Notorious' NFL DFS Core Plays: Week 4
Week 4 Core Plays
It was another interesting week of football where the chalk running backs had a difficult time reaching value. My pivot from Jonathan Taylor to Dalvin Cook helped me get across the cash line in most contests, but my lineup was still full of landmines. When it comes to DFS, we have to be quick to adapt to trends in the NFL. When I first started playing daily fantasy football, the idea was to pay up at quarterback to secure that high floor in your lineup. A few years later, the idea was to save at quarterback since the range of outcomes for the position was more narrow than at running back or wide receiver. With so many mobile quarterbacks in the game right now, it’s hard to click on the name of a player that doesn’t have a solid rushing floor. The ability to make plays on the ground raises the floor and ceiling of a quarterback, so now I’m generally looking to pay up at the position unless there is a screaming value play.
Referring back to the opening statement, we’ve had so many of the chalk running back plays bust early in the season. We can chalk this up to small sample size, but I think it’s more than that. There are very few true bell cow running backs in the NFL. Most teams have at least two backs splitting snaps and carries. We no longer have the option to jam in Le’Veon Bell and David Johnson in their primes when they were both $10,000 and still reaching value every week. The other difference this season is that DraftKings has raised the minimum price of a running back and has been quick to price up the backups when a starter gets injured. We no longer have the free square plays that have very few paths to failure. If you want to play a running back making a spot start, you’ll likely have to pay at least $5,000 for him. This doesn’t mean he’s automatically a bad play, but he’s far from the free square at $3,000.