Daily Fantasy Football Picks for Week 15 - DraftKings

DFSR is excited to bring you Bryce McVay. Dude knows his stuff and he'll be bringing you picks specifically for DraftKings with an emphasis on that site's scoring system and value. We are pumped to have a great new voice in the DFS landscape.

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For many, it’s the semi-finals of your yearly fantasy leagues…if people still play those. To all of those lucky enough to survive throughout the bye weeks, the early round draft busts, the Wednesday night stat corrections, and the litany of injuries; Congratulations!

Of course with DFS there are no such things as bye weeks, drafts, or stat corrections and the only injuries that actually affect our results are of the “in-game” variety. The uncontrollable, unpredictable anomalies that occur in nature. The most appealing aspect of daily fantasy sports is that your chosen player only needs to survive four quarters, not four months….and here comes my rant.

Unlike your standard yearly fantasy league, DFS has a large amount of “predictability” and predictability itself turns a game of LUCK into a game of SKILL. Just as an astute poker player would spot a pattern in his opponent’s betting strategy, a top-notch DFS Pro spots trends in a player’s stat lines…Now I know every parent out there is screaming, “Daily fantasy sports and poker will never be more than gambling in my book!”

Let me attempt a compelling step forward. I studied actuarial mathematics for three years in college, and worked in the field for another five years as an actuarial consultant. In as little words as possible without further boring you, let me try and explain what an actuary effectively does.

An actuary starts with a whole bunch of historical data. Then, he or she observes patterns and trends in this data such that a product (mostly insurance) can be priced and sold to a consumer. Actuaries have no idea if the product is in fact priced properly until additional data is collected on the future outcomes.

Now, my point is not that insurance is a mechanism of gambling and the actuaries/companies that sell insurance products are the proverbial “House.” Under a capitalist economy, insurance is fundamentally necessary and it is a service that benefits the world; poker and daily fantasy sports among others are simply pastimes.

My point is that the science of insurance has been studied, analyzed, and observed so finely that the element of luck has essentially been eliminated. And if it ain’t luck, then it’s skill!

As fantasy sports have progressed over the years, analytic sports experts have begun to incorporate more elements of predictability into the game. Yahoo tracks almost every stat you can think of while also providing data from past years. The fact is, there is now a large skill component within fantasy sports, specifically daily fantasy sports.

I’ll end my rant there and move on to week 15, but if you want to start a Twitter debate @brycemcvay I dare you to tell me daily fantasy sports is intrinsically different than investing in the S&P500.

From my Monday-Thursday research I am once again excited about the value this week. As always, let me remind you that I pick for value, and value alone.

I’m a fan of simple math to better explain things; Player A has a 50% chance to achieve exactly 1.0 value and a 50% chance to achieve exactly 5.0 value while Player B has a 100% chance to achieve exactly 3.0 value, which player do I choose? When picking for value alone, I will choose Player B every single week. This is a simple definition of volatility and when playing cash formats (specifically 50/50, double-ups) you want to avoid high volatility….and that’s where I come in.

Quarterbacks

Johnny Manziel DK $5,900
I saw a fair amount of articles refrain from discussing Manziel because EVERYONE is already talking about him. Here’s my thing; I don’t care about what Johnny Football had for breakfast, I don’t care about his smokin’ hot girlfriend, I don’t even care about the Browns beating the Bengels in a pivotal divisional matchup…I care about value!

The little dude is priced at $5.9K meaning he needs 17.7 points for 3.0 value. Ask Russell Wilson how important QB rushing yards are assuming DK settings. If he gets 50 yards rushing which seems very likely, throws for a measly 175 yards and adds one score, then he’s at 16 points. If that one score is a rushing touchdown, he’s at 18 points. If he outperforms any of those very reasonable stat line goals then he’s tipping 20. Let us not forget he has Josh Gordon and a healthy Jordan Cameron as well as a satisfactory run game in West and Crowell to balance the field.

Ben Roethlisberger DK $7,900
We saw first-hand how porous Atlanta’s defense is this past Monday night in Lambeau Field. Frankly, if you have watched any game from Atlanta’s season, then you already knew this. Big Ben has a ton of weapons at his disposal and salary cap aside, I’m not sure I start any QB over Big Ben this week. Yet, he’s a $1000 less than Luck, Rodgers, Manning.

Running Backs

Fred Jackson $5,200 (GB @ BUF)
I have to caveat anything I’m about to say with the fact that I am historically bad when picking Fred Jackson. I play him two to three times a year and he always has the worst games of his season during those weeks. I am hoping to buck the trend. He has a solid matchup against a Green Bay defense that we all saw is very vulnerable both in the run and pass game. We also saw how their prolific offense cannot be stopped, nor contained. The Bills will be behind and just like last week, F-Jax will be the benefactor. He needs 15.6 points for value so 6 receptions and 100 total yards sounds just about right.

Jonathan Stewart DK 5,000 (TB @ CAR)
I think F-Jax has a slightly higher floor and a slightly lower ceiling which is why I will probably play F-Jax over Stewart in more cases than not (remember our lesson on volatility). Nevertheless, if D-Will is again inactive then Stewie will get 16-20 touches in this game. At 5K, I think 15 points is very much achievable especially if he can find pay dirt.

Latavius Murray DK $4,000 (OAK @ KC)
His price seems like a mistake. He got 23 carries last week and torched the Chiefs on only four carries just three weeks ago. I umm…I don’t get it so let’s just leave it at that.

Chris Johnson DK $3,600/ Christopher Ivory DK $4,200
I list both of the NYJ backs together because I don’t think it’s crazy to play both in the same lineup. I will say I prefer Chris over Chris this week…Ok, Johnson over Ivory. He’s $600 cheaper and has a rivalry game against his old team who happen to be the worst run defense in the league.

Let’s think out loud about playing both in the same lineup. That’s a collective $7,600 and you are clearing both running back positions in week where the RB position is a bit limited. By doing this, you capture the entire NYJ rushing attack. The Titans give up an average of 141 rushing yards/game. We’ll conservatively say Johnson and Ivory get 130 of these yards with 3 total catches and 1 total score. That’s a hair under 3.0 value as a whole and that’s ignoring the fact that the Jets rely heavily on their run game.

Wide Receivers

Antonio Brown DK $8,700
He's expensive and 3.0 value is only achieved when he scores around 26 points. However, you have to spend your money somewhere and like most weeks I like to spend my cap at the WR position. The Atlanta Falcon secondary is the worst I've seen all year and Brown is the best wide receiver I've seen all year. Need I say more?...What can Brown do for you? I said more.

Odell Beckham Jr. DK $8,400 (WAS @ NYG)

He's the second half version of the man listed above, Antonio Brown, but he may be even more of a consistent weapon in his respective offense. He is a supreme talent that is certain to get 10+ targets yet again this week. A great matchup also helps.

Marquis Lee DK $3,600 (JAX @ BAL)

Lee is my best value wide receiver of the week even ahead of Wilson mentioned below. Lee has emerged as Bortles favorite target and Jacksonville should of course be playing from behind in a game with the largest point spread of the week. 6 catches and 60 yards gets me to value and even though I don't expect much more, that's all you need from this value punt.

Marquess Wilson DK 3,000
I am obligated to put Mr. Wilson on the list this week. After Marshall took a knee to a the ribs and is now out for the remainder of the season, Wilson takes over his WR1 role in the Chicago offense. I personally think Bennett is the biggest benefactor hence why he's one of my listed TE's, but Wilson at 3K falls squarely in to the value play column.

T.Y. Hilton DK $8,000
I think I like Brown and Beckham ever so slightly more than Hilton but no way I could leave him off the list considering his matchup. All I ever remember about Thank You Hilton is when he traded touchdowns with Andre Johnson in a game where both WR's had three total scores. He seems to do this every time he suits up against Houston and this time should be no different, especially at home.

Tight Ends

Jimmy Graham/strong> DK $6,300
Here's my biggest gamble of the week. And when Jimmy Graham is your biggest "gamble" of the week that's a good thing. He hasn't done much lately and quite frankly has been disappointing all year for his standards. I must point out that last week he still saw 10 targets and now he gets the Chicago Bears defense that is the worst in the NFL in points to opposing tight ends, and it's not even close.

Martellus Bennett DK $5,900
I really like Bennett this week and when I need an extra $400 in salary cap I will be swapping Graham for Martellus. As metnioned earlier, Marshall is out and Bennett will now see 2-3 more targets a game. Even before Marshall was out, Bennett has been the number two tight end all year and at a shallow position I think the price is right.

Travis Kelce DK $4,600
I'll stay brief with this one because every pundit writes about Kelce and hates on Andy Reid every week. I will now do the same...But seriously, he broke the 100 yard mark last week and clearly no other options are going to emerge. KC is still in the playoff hunt and they need this divisional win against an improving Raiders team. The fact remains, no one has any definitive idea as to how many targets he will get.

Defense

Seattle Seahawks DK $3,500
This is one of my favorite picks of the week and I think I will be defaulting to them in every one of my double up lineups. I used the Oakland Raiders in every lineup last week and they got me 13 points against this same San Francisco team. Now, they get the treat of playing Seattle…IN SEATLLE! I think Kaepernick is going to do his best personal rendition of Sleepless in Seattle climaxing in 5-6 sacks by the end of the game.

New York Giants DK $3,100
I’ve seen very little talk about this tasty matchup for the Giants defense. New York had seven sacks two weeks ago against Jacksonville and another eight against Tennessee last week. Both of those teams are really bad, sure, but the Redskins also fit into that category. I look for sacks when looking for defenses and like the Seahawks, I think the Giants will play the Hatfield’s in this story and their front line will be hunting the McCoy.

Oakland Raiders DK $2,200
I couldn’t resist putting the Raiders back on my picks list. They are still bottom dwellers based on price and get a match-up in KC who haven’t thrown a touchdown pass to a wide receiver all year…Isn’t the NFL a passing league now? As mentioned, it will be hard for me to pass up on Seattle, but I will most definitely be doing some tinkering with this cheap defense in order to see what cap options open up.

As Mike McD’ from the movie Rounders said, “Why does this still seem like gambling to you? I mean, why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY SINGLE YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas? It's a skill game, Jo.”

Follow me on Twitter @brycemcvay and may you always run good!...because I’d rather be lucky than good <insert obligatory winky-face emoticon here>