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 don’t 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 14 paylines for some top contests.

FanDuel:

NFL Sunday Double Big Up: $5 entry fee, top 7,000 win

The winning lineup scored 167.84 points, with the pay line at 122.66

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 97.44 points.

News and Notes:

  • With no Sunday Night Football for FanDuel’s main slate this week, we saw plenty of high-ownership players.

  • Giovani Bernard was the overall highest-owned player at an extremely high 87.4%.  

  • Almost three out of every four lineups paired Gio with either Lamar Miller (39.6%), or Todd Gurley III (34%).  

  • Alex Smith was the highest-owned QB at 32.3% , with Philip Rivers next at 13.5%.  After those two, it was spread out between the other QBs.

  • DeAndre Hopkins remained a popular play, as this week he checked in as the highest-owned WR, and second overall at 73.8% owned. Keenan Allen was also highly popular at 61.4% owned.

?With Hopkins and Allen taking up two WR spots on a majority of lineups, the third spot was split mainly between Josh Gordon at 44.8%, and Larry Fitzgerald at 21.4%.  Michael Crabtree, A.J. Green, and Marquise Goodwin all fell between 10-19% owned as well.

Travis Kelce joined Bernard, Hopkins, and Allen as the only players over 50% owned, checking in at 61.6%.

Stephen Anderson was the next highest tight end, but far behind Kelce at 19.3%.  

Users targeted the Chargers’ special teams unit once again this week.  Travis Coons was the highest-owned kicker at 38.5%.  Greg Zuerlein disappointed the 26.2% of users that went his way.  The 14.3% of users who played Harrison Butker ended up happy.

Defense was pretty spread out this week with Cincinnati taking the top spot at 23%, but having a disaster game vs. the Bears.  Those that focused on the Browns (10.3%) vs. Packers (9.8%) were also let down.

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The winning lineup scored 196.60 points, with the pay line at 125.52 points.

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 100.02

News and Notes:

  • Ownership levels were very much spread out this past weekend in GPPs..  

  • Keenan Allen was the overall top-owned player in this GPP, checking in at 34.7% owned. DeAndre Hopkins (30.1%) and Travis Kelce (31.7%) were the only other two players to hit for over 30% owned.

  • The winning lineup had five players at under 5% owned, and all five hit.  They went with Case Keenum (3%) as their quarterback, paired LeSean McCoy with Jordan Howard (4.8%) in the running back spot, and used Adam Thielen and DeAndre Hopkins with Demaryius Thomas (1.9%) in the wide receiver spot.  Trey Burton at 2% owned, and the Denver defense at 2.9% owned provided this user with a pretty dominant 12-point win.

  • The Packers came through this weekend, and had low ownership.  Brett Hundley was only 1% owned, with Davante Adams at 5%. Jamaal Williams was slightly higher at 11.4%.

  • Alex Smith remained the top-owned quarterback, but was only at 16.5%.  Once again Philip Rivers followed up Smith at 13.1%, with the rest of the ownership spread out between the other options.

  • Giovani Bernard stayed the top-owned running back, but his ownership also dropped, as he was 26.8% owned.  Lamar Miller was next at 22%, but LeSean McCoy (21.4%), Todd Gurley III (19.3%), and Melvin Gordon (17.8%) spread the ownership levels around in GPPs much more than in cash games.  

  • After Allen and Hopkins, four other wide receivers checked in with solid ownership levels.  Josh Gordon made it on 24% of lineups, while Tyreek Hill was used on 21.6%.  Michael Crabtree at 19.2%, and Larry Fitzgerald at 17.4% rounded out the top options.

  • Travis Kelce was the top tight end once again, this time on 31.7% of lineups.  Evan Engram was at 12.3%, while Trey Burton sat at only 2% owned.  Just 5.8% of users felt the sting with Jimmy Graham’s goose egg.

  • Greg Zuerlein was the top kicker at 27% owned, while the Chargers defense led the spread out ownership in their position at 14.7%.

DraftKings:  

$5 Single-Entry Double Up:  9,195 entries, top 4,000 win.

The winning lineup scored 212.38 points, with the pay line at 139 points.

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 136.04 points.

News and Notes:

  • I went with a single-entry cash game this week over the massive $5 double up.  In the massive double up, there were only 2,579 unique users out of the 25,287 entries.  

  • Giovani Bernard was the overall highest-owned player at 69.6% owned.  Josh Gordon, at 54.2%, was the only other player besides Bernard at over 50% owned.

While no quarterback hit for over 20% owned, four ended up above the 10%-owned mark.  Alex Smith led the way at 18.4%, but was followed closely behind by Jimmy Garoppolo at 17.1%.  Philip Rivers (13.7%), and Blaine Gabbert (11%) rounded out the top-four.

After Gio, Lamar Miller was the second-highest owned running back at 33.9%.  Users then paid up for either LeSean McCoy (27.6%), or Todd Gurley III (24.8%).  Alfred Morris and Melvin Gordon were the only other two running backs above 10% owned.

Josh Gordon was joined by DeAndre Hopkins (42.5%) and Larry Fitzgerald (45.8%) as the 2nd-4th top overall owned players.  Keenan Allen at 29.6%, and Marquise Goodwin at 20.5% rounded out your top-five wide receivers, but another five wide receivers went for over 10% owned.

Over half of users went with either Travis Kelce (30.8%), or Stephen Anderson (24.9%) in the Tight End spot.  No one else was over 9%.

  • Four defenses had over 10% ownership levels before dropping to under 6.5%.  The Chargers led the pack at 17.1% owned, but the Vikings weren’t far behind at 16.29%.  The Bills (13%), and Bengals (12.3%) rounded out the top-four.  

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The winning lineup scored 220.6 points with the pay line at 147.66 points.

The FantasyAlarm Optimal Lineup scored 122.54  points.

News and Notes:

  • There were 70,822 unique users in the GPP.  The winning user had 57 entries, with a sixth-place finish to go along with their win. Single bullet users finished 2nd, 3rd, and 8th, with a 7th and 9th-place finish for two max entry users.  

  • The winning lineup paired the popular Bernard and Hopkins plays, with five spots at 5% or under.

  • Brett Hundley led the way at 0.6% owned, and was paired with Davante Adams at 2.4%.  A small Denver combo paid off with the Denver defense at 2%, and Demaryius Thomas at 5% owned.  They hit with Trey Burton at 4.9%, and Leonard Fournette at 3.2% owned to round out their win.

  • Giovani Bernard was the highest-overall owned player at 51.6%, and checked in as the only one above 50% in this GPP.

  • Alex Smith was the highest-owned quarterback at 15.08%.  He was followed by Jimmy Garoppolo at 12.74%, and Philip Rivers at 11.4% owned.  No other quarterback was over 6% owned.

  • Lesean McCoy (28.96%), and Lamar Miller (25.3%) were the two most popular running backs to pair with Bernard.  Joining Fournette as low-owned running backs that paid off were Jordan Howard at 3.06% and Rod Smith.

  • Rod Smith was only on 169 lineups in this GPP, with two of those lineups finishing in the top-eight.

  • Six Wide Receivers all checked in at over 20% owned, as this position was very much spread out in terms of ownership.

  • Josh Gordon led the way at 36.8% owned.  He was followed by Larry Fitzgerald (28.41%), DeAndre Hopkins (26.52%), Keenan Allen (24.25%), Marquise Goodwin (21.49%), and Michael Crabtree (20.39%).

  • Travis Kelce was once again the top Tight End as he was on 31.49% of lineups.  Stephen Anderson was next at 11.3%, with Hunter Henry closely behind at 10.13%.  Cameron Brate at 8.28% received only one target, while Jimmy Graham at 7.72% was worse with zero points.

  • Only three defenses were over 10% owned, but the Chargers remained in the top spot at 13.22%.  They were followed by the Bills (11.69%), and the Bengals (11%).

  • Finally, while Aaron Rodgers was on five lineups, and other non-starting quarterbacks like Tyrod Taylor (28 lineups), and Matt Cassel (1 lineup) were being used, T.J. Yates was on zero lineups this week.