FanDuel Week 1 Values & Top Plays
Editor's Note: Please welcome Chris Raybon to the fray. Chris is new to 4for4 Fantasy Football this year, but is no stranger to the daily fantasy hustle. If you missed his strategy pieces this summer, be sure to check them out: Quarterback Strategy, Running Back Strategy, Wide Receiver Strategy, Tight End Strategy and DST/Kicker Strategy. Chris will be covering FanDuel and DraftDay Values & Top Plays on a weekly basis while Jonathan Bales covers DraftKings and hawks his books.
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QB Peyton Manning $10,200 vs. IND & RB Montee Ball $8,000 vs. IND
If you had a chance to check out our Fanduel values report, you might have noticed that the best dollar-per-point values at QB and RB were on the same team: Peyton Manning ($350/point) and Montee Ball ($450/point) of the Broncos, along with Nick Foles ($375/point) and LeSean McCoy ($459/point) of the Eagles.
These values allow for a cash game (head-to-head/50-50 league) stack of either pair, which provides a high floor because both teams are projected by Vegas to score over 30 points and should be very successful on offense. Stacking both the QB and RB on projected high scoring teams allows us to be immune to those teams’ touchdown distribution, which is easier to predict in the long-term than in the short-term.
Vegas’ 30-plus point projection for the Broncos means it thinks there’s a good possibility they score four touchdowns, and with Colts defense not particularly prohibitive, I would tend to agree. Manning and last year’s lead back, Knowshon Moreno, accounted for 65 of Denver’s 71 touchdowns last season, and four more went to Ball. By pairing Peyton and Montee, you are likely accounting for 100 percent of the Broncos' offensive touchdowns on a day when they are expected to score a lot.
Manning has enough firepower to torch Indianapolis’s pedestrian defense and is still the premier cash game play at QB. He’s only $500 more than Brees despite being projected to outscore him by 3.4 points, cementing him as this week's top option.
Ball is projected for the fifth-most points at RB, yet 11 RBs are priced higher. Because of the threat of Manning, his RBs tend to run into soft defensive fronts (five or more defensive backs) more than any other RBs in the league. Ball has multi-touchdown upside as a feature back in an extremely explosive offense. His price should be exploited in all game types.
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