PlayDraft DFS NFL Week 5 VIP Strategy and Player Picks by UW81
Similar to your everyday picks and plays in DFS, your play draft Head to Head matchups are going to follow the same logic.
- High scoring totals from explosive offenses
- RB at home have a general advantage
- Game Script
There are two major differences between Snake Drafts and DFS you need to consider:
- There is no need to hunt for value
- Every player you pick represents 20% of your total team, which makes stacking less valuable and correlated than in DFS.
QB picks:
- Rodgers
- Prescott
- Wilson
RB Picks:
- Bell
- Elliot
- Gurley
- Hunt
- McCoy
WR Picks:
- Nelson
- AJ Green
- Brown
- Bryant
- Hopkins
Picking First Strategy:
Picking first this week is a much larger advantage than usual since most of the explosive picks are in the same game this week.
There are two routes to follow when picking first this week. My preferred #1 pick this is Bell. This forces your opponent into Gurley, Elliot or both. Pick 4 & 5 overall push you into better picks overall. If they grab both RBs, you’re wide open to go with Nelson/Dez game stack with 100% chance to pick up Wilson or Prescott. I say 100% chance because out of the 50 H2H drafts I’ve done this week, Rodgers was picked by the person picking second 100% of the time. So when Rodgers is picked and you already have Dez & Nelson, my personal recommendation is to go to Wilson.
- You already have 40% exposure to one game. Picking Prescott puts 60%, basically all your eggs, into one game.
Your second main strategy for picking first is to grab Gurley and here’s why. With 5 top options coming from one game (GB v DAL), you’re going to get forced into a piece of that game regardless. Picking Gurley first puts you into a top tier RB in a different game in the chance the game doesn’t go over. Remember Thursday night when Brady and Winston were both going to go for 4TD and 300+ yds? Anything can happen in football.
Picking Second Strategy:
I found picking second this week forces you into a game stack most of the time. When picking second this week, I found Bell went first pick overall 100% of the time. 24 drafts picking second is a good enough sample size to assume he’s going to be gone. Again there are two main strategies to follow:
- Double RB draft. Gurley and Elliot. This is a less than optimal decision nearly every week because if you read my previous articles, it locks you out of RBs making picking a QB for your opponent a better choice since they can pick any RB left with their last pick. This strategy this week pushes them into Rodgers 100% of the time as well. However, you can trap them into stacking this way because most will go Rodgers/Nelson leaving you to go Green and <x> other receiver. Personally, I’ve gone Green and Hopkins. What about Dez? If you grab Dez, you’re stacking a RB and WR from the same offense which isn’t something I would ever recommend from a cash mentality standpoint in a snake draft.
- A more balanced attack is to go either Elliot and Nelson or Gurley and Nelson. From a pure strategy perspective, you’re making the optimal decision in taking the WR1 and the RB2 slot off the table. You’ll have all three positions left open meaning you can grab a QB earlier in the draft if you really want Rodgers. The main drawback here is your letting your opponent draft into a dangerous RB combo of Bell/Elliot or Bell/Gurley. Considering how many more points are being scored by RB this year, I have opted for strategy one.
