DraftDay Week 4 Values & Top Plays

Sep 25, 2014

If you’re new to DFS or to DraftDay, or even if you’ve been playing for a while, chances are you’ve heard a lot about “value”. After all, finding value is essentially your main goal when constructing lineups. If you don’t find any great values to insert, your lineup will be average at best. But value is not an abstract concept in DFS; it needs to be quantified.

Value in Cash Games

On DraftDay, a score of 150 should be your aim in cash games. Sometimes you’ll need less, but with owners having to fill two flex spots, there tends to be greater variance in terms of what score you will need to cash than on a site with no flex like FanDuel. To make the numbers clearer, you can divide a player’s salary by 1,000 and refer to it as x. To hit a target of 150 points, every player in your lineup would need to hit 1.5x value.

As an example, let’s look at Donald Brown last week. He was priced at $7,900.

x = $7,900 / 1,000 = 7.9

So 1.5x = 1.5 * 7.9 =11.85 points need to “hit value” in cash games. Brown ended up with 13.90, making him a good cash play. Your lineup should be constructed in such a manner where all players have a realistic shot at hitting 1.5x value.

Value In Tournaments

To take down a tournament, you will usually need at least 200 points. For tournaments, you should be rostering players that are capable of hitting 2x value or more. The best way to do this is by taking inexpensive players who can not only hit 2x value, but 3x, 4x, etc. For example, last week Ahmad Bradshaw costed $5,950, but scored 16.30 points.

16.30 / ($5,950/1,000) = 16.30 / 5.9 = 2.76

Bradshaw hit 2.76x value last week and was a great tournament play. Your tournament rosters should be constructed in such a way that every player can hit 2x value, with your lower priced options being able to go even higher.

Now let's get into Week 4's values and top plays.

Editor's Note: You can get a free year of 4for4 by opening a new account and depositing at DraftKings, DraftDay or FanDuel. Details here.

QB Philip Rivers vs. JAC $13,350

Rivers goes up against a Jaguars defense that is giving up 333 passing yards and 2.67 passing TDs per game with 8.08 yards per attempt and a 68 percent completion percentage. Despite losing starting center Nick Hardwick for all but nine passing snaps in 2014, Rivers has taken just one sack. Because Drew Brees is priced at a premium ($16,450) and tends to have hiccups on the road, Rivers is the safest cash game option this week. He has a ton of upside against the Jaguars porous defense at his mid-tier salary.

QB Ben Roethlisberger vs. TB $12,000

The Bucs’ defense is allowing a 77 percent completion rate and 8.96 yards per attempt this season, and last week’s drubbing by the Falcons wasn’t their only misstep. They allowed journeyman Derek Anderson to complete 71 percent of his passes and throw two TDs without a pick in Week 1, followed by allowing previous third-stringer Austin Davis to post 8.1 yards per attempt without a pick in his first career start in Week 2. Big Ben at home in a game where Vegas projects the Steelers for 26.5 points represents a solid value.

QB Blake Bortles @ SD $7,500

If you think Bortles can’t possibly be worse than Chad Henne or Blaine Gabbert, which I tend to believe, then you should play Blizzy Blake this week. In cash games, your fantasy point target multiplier for salary x should be roughly 1.5. At 7.5k, Bortles needs 11.25 fantasy points to hit 1.5x value. Despite epitomizing awfulness at the QB position, Henne (11.83) and Gabbert (11.59) have both averaged more than 11.25 fantasy points per game in their Jaguars careers.

The Chargers have allowed QBs to be reasonably efficient: 63 percent completion rate, 7.37 yards per attempt, five TDs, no interceptions, and 24 rushing yards per game. Bortles is not a sexy pick, but he looks good through value goggles, which is why he's the top overall value in this week's DraftDay Value Report.