DraftKings Fantasy Football: New contests coming for 2018 season

Most fantasy football players are familiar with the traditional DraftKings games, but two new contests are coming for 2018. Pat Mayo gave us a sneak-peek.

At this point, DraftKings really needs no introduction to fantasy football players. They are one of the leaders in daily fantasy sports, and the number of contests they offer on a weekly basis throughout the NFL season offers countless opportunities for entertainment throughout the year. However, that’s not going to stop them from bringing more to your fingertips.

For the 2018 NFL season, two new DraftKings fantasy football contests are going to be hitting the app and offer you a chance to win prizes. They are taking their already proven formula — and the addition of a sportsbook in the state of New Jersey — and giving fans and players more opportunities to get involved with the game they love.

I was given the opportunity to get a sneak-peek of the two games with DraftKings contributor and leading man at The Pat Mayo Experience, Pat Mayo. Let’s take a look at the two new contests, Team Pick ‘Em and Flash Draft.

Team Pick ‘Em

This is hardly a new concept that DraftKings is going to be offering, but this time, you’ll have more than just pride on the line. In a simple pick ’em format, meaning that you won’t be picking against the spread, you’ll have a chance to win prizes based on how many games that you pick the winner of correctly.

As Mayo describes it, there will be a big prize pool in the first week. But more importantly, there will be both a weekly and season-long element to the picks that players make.

“DraftKings is giving away $1 million as a guaranteed prize pool for the first week — this is all a free contest and it’s going to be straight-up pick ’em both on a weekly basis and a season-long basis,” Mayo said.

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And if you’re wondering how they are going to determine the scoring for this, that’s actually quite simple as well.

“There are different prize structures based on how many games you pick correctly. In Week 1, each game is worth 100 points, 100 points per win,” Mayo said. “In the following weeks, the Thursday nighter will be included, but there will be randomly selected games on the slate for everyone where, maybe it’s 200 points per win, just to differentiate a little bit and create some tie-breakers.”

So while this may be a concept that many people are familiar with in the fantasy football world already, DraftKings is certainly adding some new wrinkles of their own to the proceedings. In truth, who wouldn’t want to try and get a share of that Week 1 prize pool with free entry?

Flash Draft

Now we’re onto a new contest that is somewhat similar to things that we’ve seen from DraftKings previously, but combines them in a unique way that should be quite fun. The Flash Draft game will feature quarterly slates, meaning you can essentially play mini-fantasy football contests for specific, single games and will play based on production in single quarters, or even with the second half after seeing how the game flows.

“It’s sort of a micro-version mix between the showdown slate and the tier slate,” Mayo said.

This new contest won’t debut until Week 4 of the regular season, but it should be worth the wait. How it works is that you are given five different three-player groups to choose from to build a five-player lineup, picking who you think from the group will produce the most points in the given quarter and half that you are playing for. There is no salary cap and no limit on players from a single team that you can have in your lineup — it’s all about your football knowledge and making the right picks from your three-player sets.

In those three-player sets, some players will have multipliers for their production in that given quarter (i.e. 2X Rushing Yard). Moreover, there will also be choices of the combined production of two players in that quarter. As for how the three-player sets will be determined, there are some interesting wrinkles there as well.

“How the algorithm would work, it would do its projections for the quarter and you would get three players that are projected within a point of each other,” Mayo said. “And maybe it could be a bit more depending on the flow of the game because that will update in real time. But you will get three similarly projected players. That’s why some player are given the multiplier to catch their projection up, that’s why you get a combination of two players instead of one.”

This is a new way to watch the games and play DraftKings fantasy football, and one that could be beneficial to many. Rather than trying to project an entire four quarters worth of action, you’ll be able to watch part of the game and then determine how you feel about certain players and the flow of the game and be able to play a fantasy contest based on that.

Between the Team Pick ‘Em and Flash Draft contests, DraftKings is clearly gearing up for the 2018 season in a big way. And if you’re anything like me when it comes to fantasy football and daily fantasy sports, more ways to play and get in on the action are always welcome.