NFL DFS Tips: 7 Steps to Create Winning Daily Fantasy Football Lineups This Season
The 2025 NFL regular season is almost here! There is an overwhelming amount of information to consume across the industry, but there are 7 simple steps you can take right here at RotoGrinders to create strong NFL DFS lineups each week.
🏈 Join the RotoGrinders Discord
🏈 Tune into our NFL DFS podcasts and shows throughout the week
🏈 Read our premium content and use our tools
🏈 Use our NFL DFS Sims tool (SimLabs) and NFL DFS optimizer (LineupHQ)
⛈️ Check Kevin Roth’s NFL weather report
🏈 Check our NFL injury report and NFL starting lineups page
🏈 Tune into our live shows every Sunday morning on our YouTube page
1. Join the RotoGrinders Discord
Want to chop it up with our experts and subscribers, ask questions, or just hang out? Join the RotoGrinders Discord to become a bigger part of the best community in daily fantasy sports.
2. Tune into our podcasts and shows throughout the week
Our media team wastes no time prepping for the next week of action!
Join Davis Mattek, Sammy Reid, and Nate Nohling each week on the Gillcast. Soon after the Sunday main slate contests wrap up, they recap everything that went right or wrong in the DFS streets.
The Pick 6 show, with Dean78904, Rich Hribar, and John Daigle, has plenty of banter and great fantasy football perspectives. You can catch this popular trio every Wednesday at ~8:00 PM ET.
If you’re into Showdown contests for the standalone primetime games, we’ll always have a Pre-Lock Show to discuss Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, and Monday Night Football. You will often find top DFS personalities like headChopper, Davis Mattek, beermakersfan, and chiefjustICE06 on these shows, walking you through how they are trying to take down 1st place in these top-heavy DFS contests.
Friday is an action-packed day at RotoGrinders. beermakersfan usually bellies up to the Fantasy Bar at some point Friday morning for his popular 6 Pack video, where he shares his favorite plays of the week. And for those of you who want Beer’s take in the sports betting streets, he will have his Pints & Picks video over on our ScoresAndOdds YouTube channel.
Blenderhd will host RotoGrinders Today at 11:00 AM ET every Friday, which features some of your favorite RotoGrinders personalities as guests to discuss DFS strategy, props, and more for the upcoming week of games.
THE BLITZ show is another heavy-hitter on the Friday schedule, with Derek Carty (creator of THE BLITZ projection system), Alex Dunlap, and TJ Zwarych taking you through that week’s main slate through the lens of THE BLITZ projections.
And finally, before things culminate with our Sunday morning kickoff shows (more on that below), tune into Tournament Takes every Saturday at 12:00 PM ET, featuring kirkdiese, Bobby Gomes, and Notorious. Three of the sharpest DFS minds in the industry are giving you free insight into how they are going to attack Sunday’s main slate.
3. Read our premium content and use our tools
There are plenty of reasons to consider becoming a RotoGrinders Premium member. Not only are we cranking out a ton of quality NFL DFS content each and every week, but as a premium subscriber, you also get access to all of our industry-leading tools.
The initial run of that week’s NFL DFS projections get posted around late morning on Wednesday. Our Optimal Stacks Tool will also post its early-week findings every Wednesday, and they’ll update right up until lock on Sunday. It’s a great way to help start your mid-week research.
Do you like to see who the sharp DFS players are considering for their lineups? Of course you do. You’ll be able to check out our Consensus Value Rankings as early as Wednesday each week to help get a better idea of the top plays on Sunday.
Jordan Vanek will be dropping his popular Vanek’s Views every Thursday. Jordan will be using his football background to dive into the micro matchups to see who you should be stacking on that week’s main slate. You won’t want to miss this one!
If you are curious what you’ll be getting each week from Jordan’s articles, we’ve made his Week 14 article free, which was one of Jordan’s big weeks in the DFS streets last season.
🫡 Josh Allen Jersey is in the mail. https://t.co/mjJyzvLa84 pic.twitter.com/I9IfyLe7qP
— Jordan Vanek (@JordanVanekDFS) December 9, 2024
On Thursdays, Sundays, and Mondays, premium subscribers will also have access to our in-depth Expert Survey for that night’s Showdown contests. Be sure to check out the question pertaining to LineupHQ, as our Experts will give you one of their exact settings that they are inputting in the lineup builder for that night’s slate.
Friday is a big day for main slate NFL content.
If you want a long-form piece on that week’s main slate, check out Key Personnel by Notorious. It is a fantastic way to get you up to speed for Sunday, and you are sure to come away with a better idea of what to do with your DFS lineups.
If you want something that is more in the short-form variety, our projections team (e.g. Chris Gimino, Kyle Murray) puts together The RotoGrinders Sunday Best, which is a quick-hitting chart that lays out the best DFS plays that week across the content and tools at RotoGrinders. Been a busy week and strapped for time come Sunday morning? This is the piece you are looking for.
Another Expert Survey will be available every Friday for Sunday’s main slate; there’s no better quick read in the industry that also layers in some hard-hitting analysis. The Experts this season will be Notorious, stevietpfl, Krayton, Erik Beimfohr, Neil Orfield, Davis Mattek, and Jordan Vanek. Not to mention, that group plus headChopper and Bobby Gomes will have Expert tags & analysis each week in our NFL DFS optimizer, LineupHQ.
LineupHQ has been a staple of the industry for years. If you’re looking for a way to create hundreds of lineups, while also having player projections, projected ownership, and expert analysis all on the same screen, then this is the one-stop shop for you, and it’s available for premium members!
4. Use our NFL SimLabs tool
Simulation tools have altered the DFS landscape. Our SimLabs tool is the perfect balance of being both advanced and easy to use. RotoGrinders created SimLabs with the purpose of simplifying advanced DFS play and providing a route for all players to have access to advanced tools. SimLabs is available for premium subscribers, and for those of you who also have a subscription to THE BLITZ, you can now get those projections in SimLabs too!
SimLabs simulates every aspect of a DFS slate thousands of times, from the plays in each game down to the results of a DFS contest. Then, it displays the results of each simulation in an easy-to-use interface, where you can generate competitive DFS lineups with just a few simple inputs based on your own personal preferences.
To learn even more about SimLabs, be sure to check out our FAQ page.
5. Check the weather
Weather plays a massive part in NFL DFS, and there’s nobody in the business better than Kevin Roth, our in-house meteorologist. He’ll update his NFL weather forecast throughout the week, and he’s a great follow on Twitter too. Premium subscribers also get access to his WeatherEdge tool, which shows how similar weather conditions from past games at that particular stadium have affected scoring.
6. Check our injury report and lineups page
It’s integral to know what the NFL starting lineups and depth charts are, and those usually change due to players getting hurt. Our Situation Room is a one-stop shop for an up-to-date NFL injury report, and it’s easily sortable (e.g. by team, by DFS relevance, etc.) for however you want to utilize the information.
7. Tune into our live shows every Sunday morning
It doesn’t matter if you wake up early or sleep in – RotoGrinders has you covered every Sunday morning for hours before kickoff! Our experts will pepper information your way throughout the week, but so much can change the morning of kickoff, especially once injury reports get released.
Our Sunday morning media block starts at 9:30 AM ET with long-time GrindersLive host Dean78904, who will be joined by co-hosts Bobby Gomes and Tim Buell.
At 11:00 AM ET, they’ll pass the torch to three of the sharpest tournament minds in the industry. GPP Final Takes will feature Erik Beimfohr, Neil Orfield, and Jordan Vanek. I can tell you right now that this show is going to absolutely be a must-watch!
Finally, it’s Crunch Time at 12:15 PM ET. Our 3-person booth of experts chats about each player position and relevant news and strategy, all while answering questions in the RotoGrinders Discord and YouTube chats. Whether you are scrambling to make your lineups or just want to kill time before kickoff, Crunch Time always makes for a great hang.
Image Credit: Imagn