Football

Sam’s Conviction Column and Stats Overview – NFL Week 18

by
Sam Scherman
January 7, 2022

Intro

There are certain types of contests on both DraftKings and FanDuel (as well as other Daily Fantasy Sites) where ownership, across any sport, is not something to focus on, i.e. head to heads, double ups, 50/50s, or a contest with less than 20 entrants; however, when playing large field GPP tournaments and gunning for that $1 million prize, or even just a top 10 in a contest of 100k+ entrants, ownership is IMPERATIVE when constructing your rosters. While I would never make the argument that ownership is everything, or the most important aspect of playing/winning DFS, I think many more people than we think overlook it and fall into groupthink more often than they should as a fear of “a cheap guy going off” or playing someone at 50% or more projected ownership to ensure not getting dusted by the field. Again, in cash games or very small field tournaments, I get that idea, as playing an obvious backup RB who’s locked into an every down roll and 20+ touches and is the min $4,000 on DraftKings and is going to be owned by 45 of 50 players in a tournament… yes, I would probably play him since you have just about 0% chance of cashing if he goes off. The last thought to keep in mind, and perhaps the most important, is being contrarian does not mean making a lineup of 9 guys less than 5% owned… that is not by any means optimal and not a +EV strategy in any DFS sport. What I like to do each and every week is use a strategy by one of the pioneers of DFS Football, Adam Levitan (check out their stuff at EstablishTheRun because their team is very, very sharp), which is figure out my ACO, or “Average Cumulative Ownership,” on all my tournament teams. To calculate that is simple, add up all 9 players ownership, and divide by 9 and look to target somewhere in the range of 9-16% (16% is the absolute max that I will have) for your whole team. If CMC is going to be 35% owned, that doesn’t mean an auto fade, it just means you have to differentiate elsewhere because his ceiling is insane and he’s not someone to fade just because “he’s chalk.” That’s enough rambling, let’s get to the picks!

With all the COVID outbreaks across the NFL combined with the usual slew of injuries late in the season, I thought I would change up the article (and save myself useless writing when a top star (or 12) get ruled out and the entire slate changes. These are several different cuts of stats/projections/stacks, etc. that I look at and analyze each and every week to get a feel for the slate and to decide on stacks, leverage, and both GPPs and Cash games. Enjoy! And if you don’t enjoy, I would love to know what would be more useful visuals or data that you may view as unnecessary or “noisy”

For those not familiar, here’s a quick definition of Expected Fantasy Points (XFP): “XFP calculates the value of each target and rushing attempt based on the distance to the end zone and air yards. These historical data attributes correlate highly with actual fantasy points scored (PPR scoring). XFP essentially shows what a typical player would have done with the opportunities seen by any given player.” (via rotostreetjournal.com)