The CFL season kicks off on June 22nd, a day that
will go unnoticed to most fans of the NFL and avid DFSers. Do not let yourself
be one of those people! This is a chance to get your DFS football fix while
building your bankroll for the NFL season against some unmistakeably soft
money. Yes, DraftKings CFL contests pale in comparison to the NFL product but
it is still an area to take advantage of with a little bit of research and game
theory.
There are some rule differences between the CFL and the NFL,
but instead of going through each and every one I will just hit on their
fantasy impacts. If you though the NFL has turned into a passing league, you
should check out the CFL! With 1 less down to work with passing situations are
far more frequent, therefore QBs and pass-catchers become far more important.
One less down also leads to more punting, and more punt return opportunities.
With 1 DK point awarded for every 20 return yards you need to be aware of who
is going to be handling those duties for each team.
I dug deep to determine the answers to some key questions
about how, when and why different players at different positions are scoring
DraftKings points to gain an edge on the competition for the upcoming season.
The important questions I asked myself are below:
What positions are
scoring the most DK points? As you can see in the chart below there are two
clear leaders when it comes to putting up DK points per game – The QBs and
their WR1s. The top backs are scoring at a near identical rate to the WR2s with
the WR3s trailing by a fair margin. When you look deeper into the league trends
as a whole this makes a lot of sense as teams passed on 63% of all non-special
teams plays last season, leaving only 37% for rush plays.
How are RB points
scored, via receiving or rushing or both? Considering what we learned in the
previous section it is clear that rushing takes a back seat to the passing game
in the CFL. With one less down to work with this leads to more passing
situations. Of the 14.69 DK points scored by a team’s top back in games, only
57% of them came on the ground as opposed to 43% through the air. Rushers only
reached the 100 yard threshold on 21 occasions to hit the 3 pt bonus, so barely
over 1 back a week hit that target. Note that while 43% of DK points came from
receiving only 13 TDS were scored via reception compared to 53 rushing which
works out to just under 22%. 517 receptions were recorded by teams RB1s so
looking for targets is much more consistent and reliable than attempting to
chase receiving touchdowns.
How often are players
hitting 3 pt bonuses? I touched on this a bit in the previous section,
noting that there were only 21 occasions with an RB hitting that bonus in 162
games (14%). For QBs that number is much higher, as they hit the 300 yard bonus
a whopping 48% of the time. WR1s hit their 100 yard bonus at an identical rate.
WR2s hit it 13% of the time and unsurprisingly WR3s were not hitting that number,
if they were they wouldn’t be the WR3 that game! With nearly 50% of all QBs and
WR1s hitting these bonuses, missing out on them will be much more crippling
than in the NFL game.
Where are QB points
coming from? The QB sneak is a lot more common in the CFL than the NFL as
opposing defenses give a yard to the offense. This makes a 2nd or 3rd
and inches play almost guaranteed when teams call for the sneak. This rings
true near the end zone as well, but almost every team has a designated short
yardage quarterback who comes in for these situations leaving us unable to
fully capitalize on them from a fantasy standpoint. If you filter the results
to solely include the starting QBs, 87.5% of their DK points come from their
contributions to the passing game. In total, starting QBs picked up 1346 yards
on the ground (8.3 per game) but they managed to score 35 touchdowns which
accounts for 61% of their rushing DK points. In short, don’t look for a QB who
can pick up yards on the ground as you just need him to reach the endzone.
Can you gain an
advantage playing players on special teams? 8 players averaged more than 5
DK points per game via the return during the season and no one who provided
consistent stats in another area (i.e. no offensive starters) is included in
that group. Only 2 kickoff returns were brought back for touchdowns all season
and 8 punt returns were as well. I originally thought this would be a good area
to target for points but upon further review it appears it will be more
beneficial to ignore return specialists. Only 6 times all year did a player
reach double digits in return points, always requiring a TD to reach that #. Make
no mistake – if you catch one on a day he scores a TD it will be a huge plus
and provide the ultimate GPP play but unless pricing makes it really attractive
to look at rostering a special teams contributor ignoring them is the way to
go.
How do different
positions correlate with each other? This is the most crucial part of
information to consider when building GPP lineups for CFL contests. With only 4
games a week I think it will be equally profitable to focus on avoiding
situations with minimal correlation as well as targeting situations with high positive
correlations. Both need to be relied on but if we can assume everyone will be
focusing on stacking their lineups (which has proven to be essential) we can
gain an edge by also knowing which players to avoid playing together in the
same lineup.
The highest correlations by far are between a QB and his top
3 WRs, all in the range of 0.58-0.59, which is just massive, even higher than
for the same positions in the NFL. This should make stacking even more
essential for CFL GPPs. If you are starting a QB, at the very least pair him with one of his top receivers! Even pairing him with 2 is going to be beneficial more often than not. Running backs have almost no correlation with anyone
else, a 0.10 with their own QB and minimal positive or negative correlation
with anyone else. WR1/WR2 and WR2/WR3 are also hugely correlated at 0.47 and
0.49.
How can I use all of this information to start building my roster(s)? My strategy for the year has become clear as I take in all
of this information. Roster construction is very flexible for CFL contests as they
have a QB-RB-WR-WR-FLEX-FLEX-DST setup. For me, that is going to mean
RB-WR-WR-WR-WR most (if not all) of the time. Think about it – QBs and top WRs
are hitting their 3 point bonuses almost 50% of the time, while it is rare to
have more than one RB a week hit it! The only time I will consider taking a
higher priced RB will be if his receiving numbers are consistent and can be
counted upon. For the most pary I’m going to be looking to play one value RB at
all times while using the savings and the other 4 slots to try to find multiple
100 yard upside receivers.
Hope this gives you a head start on your CFL lineups for the
year, I will be posting more player focused information shortly, followed by
weekly matchup previews as the season goes on!
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