NFL DFS Picks: Week 12 DraftKings + FanDuel Top Stacks + Lineup Build

Let’s dig into the data from Week 11 as we look ahead to Week 12 NFL DFS picks for the daily fantasy football season and NFL DFS slates on DraftKings and FanDuel. The Week 12 NFL DFS Data Deep Dive looks into the advanced metrics you need to know in order to make informed daily fantasy football decisions. Matt Savoca takes a look behind the curtain of his process, delivering the visualizations and proprietary statistics along with some quick-hitter thoughts that he uses to prepare for his weekly Main Slate Matchups column, published every Thursday, right here on Awesemo.com.

Week 12 Data Deep Dive: DraftKings + FanDuel NFL DFS Picks

Team Efficiency (Click Graph to Enlarge)

fantasy football — The above two charts are two measures of team efficiency. The left chart measures offensive per-drive ability on the Y-axis and defensive per-drive ability on the X-axis. The right chart measures per-play ability. Both graphs use the expected points model popularized by the nflfastR data package.

No one who read this chart would have been all that surprised at the outcome of the matchup between the Packers and Colts in Week 11. The Colts look like arguably the best team in the league in expected points per drive and in expected points allowed per drive. Though their per-play efficiency is lacking on offense, the advanced metrics seem to indicate this team could make a significant playoff run.
The Steelers defense is in a league of its own in terms of expected points per drive.
The same could be said about Washington’s defensive per-play efficiency as well.
The Broncos were surprise winners against the Dolphins on Sunday to most of the public on Sunday, but Denver actually ranked as the better (closer to the upper-right) team in per-play efficiency, the chart on the right, which should have been a strong indicator they would at least be competitive.

Team Aggressiveness (Click Graph to Enlarge)

nfl dfs fantasy football — The above chart measures team aggressiveness. The X-axis is Air Yards per second (Air Yards per Play/Seconds per Play) as a measure of pace and deep passing aggressiveness. True Neutral Early-Down Pass Rate (Y-axis) measures the number of times a team chooses to pass the ball on first or second down while within one possession. The raw number is fitted to its historical mean by using empirical Bayes estimation. This chart updates on Wednesdays when FootballOutsiders updates their pace data.

The devastating injury to Joe Burrow means the Bengals will likely drift significantly back towards the center of this graph, just as we saw with the Cowboys once Dak Prescott was lost for the season.
The Vikings welcome Cleveland, who for all intents and purposes is running the same exact offense as Minnesota to the cluster of most run-oriented teams in the NFL. When one has running backs like Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt and Dalvin Cook, that tends to happen. Still, both teams could likely benefit from more early-down aggressiveness.
The Chargers, who began the season in the very bottom left of this chart, could wind up being one of the most aggressive, past-oriented teams of the second half. They’re now league average in both true early-down pass rate and air yards per second
The Jets have just given up. It’s sad, really.

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Quarterback Efficiency (Click Graph to Enlarge)

Week 12 DraftKings fantasy football — This graphic measures quarterback efficiency in terms of their ability to use their given drives to consistently score points. True Drive Success (Y-axis) rate uses empirical Bayes estimation to create a fitted version of raw drive success rate, which is raw scoring drives divided by total offensive drives. Expected Points Added per drive (X-axis) is a measure of a player’s ability to provide more (or less) than the expected points, based on nflfastR’s expected points model, on a given set of plays. It is normalized to a value between zero (worst) and one (best). This graphic measures quarterback efficiency in terms of their ability to use their given drives to consistently score points. True Drive Success (Y-axis) rate uses empirical Bayes estimation to create a fitted version of raw drive success rate, which is raw scoring drives divided by total offensive drives. Expected Points Added per drive (X-axis) is a measure of a player’s ability to provide more (or less) than the expected points, based on nflfastR’s expected points model, on a given set of plays. It is normalized to a value between zero (worst) and one (best).

Patrick Mahomes remains the best in the league. His game winning drive sealed his fate as the runaway top quarterback in the NFL in 2020.
Though they lost to Dallas this week, Kirk Cousins still isn’t getting enough credit for turning the Vikings season around after a 1-5 start. They still have a huge uphill battle, but even being in playoff contention is a feat, and Cousins’ efficient play has a ton to do with that.
It’s time to bring back Gardner Minshew, as Jake Luton is now tightly clustered with Ben DiNucci and Sam Darnold. Nick Foles hasn’t been much better, and now he’s dealing with a hip injury that could keep him out of the Bears’ week 12 game.
Taysom Hill’s first start put him squarely in a starting quarterback cluster. In terms of per-play efficiency and drive success, Hill was on par with a trio of top-three overall picks: Baker Mayfield, Matt Ryan and Burrow.

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Skill Player Opportunities for NFL DFS Picks + Lineups (Click Graph to Enlarge)

The wide receiver position has three premiere target hogs in 2020: Davante Adams, Adam Thielen and Terry McLaurin. The trio has separated themselves from the pack, and are the only players “truly” commanding 30% of their team’s opportunities, when adjusted for sample size.
It’s shocking to see, especially after a series of disappointing seasons, but Corey Davis has truly come into his own as a player this season and now ranks side-by-side with his teammate A.J. Brown in true weighted opportunity share.
Surprisingly, JuJu Smith-Schuster is now outside the top 40 in this metric, as both Diontae Johnson (30th) and Chase Claypool (39th) have caught Smith-Schuster as the leaders of Pittsburgh’s passing attack.
Don’t look now, but Michael Thomas may be poised for a late season surge as Week 11 served as a get-right game for last year’s reception leader. Thomas is back to his typical spot in the Top-10 in true weighted opportunity share. He’s still semi-cheap on DraftKings and FanDuel.
Note the massive drop-off after Evan Engram in the chart on the right. With George Kittle still banged up, there only are six non-wide receivers who are unequivocal every-week starts in fantasy based on volume alone: Engram, Alvin Kamara (who may need to be reevaluated with Hill at the helm), T.J. Hockenson, Mark Andrews, Travis Kelce and Darren Waller.

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NFL DFS Picks: High-Value Opportunities (Click Graphs to Enlarge)

nfl dfs quality opportunity week 11 fantasy football — Quality Opportunities and Quality Opportunity Share are measures of high-value usage for fantasy football. A target, on average, is worth significantly more than a non-goal-line rush in any type of scoring system that uses point per reception, so Quality Opportunities combine targets and goal-line rushes into one high-upside opportunity metric. An advanced version of the metric also includes light-front carries and only on-target (catchable) targets. The chart will be updated as the data becomes available. True Quality Opportunity Share measures the player’s percentage of team Quality Opportunities and fits it to a historical mean using empirical Bayes estimation.

nfl dfs week 12 draftkings fanduel — This chart breaks down running back quality oppportunities into it’s two main components: targets (the first part of each player’s bar) and goalline carries (the second part of the bar). The chart on the left ranks players by number of quality opportunities per game, while the char on the right ranks players by their share of team quality opportunities in games that they played.

Kamara’s quality opportunities per game shrank back towards the rest of his position after the first catch-less game of his career last Sunday. It’s clear his usage will need to be monitored with Hill at the helm.
Despite seeing only four targets in week 11, J.D. McKissic still holds a spot squarely in the top 10 running backs in quality opportunities per game and now ranks third among all running backs in quality opportunity share.
Miles Sanders continues to disappoint, like the Eagles as a whole, compared to his top-10 share of quality opportunities within the Philadelphia offense.
Week 12 could mark the return of Austin Ekeler, and his role couldn’t be more defined within the Chargers offense. Both Justin Jackson and Troymaine Pope rank adjacent to Ekeler in quality opportunities per game, indicating they were used as direct backups for Ekeler while the Chargers waited for the bell cow to get healthy. Ekeler has massive potential in the season’s final quarter. He could be a low-owned option in both DraftKings and FanDuel lineups.

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Condensed Passing Offenses for NFL DFS Picks + Stacks (Click Graph to Enlarge)

air yards dfs targets fantasy football draftkings fanduel — The condensed offenses chart uses True Weighted Opportunity Share (see above) to find passing attacks that are focused on distributing significant pass volume to their top two or three play makers. The width of the bars represents each team’s relative pass volume, measured by comparing raw passes per game and raw air yards per game. Wider bars represent higher-volume pass offenses. When used in tandem with identifying fantasy-friendly future game scripts, the condensed offenses chart can help fantasy football players make informed decisions about theoretical variations in volume or receiver stacks to target. As an example using the chart above, a lineup with Adam Thielen should expect to capture roughly 33% of the Vikings’ passing game. Alternatively, if one were to predict that Thielen to see less volume than he did in previous weeks, according to this chart the next reasonable assertion would be that Justin Jefferson (using the bar chart on the left) and then Irv Smith (using the bar chart on the right) would be in line to receive a bulk of that opportunity.

P.J. Walker’s first start for the Panthers didn’t stop D.J. Moore, Robby Anderson and Curtis Samuel from maintaining their top-two ranking in both the top-duo and top-trio charts. The Panthers remain an elite stacking option on DraftKings and FanDuel in plus-matchups, such as this week against Minnesota, who ranks bottom 10 in expected points allowed per drive and yards allowed per pass attempt.
It’s time to start talking about A.J. Brown and Corey Davis as one of the elite receiver pairs in the NFL. They now rank seventh in the NFL in the top-duo charts (chart on the left).
Philip Rivers does not care about your DraftKings and FanDuel fantasy teams. Rivers and the Colts run the least consolidated passing in the NFL by a wide margin.
Also, did you catch who this chart says is the wide receiver one in Tampa Bay? His initials are A.B.

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NFL DFS Picks: Bell Cow Backs (Click Graph to Enlarge)

week 12 nfl dfs DraftKings FanDuel — The RB elusiveness chart is a measure of running back effectiveness over usage-time (total touches). Any players who appear above the blue shaded area are outperforming the historical trendline for the position, while players below the line are underperforming compared to their historical counterparts. Each season, only a few backs emerge from the pack and shift towards the top-right of the chart. These backs should be considered the true “workhorse” NFL backs and can be used as a starting point for identifying cash-game “locks” at the running back position.

Put some respect on Kareem Hunt’s name. Even though he was ineffective as a rusher for much of the day, Hunt continues to sit in rarified air as one of the most elusive running backs in football, and he’s not even the starter on his own team anymore. Chubb pops in these metrics as well. He looks as effective as ever after his stint on injured reserve.
Melvin Gordon’s monster day versus Miami places him well above the historical elusiveness trendline. He could be poised for a huge final month of the season in Denver.
It’s Derrick Henry’s world; we’re all just living in it. Henry continues to slightly outpace historical expectations despite an absurdly large weekly workload. There’s no one in the NFL like him. Again, he got there on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
It’s probably time to hang up the cleats for Adrian Peterson. Now with well over 100 touches as a member of the Lions, Peterson is a solid 10-15 avoided tackles below his expected mark — and people played him in cash on DraftKings and FanDuel a week ago.

PFF Grade Net Advantages (Click Graph to Enlarge)

week 12 nfl dfs matchups data draftkings fanduel — The PFF Net Advantage Chart measures personnel matchups with distinct advantages or disadvantages versus their upcoming opponent. Each graph represents a distinct “phase” of the game for which PFF grades teams. The “Net Advantage” is a comparison scaled version of each team grade to their opponent’s comparable scaled defensive grade. As an example, “Pass Block Advantage” is calculated by determining the difference between an Offense’s team pass-block grade versus their opponent’s defensive pass-rush grade. Overall Advantage is a comparison of a team’s overall grade versus their opponent’s overall grade. “Composite Advantage” is a weighted combination of all other advantages, with greater weight given towards passing advantages. Only advantages/disadvantages with a standard deviation above 1, or below -1 are shown. All non-pictured personnel matchups can be considered a toss-up. These grades do not account for injuries.

Another week, another Dalvin Cook likely smash spot on DraftKings and FanDuel. The Vikings appear to pop up as one of the most advantageous offenses in multiple categories, including net run advantage, net offensive grade advantage, net pass advantage and net composite advantage (a weighted combination of all net grades, weighted towards the passing game). A great NFL DFS pick for Week 12.
Cleveland likely to control the offensive tempo, and they are popping as an advantageous matchup in overall grade advantage, offensive grade advantage and net composite advantage. Don’t be surprised if we see 18-plus looks for both Hunt and Chubb against Jacksonville in Week 12. Fire them both up on DraftKings and FanDuel.
The Broncos look like they could be in for a tough day against the Saints in Week 12. Their net composite grade is significantly worse than any other team this weekend, indicating their offense may be overmatched in a major way this weekend.
Could we have a Week 12 Thanksgiving afternoon shootout in Detroit? In a rarity for the Net Advantages Chart, both the Lions’ and Texans’ offenses have an outlier net composite advantage, indicating that scoring could come early and often in the first game of the NFL’s Thanksgiving triple-header. A possible Week 12 stack spot on DraftKings and FanDuel.

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Author

Matt Savoca

A middling athlete who was offered his first sports analytics position at age 14, I've been working on NFL and fantasy football data science since 2017. With a particular passion for data visualization and dashboard building, I love to make data accessible by using graphs and charts to communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with words alone. You can contact me by e-mailing [email protected].