After a tiny taste of preseason DFS action during Sunday’s Hall of Fame game, a six-game slate is on the Thursday night menu. While it is a great chance for both novice and experienced players to get their feet wet, there are significant differences between regular and preseason lineup construction.
Everyone is identically priced on DraftKings for these preseason contests ($5,500), and that removes a major decision-making factor from consideration. Plus, since it is the first preseason game for nearly every team, starters on both sides of the ball will see roughly a quarter of playing time, at most. So forget about projecting individual defensive matchups, let alone building lineups with elite offensive options.
Even the tried-and-true method of leveraging Vegas’ projected game and team totals is essentially off the table. The Thursday slate features six contests with totals that range from a pathetic 36 points, to a paltry 38. Team totals are only as high as 20.75 (Chargers), and as low as 16.25 (Jets). The main takeaways are that Vegas probably expects more penalty flags than actual points, they’re not about to go too far out on a limb with so much uncertainty in these games, and overall DFS scores will be more muted than in the regular season.
So what can we rely on when putting lineups together this week?
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Pat Thorman is a Lead Writer for PFF Fantasy and was named 2013 Newcomer of the Year by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. You can follow him on Twitter at @Pat_Thorman
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