The NFL season is on its way here, but in the meantime, FanDuel has you covered for some fantasy football action with simulated games throughout the season.
You can join in on a free-to-play contest that will revolve around a small slate of games simulated out using numberFire's Sharpstack tool.
This means that the teams and players will have correlations with one another. If a receiver goes off for two touchdowns, his quarterback will have some passing scores. If a running back scores three times, his passing offense will probably be lacking in the touchdown department.
This means that simple projections won't really cut it for identifying the best correlations and lineups, but we can at least dig into numberFire's weekly projections. This at least helps show us, in general, how matchups and usage are expected to shake out in the simulations more often than not. It'll still be on us to compile the best correlated lineups we can.
Best Values
Again, using nothing but numberFire's weekly projections, here are value rankings for each position. (Value refers to projected FanDuel points divided by a player's salary and then multiplied by 1,000. Value is best viewed relative to other players at the same position.)
For example, Joe Mixon is projected to score 14.92 FanDuel points at a salary of $7,300 (2.04 FanDuel points per $1,000).
| Rank | QB | RB | WR | TE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patrick Mahomes (2.59) | Joe Mixon (2.04) | Michael Thomas (1.82) | Travis Kelce (1.65) |
| 2 | Russell Wilson (2.49) | Alvin Kamara (2.03) | Tyreek Hill (1.76) | George Kittle (1.56) |
| 3 | Drew Brees (2.46) | Ezekiel Elliott (2.00) | D.K. Metcalf (1.73) | Jared Cook (1.42) |
| 4 | Jimmy Garoppolo (2.45) | Clyde Edwards-Helaire (2.00) | Jamison Crowder (1.72) | Evan Engram (1.40) |
| 5 | Dak Prescott (2.33) | Saquon Barkley (1.99) | Amari Cooper (1.69) | Chris Herndon (1.37) |
| 6 | Daniel Jones (2.33) | Miles Sanders (1.91) | Emmanuel Sanders (1.69) | Blake Jarwin (1.35) |
| 7 | Carson Wentz (2.32) | Chris Carson (1.89) | Anthony Miller (1.68) | Dallas Goedert (1.35) |
| 8 | Tom Brady (2.31) | David Montgomery (1.89) | Allen Robinson (1.67) | Rob Gronkowski (1.33) |
| 9 | Joe Burrow (2.29) | Raheem Mostert (1.83) | Tyler Lockett (1.67) | Zach Ertz (1.27) |
| 10 | Nick Foles (2.24) | Le'Veon Bell (1.70) | CeeDee Lamb (1.67) | Greg Olsen (1.23) |
| 11 | Sam Darnold (2.14) | Damien Williams (1.67) | Chris Godwin (1.66) | Jonnu Smith (1.22) |
| 12 | Ryan Tannehill (2.04) | Tevin Coleman (1.63) | Deebo Samuel (1.64) | C.J. Uzomah (0.96) |
| 13 | Ke'Shawn Vaughn (1.59) | Tyler Boyd (1.64) | Jimmy Graham (0.91) | |
| 14 | Derrick Henry (1.57) | Mike Evans (1.62) | O.J. Howard (0.88) | |
| 15 | Ronald Jones (1.50) | Sterling Shepard (1.62) | Will Dissly (0.83) |
The author of this article has no involvement with the NFL Sim Sports simulations powered by numberFire and has no knowledge of the results of the upcoming contest.