Fantasy Football: 4 Historical Vegas Trends You Should Know for the Divisional Round

Avoid the Minnesota Defense Because of Line Movement

According to numberFire's power rankings, the Minnesota D/ST ranks second in the NFL. They have been a staunch defensive unit all season long. In home games, contests eclipsed the over/under just three out of eight times.

A difficult matchup against the New Orleans Saints may scare some people off, and rightfully so. However, the line movement is what frightens me about this matchup. Like Randy Marsh, I am so startled.

What is line movement? During the NFL season, bookmakers usually post a spread with a total as early as possible to begin taking bets. For this week, these lines were posted as early as Sunday night and have since been adjusted. They are adjusted in the following hours and days due to transactions, injuries, weather reports, large bets on one side -- any number of things.

The Vikings opened as 3.5-point home favorites, but that number has climbed to 5.0 against the Saints with an over/under of 46.5 points. This is good news for the Vikes. Unfortunately, the total has also risen two points during the week, which usually doesn't bode well for the defenses involved.

In 2016, I wrote about how line movement affects defensive performances, and when the total rose two points or more in 2015, the defenses involved averaged just 6.28 fantasy points per game. Also, when the total was 46 to 49 points, the average fantasy defense score was 6.61 points per game.

There are better values on which to gamble this week. The Vikings D/ST's pricing may seem like a value, but they aren't worth anything more than a desperate tournament play.

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Matt Blair is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matt Blair also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username grizzlyblair. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel