It’s Groundhog Week
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 the days that followed, I released The Freedman Files, a series in which I uncontrollably spewed my thoughts systematically analyzed the FanDuel salaries on a position-by-position basis.
— Part 1: FanDuel Quarterbacks
— Part 2: FanDuel Running Backs
— Part 3: FanDuel Wide Receivers
— Part 4: FanDuel Tight Ends
FantasyLabs co-founder Jonathan Bales added some reason to the proceedings with his macro perspective on Week 1 FanDuel salaries.
Right after publishing the FD tight ends piece last Friday, I packed a suitcase, got on a plane, slept the entire flight, landed in Dallas-Fort Worth, and saw that DraftKings had just released its salaries.
In other words, what happened last week happened again this week.
— Part 5: DraftKings Quarterbacks
— Part 6: DraftKings Running Backs
— Part 7: DraftKings Wide Receivers
— Part 8: DraftKings Tight Ends
Be sure to check out the recent Daily Fantasy Sports Roundtable in which FantasyLabs co-founder Peter Jennings and FantasyLabs writer Adam Levitan joined me to talk about . . . what else? . . .Week 1 FD & DK salaries.
Also, RotoWorld Senior Football Editor Evan Silva joined Levitan and me for another Roundtable, in which we discussed the DFS implications of the preseason.
We’re in the eighth inning. Let’s get this game to the closer.
Monday Night Football, Alas
The MNF games are not in this Sunday-only slate, so . . .
— No Jordan Reed, who on FanDuel is the primary non-Gronk elite option
— No Ladarius Green, who . . . might not be playing in Week 1 anyway
— No Vance McDonald, who will presumably play the West Coast role of Zach Ertz for Chip Kelly this season
If you want to roster these guys, play on FanDuel or wait for the MNF-only slate on DraftKings.
Get Your Gronk On?
In his analysis of Week 1 FanDuel salaries, Bales notes that elite tight ends “are severely underpriced on FanDuel as compared to DraftKings.” On a macro level, he’s right, in terms of the value that high-priced tight ends tend to provide on FanDuel given what you have to invest in them.
Of course, he also said that before DraftKings had released its Week 1 salaries. That might make a difference.
On FanDuel, Rob Gronkowski is higher than he has ever been priced . . . in a week in which he will play without quarterback Tom Brady for the first time in his career. That’s not ideal.
On DraftKings, Gronk is $7,400. He’s $2,400 more than Travis Kelce, so Gronk is clearly not cheap, but he’s also nowhere near the historical salary ceiling. Over the last two years, 30 times a tight end has been in Gronk’s Week 1 salary range. Per our Trends tool, guys in that range tend to provide value:
Of course, the only players ever to be in this range to begin with are Gronk, Greg Olsen (who is missing in the slate because the Panthers open on Thursday night), Jimmy Graham (who was with Drew Brees), and Julius Thomas (who was with pre-horrible Peyton Manning).
If we isolate Gronk in this trend, the Plus/Minus bumps up to +3.03 and the Consistency to 70.6 percent.
Gronk isn’t in a great spot, as the Patriots are currently 5.5-point road underdogs implied to score only 21 points, but if you roster him on DraftKings at least you’re not rostering him at an unprecedented price.
Still . . . you might want not to roster him at all.
The Two Other Guys
Kelce ($5,000) and Coby Fleener ($4,900) are the elite non-Gronk tight ends on the slate. With the second- and third-highest salaries, they are expected not to suck.
Fortunately, both of them are in good spots.
Kelce’s Chiefs are seven-point home favorites implied to score 25 points against a Chargers team with a defense that last year ranked 31st against tight ends in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) metric. Kelce has a decent chance of getting a touchdown against a unit that allowed eight touchdowns to tight ends last year.
Fleener is the chalk on FanDuel, where he has only the slate’s 13th-highest salary at the position. But he could still be worth rostering on DraftKings too, even at his relatively-elevated price.
For one, the Saints are at home and implied to score 25.75 points against the Raiders, who last year allowed 96 receptions, 1,290 yards, and 11 touchdowns to tight ends. Those marks respectively were third-, second-, and second-worst on the season.
Additionally, Fleener’s $4,900 salary has not historically been prohibitive for a Brees tight end. Far from it:
I’m not sure, but I think the phrase I’m looking for is something like, “Uptown funk gon’ give it to ya.”
In his one game with a similar salary in 2014, Graham balled out with a +6.85 Plus/Minus. Last year, Benjamin Watson had only a +3.13 Plus/Minus across eight games in this salary range.
Even on DraftKings, Fleener might be the chalk in Week 1.
The One Who Stayed
For the first time since 2007, Fleener will not be teammates with quarterback Andrew Luck. He is now in New Orleans, and Dwayne Allen is the tight end who stayed in Indianapolis.
On FanDuel, Allen’s Week 1 salary ($5,500) is the 11th-highest of the slate. On DraftKings, he’s priced at only $3,200, the 18th-highest salary. For some context, he’s priced right below Will Tye ($3,300) and above Richard Rodgers ($3,100).
The Colts are five-point home favorites implied to score a slate-high 27 points against a Detroit team with a defense that last season was ranked 29th against tight ends in DVOA.
In 2014, Allen led the Colts in touchdowns receiving with eight in 13 games. For his career, he has converted 8.8 percent of his 147 targets into touchdowns — an excellent conversion rate — and inside the 10-yard line he is a total beast, converting 14 career targets into 10 receptions, 45 yards, and nine touchdowns.
Last year, the Lions gave up 12 touchdowns to opposing tight ends — the most in the league.
On the recent Roundtable pod on which he was a guest with CSURAM88, Levitan mentioned that he tends to roster cheap tight ends on DraftKings. (He’s not always pleased with the results.)
Anyway, Allen seems like the type of cheap tight end Levitan would like.
All Good Things Must Come to an End Before 4 PM ET on a Friday in August
As I mentioned in The Forward Pass recapping the 8/12 preseason action, the Buccaneers actually seem to be serious about Cameron Brate. Right now, he really is the starting tight end.
In Week 1 of the preseason, he played with the first-team offense and saw two of quarterback Jameis Winston‘s targets. Should-be-stud Austin Seferian-Jenkins played with the second team.
If Brate is able to hold off ASJ for the entire preseason and enter the regular season as the starter, he will be begging to be rostered at $2,900.
He might just end up being Levitan’s Fantasy Voldemort.
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The Labyrinthian: 2016, 81
This is the 81st 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.
Matthew Freedman is the Editor-in-Chief of FantasyLabs.
