continued to bust lineups at 34.5% and 29.6%.  The Bears also stayed popular at defense, finishing on 25.4% of lineups.

The Vikings were the sneaky pick this week, with Case Keenum’s 26.06 FD points on only 0.7% of lineups.  The winning lineup had him paired with Adam Thielen, whose 26.6 FD points was on 7% of lineups.

DraftKings:

NFL Sunday Massive Double Up:  $5 entry fee. 34,482 entries, top 15,000 win.

https://www.draftkings.com/contest/gamecenter/48457141?uc=907345845

The winning lineup scored 201.50 points, with the pay line at 111.88.

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 139.06 points.

News and Notes:

You’re welcome to play these large double up contests, but it’s good to know that out of the 34,482 entries, there were only 5,193 unique users in this double up.

You would think that with the FLEX spot on DK, the ownership would be more spread out, but that is hardly the case, especially when you have multiple lineup trains.  

By a landslide, Bilal Powell checked in as the highest owned player at 85.7% of lineups.  His cheap salary, and high ownership kept his 3.6 DK points from having a huge affect on users.  Two other RBs finished in the top five owned, as Le'veon Bell was second at 63.48%, and Jordon Howard fifth at 46.73% owned.  Similar to DK, the Bears were the top DEF option, and third-overall at 55.03% owned.  Sterling Shepard was the only WR in the top-five at 53.67% owned.

Outside of the top owned options,  there were some top pairing taken.  Ryan Fitzpatrick was the highest-owned QB at 36.49%.  Users paired him with the highest-owned tight end in Cameron Brate (46.8%), and the second-highest WR owned, Adam Humphries (45.32%).  Matthew Stafford followed Fitz at 27.86%, and users paired him with Golden Tate at 31.2%. Eli Manning was your third-highest owned QB, but was just 13.22% owned compared to his top-WR option in Shepard.

If you weren’t pairing QBs with receivers, or taking the top-RBs, you’ll find yourself with a team of low-owned players. Outside of the ones mentioned above, Carlos Hyde was a top-RB option at 35.19%, followed by Fournette and Gurley at 13.79 and 11.70%.  After that, no other RB was over 6% owned.  Brate was followed by Garrett Celek, who filled in nicely for the 49ers on 24.02% of lineups.  No other tight end was over 9%.  On Defense, after the Bears, the Rams checked in at 19.18%, but no other def made it over 6% owned.  

NFL $1.35M Play-Action: $3 Entry  535,077 entries.

https://www.draftkings.com/contest/gamecenter/48430466

The winning lineup scored 225.10 points with the pay line at 128.70

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 136.02
News and Notes:

This is a larger GPP than the millionaire maker contest, but with a lower entry fee, and a max of 20 entries per user.  

The lower entry limits meant we saw only a 10 percentage point difference separating the top-10 owned players.  Of those top-10, three came from Pitt, and two each came from The Jets. Chicago and Tampa Bay.  Four of the top-five were running backs with Powell (32.63%), Howard (30.98%), Bell (28.90%), and Fournette (24.32%) led the way.   

Bilal Powell continued to have his poor outing on the most lineups, as he finished tops at 32.63%. His teammate, Robby Anderson, was the highest-owned WR at 26.70%.  Not as many went with the man throwing to him though, as Josh McCown finished as the fifth-highest QB, but only on 8.31% of lineups.

Bell was joined by Antonio Brown (23.45%) and Juju Smith-Schuster (22.74%). Shuster was part of the winning lineup.

Of the top-10 finishers, the Goff/Woods pairing was on eight of the top-10 with Robert Woods in 14 of the top 15 lineups, and 18.5% of all lineups.      

In these extremely large gpp’s taking a chance on a low owned player is key. The top finisher made that move with DeMarco Murray. His 29.2DK points was on only 1.2% of lineups, and was their only single-digit owned player.  Other low owned players that made it on top five lineups were Mark Ingram (3.2%), Adam Thielen (5.4%), Ty Montgomery (0.8%), and Duke Johnson (2.9%). By comparison, Austin Ekeler blasted off on only 51 total lineups, 0.01%. Ezekiel Elliott was on 950 lineups, which totalled 0.18%.  

Both this GPP, and the millionaire maker were won with single-bullet entries. The MM GPP had 155 users enter their 150 lineup max amoutn, taking up a little over 13% of the field. The top finish of a max entry user this week was good for a $500, 75th-place finish. Of course it was ChipolteAddict, and can’t I feel bad for them, as they won another live final seat this week.