DFS Football 101: Dos and Don'ts

This article is part of our DFS Football 101 series.

Here are the 20-plus point games (FanDuel) for a QB/WR on the same team. It happened 52 times in 17 weeks for an average of 3.05 per week. If a QB had more than one WR pairing to hit 20, I counted it twice.

Week 1 – 4
Week 2 – 2
Week 3 – 10
Week 4 – 3
Week 5 – 2
Week 6 – 1
Week 7 – 2
Week 8 – 3
Week 9 – 4
Week 10 – 3
Week 11 – 1
Week 12 – 3
Week 13 – 2
Week 14 – 4
Week 15 – 4
Week 16 – 0
Week 17 – 4

DON'T:

Pair QB with RB. This is a hard rule unless you have an elite passing-catching running back who gets a huge percentage of market share. Ben Roethlisberger and Le'Veon Bell come to mind. Jay Cutler and Matt Forte worked out great in the past. Jared Goff and Todd Gurley led the way in 2017 with three games.

Here are the 20-plus point games (FanDuel) for a QB/RB same team in 2017. It happened 25 times over 17 weeks for an average of just 1.47 per week or 4.5%

Week 1 – Alex Smith/Kareem Hunt
Week 2 – Trevor Siemian/C.J. Anderson
Week 3 – Jared Goff/Todd Gurley, Case Keenum/Dalvin Cook, Brian Hoyer/Carlos Hyde, Kirk Cousins/Chris Thompson
Week 4 – Dak Prescott/Ezekiel Elliott, Deshaun Watson/Lamar Miller
Week 5 – Philip Rivers/Melvin Gordon
Week 6 – Carson Palmer/Adrian Peterson
Week 7 – Tyrod Taylor/LeSean McCoy, Dak Prescott/Ezekiel Elliott
Week 8 – Deshaun Watson/Lamar Miller
Week 9 – Jared Goff/Todd Gurley, Carson Wentz/Corey Clement
Week 11 – Drew Brees/Mark Ingram/Alvin Kamara
Week 12 – Brett Hundley/Jamaal Williams, Ben Roethlisberger/Le'Veon Bell
Week 13 – None
Week 14 – Mitchell Trubisky/Jordan Howard, Brett Hundley/Jamaal Williams, Jay Cutler/Kenyan Drake,
Ben Roethlisberger/Le'Veon Bell
Week 15 – Tyrod Taylor/LeSean McCoy, Cam Newton/Christian McCaffrey
Week 16 – Jared Goff/Todd Gurley
Week 17 – None

DO:

Pair RB with DST (preferably home favorite). This chart below ranks teams by total fantasy points at RB and DST. You can see the correlation with teams in the top 10 for DST and RB. Think about the pairings you want to use early in the season.

As an example, from 2017, the Cowboys DST averaged 8.3 PPG with Ezekiel Elliott versus only 5.3 without him.

Saints – Alvin Kamara
Jaguars – Leonard Fournette
Rams – Todd Gurley
Ravens – Alex Collins
Chargers – Melvin Gordon
Bears – Jordan Howard

Here is the data from 2015-17 based on opposing team total. If you just took defense against teams with projected totals of 18 or less, you would score almost 10 points per game whereas the average DST scores about 6.9 points per game. Currently there is only one team that fits this criteria in Week 1 – the Ravens. The Broncos are a borderline team against the Seahawks.