Hall of Fame Game DFS Breakdown

Jul 31, 2019

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The Hall of Fame game, where the players on the field have virtually no shot of actually being inducted into the actual Hall of Fame. This extra pre-season game on Thursday night between the Falcons and Broncos will not showcase the likes of Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, or Phillip Lindsay. When we tune in for the first actual football game of the season, we'll get a host of fourth and fifth string guys battling to stay on the right side of the roster bubble. However, we have to look at the glass half full, it's football and there's a daily fantasy football slate to win some money.

Some general tips for creating lineups:

Emphasize players at positions that lack depth. This will vary from team-to-team, but obviously both defenses on a showdown slate have amplified value because they are the only options that can accrue fantasy points for the entire game. Often times a team may have a few players injured at a given positon, say running back, and every carry will be handled by two players. Those are the situations you want to target. Additionally, some teams only carry one kicker, which means all the field goals and extra points will go to one player which is also something to keep an eye on. This is obviously provided that the team doesn't try unorthodox strategies because these games are glorified practice, like always going for two or having wide receivers attempt drop kick extra points.
Make sure the correlation makes sense. When you are building lineups, do your best to pair quarterbacks with their teammates that will be on th field at the same time. This is something you don't have to think about in the regular season. However, in preseason make sure you are NOT stacking the second-string quarterback with the fifth string wide receiver. It's more than likely that the third-string quarterback will be on the field with the roster bubble fifth-stringers.
Strike a balance between playing time and upside on your rosters. While it's smart to have a large share of defenses and to sprinkle in kickers in your player pool, rostering all four on one roster caps the upside of your lineup. A running back or wide receiver, even if they are only on the field for a quarter or two can rack up just as many, if not more points with one or two big plays.

Quarterbacks

Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco are not in play as they will not get meaningful reps. In fact, as of this writing, it's confirmed Flacco will not play. I doubt Matt Schaub sees an excessive amount of playing time either as he's an established vet with not much to prove. That leaves Kurt Benkert to shoulder most of the load. In four pre-season appearances last year he only threw for 364 yards, no touchdowns, and four interceptions. This presents our first conundrum of the DFS season, because Benkert is a quarterback that has the potential to play three quarters, but he's also not very good.

The Broncos have announced Kevin Hogan, not Drew Lock will start the game. Fangio didn't give specific snaps or quarter alottments for his signal callers, but they will also have Brett Rypien from Boise State pushing for playing time as well. With three quarterbacks, it makes it a bit dicier to roster one, but if I had to guess, I would say Rypien gets the most time, potentiall the entire second half or more.