Week 2: Wide Receivers
Hey, you. Yeah, you with the baseball hat cocked slightly to the side. (Statistically, that wasn’t a bad guess.) Come here. I’d like for you to take a walk with me down Narrative Street. Or, as we call it here, “The Calle.”
There are always pricing differences between DraftKings and FanDuel. That’s why our Bargain Rating is so valuable: It places a slate’s pricing differences within a larger daily fantasy sports historical context so that we can 1) see how DK and FD salaries usually correlate and then 2) use that information to find discounted players on the platforms.
I might be taking us too far down Narrative Street, but in Week 2 there may be a special exploitable edge to be found in the differences in pricing between DK and FD. On Sunday — before a number of games had even concluded — DK released its Week 2 salaries. For many (if not all) players, their Week 1 performances were not taken into account when their Week 2 DK salaries were created. In other words, for some players there could be a sizable gap between the productive capabilities they displayed in Week 1 and the production we would normally expect from players with their salaries (as signified by our Plus/Minus metric).
These DK players represent the opportunity to perform some old-school fantasy arbitrage.
Contrarily, FD released its Week 2 salaries early in the morning on Monday, after 14 of the 16 Week 1 games had been concluded. Performances from these games were possibly factored into Week 2 FD salaries.
If so, that would explain some of the pricing differences we see. For instance, there are large pricing disparities for some players who had significant performances in Week 1: Larry Fitzgerald, Willie Snead, Will Fuller, and Tajae Sharpe, to name a few. All of them are significantly more expensive on FD than they are DK — and that’s what we’d expect to see if Week 1 performance were taken into account on FD but not DK.
Of course, there’s the question about how much Week 1 performance matters. Is it a good thing for DFS players that DK salaries don’t have Week 1 priced into them? Does that create an exploitable edge?
Or is it possible that Week 1 isn’t all that important? — that perhaps DFS players will overvalue Week 1 performance when seeking to exploit the pricing differences between FD and DK?
Let’s start the piece by exploring this question. We’ll specifically look at select wide receivers who are significantly cheaper on DK than FD.
The DK Discounts
The Better Emmanuel Sanders and Lesser Antonio Brown
Brandin Cooks has the No. 5 salary at FD and No. 7 at DK. That difference might not seem great, but on FD he’s more expensive than DeAndre Hopkins and Dez Bryant, both of whom are arguably top-five receivers in the league. Week 2 isn’t occurring in a vacuum — but in a vacuum it’s hard to say that Cooks should be priced above those two guys.
But there’s no denying that Cooks was great in Week 1. He slayed with six receptions for 143 yards and two touchdowns, one of which was a 98-yard score and the other of which was a red-zone score: The best of both worlds. He’s also on a high-flying fast-paced offense that in Week 1 had more yards and touchdowns passing than any other team. Last week he had the second-highest point total among DK wide receivers.
And then there’s Snead. I don’t generally like to point to the scoreboard, but . . . that’s what I’m doing. Snead could be another Antonio. Per RotoViz, last year Drew Brees was actually his best when throwing to Snead:
The season is young — obligatory caveat — but Snead is once again the New Orleans receiver who makes Brees look good. He won’t always turn nine targets into nine receptions for 172 yards and a touchdown . . . but he could do it again in Week 2.
Sure, everyone knows that Brees sucks on the road. Per our Trends tool:
But you know what? The Giants suck everywhere. Last year they had the fifth-worst pass defense in the league (per Football Outsiders) and allowed the fourth-most yards receiving to wide receivers. They gave up the most receptions to the position. Can you say, “Points per reception”?
The Giants-Saints game has a slate-high implied Vegas total of 52.5 points, and the Saints are 4.5-point underdogs. They will throw the ball perhaps even more than they usually do.
On the one hand, Snead is incredibly cheap at $5,800, considering that in Week 1 he had the fourth-most wide receiver points in the slate and over the last 12 months he’s been within a point per game of Amari Cooper, Mike Evans, Jordan Matthews, Golden Tate, and T.Y. Hilton. He’s easily the cheapest DK receiver of that group.
On the other hand, he has experienced a $1,000 Salary Change in the last week — and he’s also $1,000 more expensive than he’s ever been on DK. Additionally, he’s ‘costly’ in that the market of DFS players likes him a lot: Our FantasyLabs ownership projections (in the Player Models) expect him to be one of the highest-rostered receivers in the slate at 17 to 20 percent ownership.
When you put all of that into a trend, here’s what it looks like:
The size of the sample is small — but that just shows the exceptional quality of the situation in which Snead now finds himself.
What say you? Is Snead an outstanding value play on account of his price, history of production, and matchup? Is he a guy to fade on account of his price-induced chalkiness? Or is he someone to hedge? — to play in cash and fade in guaranteed prize pools?
How you handle Snead very well could determine how you fare this week. It did last week.
If you go with Snead in tournaments, you must be sure to differentiate your lineup in some way, because my mother literally just called me as I was writing this piece and said . . .
Well, hello, dear. [Cough] Have you ever heard of . . . what’s his name . . . Willis Snide? Is that his name? Anyway — he’s the short little receiver for Drew. Say, he’s pretty good! He’s a little bit like Wes Welker, except with Cole Beasley‘s hair. You’re putting him in your lineups this weekend, right?
When even Mama Lynn is suggesting that a guy needs to be in lineups, you know that his ownership is going to be higher than Jay Persson on a Friday afternoon.
A Brief Note
Do we really need to have a long section about ‘No Speed’ Snead? Paraphrasing Buddy Garrity: “Well, no, Tami, we don’t need a Jumbotron. But we want a Jumbotron.”
If you’re a FantasyLabs subscriber — or even if you’re not — there’s nothing more important for you to do this NFL season than learn about our tools, our data, and the depth of research they enable.
So that’s why I wrote 800 words about Willis Snide. Don’t worry. I won’t do it again next week.
More DK Discounts
Lord Fitzy
In Week 1, he had the fifth-most wide receiver points at DK. Over the last year he’s basically been a discount A.J. Green, Alshon Jeffery, and Sammy Watkins on a points-per-game basis. But, sure, in Week 2 he’s only playing at home against a Tampa Bay defense that last year was 26th against the pass and dead last in the league at defending two of the wide receiver positions (per Football Outsiders). At some point this week, Lord Fitz will have the opportunity to exploit some cornerbacks who suck. (For more ‘delicious’ details, see our Matchups tool.)
It makes no sense that he has the 23rd DK salary at the position.
K-Benjy
The big-bodied Kelvin Benjamin is back. In Week 1 he dominated the Panthers’ target market share with 38.71 percent, which he turned into the slate’s 10th-highest DK point total for wide receivers. In 2014 he was a touchdown-scoring WR2, but now he has only the 22nd-highest DK salary among wide receivers. In Week 2 he’s at home playing against a 49ers defense that ranked third-worst against the pass last year (per FO).
For comparison, on FD he has the 14th-highest salary.
Gettin’ Fuller
First-round rookie wideout Will Fuller is so much the balls that Ron Burgundy pretends to know him. Targeted 11 times in Week 1, Fuller managed to catch only a Tavon Austin-esque five passes — but he turned those into 107 yards and a touchdown — in his first NFL contest. Just think of him as the Tavon who can actually run routes and play the position. He finished last week tied with Amari for 24.7 DK points, good for eighth overall among receivers . . . but yet he’s still priced at $4,200, the 58th receiver salary on the slate.
His matchup against the Chiefs isn’t ideal, but he’s at home and . . . he’s only $4,200. On FD he’s $6,200: 43rd among receivers.
Stay Sharpe
It’s possible that I was wrong about Sharpe. With 11 targets, he captured a team-high 27.50 percent of the Titans’ target market share in his NFL debut. He immediately looked like the guy he was in college: A guy who will get lots of receptions, a respectable amount of yards, and not many touchdowns. As a point of comparison: Fuller was targeted twice in the red zone. He got 25 yards and a touchdown. Sharpe was targeted once. He got three yards and a first down.
Just $100 cheaper than Fuller, Sharpe finished Week 1 with the 29th-highest DK total for receivers. He has the 60th salary at DK and the 49th at FD. Sharpe is expected to run the majority of his routes against cornerback Darius Slay, which in theory should be a challenge for him.
Still even if that is a challenge for him, he’s cheap and he gets targets. Don’t expect much, but expect him to outperform his DK pricing.
This is Just a List . . .
Of guys who in Week 1 had good production and at least adequate target data and who in Week 2 are still underpriced relative to the previous week’s combination of production and targets. In other words, these are guys who did their ‘Plus/Minus thing’ in Week 1 and could do it again this week if their usage stays constant.
In no real order:
• DeSean Jackson (WSH): 10 targets, $6,300 DK, $6,600 FD
• Stefon Diggs (MIN): Nine targets, $5,100 DK, $6,500 FD
• Cole Beasley (DAL): 12 targets, $3,200 DK, $5,000 FD
• Eli Rogers (PIT): Seven targets, $4,100 DK, $5,500 FD
• Mike Wallace (BLT): Six targets, $4,700 DK, $6,100 FD
• Davante Adams (GB): Seven targets, $4,200 DK, $5,700 FD
• Phillip Dorsett (IND): Six targets, $4,400 DK, $5,500 FD
No one in the group has a high FantasyLabs projected ownership. All of them could be used in most GPP lineups for the purposes of differentiation.
The Big Four
The same four wide receivers occupy the top spots in the salary scale at DK and FD. (The order differs.)
- Antonio (PIT): Has lost about three to four points from his average Plus/Minus against the Bengals over the last two years
- Odell Beckham, Jr. (NYG): Playing at home against the worst passing defense ever to rhyme with “ain’ts”
- Julio Jones (ATL): Facing a Raiders defense that allowed the most fantasy points to wide receivers in Week 1
- A.J. (CIN): Caught 92.3 percent of his 13 targets in Week 1
You know, now that I’m about 1,900 words into this piece, I realize that I buried the lead.
OBJ is at home. Against the Saints. In a shootout. And he’s not $15,000.
Naturally, he has a very high FantasyLabs ownership projection. If you’re going to roster him in GPPs with quarterback Eli Manning, you’ll need to find a way to differentiate your Giants stack, because my mother literally just called me as I was writing this piece . . .
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
Positional Breakdowns
Be sure to read the Week 2 positional breakdowns for quarterbacks, running backs, and tight ends, accessible via our slate content dashboard.
