Daily Fantasy Football: Should We Always Pivot From Popular Plays in Tournaments?

It is incredibly easy to overthink just about anything in life.

And when we take a look at daily fantasy football, all that really matters is scoring points, right?

Sort of, yeah.

I mean, I'm not going to argue that scoring points isn't what determines who wins or loses fantasy football matchups and daily fantasy tournaments, but how we go about finding and projecting the fantasy points is where the caveats come into play.

Sometimes, a running back with a featured role and on a heavy favorite is facing a terrible rush defense, and it's really hard to envision ways that that back doesn't put up fantasy points.

Because that combination of matchup and upside isn't exactly a secret, said player will be projected well and discussed throughout the industry. As a result, he'll find himself on a huge amount of rosters in daily fantasy formats. Rosters, mind you, that we're trying to outperform in tournaments (and tournaments are the focus of this piece).

Should we eat the chalk and roster him because the matchup is great? Or should we avoid him and hope that he underperforms, thus bogging down a lot of lineups we're competing against?

Although there is never going to be a single, binary answer to that question, there certainly is a lot of information we can rely on to help make that decision.

That's why I wanted to look at how the chalk performs compared to potential pivot plays in recent seasons.

I won't lie, though. I've done a lot of detailed studies over the years. This one ended up proving the most ambitious and intensive. How we define chalk and pivots is debatable in itself. Then we have to account for differences across positions. And within those positions, we have to consider salary discrepancies.

You can skip past the nuts and bolts of the piece and look solely at the takeaways -- although I think you might have some questions if you choose to do so.

But without any more words in what is already a lengthy piece, let's dive in.

What's Chalk, Who's a Pivot, and When Do They Hit?

And who the hell is on third?

Typically speaking, the "chalk" could mean any popular daily fantasy football play or, specifically, the most popular play of the week at a given position. That's too general to study.

To make it more specific (and able to be studied), I'm going to be looking at popular FanDuel plays relative to positional tendencies since 2017. All draft percentages are based on the weekly Sunday Million main slate.

The draft percentage thresholds will differ by position because of how different positions are treated in terms of the number of starting slots in a FanDuel lineup.

To determine whether the chalk "hits," I'll be looking at whether or not the chalky plays reached the median value threshold (FanDuel points per $1,000 in FanDuel salary) relative to their specific position. I'll generally call these "value" or "baseline" hits.

But for true, slate-changing "eruption weeks," I'll be focused on raw point output. The cutoffs will be approximately historical 85th-percentile outcomes at the positions.

I've defined chalk and successful weeks for said chalk.

What, then, qualifies as a "pivot?"

I'm sure that varies depending on who you ask.

We can make the case for virtually anyone being a pivot away from the chalky picks of the week. Even at drastically different salaries. After all, pivoting from a running back at a $10,000 salary to one with an $8,000 salary will naturally give you a more unique salary distribution across your entire lineup than the rosters that do draft the $10,000 back. You can roster a higher-salaried quarterback or tight end than you could otherwise. That's sort of a pivot.

However, I wanted to keep it a bit narrower.

The question I'm really trying to answer is: when you can pivot from a popular player to a nearby (in salary) and less popular player, should you?

You know, if you can more or less swap out a chalky play with someone else, should you? Or will you always get burnt?

This is different than asking: should you fade the chalk no matter what? This is an important distinction to make. The true contrarian could try to fade any popular play and assume said plays will bust. I don't think we need the math to tell us that when a player on 35% of lineups scores 5.0 FanDuel points, it'll be beneficial not to roster that player.

However, the historical results can help us find out if avoiding popular plays at all costs is classic overthinking.

For my purposes, a pivot is someone who: is projected to be within 5.0 FanDuel points of the chalk (based on numberFire's projections), who is within $500 either way of the chalk's FanDuel salary, and who also isn't chalky themselves. This will return realistic plays we can swap the chalk for. That was ultimately the goal.

Here are some relevant findings broken down by position.

Again, you can jump ahead to a more concise version of the analysis at the end.

Quarterback Pivot Analysis

As laid out already, I'm going to use a chalk line cutoff of 15.0% for quarterbacks.

That might sound low, but the weekly leader in Sunday Million draft percentage has an average roster rate of 17.8%. Quarterbacks just don't get very popular very often. Only 23 passers in the overall sample were on even 20.0% of rosters. That's roughly one every three to four weeks.

I wanted to look at a large enough sample to find some takeaways, which is why I lowered the cutoff to 15.0%, but I also didn't want to lower it so far that we were looking at options who weren't prohibitively popular.

This all leaves us with 73 quarterbacks with at least a 15.0% draft percentage and with at least one possible pivot that week. There are 298 individual pivot weeks to examine. Naturally, a single chalk play could have multiple available pivots.

There are also instances in which a chalky play does not have a pivot. It could be that nobody is close to his salary (or his projection). It could also be possible that we have, for example, two quarterbacks on 18.0% of rosters with a $9,000 salary and nobody else above $8,000. In that case, both of the chalky players are unpivotable. I'll weave in commentary on the unpivotables throughout when necessary.

Again, for these purposes, a quarterback "base hit" or successful week will be binary based on whether that quarterback reached at least a 2.37 value threshold. For example, a quarterback with a salary of $9,000 would need to accumulate 21.3 FanDuel points to be a success at his salary.

I'll also be looking at mega-hits or eruptions, which -- for quarterbacks -- will be 25.0 or more FanDuel points. That is roughly an 85th-percentile outcome for quarterbacks.

Here are the results along with differentials from the pivots' perspective. Green shading for the columns reflecting salary and roster rate are plusses for pivots. For the results, blue is bad for pivots (i.e. they're colder than the chalk) with red showing where pivots actually outperform the chalk.

So, red and green are good for the pivots; blue is better for the chalk.

How Often Does the Quarterback Chalk Hit?
If the chalk hits often, then pivoting is much riskier.

In the sample of 73 quarterbacks with at least one pivot, 57.6% of them reached that necessary value threshold to be a better-than-average play. To put actual numbers on that, the sample was projected for an average of 21.8 FanDuel points and scored an average of 21.6.

As for the eruption rate (again, 25.0 or more FanDuel points), we're looking at 35.6%. That's pretty high. More than a third of the time, these quarterbacks do convert on big games.

Notably, the studs-with-pivot sample erupted in 12 of 24 games for an absurd 50.0% eruption rate. (More on the unpviotables in a moment.) If you scale it back to look at the passers with a salary of at least $8,000 who were chalky, the eruption rate is still 43.1%.

In this dataset, there are 10 quarterbacks with no pivots in the parameters I laid out. The lowest salary among them is $8,800, and the lowest projection is 20.8 FanDuel points. So, yeah, these guys are studs without equals in a given week.

The fewest FanDuel points returned by this sample were 18.0, and the eruption rate of 40.0% is pretty much on par with what we'd expect from fellow chalky studs. They averaged 25.0 FanDuel points with a value hit rate of 60.0% and an eruption rate of 40.0%.

Combined, the chalk studs plus unpivotables maintained a 67.6% value hit rate and a 47.1% eruption rate.

How Often Does a Quarterback Pivot Hit?
Among all possible pivots in this sample (298 quarterbacks), they held a 48.7% value hit rate. That's not bad, but it is 8.8 percentage points lower than the chalk sample.

But if we're thinking about popularity, we're largely looking at tournaments, and in tournaments, we need raw fantasy points.

It's likely the huge ceiling that is appealing for the chalky quarterbacks in a given week, and their 35.6% eruption rate does dominate here. The pivot sample reached 25.0 or more FanDuel points in just 23.3% of their games.

What Happens When the Quarterback Chalk Busts?
Even with a 57.6% baseline hit rate, we have more than a 40.0% chance that the chalk doesn't get to that value threshold, and in those cases, we're talking about a drop from, on average, 22.0 projected FanDuel points to 13.7 FanDuel points.

That's a big win for those who yearn to fade the chalk.

None of these chalk quarterback busts were projected for fewer than 18.7 points, so it's not like numerous minimum-salary passers projected for 15.0 points are bogging down this data.

Leverage does exist among quarterback pivots; however, because of the low overall draft percentages for quarterbacks, fading the best plays of the week isn't quite as impactful as we will see with other positions.

Running Back Pivot Analysis

The chalk line used for running back will be a 30.0% roster rate. The most popular running back in a given Sunday Million has an average draft percentage of 35.9% in the overall sample, so by using 30.0% we'll generally get the top name but also the next name or two most weeks.

Our sample is 95 running backs and 324 potential pivots.

As a reminder, eruption weeks for backs indicate 20.0-plus FanDuel points, and the value hit cutoff is 1.68.

Here are the results along with differentials from the pivots' perspective. Green shading for the columns reflecting salary and roster rate are plusses for pivots. For the results, blue is bad for pivots (i.e. they're colder than the chalk) with red showing where pivots actually outperform the chalk.

So, red and green are good for the pivots; blue is better for the chalk.

How Often Does the Running Back Chalk Hit?
Running back, over a full season, has plenty of volatility, but projecting single-game volume for running backs is a bit easier than any of the other flex positions (receiver and tight end).

Of the 95 chalk plays in the sample, 70.5% of them surpassed the expected value threshold.

Chalky running backs with salaries of $8,400 or higher hit 67.7% of the time and erupted at an astounding 51.6% clip.

Mid-tier backs (with salaries of $7,100 to $8,400) are quite interesting. Their base hit rate is a sturdy 66.7%, but their eruption rate is only 25.9%. I'll talk more about them in a second when comparing their performance to pivots in the mid-tier.

Value chalk backs (with salaries of $7,000 or lower) had a gaudy 75.7% hit rate and a 24.3% eruption rate. They largely dominate the value pivots.

When a low-salaried back is set up well, it's more likely than not that they'll be good relative to their salary -- but it's still just a one-in-four chance that they'll really burn us by getting more than 20.0 FanDuel points.

Are we, as a whole, good at predicting running back opportunity? I'd say so, yes.

That's particularly true among the unpivotables.

With running backs, we have 18 unpivotables: backs who were chalk but had no real competition or pivots. Think peak Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Todd Gurley. Oh, and Week 11 Jeff Wilson from 2021 (a $5,000 salary despite a projection of 13.44 FanDuel points [with an actual output of 6.3]). When this type of back hits, they hit it big.

If we exclude Wilson from the list (because he's an outlier here with all others being true studs), this sample averaged 21.7 FanDuel points with a 64.7% value hit rate and a 58.8% eruption rate. That means it's been more likely than not that they burned us for not rostering them.

How Often Does a Running Back Pivot Hit?
The overall pivot sample hit 54.8% of the time, which compares fairly poorly to the 70.5% hit rate for chalk backs but is still good overall.

That same overall pivot sample put up a huge game (again, 20-plus FanDuel points) in 22.6% of contests, trailing the chalk (33.7%).

Stud pivots can meet or exceed floor expectations (74.4%) as well as the chalky studs do (67.7%); however, they struggle to hit ceiling games (39.5%) as often as the chalky studs do (51.6%).

What really jumps out in the analysis thus far is that the mid-tier chalk at running back isn't particularly elite. Though they beat the pivot sample in baseline hit rate (66.7% to 58.6%), they trail in eruption rate (25.9% to 29.9%). This is despite an average roster rate of 36.1% to the pivot sample's rate of 10.7%. The pivots also tend to save salary ($194 less, on average); this is to be expected.

Because of the nature of running back, value plays, in general, are almost exclusively afterthoughts until circumstances dictate that we look at a particular play for the week. Therefore, as we could probably have expected, pivoting from a standout value back to another back not seeing an increased role shouldn't tempt us.

What Happens When the Running Back Chalk Busts?
When our sample of chalky backs fails to return baseline value, they average just 8.9 points on the back of a projection of 17.8 points.

The high-salaried backs who busted averaged a projection of 20.3 and an output of 10.6.

The mid-tier busts gave us 9.7 on average despite a projection of 17.7.

For the values who busted, they averaged just 6.4 points despite a projection of 15.0.

Wide Receiver Pivot Analysis

The chalk line here is going to be a 25.0% roster rate. WR1s in draft percentage have averaged a 30.9% draft rate in the Sunday Million.

This cutoff gives us 89 chalk weeks to examine. As for pivots, we have a ton: 690. It gets bunched up at receiver each week. Including unpviotables, the chalk sample has an average of 7.1 pivots per week.

Eruption weeks at receiver require 18.0 or more FanDuel points.

Here are the results along with differentials from the pivots' perspective. Green shading for the columns reflecting salary and roster rate are plusses for pivots. For the results, blue is bad for pivots (i.e. they're colder than the chalk) with red showing where pivots actually outperform the chalk.

So, red and green are good for the pivots; blue is better for the chalk.

How Often Does the Wide Receiver Chalk Hit?
Overall, the chalk sample reached value 55.1% of the time, just narrowly beating out the pivots (54.8%).

We already know that we're pretty good at identifying the best plays at quarterback and running back, so this mark being closer to 50.0% than what we saw at quarterback and running back speaks to the volatility of the receiver position. Somewhat, at least.

Of the high-salaried receivers ($8,000-plus), they have a baseline hit rate of 54.8% and an eruption rate of 32.3%.

That means it's actually more likely for the chalky studs at running back to get to 20.0 FanDuel points (58.1%) than it is for the chalky stud receivers to surpass their baseline value threshold.

Mid-tier receivers ($7,000 to $7,900), hit value 66.7% of the time overall but erupted at a 20.0% rate.

Value receivers (salaries of $6,900 or lower) posted a 42.9% general hit rate and a 14.3% eruption rate.

Only 10 receivers in this sample lacked potential pivots, and all were studs. None had a salary below $8,800, and the average of the sample was $9,210. These weeks are peak stretches for Michael Thomas, Davante Adams, Antonio Brown, and Cooper Kupp. Those are the only names on the whole list. Of these 10 weeks, there were seven hits and five eruptions. Three weeks fell shy of 7.0 FanDuel points with two others between 14.6 and 16.3.

So, these unpivotables overall had good results, but like with anything, when they bust, it'll greatly benefit those who faded them. Still, we aren't seeing bust rates so high that we should always fade these guys, and as with the other positions, I'll reintroduce this sample in the final section.

How Often Does a Wide Receiver Pivot Hit?
Here's where things get interesting.

The qualified pivot sample overall has a 54.8% baseline hit rate, effectively matching the chalk rate of 55.1% -- all while coming at a roster rate discount of 22.4 percentage points, on average.

Is there a ceiling issue like we've seen at other positions?

Sort of.

Overall, the pivot eruption rate is 18.6% compared to 22.5% for the chalk -- while again coming at a huge roster rate decrease.

Remember that chalky studs ($8,000-plus) erupted 32.3% of the time. Pivot-eligible studs erupted 24.1% of the time.

That's a non-negligible ceiling gap, and I'd never try to explain it away to the extent that I'd say to fade the receiver chalk always.

However, we're still looking at roughly a 65% chance that a chalk receiver (plus the unpivotables) doesn't get to 18.0 FanDuel points, so we shouldn't feel as tied up in playing them as we might with quarterbacks and running backs who are in smash spots.

The mid-tier pivots ($7,000 to $7,900) actually hit at a 56.0% rate and erupted 22.2% of the time. This compares to 66.7% and 20.0% for mid-tier chalk.

This is definitely something when you consider a small gap of 13.5 actual points for the chalk in this tier and 12.2 for the pivots -- with the added benefit of a decrease of 21.5 percentage points of roster rate between the chalk and the pivots.

This resembles the mid-tier results at running back. A stud receiver in a great spot is much different than a mid-tier receiver in a great spot.

When looking at the value tier for the pivots, we see them outperform the chalk in value hit rate (53.5% compared to 42.9%) while nearly meeting them in ceiling rate (13.8% to 14.3%). (It's worth taking a second to let it sink in how infrequently value receivers go off; if you aren't using the salary saved from value receivers to access huge ceilings from studs, then you're likely building a low-ceiling lineup.)

We can get really point-chasey in daily fantasy football, and it's vital to keep that in mind. This can lead to over-rostering players whose salaries are on the upswing after big games and under-rostering players whose salaries are declining due to a few poor games. At receiver -- with the inherent volatility of touchdowns and big plays -- this is a very apparent leverage opportunity.

Be open to pivoting from (non-stud) receiver chalk, and be open to buy-low windows for non-stud receivers.

What Happens When the Wide Receiver Chalk Busts?
When the chalky plays fail to reach their value threshold, they return just 6.6 FanDuel points (despite an average projection of 14.5). Further, 87.5% of the busts didn't get to 10.0 FanDuel points. When they bust, they bust hard.

Even the stud busts ($8,000-plus) average just 8.2 points when they don't live up to the hype, and a wideout returning fewer than 10.0 FanDuel points on such a high salary can really ruin a lineup.

Pivoting at receiver seems like a very easy case to make. It's not that you can never play the chalk, but the pivots are very capable of replicating the type of output the mid-tier and values provide. Chalky studs are still on a different level, and of course, there are a few unpivotable options to look at.

Tight End Pivot Analysis

The chalk cutoff here is 17.0%. The most popular tight end in a given week is rostered by 22.2% of lineups, so this gives us that bit of wiggle room for other popular plays at the position.

We have 66 weeks with tight ends on at least 17.0% of Sunday Million rosters and with possible pivot options. As for the usual pivot process, we have 243 to compare to the chalk.

Here are the results along with differentials from the pivots' perspective. Green shading for the columns reflecting salary and roster rate are plusses for pivots. For the results, blue is bad for pivots (i.e. they're colder than the chalk) with red showing where pivots actually outperform the chalk.

So, red and green are good for the pivots; blue is better for the chalk.

How Often Does the Tight End Chalk Hit?
The chalk sample hit at a baseline rate of 59.1%. They erupted 21.2% of the time.

For studs ($6,600 or greater) with pivot options, their baseline hit rate is only 43.5%, and the eruption hit rate is 17.4%. Those jump to 53.2% and 27.7% when including options without a specific pivot that week.

Mid-tier chalk tight ends ($5,800 to $6,500) actually have a 60.9% baseline hit rate and a 34.8% eruption rate.

Lower-salaried chalk tight ends ($5,700 or lower) reached 14.0-plus FanDuel points just 10.0% of the time but dominated value expectations (75.0%). If the goal is decent production, chalk tight ends on the low end generally work, but don't expect huge games often. Similar to value receivers, if we aren't using the savings here to target high-ceiling players at other positions, we might be capping our lineup's potential.

A lot of tight end weeks (24) featured unpivotable options. This is a list of Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski, and sprinkles of others. If we look at those can't-pivot options, they average 12.6 FanDuel points (on an average salary of $7,833). They have a baseline hit rate of 45.8% and an eruption rate of 37.5%.

Combined with all chalk tight ends with a salary of at least $6,600, the overall stud chalk sample averages 10.7 FanDuel points with a 53.2% baseline hit rate and a 27.7% eruption rate. They're rostered on 22.9% of Sunday Million lineups, on average.

How Often Does a Tight End Pivot Hit?
The stud pivot success rate is pretty strong: 51.2% baseline and 25.6% eruption. When a stud tight end is an afterthought, consider a long look at playing him as a pivot.

As for mid-tier pivots, they've got a 54.9% baseline hit rate but only a 17.1% eruption rate (compared to a 34.8% rate for the chalk in the mid-range). Tight ends can be matchup dependent and need touchdowns to fall their way for a big game; we're clearly good at identifying ceilings for the mid-tier options.

Value pivots are at an average of 6.5 FanDuel points with a dreadful 38.1% baseline hit rate and a 6.8% eruption rate. Pivoting to other value tight ends isn't really appealing in practice, and the math doesn't like it, either.

What Happens When the Chalk Busts?
When the chalk fails to hit at a baseline number, they bust hard. They average 4.3 FanDuel points despite a projection of 11.1.

Is that just because sometimes we get value chalk plays? No.

Whenever that stud tier ($6,600-plus) busts, they turn an average projection of 12.8 into 5.5 FanDuel points.

Value and mid-tier chalk averages just 3.2 points when it busts.

Hit Rates Versus Popularity and Takeaways

Okay, I know this is a lot to ingest and keep sorted, so it's crucial that we outline everything so that we can walk away from this with tangible takeaways.

The tables help, but what about how to use this more practically? I think one way we can answer this is by viewing baseline and eruption rates compared to draft percentages. As my colleague Jim Sannes likes to put it: "Will this player make me regret not using him?"

So, here's a snapshot of the average draft percentage for a given group (e.g. chalk value running backs, pivot value running backs) compared to their value hit rates and their eruption rates.

Because we should primarily care about popularity and ceiling in tournaments, I'm going to sort this graphic by the differential between eruption rate and roster rate by each group.

The graphic is pretty self-explanatory, aside from the column listed as Chalk+. This tier includes all stud chalk plus studs who had no pivots. The unpivotables are almost exclusively studs, so this will help paint a better picture of just all chalk for a given week.

Quarterback Analysis
Stud Tier: $8,500+
Mid-Tier: $8,000 to $8,400
Value Tier: $7,900 or Less

A few things jump out here.

Because we are looking at low rates of roster percentage at the position, quarterbacks can and do overperform their popularity quite easily. The exception is the value chalk, which is popular (19.0% rostered on average) but only just okay at reaching huge outputs (18.2%). Yes, the savings help open up more salary for other positions, and value chalk quarterbacks hit well enough at a baseline rate, so they aren't terrible options in a vacuum.

However, the eruption numbers shouldn't really have us afraid to fade value chalk at quarterback, and when a stud is in a smash spot, we probably don't need to fade him. In fact, we're probably overthinking fading someone on roughly 18.0% of rosters when the odds of a big game historically outweigh the roster rate.

Running Back Analysis
Stud Tier: $8,400+
Mid-Tier: $7,100 to $8,300
Value Tier: $7,000 or Less

Running back chalk -- excluding the studs -- may not be worth chasing from a ceiling standpoint. That said, value chalk hits at a baseline rate very well (75.7%). It's the mid-tier chalk at running back that seems like an ideal place to pivot if it's a ceiling that we're seeking.

Obvious reasons for this can include point-chasing and de facto chalk (i.e. someone has to be chalky even if there aren't flawless plays entering the week). It can also be easy to convince ourselves that second-tier backs should be treated like studs even though the historical results don't bear it out.

Naturally, the backs who bog down the overall value threshold of a successful week are the value pivots who aren't in good spots to produce.

Wide Receiver Analysis
Stud Tier: $8,000+
Mid-Tier: $7,000 to $7,900
Value Tier: $6,900 or Less

Wide receiver chalk very often is more popular than it should be, based on the historical eruption rates. That essentially applies to studs (-1.3%) and the studs-plus-unpivotables (+3.1%), as well.

Yes, when a chalky receiver erupts, it'll hurt us for not having them -- almost to the point where it's a lost week if it's a big enough game. That being said, the math really suggests we should be looking to pivot at receiver when possible.

The worst chalk of all is probably value receiver chalk, followed by mid-tier receiver chalk. That mid-tier is usually a strong group of names. But like with running back, this tier is a bit problematic. Based on the results, we -- as a group -- tend to sell ourselves on the upside probability of such players more than we should.

But again: value chalk receivers are specifically problematic. Why? Well, if we trust that regression is real, we're probably chasing receiver production after the fact. This same phenomenon impacts the waiver wire in season-long leagues: we're virtually always too late at adding receivers to our season-long teams. These numbers imply that we're often too late chasing value at receiver in daily fantasy football, too.

Tight End Analysis
Stud Tier: $6,600+
Mid-Tier: $5,800 to $6,500
Value Tier: $5,700 or Less

Tight end is super weird because the value chalk has a good baseline hit rate but a poor ceiling output. Stud pivots overperform.

It's really the mid-tier that stands out as a group. This likely can be partially attributed to the point-chasey nature of fantasy football, too. Tight ends scoring touchdowns or converting at an elevated rate on a per-target basis will see their salaries increase before an inevitable statistical decline comes and we're left holding the bag.

The inverse is likely true for the majority of the mid-tier. These would be tight ends with good enough roles to deserve middling salaries but who just haven't converted as much recently. The buy-low opportunities seem ripe, based on historical results.