While you’ve been diligently playing Daily Fantasy Baseball over the past few months, you’re about to enter a completely different world with football season roughly a month away.
It might seem the same—with the same scoring engine, lineup building ability and live scoring—but there are plenty of major differences between Daily Fantasy Baseball and Daily Fantasy Football.
Let’s take a closer look at what they are:
1. Five Days of Inactivity
There are usually only two contest time slots on football Sundays. The net result is fewer chances to win compared to Daily Fantasy Baseball, where there are numerous different starting times every day throughout the week.
The trade-off is that you have more time to research lineups and optimize your chances of winning. Also, the best way to combat the fewer days to play is by ramping up how many different lineups you use each week.
You don’t ever want to use players that don’t present value, but in doing your research, you should explore several different combinations to try. For example, you might find two stud wide receivers to build lineups around. You can then build a lineup around a great running back and tight end. Or you can go with the best QB value and the best WR value that week.
2. Many More Players and Contests In One Day
Though Daily Fantasy Football is constricted (mostly) to weekends, there’s an estimated four times as many people competing compared to baseball. That means there’s more contests to compete in, and more players to compete against, leaving you with thousands of possible options at sites like FanDuel or DraftKings.
3. No Dominant Salaried Position Like Starting Pitchers
Since starting pitchers score the most points each night on average, and you only get one pitcher per lineup, they dominate the salary scene. Even a mid-tier pitcher is going to cost well above the best hitter of the day.
In Daily Fantasy Football, though, quarterbacks are generally the most expensive, with running backs and wide receivers right behind, followed by tight ends, and then kickers and defenses pulling up the rear. This makes for more variance across the board, as there aren’t as many lineups with two or three superstar players and a bunch of fill-in cheapies.
4. Many More Ways to Score
In Daily Fantasy Baseball, you have two ways to score—by pitching or by hitting. Sure, there are multiple scoring categories, like innings pitched, stolen bases and home runs, but for the most part, it’s a pitcher throwing the ball, a hitter swinging at the ball or a base runner on the basepaths that gets you points.
In Daily Fantasy Football, you have regular skill position scoring (yards, touchdowns, catches, turnovers), but you also have special teams scoring (returns, field goals) and defensive scoring (sacks, turnovers, safeties, points allowed) and many more. Because of all these ways for Fantasy teams to score, it creates even more variation.
5. Stacking Lineups Works Much Differently
When you stack lineups in Daily Fantasy Baseball, players are sequenced together in a lineup so that each hitter that gets on base will benefit from the production of ensuing hitters, which allows you to earn double and triple points in the matter of a few swings.
In Daily Fantasy Football, just one player is crossing that goal line, but if it’s a catch, then the quarterback and the pass catcher are both scoring Fantasy points on one play, not to mention the kicker and his extra point. You’ll also stack unnatural items, like a running back and a defense in a game in which you expect a low-scoring game. You want the running back to chew up time and you want the defense to benefit from that.
6. Bye-Week Adjustments
Once the middle of the NFL season arrives, you’ll have fewer and fewer choices at each position, which lessens variance. It’s kind of like Mondays and Thursdays in Daily Fantasy Baseball, which are usually travel days for a few baseball teams each week, which means fewer games those days.
7. Effects of Weather on the Games
Weather has a huge effect on Daily Fantasy Baseball because games can not only be delayed, but also postponed—which means if you used any players from that game, you’re out of luck. And since starting pitchers cost so much, a delay can force a pitcher out of a game. That kills his innings, strikeouts and chances for a win. (And obviously, if it’s a light rain, the ball is going to travel shorter distances when hit and die in the wet grass.)
For football, we’re looking at rain—and snow. Those two factors could have a big effect on an offense in two very big ways. It’s much tougher for a passing game to get on track in snowy, icy conditions, and rain obviously makes the ball slippery.
Running backs, on the other hand, are at an advantage over a defense when they’re running in the rain and snow.
8. MLB Park Factors Compared to NFL Stadium Factors
Daily Fantasy Baseball players research outfield fences and distances, foul territory space in various stadiums and also air density numbers.
But in Daily Fantasy Football, all fields are 100 yards from end zone to end zone. So owners are mostly looking at turf versus grass and whether there’s a dome protecting their players from the elements. Specifically, kickers, running backs and fast wide receivers benefit the most on turf.
9. Fewer Choices at Specific Positions
In Daily Fantasy Baseball, you have 30 starting pitchers to choose from, but you’ll have 50-plus players each at 1B/2B/3B/SS, and then you’ll have over 100 outfielders to choose from. In Daily Fantasy Football, you’ll have about 32 choices for quarterback, kicker and defense, with about 50 choices at tight end, and 100 or so for running back and another 100 or so for wide receiver.
Choosing the right running backs and wide receivers will make the biggest difference in your DFS lineups, especially if you choose less-owned players at those positions.
10. Getting DFS Help From Non-DFS Positions
In Daily Fantasy Baseball, a pitcher will get help from his bullpen and closers, but they’re only helping him earn wins. He still has to pitch a bunch of innings and strike out batters.
Similarly, offensive lines are the backbone for a lot of scoring in Daily Fantasy Football because they help give a quarterback time to find receivers, they open holes for their running backs, and the offense keeps the ball longer—allowing for more plays.