NFL DFS: Projections, Optimizer and Weekly Research

How an NFL slate differs from a daily sport

Football gives you one slate a week and around fourteen games, so the sample is small and the price of a bad read is high. That pushes the work earlier: most of the edge is found in the days before kickoff, in matchups, personnel and weather, rather than in a late lineup swap. The daily fantasy football projections and the NFL optimizer are the build path through that week.

Correlation still matters but it works differently from baseball. A quarterback and his receivers rise and fall together, which is why stacking a passing game is the standard tournament construction, and why a bring-back from the opposing side pays when a game turns into a shootout.

What each NFL tool is for

The daily fantasy football optimizer and the projections are the build path. Defense vs position, air yards, coverage splits and personnel groupings are the research path that tells you which free DFS projections to trust. Weather and the season outlook set the game environment before you look at a single player. NFL DFS sims on the Monte Carlo page play each game thousands of times for win, total and cover probabilities.

Survivor and best ball are season long rather than weekly, so they answer a different question: which team to spend now against which to save for a later week. Every tool here is a free DFS optimizer or a free DFS projections board.

Frequently asked questions