NFL
FanDuel Single-Game Daily Fantasy Football Helper: Week 1 Monday Night (Ravens at Raiders)
Can we look at anyone other than Lamar Jackson at the MVP slot on tonight's single-game slate?

Just one game remains in Week 1 of the 2021 NFL slate, and it should promise some scoring.

FanDuel Sportsbook pits the over/under of the Baltimore Ravens at Las Vegas Raiders matchup of 50.0, and the Ravens are a 4.0-point road favorite.

How will the high total impact the expectations, and which players are most likely to post a big game?

Before we dig in more, don't forget to brush up on some single-game perfect lineup trends and leverage our Sharpstack single-game optimizer for correlated lineup plays.

High-Level Simulation Results

I simulated this game a thousand times -- using numberFire's projections -- to see some high-level takeaways. Here's what I found.

Player Salary Median Simulation
FanDuel Points
Top Score
Odds
Top-5 Score
Odds
Lamar Jackson $17,000 21.949.9%87.9%
Derek Carr $14,000 16.417.8%67.5%
Darren Waller $13,000 13.37.0%52.0%
Josh Jacobs $12,500 13.08.8%50.2%
Mark Andrews $11,000 11.44.2%40.2%
Marquise Brown $10,000 10.44.0%35.2%
Henry Ruggs $9,500 9.83.0%31.1%
Justin Tucker $9,000 9.61.0%25.6%
Ty'Son Williams $12,000 8.91.7%26.0%
Daniel Carlson $8,500 8.40.4%15.5%
Kenyan Drake $8,500 7.90.6%17.7%
Bryan Edwards $7,000 7.81.0%19.0%
Sammy Watkins $8,000 6.60.4%12.0%
Devin Duvernay $7,000 6.00.2%8.8%
Hunter Renfrow $7,500 5.30.1%6.1%
Le'Veon Bell $9,000 5.10.1%4.0%
Latavius Murray $8,000 3.40.0%0.7%
Willie Snead $6,500 2.90.0%0.5%
Josh Oliver $5,000 2.10.0%0.0%
Foster Moreau $5,500 1.80.0%0.0%
Alec Ingold $5,000 0.70.0%0.0%
Trenton Cannon $6,500 0.40.0%0.0%
Patrick Ricard $5,000 0.20.0%0.0%
Zay Jones $6,000 0.20.0%0.0%
Derek Carrier $5,000 0.10.0%0.0%
Trey Quinn $5,000 0.10.0%0.0%
Marcell Ateman $5,000 0.10.0%0.0%
Peyton Barber $5,500 0.10.0%0.0%
James Proche $5,500 0.10.0%0.0%


Slate Breakdown

Using numberFire's projections as the base, we see Lamar Jackson ($17,000) just dominate the baseline and ceiling projections. His median projection works out to 21.9 FanDuel points, and no other player is within 6.0 points of him. You'll have to pay a lot of salary for him, but last year, Jackson was the MVP in the perfect lineup in 8 of 13 games for which a single-game slate was offered on FanDuel. It's going to be more about differentiating elsewhere or taking the slim chance odds that he is bodied out of a perfect lineup slot. That typically only happens when the opposing offense lights it up.

Derek Carr ($14,000) is next up and is the most obvious pivot away from Jackson as a quarterback. If you're gutsy enough to fade Lamar and play Carr at MVP, you're virtually guaranteed a minimally-duplicated lineup. Carr, though, put up an MVP performance in just 1 of 13 Raiders games with single-game offerings in 2020.

An elite pivot away from the quarterbacks -- or an addition to Carr-anchored lineups -- will be Darren Waller ($13,000). Waller was also just once an MVP when a single-game slate was offered last year (13 games for the Raiders), but we've seen him erupt when volume gets funneled his way.

The model likes Josh Jacobs ($12,000) well enough, but we are looking at a game where the Raiders are 4.0-point underdogs, and like we saw with Carr and Waller, Jacobs only once returned MVP-caliber outings in the 13-game sample. Jacobs ultimately faces a difficult defense and likely lacks the true ceiling to punish us for not building around him, so I'd be fine leaving him out of the MVP conversation.

Ty'Son Williams ($12,000) is going to get RB1 treatment to start the season. That likely doesn't mean 70.0% of the snaps and all the work he can handle, but he's the clear priority in this backfield. As a favorite running alongside the lethal Lamar Jackson, Williams -- despite what the simulations say -- would be preferable for me to Jacobs as a non-Jackson MVP choice.

Last season, the Ravens' pass-catchers were primarily just Marquise Brown ($10,000) and Mark Andrews ($11,000). Brown maintained a 24.6% target share in his healthy games, and that mark for Andrews (get it?) was 24.5%. However, historical trends have not been kind to tight ends as MVPs, so Brown would earn the edge for that discussion.

Sammy Watkins ($8,000) is also a name to consider. The model is lukewarm on him overall, yet there are positive remarks surrounding Watkins from Lamar Jackson.

Shades of salary relief exist with Henry Ruggs ($9,500), Bryan Edwards ($7,000), and Hunter Renfrow ($7,500). Ruggs, last year, managed just a 9.8% market share, but Nelson Agholor is gone. Edwards is listed as the team's WR2. Renfrow managed a 13.8% target share in 2020 and should have a floor of targets running out of the slot.

Related News

An Introduction to FanDuel Research

Jim Sannes  --  Sep 13th, 2021

The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, Mailbag 7/21/23

JJ Zachariason  --  Sep 13th, 2021

The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, Approaching Unique Leagues

JJ Zachariason  --  Sep 13th, 2021