Green Bay dominated this past Monday and anyone who rostered the Aaron Rodgers-Randall Cobb-James Jones stack is likely still stacking chips. For the rest of us, the grind goes on. Typically, owners need some variance from the expected result to win big in GPP tourneys. This past week however, going with expected superstars would’ve netted you in the mid 200’s in points. Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and Randall Cobb all finished in the upper stratosphere. That said the big money winners still had guys like Joseph Randle and Devonta Freeman dotting their lineups and saving their owners money. Ultimately it is your chose when to go with the value play versus the superstar, but we’re to help you as best we can.
In choosing between going the A-Rod route and the Ty-Rod route you need to determine if $5800 for 277-3 (Tyrod Taylor) is a better deal than $8000 for 333-5. It turned out that you got 83% off the yards and 60% of the touchdowns for 72.5% of the cost. This is about as close to a push as you can get in points per dollar. So imagine that Tyrod still had that huge day but Rodgers produced only 333-3. This would still appear to be a ridiculously good game. The difference is that now Taylor would’ve produced 83% of the yards and 100% of the TDs for 72.5% of the cost. So in this example Taylor would be the better value by a large margin.
Going into last week, I forecasted Aaron Rodgers to finish with 325-3. I also forecasted Tyrod Taylor to throw for 275-2 and add another TD on the ground. They both should’ve produced between 27-31 points using DK’s scale.
The reason I’m explaining this is to showcase the importance of a points/salary ratio. That is the ultimate tracking stat for DFS players. Typically, I determine a player’s grade by taking his predicted points and dividing it by his salary. If that number is under .0035, then that player gets a RED grade. If that number is between .0035 and .00475, then that player gets a GREEN rating, and if that number is over .00475, then that player gets a BLUE rating.
Of course, these ratings can also be adjusted to reflect injury status or perceived game flow, and in most cases I will err on the side of what we expect their floor to be. That is why there will always be more RED and GREEN ratings than BLUEs. Players will sometimes also be downgraded if their price tag is too close to another whose projected points are very high. A good example of this is Eli Manning this week. I like Manning, but his ratio is so far below guys like Russell Wilson and Cam Newton for the same price. This means that his value is much less than theirs, despite their similar price tag.
*Special Note – depending on your league the players in the New York Jets/Miami Dolphins game in London may not be included in your player pool. I have included their salaries on here in case they are.
**Special Note 2 – the Hurricane Joaquin may cause the postponement of the Washington/Philadelphia game. If it does odds are that it will be made up November 1st when both teams are scheduled to have their bye. Of course those stats won’t help you this week in DFS so if the game is off make sure you get your Eagles and Skins out of your lineup. If the game is played be aware that this sort of weather terrorism could hurt the values of Kirk Cousins and Sam Bradford’s passing attacks as well as both teams’ kicking games.
Prices indicated: Green = Acceptable and Red = Not Worth It and Blue = Gotta Have It
