Photo: USA Today Sports

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This article will be a high-level strategic article with some DFS Week 1 DraftKings and FanDuel thoughts now that pricing has been released. With still 30 days until the first main slate locks, there will be a significant change on a day-to-day basis between what looks good now and what is recommended in your lineup.

Key Changes for 2024

FanDuel has implemented new scoring for 2024. While they will still be a 0.5 PPR site compared to the full PPR on DraftKings, they have aligned to the bonus structure of DraftKings compared to years past. This season, you’ll receive a 3-point bonus if your quarterback throws for 300 yards or any player has 100 yards rushing/receiving. This is a sizable change for FanDuel, as given the lower scoring already due to 0.5 PPR, it’s going to add value to the elite running backs.

Quarterback

DFS Strategy

With FanDuel releasing a new pricing model, it will greatly impact the quarterback position. Over the last few seasons, it has been critical to favor quarterbacks with significant rushing upside, given the lack of a 300-yard bonus and the pricing differential being smaller on FanDuel than DraftKings from the top-end quarterbacks compared to the lower end. Typically, you’ll see the top-end quarterbacks in the mid-8k range, while the bottom tier is only $1,500-2,000 less than that. Unless a quarterback is massively mispriced in a given week, you’re often going to want to try to pay up for a quarterback when you can simply because of the expected outcome on a point-per-dollar basis compared to the bottom-tier quarterback. The savings that you would get to apply to a position elsewhere do not offset the risk incurred by the highest-scoring position.

On DraftKings, it is very different. DraftKings pricing traditionally is tighter, forcing every dollar spent to be agonized over and, therefore, often leads to cheaper quarterbacks coming into play. With the PPR scoring, it’s more important to ensure that the money that you’re spending is on players who are going to be getting those targets and receptions compared to FanDuel, where the 0.5 receptions do not matter nearly as much when it comes to sacrificing some salary to be able to spend up at the quarterback position.

Week 1 Initial DFS Thoughts

Jayden Daniels, Washington

Daniels' price looks very affordable at both $5,700 on DraftKings and $7,000 on FanDuel. Daniels has been tremendous in training camp thus far showing the dual threat play that carried him into winning the Heisman as well as being the number two overall pick this season. The matchup should be a favorable one, facing the Buccaneers who had one of the worst pass defenses in 2023. Turnovers could be an issue for Daniels, but they often hurt less than people fear, as it gets the ball back into the quarterback's hands and creates additional opportunities for the team to throw the ball. Daniels is going to be extremely popular as we stand today but could be a fade in GPPs depending on where his roster percentage ends up as it is still a rookie making his first start. 

Josh Allen, Buffalo

Allen on FanDuel is going to be a problem. He’s going to be one of those players who you’re going to have to make a critical decision on as while the price is high at $9,200 on FanDuel and $8,000 on DraftKings, it is a very fair price against arguably the league’s worst secondary heading into 2024. Allen ran for 15 touchdowns last season, and with the team getting worse at the wide receiver position as they lost Stefon Diggs, replacing him with Curtis Samuel and Keon Coleman, expect more rushing upside from Allen this year in a favorable matchup against Arizona.  

Matthew Stafford, LA Rams

Stafford gets to return to Detroit for the second time as an opposing quarterback as the Lions knocked the Rams out of the playoffs last season. Stafford, in that game, was tremendous, throwing for 367 yards and 2 touchdowns as one of the Lions' weaknesses is their pass defense, allowing the fourth-most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks last year. Stafford is cheap on FanDuel at $7,300 on the main slate but is not offered on DraftKings as FanDuel is including the Sunday Night game this year in their main slate offering.