Hall of Fame Game NFL DFS Picks: 2023 Preseason Core Plays & Tiers
NFL DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel is back, thanks to this week’s arrival of the preseason and 2023 Hall of Fame Game! The RotoGrinders team is excited to produce NFL DFS picks, previews, projections, and NFL DFS lineup optimizer tools once again for our favorite daily fantasy sport.
Kyle Murray and Chris Gimino have a combined experience in Preseason NFL DFS, College Football DFS, and the NFL Draft process that is matched by few others, and they will be leading our team of Preseason NFL DFS fanatics to bring you their top selections, broken down into tiers. Our NFL experts track all of the depth charts and injury reports, in addition to any actionable information shared by coaches and beat writers, to help guide their selections and DFS picks.
2023 NFL HOF Game: Jets vs. Browns Preview
- New York Jets Odds: -1.5 (-110)
- Cleveland Browns Odds: +1.5 (-110)
- Over/Under: 33.5 (-110/-110)
- Date & Time: Thursday, August 3, 2023 | 8 p.m. ET
- TV: NBC
The New York Jets will take on the Cleveland Browns in a Hall of Fame Game Showdown. This game typically features players deep down the depth charts of most teams, and many NFL fans tune out once the stars leave the field. However, us DFS players will be glued to our screens for all four quarters. This will possibly anger others in our household who may rather be watching Is It Cake? (or insert your family viewing of choice), as opposed to sweating the Cleveland Browns WR11 for cash games. We’re here for it!
The following tiered rankings and top NFL DFS picks will help you improve your chances of taking home cash prizes this preseason, starting with the annual Hall of Fame Game on Thursday, August 3. We are making this content FREE for the 2023 Hall of Fame Game only, but you will need a RotoGrinders Premium subscription to access this content for the rest of the NFL preseason.
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Building Hall of Fame Game NFL DFS Lineups
Whenever you are talking about lineup-building in any DFS sport or format, it is important to first understand your objectives with said lineups. You can take a few different approaches, with the first being the optimal approach. This would lead your lineup to consistent or safer options that will likely be played by a larger portion of the players within your contests.
In NFL preseason, and especially the Hall of Fame Game, Kickers (when they are the only ones on their teams’ roster) and Defenses tend to have inherent advantages in terms of their median projections due to the fact that they can earn points for the entirety of the game. The projections that live in LineupHQ are median projections and are built to identify the average outcome for a player. Defenses can go backwards as they allow points and yards, but they also start with points. So when considering they will always get the full game (as they are a unit, not a player) and the nature of the preseason is typically known for featuring lower scoring, less productive offense, Defenses will usually have a much better median projection than non-QB position players.
Quarterbacks also find themselves in the “optimal” range of players in the preseason for a couple of reasons. First, with the news and reports we are able to get in preseason, it is usually more clear what kind of playing time you can project for a QB compared to other position players. Secondly, they are usually involved in more plays than other players, and therefore, have more opportunity to score points.
However, Kickers and Defenses are less likely to be able to accrue many points at one time, like a skill player can. For example, if a WR catches a touchdown pass, he will accrue points for the touchdown, the catch, and the yards that come with it. This is referred to as event-based scoring, and while a defense can return an interception or a fumble for a touchdown, the amount of points they can accrue on one single play are inherently fewer than a position player.
This means that position players have much more volatility within their expected performance. In preseason, a player is less likely to play a full game, and therefore they have a lower floor. However, they are also more capable of scoring a larger amount of points in fewer plays due to the nature of the scoring formats on these DFS sites. With all of that being said, position players are likely to be better GPP plays, given their range of outcomes is much more spread out than that of a Defense or a Kicker.