Vegas Lines and Team Rushing Performance Using Vegas numbers as a metric for DFS projections can be a tricky venture. Some outfits build models almost entirely on spreads and implied totals. Some ignore Vegas completely. To simplify things, we land somewhere in between in trying to find places where Vegas can provide a useful *window* into potential game scripts and how a team will *attack* the other. Running back play is one such area where Vegas can be helpful. Targeting running backs that are favorites (either at home or on the road) in those situations can lead to clear gains in both numbers of touches and total yards. And yes, I understand this is something of the chicken or the egg thing. Teams that are big favorites tend to have good offenses and defenses. They can take, and control, a lead early and often. The best practice here would be to compare rushing averages per team based on Vegas lines and then compare specifically team-to-team on lines. We can (hopefully) run through that exercise at a later date. For our purposes here we will take a birds’ eye view of how Vegas lines might give us a sense of a team’s rushing chances on a given week. We will separate home favorites and road favorites (rarer) to start and then combine them. These stats are taken over the last three seasons of football. I also attempted to group the lines by the number of instances. For instance, by far the most *popular* line is -3 for a given team. And there are some interesting takeaways around that particular number. From there I tried to set a baseline of instances around a group of lines which is why you'll see things set out by number of occurrences. Without further ado, some graphs: The initial take away here is that favorites (both home and away) see a (sometimes massive) gain in overall run attempts and yards. It's clearly *better* to be a favorite in a game if trying to pile on rushing yards. For some teams and players, this will be built into the pricing structure. Sites have done a much better job in recent seasons of price-correcting players based on matchups. Good teams against bad teams (at home or on the road) will likely see at least a moderate price increase for optimal situations. But there's likely some case to be made in possibly overpaying for running backs in these situations, that even with a built-in correction based on matchup, there might not be enough of one when we get to RBs as the heaviest of favorites. I also found it interesting the outlier volatility around the -3 / +3 odds....

Daily Fantasy NFL Playoffs: Divisonal Recap and Look Ahead to the Conference Championship Round FanDuel and DraftKings 1/15/17 We are headed into the Conference Finals weekend of NFL action with arguably the worst group of quarterbacks (collectively) to vie for the Super Bowl. Blake Bortles, Case Keenum and Nick Foles join Tom Brady (the only guy saving the group) will headline Championship Sunday following a crazy Divisional weekend in the NFL. Oh, what a weekend it was, capped off by one of the most memorable endings to a playoff game in recent memory. Let’s take a look at a quick thought or two for each team heading into this coming Sunday. Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, our NFL Optimizer, and our new player lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA or NFL? Be sure to read our free NBA and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. Philadelphia Eagles 15 - Atlanta Falcons 10 No Wentz, Kind of No Problem This is something of an overstatement of course considering the Eagles snuck out of a home win against the Falcons on Saturday. It came down to a terrible play call by the Falcons in which they cut the field down by two thirds on the Matt Ryan rollout and still had the ball slide through Julio Jones’s hands in the end zone. But a win is a win and the Eagles clearly had a game plan heading into this matchup. Their strategy was to run the ball as much as possible and limit the times Nick Foles had to make any real high leverage throws. Folks was adequate, if unspectacular, though did clearly improve as the game went on. He completed 77% of his passes but only two were for 20 yards or more and one of those was a screen to Ajayi. The Eagles stuck to the ground game, running the ball 32 times with Ajayi and LeGarrette Blount combining for the majority (24 carries total). That’s going to be a taller order this weekend against the Vikings who ranked 5th in DVOA against the run this season and just held the top yards per carry team in the league to a 24/80/0 line. The Eagles will almost definitely have to open the offense up this weekend if the ground game can’t gain any real traction early. But it is encouraging that Foles at least seemed competent, if unspectacular. New England Patriots 35 - Tennessee Titans 14 Down 7-0? Who Cares, these are the Patriots. For about 15...

Daily Fantasy Football Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - Divisional Round 2018 The Wildcard Round offered little good football, but plenty of DFS success over here at DFSR! When the playoffs arrive we get a lot more certainty about roles and opportunity, so we get our edges from places besides getting a $5,200 running back or wide receiver. Let's break it down! Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NFL optimizer for FanDuel and DraftKings, our NBA Optimizer, and our new Player Lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NFL? Be sure to read our free MLB and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. Quarterback Since there are so few games this week and so few options, let's just go team by team and see what kind of value can be had. Atlanta vs. Philadelphia Matt Ryan vs. Nick Foles. Our system hates both of these plays, and it isn't hard to see why. Ryan's best game of the season was 19.42 fantasy points, and his average of 15 fantasy points per game is the worst of any QB left in the post season this side of... Nick Foles. Foles, meanwhile, is cheap - but not THAT cheap. Both of these are strictly GPP only plays. Tennessee vs. New England We saw Tennessee's game plan last week. Trailing by 18 at half time, they continued to pound the ball with back-up running back Derrick Henry. It's hard for me to believe that Mariota even has tournament upside, even if he did throw a touchdown to himself last week. As for Brady? He's also been rather light on pass attempts recently, but the Pats also haven't really HAD to win. I think they like what they have in Lewis, but I think there's more to this decision than looking at Brady's passing attempts recently. I pointed this out in the Tennessee write-up last week, but they've been a top 4 team against the run this season and a bottom 7 team against the pass. I worried that KC might lean more heavily on the pass, which is why I didn't like Hunt that much. What happened? They refused to give Hunt more than 11 carries all while blowing an 18 point lead. This Tennessee front 7 is legit, and I think you could see the Pats lean very heavily on Brady here. I like him as a cash or tournament play. Jacksonville vs. Pittsburgh A brutal one, if you ask me. Bortles ran for more yards than he passed last week, and that was...

Daily Fantasy NFL Playoffs: Wildcard Recap and Look Ahead to the Divisional Round FanDuel and DraftKings 1/8/17 What a crazy Wildcard weekend in the NFL. Saturday saw two road underdogs win outright and Sunday had a down-to-the-wire finish in New Orleans along with one of the most boring playoff games in recent memory. All in all, it was a quality weekend in football and sets the stage for some interesting subplots leading into the Divisional Round. Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, our NFL Optimizer, and our new player lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA or NFL? Be sure to read our free NBA and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. Tennesse Titans 22 - Kansas City Chiefs 21 Henry left, Henry right, Henry up the middle Watching the Titans and Chiefs it was easy to think the former’s plan to run the ball come hell or high water on first down, second down and basically every down was a recipe for complete failure. And for a while, it sure looked that way. Derrick Henry racked up 23 carries, good for 156 yards and a touchdown despite being down three scores at halftime. Tennessee continued the gameplan into the second half where the Chiefs happily obliged by refusing to run Kareem Hunt (who was averaging around four yards per carry). Instead, Kansas City continued to pass the ball despite losing their primary pass catcher in Travis Kelce in the first half. Hunt ran the ball exactly four times in the second half and the Chiefs had stalled drive after stalled drive. Meanwhile, playing from way behind in the second half, Henry ran the ball nine times before the drive where the Titans took the lead. This begs the question: what will be the plan for Tennessee when facing the Patriots? The opening line is set at New England -13.5 but will that matter for the Titans’ strategy? It didn’t against the Chiefs where Henry touched the ball on 25 of the Titans’ 62 offensive plays despite not taking the lead until 6:06 left in the fourth quarter. Typically we want to avoid running backs whose teams are road underdogs, but could this be the exception? The Titans don’t have much of an offense after Henry (short of Mariota throwing touchdown passes to himself) and could just stand their ground with the RB touches. Atlanta Falcons 26 - Los Angeles Rams 13 Seeing Red (Zone) with Julio Of the top 20 Red Zone target leaders on the season, Julio...

Daily Fantasy Football Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - Wildcard Round 2018 The playoffs are here! After an absolutely wild week 17 we return to some semblance of sanity... or do we? We've got some big spreads for week 1, a potentially up-in-the-air running back situation for the 2 worst teams in the playoffs, and the worst run of quarterbacks I can remember for the first round of the playoffs. Should make for an exciting time, at least! Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NFL optimizer for FanDuel and DraftKings, our NBA Optimizer, and our new Player Lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NFL? Be sure to read our free MLB and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. Quarterback So, quarterback is a downright mess this week. With a 4 game slate you always run up against the possibility of poor QB play, but the story we like to tell ourselves is that that won't be the case in the playoffs. Alex Smith FD 7800 DK 6300 Opponent TEN Proj Points FD - 18.74 DK - 19.31 Many people will be on Cam this week, but I might lean toward Smith. He's outscored every QB on this slate in terms of raw fantasy points per game, for starters. Smith is a more accurate passer and is actually pretty effective on the ground, even if his carry volume won't be as high as Cam's. He'll bring his full compliment of offensive weapons in Kelce, Hill, and Hunt, and it was a very welcome sign to see Hunt get 9 targets in the Chargers game. I also like him against Tennessee because of the disparity in how well they defend against the pass and the run. They've been a top 5 defense all year against the run, and ranked as the 7th worst passing defense in the league by year's end. The Chiefs will know this, of course, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them use Hunt more in the passing game than strictly as a ball-carrier. I am not sure which way the rest of the industry will lean, but early on, I might be leaning toward Smith for my 50/50s and double-ups this week. Cam Newton FD 8300 DK 6500 Opponent NO Proj Points FD - 18.59 DK - 19.19 Cam has distinguished himself as one of the very worst passers that people think is actually good, but I honestly think the fact that teams must fear him taking off on the ground makes him an effective real life QB....