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DFS data dive: The highest fantasy ceilings of Week 13

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin (14) against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Our series of analyses on the single-game DraftKings showdown slates uses the combination of current projections, historical game results and similarity algorithms to simulate an upcoming game by looking back at the most similar historical matchups.


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In this analysis, I’m taking the same outline and applying it instead to the DFS main slate by projecting the likelihood each individual quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end and D/ST option will be the highest scorer of the slate. In doing this, we can find the unlikely tournament plays who may not have been on your radar.

METHODOLOGY

For each game on the DFS Sunday main slate, I looked through thousands of NFL matchups from 2014-2021 and found the closest analogies according to the following parameters: betting spread, over/under and average fantasy points scoring for the top-ranked positional players of both rosters (QB1, RB1, WR1, TE1).

Once I get the 75 most similar matchups for each upcoming game, I then simulate the main slate 10,000 times by randomly choosing one of the 75 matchups for each game. Then, I find the highest-scoring quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end and D/ST on the slate.

The last step is totaling the number of times a particular team shows up as the top option for the slate at each position and dividing by the total simulations. That number is what I call “highest-scoring %” in the team-labeled bar charts below. Below the charts, I join the highest-projected player on that team for the position, then list their projected fantasy points and salaries for DraftKings and FanDuel.

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QUARTERBACKS

Pos Highest % Player Team DK Fpts DK Salary FD Fpts FD Salary
QB 12.30 Tom Brady TB 27.7 7,200 25.4 8,100
QB 10.69 Joe Burrow CIN 21.1 6,300 19.6 7,400
QB 9.07 Lamar Jackson BLT 24.5 7,800 22.9 8,500
QB 7.50 Matthew Stafford LA 22.7 7,300 20.9 7,800
QB 7.22 Jalen Hurts PHI 23.8 7,000 22.4 8,000
QB 6.06 Kirk Cousins MIN 22.6 6,500 21.1 7,700
QB 5.86 Derek Carr LV 20.7 6,000 19.2 7,500
QB 5.81 Carson Wentz IND 19.2 6,100 18.0 7,500
QB 4.80 Kyler Murray ARZ 22.4 7,500 21.3 8,300
QB 3.76 Jimmy Garoppolo SF 18.5 5,700 17.3 6,600
QB 3.62 Taylor Heinicke WAS 20.1 5,600 18.8 7,100
QB 3.53 Russell Wilson SEA 20.9 6,400 19.6 7,300
QB 3.52 Ben Roethlisberger PIT 14.5 5,000 13.5 6,500
QB 3.39 Justin Herbert LAC 20.9 6,700 19.5 8,200
QB 2.95 Matt Ryan ATL 19.5 5,600 17.9 6,800
QB 2.43 Jared Goff DET 17.0 5,200 15.7 6,400
QB 2.41 Zach Wilson NYJ 14.4 5,200 13.6 6,300
QB 2.30 Trevor Lawrence JAX 16.5 5,100 15.4 6,700
QB 1.94 Tyrod Taylor HST 18.4 5,300 17.2 7,000
QB 1.10 Tua Tagovailoa MIA 18.3 5,500 17.3 6,900
QB 0.87 Justin Fields CHI 17.8 5,000 16.7 6,600
QB 0.68 Mike Glennon NYG 18.9 4,000 17.5 6,100

RUNNING BACKS

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