In our Wednesday morning first look at the Week 1 Main Slate, we want to take a big-picture view of the slate overall as a first step in our preparation process. The goal here is to give you some information-packed visualizations to quickly set the table for the much more in-depth breakdowns that will come later in the week. In addition, we want to start to identify the players who are most likely to be popular so we can narrow our focus and start digging deeper into some of the players who stand out as potential top options.
The Week 1 article is going to have some elements that you can expect to see every week going forward, such as the implied team totals and a breakdown of players who are popping in early point per dollar projections for DraftKings and FanDuel. The Week 1 first look is also going to be different in many ways than what you can expect later in the year. We do not have data from the previous week(s) to consider and analyze, so some weekly features will not appear until Week 2 or later. Given the unique nature of Week 1 and the early release of pricing, we are going to focus on what has changed since DraftKings and FanDuel released prices last month. As a way to speed the transition from our offseason focus on redraft, we are going to compare redraft ADP to main slate salaries and explore where the biggest differences have emerged. Doing so will help us identify players who have seen their stock rise in the last month and who may present great Week 1 daily fantasy values.
Implied Team Totals and Spreads
The image below plots each team's Week 1 implied team total and against by how much they are favored (negative numbers for underdogs).
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