Eight teams remain in the playoff race to see who will face off in this year’s Super Bowl, and when it comes to the world of daily fantasy football, it means we have few options to choose from to build our DFS roster around.
On NFL DFS sites where you start a single quarterback, you only have to settle on one quarterback to pin your daily hopes and money on, but with StarStreet, and their two-quarterback starting roster requirement, you have to try and find two quarterbacks you feel comfortable with building your daily roster around.
Last week I decided to open up my wallet, and spend, as it turns out, very unwisely, on the combination of Drew Brees and Nick Foles.
Everything I wanted out of those quarterbacks, and that game, was found in the Kansas City Chiefs-Indianapolis Colts game, as Andrew Luck and Alex Smith combined for 821 passing yards, 102 rushing yards, and eight passing touchdowns.
In the end the Smith/Luck duo accounted for 72 StarStreet fantasy points, while the Brees/Foles combo was good for only 27.40. Ouch.
The one thing you can’t do as a daily fantasy degenerate is dwell on your past mistakes for too long, and with that in mind, let’s take a look at our quarterback options for this week:
- Peyton Manning-$15,500
- Tom Brady-$13,300
- Andrew Luck-$13,100
- Drew Brees-$13,000
- Russell Wilson-$12,900
- Cam Newton-$12,500
- Colin Kaepernick-$12,500
- Philip Rivers-$11,900
That’s the list, and those are our eight options.
The most expensive duo you can roll with is Peyton/Brady, at $28,800, and the cheapest would be Kaepernick/Rivers, at $24,400.
The difference between the two combinations is $4,400, or a little more than half of Ladarius Green’s StarStreet salary for the week.
To be honest, I’ve been having a hard time coming up with any daily line-up I feel 100% comfortable with rolling out this weekend, and that includes choosing a quarterback combination I want to build my StarStreet roster around.
However, I’ve narrowed it down to four quarterbacks, who I feel I can mix and match, to come up with some worthy quarterback combinations, and they are Manning, Brady, Luck, and Rivers.
You’ll notice the first three names are the most expensive quarterbacks for this weekend’s slate of games, and the fourth, rivers, is the cheapest of the bunch.
I want to start with Rivers, because he initially wasn’t on my list, but with news Ryan Mathews is in danger of missing the game, the Chargers’ ball control strategy will be tested, as Mathews, and his clock-killing running has been a big part of why the Chargers are able to control the time of possession.
While the Chargers ran the ball more, with a 79:49 rush attempts to pass attempts ratio in their two meeting versus the Broncos during the regular season, Rivers was efficient in the passing game when he was asked to pass, completing nearly 64% of his attempts, for 384 yards, and three touchdowns, with no interceptions or fumbles lost.
If Mathews does end up sitting out, Rivers, Danny Woodhead, and the Chargers passing game will be forced to take on more responsibilities, which could lead to a high volume throwing game for Rivers, as they try to match the high scoring ways of Manning and the Broncos’ offense.
Speaking of offense, the Chargers-Broncos game has the highest over-under at 54.5 points, and while that didn’t help much last week in the Saints-Eagles game, if Manning and Rivers find themselves in a shoot out, going throw for throw, a Manning/Rivers stack is one way to build your StarStreet roster.
If you take a look at the StarStreet fantasy points scored by Manning in his past five games they go like this: 26, 32, 17, 31, and 31.
The 17 point output came against the Chargers in Week 15 where he was “held” to 289 passing yards, and two touchdowns.
However, in their Week 10 meeting, Manning scored 27 StarStreet fantasy points, as he threw for 330 yards, and four touchdowns, with the Broncos offense running inly 60 plays.
Pairing Rivers and his cheap StarStreet price tag of $11,900, with Manning and his most expensive $15,500 price tag could form a productive ‘stud+dud’ quarterback combination this week, at a combined price of $27,400.
The other two quarterbacks I mentioned, Brady and Luck, ring in at a combined price of $26,400 on StarStreet, or only $1,000 less than the Peyton/Rivers combination.
The Colts-Patriots game is right up there with the Chargers-Broncos game in terms of over-under projections, at 53 points, or 1.5 points less the potential Mile High shoot out, which makes this another appealing option.
Andrew Luck is coming off a Wildcard Weekend playoff game versus the Kansas City Chiefs, where he combined for five total touchdowns, and gets to face a Patriots defense who allowed five quarterbacks to have multi-passing touchdown days during the second half of their season.
The Patriots also gave up the third highest offensive plays per game this year, which bodes well for Luck, and his pass attempts average of 39.1 per game, in his last 10 contests, dating back to the Colts’ post Week 8 bye, and includes last weekend’s playoff game.
As for Brady, Alex Smith’s 378 passing yards, and four passing touchdowns stat line from last week is a great place to start, and if the 45-44 final score of the Chiefs-Colts game were to be a sign of things to come this week for the Colts-Patriots game, then I’d be all over the Brady/Luck combo.
If you take a look at his past two stat sheets on StarStreet, you’ll find Brady scored a combined 18 fantasy points, or two points less than he scored against the Dolphins in Week 15.
We all know the Patriots’ offense is different without Rob Gronkowski in the line-up, but as Rich Hribar pointed out, in their last two regular season games, the Patriots were up big at halftime, allowing the Pats’ pass game to put on the brakes.
Brady only attempted a combined 50 passes in those two games versus the Bills and Dolphins, but prior to that he threw 55 times against the Dolphins. Dating back to Week 11, Brady threw no fewer than 40 times in a game, with three 50+ pass attempt games out of five.
We’ve seen quarterbacks throw a lot versus the Colts recently, with Smith last week attempting 46 passes against the Colts, while Chad Henne threw the ball 51 times the week before.
If the over-under projections are to be reached, it will require Brady and Luck to throw, throw, throw, and throw some more, and that’s exactly what you want out of your quarterbacks in fantasy football.
There you have it. Manning, Rivers, Brady, and Luck. Those are the four quarterbacks I’m building around. You can either stick to the match-ups, and go Manning/Rivers, or Brady/Luck, or you can cross streams, and pair Manning with Luck, for example.
Those are just a few ideas, but the final line-up you submit will be up to you. Good luck winning some DFS money this week.
*Stats used in this article from FantasyData.com, Rotoworld, ESPN, and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports
