One of the best ways to determine what it is you will need to do in order to take down a large-field NFL GPP is to look at the lineups of the previous winners. Deconstruction is one of the most powerful tools in the tourney player’s arsenal, yet a very small percentage of players ever take advantage of it. I believe it is crucial to match theory to current reality in order to test the standard do’s and don’ts.
We have all heard plenty of them: always stack a quarterback with a wide receiver, don’t pair running backs playing against each other, never start both a QB and his RB together, don’t use your QBs team defense, and the list goes on and on.
One of the more commonly spoken golden oldies is the importance of game over/under totals; this theory states that the higher the projected game total, the higher the points scored in said game. Pretty hard to argue that!
Many players following that advice in turn downplay the importance of which team it is that is projected to win the game, theorizing that in a high totals game where there isn’t a double-digit favorite, it will be all about the pace. Even if it gets out of hand, this can be an asset for your players, who will then be forced to press the issue against a sagging defense that will be allowing lots of underneath yardage in order to catch up.
We want to go into the 11 weeks of FanDuel Sunday Million winners and see what their lineups tell us about the importance of on-field wins and losses. For each of the 11 weeks of completed action, we list the position and what the W/L was of the players used.
Week 1: QB = W; RB = W,W; WR = W,W,L; TE = W; K= L; Defense = W
Week 2: QB = W; RB = W,W; WR =W,W,W; TE = W; K = L; Defense = W
Week 3: QB = W; RB = W,L; WR = W,L,L; TE = W; K = W; Defense = W
Week 4: QB = W; RB = W,L; WR = W,W,L; TE = W; K = W; Defense = W
Week 5: QB = W; RB = W,W; WR = W,W,W; TE = L; K = W; Defense = W
Week 6: QB = W; RB = W,L; WR = W,L,L; TE = W; K = W; Defense = W
Week 7: QB = L; RB = W,L; WR = W,W,L; TE = L; K = W; Defense = W
Week 8: QB = W; RB = W,W; WR = W,W,L; TE = W; K = L; Defense = W
Week 9: QB = W; RB = W,W; WR = W,W,L; TE = W; K = W; Defense = W
Week 10: QB = W; RB = W,L; WR = W,W,L; TE = W; K = W; Defense = W
Week 11: QB = W; RB = W,L; WR = W,W,L; TE = W; K = W; Defense = W
Breaking down the W/L record by week, we have the following:
W1: 7-2, W2: 8-1, W3: 6-3, W4: 7-2, W5: 8-1, W6: 6-3
W7: 5-4, W8: 7-2, W9: 8-1, W10: 7-2, W11: 7-2
Overall W/L: 76-23
As we can see, the actual result of the game on the field has a very strong correlation to fantasy points scored on the winning rosters. Now, let’s take a look at how it breaks down position by position:
QB: 10-1 (91%)
RB: 16-6 (73%)
WR: 22-11 (67%)
TE: 9-2 (82%)
K: 8-3 (73%)
Def/ST: 11-0 (100%)
Taking the point spreads at face value, we can effectively eliminate half the defenses without one further bit of analysis; you aren’t winning a Sunday Million with a losing side defense. We also see that taking a QB that is an underdog in a high-scoring game isn’t helping either, as your Million winning QB’s are 10-1.
In the 11 weeks of Sunday Million winners, there are nine weeks where a QB/WR or QB/TE stack was used and those 18 players involved have an actual game record of 16-2.
In summary, projected game totals are a great tool to use while putting together your GPP lineup, but failing to strongly factor which of the teams should win the game is a fatal tourney error. You can get cute and project the big garbage time compilations, but the record this season to date shows that to be a costly way to proceed.