Jens DFS Journal 2016 week 4

By Jen Ryan

I have spent a lot of time in these early weeks of the season looking at price fluctuations on DraftKings. Making that perfect lineup fit within the salary constraints is the name of the game with daily fantasy and every player comes with a cost. Over the summer, I discussed with Emil Kadlec the idea of our site providing weekly salaries for both DraftKings and FanDuel.

You can click here for DraftKings salaries for 2016: DraftKings Salary Data

You can click here for FanDuel salaries for 2016: FanDuel Salary Data

If you are an Excel nut like me then you use these links to download salary data each week and track it all in the same spreadsheet. This allows for a quick reference to see movement of pricing and to have an idea of what a player costs historically throughout the season. I see questions on Twitter all the time asking about past salary. When someone asks me how much Alshon Jeffery cost in Week 2, I can send them right to the link on the Football Diehards page. It is important information to have and we provide it for you.
What I am taking a look at this week is price fluctuation and what that can mean. Is there value to be had if someone has a decrease in their salary? How much is too much of a price increase for me to be uninterested in rostering a given player each week? How much has a player’s salary changed from last week to this week or from Week 1 to Week 4? There is a lot to look at with this data and here is a player from each position whose price has some interesting changes that caught my eye this week.

Kevin White - $3,400
Week 3-4: -$600, Week 1-4: -$1,800
White is under the $4,000 mark for the first time this season and his $1,800 price difference from Week 1 to Week 4 is the largest discount of any player on DraftKings. I understand his price going down from Week 1 but I do not understand his $600 difference from last week. In Brian Hoyer’s first start for the Chicago Bears he targeted White 14 times. No Chicago Bear has seen double digit targets this season. He leads the Bears in targets on the season he just is not catching enough of them and has an abysmal 48% completion rate. However, I am not ignoring that target volume or that low cost and will be throwing him in a bunch of GPPs this week against the Detroit Lions that has a Vegas line of 48 points.

Carlos Hyde - $4,200
Week 3-4: -$200, Week 1-4: -$1,400
Another curious case of price fluctuation. Hyde’s salary has decreased each week from his Week 1 cost of $5,600. Meanwhile, Hyde is the RB8 in PPR leagues and has had at least 17 touches in each game and 20+ carries in two of his three games this year. There are very few bell cows in the NFL and Hyde appears to be playing that role through the first three weeks. Why his price is falling is beyond me, especially considering the matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. This weekend we will see the perfect storm of Dallas’ slow pace being forced to pick it up against Chip Kelly’s notorious fast pace. Hyde should get his usual bulk, flirt with 80+ yards, and add to his touchdown total of four on the season. Only three other running backs have four scores this year. Hyde gets Dallas, the 22nd-ranked rushing defense, at home this weekend and can be had at his lowest cost. I’m all in on Hyde.

Martellus Bennett - $3,500
Week 3-4: -$1,200, Week 1-4: +$100
I want to get Zach Miller out of the way really quick. His is the chalk play at tight end for Week 4 and should be one of, if not the, highest owned tight end at $2,700. That it is lowest cost of 2016 despite coming off of a 8/78/2TD game. With that said, it is Martellus Bennett who caught my eye. I think he is a fantastic pivot off of Miller and even though he costs more today than he did in Week 1, he is a whopping $1,200 less than he was last week. That is a huge decrease for a position that is already priced on the lower end of the salary spectrum. This has everything to do with Rob Gronkowski but we saw Gronk last week and he played on minimal snaps. All Bennett will need is a touchdown to hit value. The Bills have completely shut down tight ends this season but they have not seen anything close to Bennett’s caliber.

Joe Flacco - $5,900
Week 3-4: -$200, Week 1-4: -$800
Flacco is the quarterback I will have the most exposure to this weekend. He is under $6,000 for the first time and gets the Oakland Raiders at home. The Raiders are allowing quarterbacks an average of 20.3 points per game and are the 30th-ranked passing defense in the league. Flacco’s discount blows my mind more than the rest, and the Flacco/Wallace stack, Flacco/Smith stack, Flacco/Wallace/Smith stack will all be in play for me this week. I am pounding the table for Flacco right now because he is simply a steal this week.

There is another side to this coin of discounted DFS players and that is the players who have seen surges in their pricing. I encourage you to use our salary pages to take a look at who will cost you more or less this week and factor that into their matchup and projected ownership.

If you have any questions on salary changes you can reach out to me on twitter @FFdeJENerate. Good luck this week!