Daily Fantasy Football Week 5 Tips: Strategies And Lineups To Win In DraftKings And FanDuel
The daily fantasy football tips and strategies are a bit more obvious this week, with a national scandal regarding the two biggest sites inadvertently giving away the winning strategy.
This week a story emerged about a DraftKings employee who played a weekly competition on FanDuel, using his knowledge of his own site’s lineups to win a $350,000 prize, the Wall Street Journal noted. The employee found which players were used by the lowest percentage of participants, filling his roster with these uncommon picks (we’ll get to how that plays into daily fantasy football strategy for Week 5 a little lower).
The scandal could mean more trouble for DraftKings and FanDuel. There is already a class-action lawsuit filed against the two companies, claiming negligence, fraud, and false advertising. Adam Johnson filed in federal court, claiming that the sites were misrepresenting themselves as fair when really there were employees acting on what amounted to insider information.
“DraftKings performs analytics to determine winning strategies, return on investment of certain strategies and even how lineups on FanDuel would do if they were entered into DraftKings contests,” the suit claims.
Whatever the outcome of the court case, those playing daily fantasy football sites can use the incident as a bit of strategy advice. As ESPN describes, the winning entries did not come from simply picking the top players sprinkled in with some lower-priced ones, but by finding the most uncommon entries at all price ranges.
The site noted,
“One prevailing thought is that if a person had access to how many people selected certain players on rosters before those rosters were locked, they would have an edge. This is because top prizes are often won by individuals with a player who appears on fewer rosters but comes through with a big game.”
These daily fantasy football tips could come into play big in Week 5. But first, a greater tip — avoid Thursday games. If you’re reading this story, then you’re looking to submit a lineup for a Sunday deadline, which means avoiding the players trying to go on short rest, and can also get a better idea of who is banged up and who might be playing on Sunday.
The experts over at SB Nation‘s Battle Red page have some ideas about the under-the-radar picks that will help you win in daily fantasy football sites like FanDuel and DraftKings in Week 5.
Brett noted that Todd Gurley and Rashad Jennings are good mid-priced picks who are likely to hit double digits for the week, ensuring a good return, and suggested Owen Daniels at tight end against an Oakland Raiders defense soft over the middle.
Ryan Dunsmore went with a few high-priced picks, noting that the Pittsburgh Steelers are likely to lean heavily on Le’Veon Bell with Ben Roethlisberger still out. He also suggested buying in on wide receiver T.J. Yeldon before his stock gets too high.
But daily fantasy football strategy is as much about matchups as the players themselves. As the Sporting News noted, one of the most important way to set your team apart is by excelling in the less sexy positions, like D/ST. And maddox2 had a good idea for that position:
“Pairing a top TE and D/ST was possibly the difference during this low-scoring week. I’d imagine an increasingly popular strategy moving forward will be targeting the defense facing Jameis Winston, as ‘luckyrau24’ did in route to a $1,000,000 payday.”
But there is no one way to win at DraftKings and FanDuel for Week 5, and there are plenty of different daily fantasy football tips. You can check out some other lineup examples here and here.
[Images via Rob Foldy, Justin K. Aller, Doug Pensinger/Getty Images]
