NFL DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Lineup Optimizer Projections Today

Sunday’s three-game Wildcard slate of NFL DFS action features compelling options up and down the board in all three games. There are a handful of value situations that have been created by either returns (JuJu Smith-Schuster) or absences (Leonard Fournette and Tampa’s receiving corps), and every team seemingly has a few low-cost low-owned options in the skill player pool that could conceivably deliver a sneaky touchdown. The board in Vegas has three home favorites, with the tightest point spread coming in the afternoon game between the 49ers and Cowboys at -3. That game is also carrying the highest total on the board at 51, the 49ers and Cowboys will be highly relevant one way or another in NFL DFS lineups today. The late game between Pittsburgh and Kansas City is slanted heavily toward the Chiefs as -11.5 favorites with a 46-point game total, while Tom Brady and the Buccaneers are -7.5 favorites with a 45.5 total in the early game that sees the Eagles visiting Tampa Bay. The absences for the Buccaneers mean a player like Tyler Johnson could jump into relevance on the right day, and the deep sets of skill players on both sides in the late game could provide more options for lineup differentiation.

Groups below are for the individual Sunday main slate, as well as the Showdown contests, in two separate sections. This article focuses on building lineups with a quality foundation by utilizing the powerful Groups and Rules/Limits tools within Fantasy Cruncher. All of the concepts and pairings included below can be applied to hand-building as well, the goal is to create lineups that have high scoring correlation and take advantage of combined outcomes within stacks while limiting the likelihood of building inefficient or negatively correlated entries for a full slate of NFL DFS lineups.

Fantasy Cruncher – New How-To Video

The uptick in questions related to the how-to aspects of Fantasy Cruncher along with several noteworthy new tools demanded a new how-to tutorial video. I put together the above review of all of Fantasy Cruncher’s advanced options with some basic how-to on the constructions, rules, limits, and groups that we use in this article. The tutorial also reviews all of Fantasy Cruncher’s new features and the important distinctions between the various sets of projections that are available.

DraftKings & FanDuel NFL DFS Lineup Optimizer Picks & Projections

Overview

The Week 1 article featured a deep dive into the general settings menu and various utilities within Fantasy Cruncher, it is still available for anyone who would like to refer back. We will maintain the list of rules and limits below throughout the season, with occasional tweaks, if needed. Each week sees yet another fresh crop of value plays as situations change and injuries create opportunities around the league. These changing roles and emergent value plays are accounted for in the process of creating these groups from week to week. After a large pool of lineups is created utilizing these groups, it is still of critical importance to filter them for factors including ceiling projections and leverage potential, as well as our optimal lineup rates and Boom/Bust potential. Getting to a strong mix of the most optimal positively leveraged plays will be a strong foundation for a large pool of tournament lineups.

DraftKings + FanDuel Stack Rules – Sunday Three-Game Main Slate

This set of rules will force Fantasy Cruncher to build lineups with certain combinations. We are looking to always stack at least one skill player, ideally a pass-catcher, with his quarterback while also playing a skill player from the opposing team in the lineup. The theory behind this build is that a high-scoring stack will require some response from the opposing team to truly deliver a ceiling score in most situations, otherwise the team that is ahead will simply slow down and run out the clock. These rules are applied by completing the sentences with selections from the drop-down menu, they follow a very straightforward logic. Exceptions can be made for teams at the bottom of the rule creation window. After a rule is set, click the blue bar to add it, it will appear at the bottom of the screen as a completed rule.

Wild Card NFL Playoffs NFL DFS Optimizer Picks DraftKings FanDuel Groups stacking optimal lineup strategy advice predictions best bets free expert

QB with at least one WR/TE from Same Team (note: It is fine to make this two or to utilize two of these, one with WR/TE and one with RB/WR/TE, but we can refine that and get it exactly how we want it for each team via Groups)

QB with at least one RB/WR/TE from Opposing Team

QB with at most zero DST from Same Team (this is more of a personal preference; high-scoring teams and quarterbacks tend to leave their defenses on the field exposing them to simple point-scoring negatives)

Limit Rules

Limit rules can be applied to restrict certain combinations from coming together. This is powerful for limiting multiple running backs from the same team or getting overweight to a certain stack within a lineup.

Wild Card NFL Playoffs NFL DFS Optimizer Picks DraftKings FanDuel Groups stacking optimal lineup strategy advice predictions best bets free expert

Limit ~~QB/~~ RB/WR/TE from Same Team to three

Limit RB/WR/TE from Same Team to ~~one~~ two unless paired with QB from Same Team OR Opposing Team

~~Limit RB from Same Team to one (one can also do this with WR in a separate rule that adds an “unless paired with QB or opposing QB,” but it is a personal preference for NFL DFS)~~

Note: Allow one (or more if desired) offensive player against team defense in Advanced Settings as well to give Fantasy Cruncher more elbow room in lineup constructions.

Construction

These groups are built by utilizing the quarterback as the KEY player (by clicking the key icon next to his name), with the thinking that the quarterback play is the driving factor in which stack is utilized in that lineup. Built to specification, each team will have two groups, a team group, and an opponent group, both of which utilize the same quarterback, so four groups per game. This is the best approach to truly capture the requirement of playing individual “run-back” plays from the opposing team. A more basic approach would be to include all of the skill players from a game in each quarterback’s group and rely on rules and limits to restrict any potential overflow. It is highly recommended to save the Week 1 groups as a foundation that will be updated for the rest of the season. The recommended groups will include skill players who have an active role in their offense and provide significant correlation with their quarterback’s scoring, quite often bell-cow running backs who do not specialize in the passing game will not be included in groups as they are projected highly and appear on their own in basically correct distributions, while also not always providing the strongest positive correlation plays. Stacking quarterbacks with pass-catchers and allowing running backs to fall into the lanes then crated by settings, available salary and randomness should create a well-distributed set of quality lineups. These groups are updated weekly to account for changes in utilization, schemes, injuries, target shares, and more.

Sunday Update

All of the groups and recommendations below are up to date as of very early Sunday morning. Boosts are included to help create a spread of players that will be viable for selecting upside lineups that have a chance of being differentiated from the field.

Latest NFL DFS Content

NFL DFS Optimizer Picks: Wildcard Week Team Groups for DraftKings & FanDuel – Sunday Main Slate

The goal here is to create a large pool of well-built lineups that can be utilized in any large-field GPP contest. Crunch far more lineups than needed and utilize a sorting table in Excel to filter to the best set of lineups for entries. The lineups created in these crunches should provide a broad distribution that includes some of the lower-owned skill players from each stack. Applying boosts is critical in pushing and pulling ownership on individual players within their team’s stacked lineups.

The groups below are designed so that each quarterback will have two groups to create, one with his skill players and another with the opposing team. A more basic approach would be to add them all to one large group with an “at least three” and let rules and limits set things, but there is a more granular level of control in creating them separately.

Utilizing two groups also allows us to place running backs into the “run-back” position in certain teams while not including them in the primary stack for their team. This is useful when there is a situation with an extremely highly projected running back who does not necessarily fit into his team’s passing game. These players are threaded throughout the following construction recommendations.

Dallas Cowboys

Key Player: Dak Prescott

Setting: At least one

Group: CeeDee Lamb (-10%), Amari Cooper, Dalton Schultz (+25%), Cedrick Wilson (+15%), Blake Jarwin (+125%), Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard (+15%)