Macro vs. Micro: FanDuel Week 4

Man, what a few weeks it has been on FanDuel. Oh no, I’m not talking about it from a profitability standpoint (although that has been ok also). I’m talking about the fact that in four weeks FanDuel has gone from frozen lobbies and rechecking locations to now allowing public CSVs of their DFS tournament results! What a world we live in these days!

In all seriousness, one housekeeping note before we dive in. I’m going to make a structural tweak to the article going forward. The title will still be the same, as it will feature a Macro/Micro section each week. That said, the two sections won’t necessarily always be connected.

For example, in the past, I’ve only discussed players in the Micro section who fit under the umbrella of the Macro section. While that seems logical, and may be the case some weeks, it feels a bit too restrictive. I’ve received a lot of good feedback that people like the position-by-position format (as we do on the FanDuel show) and focusing more on GPP plays. I prefer that also, and I’m happy to apply that to the Micro section going forward.

One final note before diving into Week 4. While I think it is important to recognize the cash plays, I won’t elaborate on them extensively each week. That has already been done in other places here at ETR, including the Top Plays each week. As we move forward, the primary focus in this article will be tournaments.

Macro: Going Forward

In future articles, I’ll drop these guidelines in the Micro section so that it is clear how I narrow down players for GPP discussion. However, for this week, I thought this strategy shift alone was worthy of its own detail in the Macro section.

• First, to qualify for the GPP-focused section (the Micro section), a player cannot be a strong cash consideration. This is not to say that some cash plays can’t be good tournament plays, and you should obviously mix some of those strong cash players into your tournament lineups. However, we are looking for plays here who have high upside and aren’t in the cash conversation.  
• Secondly, I will always aim to include 1 QB / 2 RBs / 3 WRs / 1 TE / 1 Defense in the Micro section.
• Third, consider the GPP plays in the Micro section to be building blocks for your tournament lineups. Rotate them in and out of your lineups as you see fit.
• Fourth, for the positions where multiple players are listed (RB and WR), I will try to include players from varying price tiers. This should help with lineup construction and using them as building blocks with other players.  
• Finally, I will briefly acknowledge those players who are in cash consideration at each position.

Micro: GPP-Winning Upside

Quarterback

Brock Purdy, SF $8,300

The DEN-SF game comes in as a positive GPP Game Score for FanDuel this week, but it should get overshadowed by games such as the JAX-CIN game in terms of ownership. Purdy ranks as our second-highest raw ceiling at QB this week but only carries around 4% ownership, as it appears nobody is going to play him at home in a high-total (48), tight-spread (-2.5) game. The only thing that gives me a little pause here is his wide receivers. Mike Evans is banged up, and none of his other WRs project super well relative to salary. Regardless, I’m betting on the situation here, and there are enough targets to go around for Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and hopefully Evans to make this a good upside situation for an unowned Purdy.

Cash considerations: Trevor Lawrence, JAX $7,900 / Josh Allen, BUF $9,100 / C.J. Stroud, HOU $7,000