FanDuel Daily Fantasy Football Helper: Pro Bowl
Usually when prepping for a daily fantasy football slate, we have some data to dig into. For the Pro Bowl, it's not quite the same case.
We can, will, and should rely on past data in the Pro Bowls because, well, they're their own type of football game. So let's dig into some relevant trends and see how that applies to each roster for this year's Pro Bowl and how we can apply that to Pro Bowl daily fantasy contests on FanDuel.
Single-Game Overview
The format for the Pro Bowl slate is unlike what you've grown accustomed to on FanDuel throughout the season, and that includes the Superflex setup. For the Pro Bowl, you roster five players, regardless of position, and one of them -- your MVP -- has his points multiplied by 1.5.
You have the usual $60,000 salary cap for your five flex spots, and you have to roster at least one player from each conference. Scoring is the same as usual, aside from the player you choose to flex in the multiplier slot.
Recent Trends and Notes
Here are the past two winning lineups in the biggest GPPs on FanDuel.
| Season | Slot | Player | Team | Position | Salary | FanDuel Points |
Draft Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | MVP | Davante Adams | NFC | WR | $12,000 | 33.69 | 24.0% |
| 2019 | FLEX | Mark Andrews | AFC | TE | $9,000 | 17.8 | 44.3% |
| 2019 | FLEX | Michael Thomas | NFC | WR | $12,500 | 17.7 | 33.8% |
| 2019 | FLEX | Jack Doyle | AFC | TE | $7,000 | 13.8 | 23.2% |
| 2019 | FLEX | DJ Chark Jr. | AFC | WR | $10,000 | 13.7 | 16.7% |
| $50,500 | 96.69 | 142.0% |
| Season | Slot | Player | Team | Position | Salary | FanDuel Points |
Draft Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | MVP | Anthony Sherman | AFC | RB | $6,000 | 26.7 | 0.2% |
| 2018 | FLEX | Patrick Mahomes | AFC | QB | $14,000 | 10.24 | 42.8% |
| 2018 | FLEX | Tyreek Hill | AFC | WR | $11,500 | 6.2 | 44.6% |
| 2018 | FLEX | George Kittle | NFC | TE | $9,000 | 6.4 | 29.5% |
| 2018 | FLEX | Jason Myers | AFC | K | $9,000 | 9.0 | 4.4% |
| $49,500 | 58.54 | 121.5% |
It's a reminder that, well, anything can happen in a Pro Bowl and that quarterbacks aren't really ideal plays. You also don't have to use all your salary. Not by a long shot.
Here are some data-specific trends over the past four Pro Bowls under the AFC vs. NFC format:
- The pass-to-run ratio has been 2.85, meaning tons of passing.
- However, only three quarterbacks posted double-digit FanDuel points.
- Individual quarterbacks have averaged 13.8 pass attempts with a max of 23.
- The max passing yards for a quarterback: 185.
- Multi-touchdown games among 24 quarterbacks in this sample? Two.
- The maximum rushing yards for a Pro Bowl quarterback since 2016: 6 yards.
- The most rushes and yards from a running back: 8 and 33, respectively.
- Of the 21 double-digit FanDuel outputs, 11 were from receivers (52.4%).
- Six were from tight ends (28.6%).
- Running backs had 1 (4.8%), and quarterbacks had 3 (14.3%).
- Play receivers and tight ends heavily.
| Position | Catches | Targets | Yards | TD | FanDuel Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WR | 45.9% | 53.8% | 55.7% | 50.0% | 52.2% |
| TE | 27.3% | 24.5% | 26.6% | 50.0% | 32.0% |
| RB | 26.8% | 21.7% | 17.8% | 0.0% | 15.8% |
- As for playoff rest and missed playoff rust, here are splits broken down by team result for players with at least 5.0 FanDuel points per game in the season in which they played in the Pro Bowl (to remove returners and fullbacks from the sample).
| Position | Missed Playoffs |
Wild Card Loss |
Divisional Round Loss |
Conference Championship Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QB | 5.3 | 5.1 | 6.7 | 10.2 |
| RB | 2.9 | 3.3 | 4.1 | 0.2 |
| TE | 6.4 | 9.9 | 11.9 | 10.5 |
| WR | 5.6 | 10.8 | 5.5 | 9.7 |
| Average | 5.0 | 7.3 | 7.1 | 7.7 |
- Based on all of this (I know sample sizes are small and whatnot), we might want to bump up players who did play in the playoffs after all.
Player Tiers
Tier 1: Playoff Pass-Catchers
- Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill, Deebo Samuel, Mike Evans, George Kittle, Stefon Diggs, CeeDee Lamb, Travis Kelce, Diontae Johnson, Hunter Renfrow
Tier 2: Non-Playoff Pass-Catchers
- Justin Jefferson, Mark Andrews, Kyle Pitts
Tier 3: Quarterbacks With Teammate Pass-Catchers for Stacking
- Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins
Tier 4: Quarterbacks Without Teammate Pass-Catchers for Stacking
- Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert, Mac Jones, Russell Wilson
Tier 5: Running Backs
- Jonathan Taylor, Dalvin Cook, Nick Chubb, Alvin Kamara, Najee Harris, James Conner
