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DFS Data Dive: The highest fantasy football player ceilings in Week 10

Arlington, Texas, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) calls a play in the second quarter against the New York Giants at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Our series of analyses on the single-game DraftKings showdown slates uses the combination of current projections, historical game results and similarity algorithms to simulate an upcoming game by looking back at the most similar historical matchups.


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In this analysis, I’m taking the same outline and applying it instead to the DFS main slate by projecting the likelihood each individual quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end and D/ST option will be the highest scorer of the slate. In doing this, we can find the unlikely tournament plays who may not have been on your radar.

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METHODOLOGY

For each game on the DFS Sunday main slate, I looked through thousands of NFL matchups from 2014-2021 and found the closest analogies according to the following parameters: betting spread, over/under and average fantasy points scoring for the top-ranked positional players of both rosters (QB1, RB1, WR1, TE1).

Once I get the 75 most similar matchups for each upcoming game, I then simulate the main slate 10,000 times by randomly choosing one of the 75 matchups for each game. Then, I find the highest-scoring quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end and D/ST on the slate.

The last step is totaling the number of times a particular team shows up as the top option for the slate at each position and dividing by the total simulations. That number is what I call “highest-scoring %” in the team-labeled bar charts below. Below the charts, I join the highest-projected player on that team for the position, then list their projected fantasy points and salaries for DraftKings and FanDuel.

QUARTERBACKS

Pos Highest % Player Team DK Fpts DK Salary FD Fpts FD Salary
QB 13.09 Dak Prescott DAL 25.2 6,900 23.2 8,100
QB 10.09 Josh Allen BUF 26.0 7,900 24.5 8,700
QB 8.19 Matt Ryan ATL 21.8 6,000 20.1 7,300
QB 8.15 Tom Brady TB 24.3 7,600 22.5 8,300
QB 7.73 Justin Herbert LAC 23.3 7,300 21.6 8,000
QB 6.61 Kyler Murray ARZ 23.9 8,000 22.6 8,300
QB 5.60 Carson Wentz IND 18.6 5,900 17.4 7,500
QB 5.58 Ben Roethlisberger PIT 17.3 5,600 16.3 7,100
QB 5.38 Ryan Tannehill TEN 20.5 6,200 19.5 7,400
QB 3.88 Aaron Rodgers GB 10.3 7,100 10.1 7,800
QB 3.74 Kirk Cousins MIN 18.6 6,100 17.2 7,600
QB 3.19 Taylor Heinicke WAS 16.5 5,400 15.4 6,900
QB 3.04 Trevor Lawrence JAX 15.3 5,300 14.5 6,600
QB 2.94 Jalen Hurts PHI 20.7 6,500 19.4 7,700
QB 2.60 Russell Wilson SEA 20.1 6,700 18.9 7,500
QB 2.55 Mac Jones NE 17.2 5,300 16.1 6,500
QB 2.26 Jared Goff DET 13.1 5,200 12.3 6,500
QB 2.09 Baker Mayfield CLV 17.4 5,400 16.4 6,800
QB 1.93 Trevor Siemian NO 15.4 5,200 13.9 7,000
QB 1.80 Teddy Bridgewater DEN 19.7 5,500 18.6 7,200
QB 0.96 Mike White NYJ 14.2 5,100 13.2 6,700
QB 0.26 Phillip Walker CAR 15.5 5,000 14.3 6,200

Related content for you: The Fantasy Football Utilization Report: Week 10 waiver, trade and drop candidates via Dwain McFarland

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