Eliot Crist's Articles

You made it. It’s the 18th round of your best ball draft. You are staring at the draft board and thinking, “I don’t want anyone here.” It’s hard to blame you — the odds any of these guys hit are low. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t swing for the fences. Especially in the Best […]

The late-round quarterback strategy has been gaining steam over the years in fantasy football as it continues to be an effective one. As the talent pool gets larger and larger at the quarterback position and fantasy leagues continue to refuse to move to superflex format, the quarterback position is devalued. While people will still draft […]

Last time out I gave out three middles to take advantage of in your 2021 NFL betting, trying to find numbers that were different enough from book to book or where lines have moved so drastically we were trying to land between both numbers and win both bets. While that is an extremely effective way of […]

During the regular season, we are constantly looking for middles between books or due to closing line values that give us ways to win both bets. Essentially on a -110 you have 20-1 odds that a player or team lands in the middle of both numbers and you win both bets. Middles on spreads and […]

Every day, sportsbooks are releasing more and more lines and news continues to break. In just the last two weeks, Cam Akers has been declared out for the year, Michael Thomas has a serious ankle injury, Aaron Rodgers is back, Carson Wentz is hurt, and as I write this, we’ve found out DeVonta Smith is […]

Exactas are popular in horse racing, as they are a way to turn a little bit of money into a lot of money. It is essentially a parlay – something I stress time and time again is that parlays are a waste of money. However, correlated parlays for the right odds can very much provide […]

The Indianapolis Colts traded a 2021 third-rounder and a conditional 2022 second-rounder for Carson Wentz this offseason. Wentz — once an MVP candidate — struggled mightily in 2020 for the Eagles, but the Colts and Frank Reich believe they can turn him around. Last season, the Colts were led by Philip Rivers — who managed […]

As the calendar moves forward and we get closer to football season, sportsbooks continue to release more and more player props, as both DraftKings and BetMGM added a ton of markets this week. With new markets come new edges to exploit. If you look at my current futures portfolio in the FTN Bet Tracker, you will […]

Underdog ADP shifts every day as the craze of zero-RB and hero-RB takes over. Receivers are moving up the board and running backs are falling down it. As drafts become less of fantasy football Twitter-heavy and more casual drafter-laden, expect running backs to move back up the board and ADP to shift back some. There […]

Tuesday, I wrote up three player props on unders for Denzel Mims, Gerald Everett and D’Andre Swift. Both Mims’ and Everett’s totals have dropped 50 yards, and Swift now has more juice on the under. Getting closing line value is a great way to ensure a strong futures portfolio heading into the season, it also is […]

Part of the launch of FTN’s Premium Stats and Fantasy HQ was box defender stats. The box on defense is an imaginary line set to define players near the line of scrimmage. The concept is that the more defenders in the box, the harder it is to run the ball. While this is almost always […]

As we get closer to the NFL season, more and more props come out on the sportsbooks. Tuesday, DraftKings Sportsbook unloaded with not only star players but secondary ones as well. The biggest names often are the most bet props, but those lines are usually the sharpest as well. I am looking at the secondary […]

Thursday, I took a look at three wide receiver landmines to avoid in 2021 fantasy football. Today, I am back to do the same with running back. The biggest thing with running backs is volume and weighted opportunity. Volume — which directly correlates to snaps played for running backs — is king in fantasy football. You […]

Sometimes in life, the things we don’t do are just as important as the things we do. Fantasy football is very similar — avoiding a player can be just as important as the players we draft onto our actual teams. Now, when I say “avoid a player” or that he is a landmine, that is […]

One of my favorite wager types are NFL betting exotics. They're not your traditional bet. Defined as a prop bet, instead of betting on an individual player you are betting on combined outcomes of multiple players throughout the season. How many interceptions leads the league, how many passing touchdowns lead the league, how many times a […]

The Konami code — Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. It often meant the difference between life and death in a video game back in the 1980s. In fantasy football, we refer to quarterbacks with rushing upside as the Konami Code as they bring life to a fantasy football roster. […]

As we look ahead to the 2021 NFL season, FanDuel Sportsbook has posted odds for league leaders — options to lead the league in passing, rushing and receiving — and there is some excellent value. Those of you who tailed my picks know I love the Sunday specials on who leads the league in yards, […]

Can the Chargers win the Super Bowl? It’s well within their range of outcomes for this season. While that may come as shocking, the closer you look at the roster, the more excited you become to hold a long-shot ticket of +3500 on this team. Last year, I bet on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at […]

If you are looking for fast drafts where your team is full of superstars, look no further than Underdog’s three-man drafts. That's right, there are only three teams and the winner takes all. Three-man drafts create a unique opportunity to take advantage of position scarcity and create positive expected value outcomes with your team. At the […]

As prop bet lines continued to get released, being on top of them is key. I have written up Josh Allen over 4,130.5 passing yards as an extreme value, and the line has since adjusted, raising by 170 passing yards in the last week alone. Normally I have three player props in these pieces, but […]

Raw receiving yardage tells you something about a pass-catcher for fantasy football. But only a little something. Today, we’re going to look at air yards, which is another big piece of the “evaluating a receiver” puzzle. What are air yards? Air yards are the number of total yards the ball travels before reaching a receiver. […]

What is upside in fantasy football? We love to talk about it but rarely define it, because it has so many use cases and it’s an easy out when trying to analyze a player. “He has a lot of speed so he’s got big play upside,” “he has a good matchup so he’s got weekly […]

Having completed 26 of my eventual 150 teams in the Underdog Best Ball Mania II contest, I thought it was a good time to take an early look at my fantasy football exposures for the 2021 NFL season. I try to spread my entries out over time to adjust to both news and ADP, and […]

Best ball strategy is about trying to capture as much upside as possible, while giving your team the necessary floor to get you through the weeks where your ceiling players don’t have big games so you don’t bottom out. Draft strategy has multiple folds — your rankings, your build type (i.e. zero-RB or similar) and […]

Stacking in DFS has been a profitable strategy for years and the philosophy has carried over to best ball. The goal is to maximize upside; if you’re able to predict one event, it’s easy to get correlated events correct over an entirely separate outcome. In layman’s terms, predicting a quarterback will have a big year […]

While some books continue to be cautious releasing lines for the 2021 NFL season, FOX Bet released every quarterback season passing prop, and there are plenty of values to be had. When lines come out early, there is no market to compare them to, but using our projections, historical data and a little common sense it […]

We are back with more NFL player props at FTNBets, as PointsBet continues to slowly release more and more lines, while FOX Bet released NFL QB passing props. I love getting in early on these as multiple have already moved in our favor or been taken down completely. I missed you all, having been unable […]