An Introduction to Roster Construction in Daily Fantasy Football
You know what? You’re screwed. Good luck. You’re going to need it.
Yup – this is exactly what most seasoned daily fantasy sports (DFS) players think when someone enters daily fantasy sports for the first time (or, heck, they even have this thought in regards to someone who has been playing DFS for a year or two and has still not been able to crack the code and start consistently earning profit).
If you are reading the introduction to this course, there is a very good chance you fall into one of those two categories: you are either just starting to take DFS seriously for the first time, or you have been playing for a while but have not yet managed to turn profit as consistently as you would like (or, for many of you, have not yet managed to turn consistent profit at all!).
If this is the case, I have good news for you:
This course contains eight lessons. If all I were using this course for was an opportunity to say, “You know what? You’re screwed. Good luck. You’re going to need it,” the course would be a whole lot shorter. In fact, the course would be finished already.
It’s not finished already. You see? I’m not telling you that you’re screwed. I’m giving you more than just a half-hearted (mostly ironic, totally sardonic) “Good luck.”
What am I giving you instead? That’s right — I’m giving you the tools, knowledge, and information you need to have in order to build winning daily fantasy football lineups.
“This is everything I need to know?”
Well, yes. And no.
“But… the title of this course says everything.”
And so it does.
You see, the huge advantage most seasoned DFS players have over newer (or unprofitable) players is their deep and intimate understanding of the nuances of roster construction. Every year — particularly in daily fantasy football — there are masses who enter the world of DFS thinking something along these lines: “I crush my fantasy league every year; I probably know this sport as well as anyone! This DFS thing is going to be like free money.” Or, even, “Heck, I make tons of money each year on sports betting. I understand the nuances of sports betting as well as anyone — I’ll just apply this knowledge to DFS and rake in the money.”
And sure, those things help. But you know what? There is more to daily fantasy sports than simply knowing the sport itself.
There is more to daily fantasy football than simply knowing the NFL really well, or even “being really good at fantasy football.”
This “more” is the nuances of roster construction.
This “more” is usually learned through weeks or months or years of trial and error and assessing and trying again and more error and more assessing and more trying and constantly improving and constantly learning and constantly coming to grasp the nuances of DFS roster construction and (whoo! — I need a breath), well, yes. This “more” usually comes with lots of time, lots of losses that will eventually lead to lots of winnings, and lots of dedication and hard work.
This “more,” however, is exactly what this course explores.
This “more” is why I titled this course Everything You Need To Know For Constructing Winning Daily Fantasy Football Rosters.
With that said, I have a couple caveats to add:
Caveat 1: There truly is no substitute for experience. I’m telling you the truth right now, even if it prevents me from converting you into a “purchaser” of this course: you will not read this course and immediately be able to compete with the best DFS players in the industry. You will not read this course and immediately become one of the most profitable DFS players around. Why? Because there are still going to be things you will need to learn on your own. There will always be things you need to learn on your own. What this course will do, however, is put you in position to immediately become a profitable player, and to be able to draw from a MASSIVE base of foundational knowledge that will help you figure out exactly the approach that works for you. In this course, we are going to take a look at:
A General Roster Construction Foundation
The Two Most Common Roster Construction Mistakes
Where to Start
Where to Go From There
Additional Cash Game Thoughts
Additional Tournament Thoughts
Putting It All Together
This information will launch you forward about a year — allowing you to skip much of the trial and error (and losings) you would otherwise have to endure. (I say “a year” — although, honestly, that is said with the assumption you would continue playing NBA DFS after NFL ends, and that you would continue playing MLB DFS after that. I honestly think it would take about a decade — if you were only playing NFL — to learn all you need to learn in order to have a broad and sturdy “roster construction foundation,” as daily fantasy football provides you with only about 17 weekends of play each year. Most of the top DFS players have sharpened their understanding of roster construction through MLB DFS and NBA DFS — where the opportunity to play a slate almost every single day makes it easy to get a ton of practice and to quickly accumulate large chunks of knowledge. So let’s amend that last statement: the information in this course will launch you forward about a year if you are planning to keep playing daily fantasy sports — and, if you are planning to only play NFL, it will launch you forward about a decade.)
Even with this massive and immensely valuable foundation in place, however, there will still — always! — be things you need to learn on your own.
Caveat 2: This course does not delve into the specifics of what you should be looking for in the players you are selecting at each position. Once again: there are differences between “what you will be looking for in players” in season-long fantasy football and “what you will be looking for in players” in daily fantasy football.
That is knowledge that takes less time to gather on your own than knowledge concerning roster construction. Honestly, you could invest one losing season of daily fantasy football and — by the end of it — have a pretty good understanding that you could carry into the next season of what you should be looking for in players at each specific position. If you do not want to go through a losing season in order to accumulate this knowledge on your own, however, I have good news for you:
I have also written courses on “Everything You Need To Know For Picking Quarterbacks,” “Everything You Need To Know For Picking Running Backs,” and “Everything You Need To Know For Picking Wide Receivers & Tight Ends” in daily fantasy football. Those courses are extremely valuable complements to this course, and you will get far more out of this course if it is combined with those courses.
So, there you go. There are two caveats that seemingly work very hard to dissuade you from purchasing this course! This is probably the worst job I have done on any RotoAcademy course I have ever written of “using Lesson 1 to convert ‘potential readers’ into ‘readers.’ But, oh well.
Right?
If you purchase this course, after all, I want it to have a maximum level of impact on your daily fantasy football play. If you purchase this course, I want you to be able to save weeks (months; years!) of head-being-banged-against-the-wall frustration as you endure losing weekend after losing weekend trying to solve this DFS puzzle. If you purchase this course, I want you to be in position to start winning right away, and to quickly be able to apply the knowledge you are gaining on your own to move from “winning right away” to “winning all the time.”
If you purchase this course, I want you to become one of the top daily fantasy football players in the industry — one of the DFS names people who have never even met you talk about with their friends: “This guy is super legit. Have you checked out his rosters? He’s winning all the freaking time.”
If you purchase this course, I want you to be able to turn DFS into more than just a hobby; I want you to be able to instead bank on profits each and every season — knowing that you have a stronger foundation than a massive percentage of your competition and that you have added your own knowledge to that foundation in order to reach that “next level” few DFS players ever reach.
If you’re with me — if this is what you want as well, even in spite of the “let me dissuade you from purchasing this course” caveats — then I’m super pumped to have you on board.
Let’s not waste time.
Let’s move onto Lesson 2: A General Roster Construction Foundation.
If you’re not with me? No worries — I totally understand! In the wise words of Alec Baldwin on “The Departed”:
The world needs plenty of bartenders.