How Sharks Approach Daily Fantasy Sports: Quarterbacks

This post is a part of our larger series How Sharks Approach Daily Fantasy Sports. All of the data is from 2017 NFL Millionaire Maker’s on Draft Kings

• Tommyg1979
  • Loves stacks
    • When selecting a QB he is typically conscious of a player to stack that QB with
    • That doesn’t mean he starts from stacks with every QB every week, one time he didn’t. See Cam Newton in Week 7.
      • Mobile QB’s are typically an exception to the QB-WR correlation. For 2011-2016, Cam Newton’s point totals had high correlation with Jonathan Stewart, not his WR’s or TE’s.
  • QB’s are commonly used as the basis of his 3+ player groups (stacks/groups whatever you want to call them.)
    • This is very different than CONDIA who will rarely use 2 players together more than 10% of the time.
  • Tommy G takes big chances and may be a believer in the barbell strategy.
• CONDIA
  • Stacks with all QB’s but the most risky like a Brown’s or Bronco’s QB (2017)
    • QB-WR/TE more than QB-RB
  • Does not create 4-pair lineups like Tommy G
  • Uses consistent players like an Antonio Brown and then tries stacking with random Browns WR’s at a much smaller percentage point
  • Surprisingly usage of “bad QB’s”
• chess_is_ok
  • QB-Centric Lineup Design
    • Stacks all his QB’s double or triple
• CSURAM88 — in progress
• JBales– in progress

Chess_is_ok

When this guy won in Week 13 we looked at his QB’s and found he approaches lineups from a QB first perspective. Here’s an excerpt from our Week 13 DraftKings Recap when we first this strategy.

chess_is_ok Stacks All his QB’s

Take a look at this

Notice how all of his QB’s have stacks. Triple stacks for Case Keenum and Trevor Siemian of all people. It was his Alex Smith stack that won the day.

This strategy is like we’ve seen from Tommyg1979 but with more risk placed on the player groups than the player pool, Tommy G doesn’t always force his QB’s to have stacks, chess_is_ok does.

Tommyg1979

My gut told me this guy would be the most fun to analyze and Tommy G delivers. He even inspired me to write this poem.

Every week,

Tommy G’s lineups reek.

Of engineering so sweet

it makes me want to tweet.

If only,

I weren’t so meek

Shitty Poems Aside Lets Take a Look at the Data

Tommy G’s most utilized QB’s are shown in the table below.

A few head-scratchers in there, playing Jacoby Brissett in 94% of his lineups in week 5?!? Is he what NFL.com calls a Fantasy Hipster? Their Week 6 article suggested you start Kevin Hogan too, which Tommy G did in Week 6.

Here’s his QB’s by average weekly usage

(note: many of these values are positively skewed by large single week usages. Cough, cough Jacoby Brissett)

General trends I’m seeing

• ~5 QB’s across ~100 lineups per week
• Big swing on QB or a variety of 10-30% QB’s.
• Not afraid to take chances on shit QB’s

Does Tommy G Know About the Barbell Strategy?

This makes me think Tommy G could be a believer in the barbell strategy. Touted by Nassim Taleb and used by DFS Pro Jonathan Bales, a barbell strategy capitalizes on Exaggerated Expectations of the highly probable and the highly improbable.

In this case, people tend underestimate the probability of a QB like Kevin Hogan or Jacoby Brissett having a great day.

It would be way too early for me to say Tommy G definitely uses a barbell approach. A surefire indicator would be stacking risky Brissett with a consistent player like Le’Veon Bell. Once I get to those analysis pieces, I’ll come up with a more in-depth player profile.

Tommy G Stacks

Here’s a ton of data on Tommy G’s stacks. Every week he stacks, even going as far as to use groups of 4 players in 16% of his lineups!

Takeaways:

• Tommy G loves stacks
  • When selecting a QB he is typically conscious of a player to stack that QB with
  • Almost every week he has a QB-WR stack but that doesn’t mean he starts from stacks with every QB every week. See Cam Newton in Week 7.
    • Mobile QB’s are typically an exception to the QB-WR correlation. For 2011-2016, Cam Newton’s point totals had high correlation with Jonathan Stewart, not his WR’s or TE’s.
• QB’s are commonly used as the basis of his 3+ player groups (stacks/groups whatever you want to call them.)
  • This is very different than CONDIA who will rarely use 2 players together more than 10% of the time.
• Tommy G takes big chances and may be a believer in the barbell strategy.

CONDIA’s Quarterback Strategy

So far, CONDIA has looked like the mathematical, try as many as possible, kind of DFS Pro. Here’s a look at what CONDIA has done at the QB position each week (min 7% utilization)

I’ve went ahead and bolded a few picks I want to talk about. First off, Cam Newton Week 8 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This game is just after Cam posted a dreadful total against the Chicago Bears. As you can see, CONDIA was banking on people to over-hype. Even still, Cam was used by 11% of DFS bettors in Week 8! So I’d say most people still believe in Cam’s ability to bounce back and aren’t afraid of a bad game here and there.

Second, the amount of not top QB’s on this list is surprising. CONDIA has played a lot of Brown’s QB’s, and only seriously used Tom Brady once. As far as general trends go, Drew Brees is his favorite QB so far, with Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott a few % points below.

(min usage 5% in a given week)

CONDIA’s Stacks

Like Tommy G and Jonathan Bales, high risk picks like DeShone Kizer at 15% usage in Week 1, are paired with ultra consistent players. See the first row in the following table.

Week 1 tells a perfect story. Generally, CONDIA uses heavy stacks for medium risk players like a Stafford or Wentz, but opts to pair the riskiest of picks with consistent players like Antonio Brown.

Also, he doesn’t shy away from QB-RB stacks but seems to play the QB-WR/TE stacks way more.

My takeaways about CONDIA’s general DFS QB strategy

• Stacks with all QB’s but the most risky
  • QB-WR/TE more than QB-RB
• Does not create 4-pair lineups like Tommy G
• Uses consistent players like an Antonio Brown and then tries stacking with random Browns WR’s at a much smaller percentage point

If you want to replicate CONDIA’s $1MM Maker strategy, you have to play all 150 lineups. Otherwise, you won’t be able to cover all the bizarre scenarios with this more conservative player utilization approach.