NFL Week 6 – Daily Lineup Optimizers Performance Comparison

So week 5 was more or less a dud: only 3 of the 10 optimizers managed to place in any of the top 6 contests on DraftKings. Was week 6 any better? Let’s find out! This week I’ve added a few things like individual player points and salaries to make things more interesting. With this data I ranked the optimizers in a few new ways including how much value they bring in each pick vs the top players of the week and each other.

A note about Optimizers

Look, it would be great if you could just load up an optimizer/projector from the list here, press a button and get a winning lineup – but it doesn’t work that way. The best tools not only feature sophisticated algorithms but also options that you can tweak to get a lineup that is successful and unique. I wish I had the capacity to compare each optimizer multiple times using different options but it’s simply not possible to test every combination. This is why all the lineups you see generated below have been made by using either default options or a set of options I feel matches up fairly with the other optimizers. It may not generate a winning lineup but it keeps the comparison a little bit more fair.

Generated lineups by source/site

NFL Lineup Optimizer by Daily Fantasy Cafe

This site has a ton of options like game type, position match-ups, player exposure, various calculation models and more. Here are the settings I used: GPP/on/off/off/off/on/on/off and all 3 projection models were enabled. This is the highest projected scoring lineup.

Lineup Optimizer by daily fantasy nerd

This site let’s you tweak your optimization with sliders for salary range, projected fantasy points, projected value, total salary and randomization. It also has options for stacking QB with WR, allowed positions for FLEX and if you allow offense vs defense. My lineup uses default settings.

Daily Fantasy Lineup Generator by Fanspeak

This site let’s you tweak your optimization by selecting if you are optimizing for a cash contest or tournament (more risk presumably) and if you want to prioritize a position (to include more expensive players in that role?). My lineup uses the first lineup generated using the tournament setting with a balanced prioritization.

Lineup Cruncher by FantasyCruncher

Fantasy Cruncher is a premium tool for researching and generating lineups for all DFS. It features all the options you could ask for in a lineup optimizer including flex position limitation, # of offense vs defense players, exposure, qb/wr/te stacking, players per team and unique features like consistency range, value range and projected points range. Lot’s of cool stuff and to top it all off you can use their Lineup Rewind tool to go back  to previous weeks and generate lineups based on all of these settings. I will be doing a full review of this site in the near future. This lineup was generated using default settings.

Lineup Optimizer by FantasyPros

This site allows you to generate a lineup based on expert consensus rankings or a custom lineup with your favorite players locked into their positions. After generating a lineup you can exclude, swap and lock in players as many times as you want while generating new lineups. My lineup uses the default consensus setting.

Perfect Lineup by FantasyScore

I got this lineup from the numberFire website. It is presumably generated by FantasyScore.com so it does belong in this comparison.

LineStar DK App by Fantasy Sports Co

This app has a few settings but I couldn’t really figure out how to apply them to the projections it generates. It seems to generate a slightly different lineup each time you run it but this is the first one I got.

Lineup Optimizer by Lineup Lab using 4FOR4 projection source

Lineup Lab is a premium tool that lets you generate lineups from 2 trusted data sources (or you can use your own data). The feature-set isn’t huge but it has filters for game, salary, points and pts/$ and the ability to diversify results, stack players and limit offense vs defense. This site provides a great way to get projections based on 2 of the most popular sources in one place.

Lineup Optimizer by Lineup Lab using Pro Football Focus projection source

Lineup Lab is a premium tool that lets you generate lineups from 2 trusted data sources (or you can use your own data). The feature-set isn’t huge but it has filters for game, salary, points and pts/$ and the ability to diversify results, stack players and limit offense vs defense. This site provides a great way to get projections based on 2 of the most popular sources in one place.

NFL Projected Optimal Lineup by RotoGrinders

This tool has no options for the optimizer itself. There is another tool on the site to build lineups but it generates seemingly random lineups.

Daily Lineup Optimizer by RotoViz

This site let’s you tweak your optimization with a salary cap slider, maximum RB/WE/TE selector, over/under filter, team total filter, and player/team pre-selection and blacklisting. My lineup uses the default settings.

NFL Weekly Lineup Optimizer by Rotowire

This site doesn’t have any options aside from player exclusion for premium members.

Optimus X Pro by Swish Analytics

This site let’s you choose a risk level from 1 to 5. It also lets you pick which games and players to exclude but you can only generate one lineup per day for free. My lineup uses a level 3 risk setting.

Statistical Results

Last week I simply compared the total points generated by each lineup and if any of those lineups would have placed (in the money) in any of the 6 most popular Sunday NFL contests on DraftKings. This time I have a few statistical tricks up my sleeve which use player salaries and top performers in each position. Here’s a breakdown of what each one compares:

Prediction Accuracy actual pts vs projected

Value Efficiency most pts per $

Value Efficiency VS Topposition pp$ vs top 8 players (avg)

Performance VS Topposition pts vs top 8 players (avg)

Overall Performancetotal pts earned

Real-world Results

Would any of these lineups have made money in the 5 most popular DraftKings NFL Week 6 contests? Let’s find out!

DraftKings Contest Performance

FantasyCruncher-Y—1

	$7M $20	$25DU $25	$600K $9	$850K $300	$1.5M $3	# $
Points Needed:	162.14	148.22	163.98	166.14	163.22
Daily Fantasy Cafe	–	–	–	–	–	0
daily fantasy nerd	–	–	–	–	–	0
FanSpeak	–	–	–	–	–	0
FantasyPros	–	–	–	–	–	0
FantasyScore	–	–	–	–	–	0
LineStar DK	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	5
Lineup Lab (4F4)	–	–	–	–	–	0
Lineup Lab (PFF)	–	Y	–	–	–	1
RotoGrinders	–	–	–	–	–	0
RotoViz	–	–	–	–	–	0
Rotowire	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	5
Swish Analytics	–	–	–	–	–	0

Conclusion

Looks like the optimizers produced much better results this week thanks to a few standout performances by the LineStar app and Rotowire. FantasyCruncher and Lineup Lab (PFF) even managed to place in the “easier” $25 Double Up contest. Will the successful optimzers from this week maintain their performance levels going into Week 7? Come back next week to find out!

Optimizer Leaderboardtotal contests placed in

Hopefully some of this information has been entertaining or useful! If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to leave them below. I will continue tracking the optimizers every week to hopefully determine which algorithm is superior to the rest. As always if you decide that you want to take the plunge and try your hand at one of these contests for NFL Week 7 please click my DraftKings link below. Thanks.