This article is part of our DFS Football 101 series.
If you read my Daily Fantasy Baseball 101 columns, you know I dug deep into lots of different types of splits data to show you where to take advantage in your player selection. While splits are much more important and discussed for daily fantasy baseball, there are still some advantages in daily fantasy football that you can also apply. Things like home/road, dome/outdoors are just two of those I will look at this week. I plan on looking into grass/turf and Vegas lines in future pieces.
For this week's article, I'm using Fanduel scoring and statistics from 2013. The point totals represent average fantasy points per game. One of the hardest things about NFL is the amount of data is much smaller than it is for baseball. You have fewer games (16 vs 162), so looking at things in groups is more relevant vs. individual players. That is not to say we still can't find some good research data. The one I always love to point out is the home/road split on Drew Brees. Brees is a dominant fantasy quarterback at home in the friendly confines of the Superdome, but when he goes on the road he becomes average.
QB
Overall - 16.2
Home - 17.0
Road - 15.4
Home/Dome - 17.9
Home/Outdoors - 16.8
Road/Dome - 17.2
Road/Outdoors - 14.9
Quarterbacks on average get around 16 fantasy points per game, and my target each week on Fanduel is that my QB must get me at least 20. You gain about a 10-percent edge taking quarterbacks at home and in a dome. (17.9 vs. the overall average of 16.2). The biggest difference is when taking a look at QBs on the road and outdoors. The elements come into play with crowd noise, possible wind/rain, along with a QB not playing in familiar surroundings. The edge of taking a home/dome QB vs. road/outdoors is 17 percent. When deciding between a group of similar players and match-ups in a given week, gaining an edge at each position is going to increases your chance to win.
Brees averaged 23.1 points overall, with 29.2 at home, 17 on the road. Six of the eight road games were outdoors where his average dropped to 15.8. Even though the match-up might look good against the Falcons, I'm sticking to my guns here and fading Brees this week.
Geno Smith averaged 16.7 at home vs. 10.1 on the road
RB
Overall - 7.4
Home - 7.7
Road - 7.0
Home/Dome - 8.3
Home/Outdoors - 7.6
Road/Dome - 6.4
Road/Outdoors - 7.2
You gain about a 23 percent edge taking RBs at home indoors vs. on the road indoors. I found this to be very interesting because there was not as much of a spread at the QB position. But if you think about it, it does make sense. Only a scrambling QB can take advantage of turf indoors for speed, where as your skill position players at RB/WR really take advantage of the turf. I remember when Reggie Bush was on the Saints, he was a must-play on turf, but you get him outside on grass, and his game completely changed.
Here are the top running backs that saw the biggest difference in home/road fantasy points per game
Reggie Bush – 17.6 at home; 11.9 on the road
Marshawn Lynch - 17.9 at home; 14.2 on the road
Ryan Mathews – 14.5 at home; 10.1 on the road
LeSean McCoy - 21.1 at home; 16.9 on the road
Adrian Peterson - 18.8 at home; 13.1 on the road (note AP put up 31 at DET which is a dome; his road/outdoors average was 10.6)
Stevan Ridley - 10.1 at home; 6.9 on the road
C.J. Spiller – 11.2 at home; 7.0 on the road
Zac Stacy – 15.2 at home; 10.6 on the road
WR
Overall - 8.2
Home - 8.1
Road - 8.2
Home/Dome - 7.7
Home/Outdoors - 8.3
Road/Dome - 9.2
Road/Outdoors-7.8
So here we see the complete opposite as ROAD/Dome WRs put up the biggest fantasy points per game with almost a 20 percent edge instead of the home/domers. I'm guessing with this is you have teams on the road who are typically behind and throwing a lot more, but also taking more shots down the field.
Here are the top wide receivers that saw the biggest difference in fantasy points per game:
Antonio Brown – 19.2 home; 13.2 road
Marques Colston - 13.8 home; 7.3 road
A.J. Green – 12.3 home; 19.9 road (Cincy D/ST has the best home/road split, so they run a lot more at home, while passing a lot more on the road)
T.Y. Hilton - 13.4 home; 9.1 road (5.5 road/outdoors (6 games))
Vincent Jackson – 14.1 home; 11.3 road
Andre Johnson – 16.3 home; 11.8 road
Brandon Marshall - 18 home; 13.8 road
Golden Tate – 7.9 home; 11.3 road (Similar theory as with CIN; SEA D/ST at home is so strong they also gameplanned around the run more)
Mike Wallace – 12.3 home; 8.0 road
Wes Welker - 17.2 home; 8.6 road
Kendall Wright - 11.9 home; 8.9 road
TE
Overall - 6.4
Home - 6.6
Road - 6.3
Home/Dome - 7.2
Home/Outdoors - 6.3
Road/Dome - 6.4
Road/Outdoors - 6.2
Outside of Vernon Davis and Jason Witten, there are no TE differentials that made any difference. You would have thought Jimmy Graham would have because of Drew Brees, but Graham was actually slightly better on the road vs. home in 2013.
Vernon Davis - 16.8 home; 10.7 road
Julius Thomas - 10.0 home; 15.8 road (Looks like they went to Welker at home and Julius Thomas on the road)
Jason Witten - 14.9 home; 6.2 road
K
Overall - 8.4
Home - 8.7
Road - 8.1
Home/Dome - 8.9
Home/Outdoors - 8.6
Road/Dome - 8.3
Road/Outdoors - 8.0
The numbers show taking kickers at home who play indoors gives you a slight edge over the league average.
D/ST
Overall - 8.0
Home - 8.8
Road - 7.4
Home/Dome - 8.0
Home/Outdoors - 9.0
Road/Dome - 6.9
Road/Outdoors - 7.5
Taking defenses that are at home and outdoors is about a 10 percent edge over the field, probably due largely to the elements. Seattle, Carolina, and Cincinnati all have significant edges at home vs. the road.
