It’s Week 1! — Like Almost Six Weeks From Now . . .
Early in the morning of August 1, 2016, the NFL (daily fantasy sports) season officially started: FanDuel released its Week 1 salaries. (Note that the season-opening Thursday game between the Panthers and Broncos is not included in the first slate that FanDuel released.)
In this piece, the first of a series (within a series?) that I’m calling The Freedman Files — an unoriginal and self-obsessed name that fits me perfectly — I’m going to write a lot of stuff about quarterbacks in no particular order. You’re welcome.
For a macro perspective on Week 1 FanDuel salaries, be sure to check out FantasyLabs co-founder Jonathan Bales‘ recent piece.
Some Old-School Thoughts on Quarterbacks
The quarterback is the beating heart of your team’s offense — unless you’re a Cowboys fan, in which case your quarterback is the gaping wound in your chest signifying where your heart should be but no longer is . . . because it was ripped out by your quarterback, who then ate it. Who knew that the heart of a fan could weigh 30 pounds?!
Romo pic.twitter.com/69W3fkoXYO
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) July 30, 2016
And in case you missed exactly what was said in that previous paragraph: Tony Romo is the heart that gluts on itself. And that might be the most disgusting and perfectly emblematic image ever.
Let’s get this party started. And by ‘party’ I mean ‘3 AM writing session.’
More on Tony Romo
There’s actually nothing wrong with Romo as an athlete, an NFL quarterback, a fantasy asset, or a Week 1 option. Per the RotoViz Team Splits App, over the last two years the Cowboys have had a +6.72 point differential in the 19 games that Romo has played, averaging 28.16 points per contest. That’s a ridiculously-high number. As a point of comparison: Over that same time, the Patriots have averaged 29.16 points per game. With Romo healthy, the Cowboys have basically been the arbitrage Patriots.
In the 13 games that Romo has missed since 2014, the team has ‘sported’ a -8.62 point differential, scoring only 15.92 points per game. That’s more than a 15-point swing. What? — is Blaine Gabbert the backup quarterback? The Cowboys wish . . .
In Week 1, Dallas is hosting the Giants. That game currently has the slate’s third-highest line and the Cowboys have the slate’s fifth-highest implied total — 49 and 26.25 points, respectively. In 2015, the Giants defense was the fifth-worst unit in the league at defending the pass, according to Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) metric. The Giants did make some offseason additions that could improve their defense, but the odds aren’t good that the unit will be cohesive in Week 1. In this game Romo could do what he does best: Eat his heart out (in a good way).
In his healthy 2014 campaign, Romo was perhaps the best quarterback in the NFL, completing a league-high 69.9 percent of his passes for a league-high 8.5 yards per attempt and turning them into touchdowns at a league-high rate of 7.8 percent. And in the last four years, no one has produced a higher Total QBR than Romo’s 83.6 in 2014.
Consider this: Since entering the league, Romo has played against the Giants 17 times. He has 41 touchdowns in those games — by far the most he has thrown against any other team. (Washington and Philadelphia are second with 27 and 20 touchdowns allowed in 16 and 19 games.) Here’s maybe the oddest Giants/non-Giants stat: In his career, Romo has three touchdowns rushing against the Giants . . . and two such touchdowns against the remaining 31 teams . . . in 114 games. It doesn’t matter how he scores. Against the Giants, Romo scores sort of however he wants.
Romo is $7,600.
He’s $100 cheaper than Andy Dalton, who’s quarterbacking a road team implied to score only 22 points against the Jets.
He’s the same price as Matt Ryan, who’s Matt Ryan.
He has the 12th-highest salary at the position. And there’s his DFS record against the Giants over the past two seasons:
It all depends on your opinion of sniffing, but a +3.92 Plus/Minus with 100 percent Consistency is nothing to sniff at.
Aaron Rodgers Is the Best Quarterback in the NFL — But Maybe Not of This Slate
At $9,000, Rodgers is easily the most expensive passer in the slate, $300 more than Andrew Luck and Drew Brees. I like Rogers, but Luck’s Colts are a five-point home favorite implied to score a slate-high total of 27 points and Brees is playing at home in the Superdome, where his splits are good in reality and fantasy:
And over the last two years when Brees has been at home against a non-division opponent, as he is in Week 1, the results have been even better.
Russell Wilson and Ben Roethlisberger also might be preferable to Rodgers, as both are $500 cheaper. Wilson’s Seahawks are a slate-high 9.5-point home favorite and implied to score the slate’s second-highest total of 26.75 points.
And Roethlisberger’s Steelers are a three-point favorite implied to score the slate’s fourth-highest total (26.5 points) against a Washington team with a defense that ranked 20th against the pass last year (per DVOA). Roethlisberger, in theory, won’t be helped by the assumed absence of running back Le’Veon Bell. In reality, over the last three years, Roethlisberger has been fine (perhaps better?) without Bell.
In general, I’m not a fan of rostering quarterbacks missing multiple major offensive weapons — remember that the Steelers will also be without wide receiver Martavis Bryant — and it’s really hard to trust a quarterback when over the last two years he has done this on the road as a favorite . . .
But Roethlisberger is an elite quarterback who is cheaper than Rodgers and on a team implied to score more points than Rodgers’ team. He could be a better option.
And then of course $700 cheaper than Rodgers is Tom Brady . . . never mind.
Rodgers will probably do well on the road against Jacksonville. Last year, the Jaguars ranked 31st in pass defense per DVOA. The Packers are 4.5-point favorites and implied to score 25.75 points — but that’s ‘only’ the slate’s sixth-highest mark. Jordy Nelson is slated to return — but he will almost certainly be at less than 100 percent capability because of his ACL injury. Eddie Lacy has reportedly lost a lot of weight — so know he’s just merely too big, not Trent Richardson.
For the guy who has the slate’s highest salary at his position, Rodgers carries a lot of risk:
A. Lot. Of. Risk.
There Are Worse Things . . .
In the Packers-Jaguars game, if Rodgers is a road favorite then that means that Blake Bortles is a home underdog:
There are worse things, such as . . .
I Don’t Want to Be Reductive, But . . .
It’s not a good thing to be playing a division opponent on the road at any time, but especially in Week 1:
Beware of Jameis Winston, Philip Rivers, Eli Manning, and Jared Goff. All are road quarterbacks facing division opponents. All of them are on teams outside of the top 10 in implied point total.
Baby, You Can Drive My Carr!
I don’t think that Derek Carr is a great quarterback, but in Week 1 he’s facing the Saints in the Superdome:
Last year, the Saints allowed 4,544 yards and 45 touchdowns passing. They easily had the league’s worst pass defense per DVOA. They allowed the most touchdowns passing in league history — with room to spare.
Beep beep’m, beep beep, yeah!
This Is Just a Reminder
It’s OK to roster quarterbacks in games with low Vegas totals, especially when they are A) playing non-divisional opponents and B) favored and/or capable runners. Out of Dalton ($7,700), Marcus Mariota ($7,500), Tyrod Taylor ($7,200), Brock Osweiler ($7,100), Joe Flacco ($7,000), Alex Smith ($7,000), and, yes, even Robert Griffin III ($6,900), Teddy Bridgewater ($6,800), and Ryan Tannehill ($6,400), some of those quarterbacks will perform well enough to make you not hate yourself for rostering them. Not all of them. But enough of them. I prefer the guys who can use their legs to accumulate extra points, since upside lies on the periphery.
Chip Kelly Quarterbacks
I like Kelly. He’s an innovator. Gabbert ($6,200) and Colin Kaepernick ($6,500) will probably end up collectively doing about as well over the course of the season as Kelly’s quarterbacks usually do. That’s actually pretty decent — but not on FanDuel, especially when Kelly’s team is implied to score only 22 points:
It doesn’t help that the Rams also have a top-10 pass defense rank in DVOA. Gabbert did well last year on FanDuel in his eight starts, and he could do well in Week 1. But don’t assume that he carries almost no risk. He’s Blaine f*cking Gabbert.
Can a Segue Be a Conclusion?
Here’s something important that Bales says in his macro analysis of the Week 1 FanDuel salaries:
I know the general sentiment is, “Pay up for quarterbacks in cash games,” but I’m not sure that’s necessarily the best long-term strategy on FanDuel. When you look at how much more consistent top-tier running backs have been, going big there and perhaps trying to find cheap value with your signal-caller is the way to go, all else being equal.
As Bales has indicated, quarterback probably is not the position in which you should invest heavily on FanDuel, especially given the relative value you can find by paying up at running back — which just happens to be the position I’ll be covering in the next installment of The Freedman Files.
(Yes, a segue can be a conclusion.)
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The Labyrinthian: 2016, 74
This was the 74th installment of The Labyrinthian, a series dedicated to exploring random fields of knowledge in order to give you unordinary theoretical, philosophical, strategic, and/or often rambling guidance on daily fantasy sports. Consult the introductory piece to the series for further explanation.
Previous installments of The Labyrinthian can be accessed via my author page. If you have suggestions on material I should know about or even write about in a future Labyrinthian, please contact me via email, [email protected], or Twitter @MattFtheOracle.
