FanDuel Single Entry Series: Strategy Guide
The FanDuel Single Entry Series, presented by RotoGrinders, returned for NFL, so it’s a good time to talk about a process that can help you succeed when building a single GPP roster.
There is something exciting and inspiring about pure, level-footed competition. We all think of head-to-head games as beating our opponents individually, but rarely do we picture pitting our lineup one-on-one with each of the competitors in a large-field tournament. Single entry GPPs give us that chance. We don’t have the luxury – and nor does the competition – of taking multiple paths to roster construction. We have to decide which of the available concepts is most likely to capture the top prize and make some tough decisions to cut players and strategies we like along the way.
In this article, I will discuss my process and personal mindset to building a single GPP roster. I will attempt to do so in a way that allows you to take bits and pieces for your own personal use. As I write this article, I am going to actually follow the process I am describing and enter a live DFS contest. I won’t share all my decisions, but what I will do is link to the roster I select once the contest is live.
Read Part II — FanDuel Single Entry Series: Strategy Guide
Step One: Know the Contest
The first step in my process is to actually make sure there is a single-entry contest I want to enter. We know I’ll be entering my lineup in the Single Entry Series, but I will also enter it in another single-entry contest on FanDuel. I am now in the FanDuel lobby, and I have selected NFL filtered for single-entry contests only. There are two things I am personally looking for right now: I would like a relatively large field, and I would like a five-figure top prize. This isn’t something I am suggesting YOU should be looking for, but it is something that I am after. In fact, we should be looking at several factors before entering:
Rake: Typical rake on FanDuel is around 15%, but some contests offer higher buy-ins and lower rake.
Buy-In: The level of competition and their strategies are likely to be different at higher buy-in than lower buy-in contests.
Number of Entrants: Winning the top prize is our goal. We may be able to adjust our lineup strategy slightly based on the number of competitors.
Payout Structure: Sometimes the prize pool is heavily concentrated at the top and pays out a smaller percentage of the field. Sometimes, it is spread more evenly and pays more players. Make sure you know how the prizes are awarded. A top-heavy payout structure may favor an anti-fragile approach long term, while a flat structure is more forgiving of a solid approach.
Scoring: This is a friendly reminder to double-check yourself and make sure you understand how fantasy points are awarded differently from site to site.
My Contest Selection: $80k NFL Sunday Sweep (Single Entry), 15% rake, 3764 players, 12.5% to first and roughly 19% of lineups paid out with 2X minimum cash, scoring is FanDuel standard .5 PPR. Come at me, bro.
Step Two: Understand the Landscape of the Slate
I’ll try to keep this concise, but one of the most important factors to constructing a single roster is to understand the NFL environment for the week. I start at the macro level, and look at each game individually without looking at players. Some factors to consider for each game:
Vegas: Who is favored? How many points is the team projected to score? How many points are expected in the game? This will provide insight to the flow of the game, which will eventually help us project player performance.
Macro-Matchups: How well does the opposing defense defend each position? How well do they defend in general? There are many ways to assess this, but one of my favorites is Football Outsiders DVOA metrics. You can find every individual players DVOA matchup on our player projections page.
Injuries, Trends, Splits, and History: Major injuries will have huge impact on personnel usage, coaching strategy, and overall team performance. Trends may have emerged in the past 4-6 weeks within a team that may be different than your present understanding. There are also historical trends such as those between two division rivals in their second game that you must account for. Some teams have noteworthy home/road splits, and others have seen performance affected against certain teams or styles. Account for all of those as closely as you can.
Once I have accounted for the landscape of the slate at the macro level, we can zoom in on individual players and matchups. Here are some factors to consider when examining individual players:
Price: We must understand how a player’s current situation relates to his price, and determine if it is efficient. Ideally, we want to roster players who have price points that do not properly account for their opportunity to score fantasy points.
Position Scarcity: Our roster construction is frequently affected by the raw number of viable options at a given position. Take stock of each position at a high level and understand how many choices there are in a given week.
Individual Matchups: This will help us understand if a player is priced efficiently. DFS sites do tend to account for a player’s matchup. If there is a change in an individual matchup that was NOT accounted for at the time of pricing, there could be an opportunity to invest. You may also feel that the price did not factor the matchup enough, or perhaps too much. There are many individual matchups such as WR/CB matchup, D-Line vs. O-line, and LB/S vs. TE that we can examine. The important thing is to do your best to assess if this matchup is ALREADY accounted for in player pricing. We need not avoid efficiently priced players, but we will need to maximize our upside. Identifying inefficiency where others fail to see it could be an edge.
Step Three: Define Your Player Pool
We have a great premium article here on RotoGrinders where one of our experts will share some of the top picks at each position in their player pool. Narrowing down the many available options to just a few for consideration is critical to your success in single entry. There are a number of viable strategies for doing this, and I’ll present one below that I find effective.
Eliminate Options with NO ceiling: These players do not – in your opinion – even have the opportunity to reach tournament winning raw scores. Here are some examples of players I might instantly eliminate from consideration: Matt Barkley vs. TEN, Derrick Henry vs. CHI, Tyreek Hill vs. DEN, Virgil Green vs. KC. Get rid of the worst of the worst right away. Need help? Use our Lineup Builder to help visualize and narrow down the player pool. Even if you are only building one lineup, the tool is immensely helpful in visualizing all of your options at each position.
My Pool After Eliminating No Ceiling Options:
QBs Remaining: 10 , RBs Remaining: 20, WRs Remaining: 29, TEs Remaining: 14, Kickers Remaining: 7, Defenses Remaining: 12
Eliminate Options with Low Floors: While we seek upside in GPP contests, we have to start narrowing our options, and I want to next exclude some players that introduce an undue level of risk to my roster. We like risk, but it should be well calculated. Examples eliminated: Ryan Tannehill vs. SF, LeGarrette Blount vs. NYJ, Doug Martin vs. SEA, Mohamed Sanu vs. ARI, Rishard Matthews vs. CHI, Julius Thomas vs. BUF, Travis Kelce vs. DEN.
My Pool After Eliminating Low Floor Options:
QBs Remaining: 8 , RBs Remaining: 12, WRs Remaining: 16, TEs Remaining: 5, Kickers Remaining: 6, Defenses Remaining: 9
Eliminate Based on Low Median Projections: We have to start tightening the belt and squeezing out some guys that we like. Median projections are everywhere these days including here on RotoGrinders (or you may even do your own). Wherever you find them, use them to start crossing off some names from your list that survived the floor and ceiling cuts. This is where I will toss out guys like Colin Kaepernick vs. MIA, Lamar Miller vs. SD, Thomas Rawls vs. TB, Sterling Shepard vs. CLE, Devante Parker vs. SF, Michael Thomas vs. LAR, Tyler Eifert vs. BAL, Gary Barnidge vs. NYG, Andrew Franks vs. SF, KC D/ST vs. DEN, and MIA D/ST vs. SF.
My Pool After Eliminating Low Projection Options:
QBs Remaining: 6 , RBs Remaining: 10, WRs Remaining: 13, TEs Remaining: 3, Kickers Remaining: 5, Defenses Remaining: 7
Start Building Rosters: My player pool is starting to get narrow. At this point, I want to build an optimized roster and see what it looks like before I eliminate anybody else. I want to understand if I have eliminated too many or not enough players. I also want to see if I can eliminate anybody based on roster construction. I crossed out three NAME BRAND WRs as a result of this. I also eliminated all the QBs but three. Ultimately, this is your first chance to evaluate who you will actually play in your lineup. Don’t worry if your first roster doesn’t get you excited. We will continue to evaluate our pool and optimal roster throughout the rest of the week as more news and information comes our way.
My Pool After my Initial Roster Build:
QBs Remaining: 3 , RBs Remaining: 9, WRs Remaining: 10, TEs Remaining: 3, Kickers Remaining: 5, Defenses Remaining: 3
Once I have made an initial player pool, I won’t be content to accept it. I will scrutinize my selections using all the resources at my disposal and listen to the crowd for their perspective on the week. I will continue to refine that list, scrutinize the eliminations, and be skeptical of the players I have left for consideration. It’s best to clear the deck and repeat this whole process again on the weekend to ensure all available information for the week is in front of you before you make the final call.
Hopefully walking through that process – which is just one way out of many – gives you an idea on how you can systematically narrow down a wide player pool with many, many options into a narrow pool with just a few. It will make your single entry decision making more precise in the long term.
Step Four: Consider Your Opponents
While we often think of DFS as a game of accurate predictions, one of the most important predictions is often overlooked or misused. That is the prediction of what our opponents will do. We are looking to climb to the top of the leaderboard, and understanding how to get there is important. In order to reach that point with consistency, we should have a quality understanding of how our opponents are likely to behave under identical conditions to the ones we face.
Ownership: Predicting an individual player’s ownership rate matters. When looking at individual players, you will sometimes be faced with a choice between two comparable options. You should carefully consider the projected ownership of each player before deciding for good who to roster. It’s not a universal truth that you HAVE to roster the lower-owned player, but knowing that there is an edge to be gained when the lower-owned player is more successful will positively impact your chances of reaching the top of the leaderboard.
Roster Construction: Perhaps more important than predicting individual player ownership is predicting how multiple players fit together in a roster. This can help you understand if the roster you have built is of a similar construction to the bulk of the field. The most popular plays are frequently paired together in lineups (just think about cash games; there is often overlap). We can sometimes identify positions where we can pay up where others save and visa-versa using the viable options in our player pool. Doing so could give us an equally high-quality roster that will benefit should their roster fail. It is not imperative that your team be night and day in terms of construction, but differentiation is the fuel of winning rosters, and doing so intelligently is a staple of DFS tournament success.
Skill Level: Higher buy-in contests will tend to have more advanced players in the field. You may need to adjust your ownership projections to better compensate for the aggregate knowledge of the field. Make sure you keep this in mind as you evaluate your options.
Step Five: Be Decisive, Show No Fear
You’ve carefully identified the GPP you want to play, the landscape of the NFL slate, the player pool from which you will choose, and the expected behavior of your opponents. You have the ammunition to make an informed decision, and now it is time to act. DO NOT waver on the information you have collected. DO NOT allow others to influence your decisions without careful scrutiny of their opinion. DO NOT fear well informed bold calls or contrarian strategy. We are in the business of beating our opponents, and our roster should be able to tell the story on how that is going to happen. Which players give you the advantage? Which players give our opponents a disadvantage? Whoever has ended up in your roster at the end of this single entry lineup building process, make sure you can look at every player in it and tell a story on how they’ll succeed at NFL football and simultaneously vault you to the top of the single-entry leaderboard.