Kyle Rudolph – A Daily Fantasy Diamond in the Rough

Minnesota Vikings tight ends Kyle Rudolph (82) and David Morgan (89) Celebrate a Touchdown in Detroit.

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Trying to make money from daily fantasy sites can be a pretty tough gig. When it comes to buying players, each decision you make can be huge. Buying an underhyped player is often cheaper and thus becomes the status quo as you only have so much money to go around. Because of that, it’s obviously more of a risk than the one or two big-name players you can have on your team. The people that end up winning it all often have a team filled with players that have greatly outplayed their typical output. So, you really have to get lucky but there’s also a decent amount of strategy involved as you can analyze trends and patterns and perhaps find a player that is ready to bust out against a certain type of defense, or a player that is undervalued. On top of that, you have to find players that few others are analyzing as you eventually have to outscore thousands of other players in order to win.

So, as a GM, how do you know which mid-to-low level player will have the game of their career that week? Kyle Rudolph seems like the best example of a player that will be underpriced as most national sites aren’t completely intuned with what is going on in Vikings land and that will keep Rudolph’s price low, especially at the start of the season.

There are lots of ways to find out which players are hyped: the best PA sportsbooks can act as a guide, while the fantasy sites can also indicate statistical output and trends and even articles out in the sports journalism, namely the local press for each team, that can indicate players that are underrated nationally. The latter was certainly true for Kyle Rudolph, who was overlooked in the sports press in favor of others such as Jimmy Graham or obviously, Rob Gronkowski or Travis Kelce.

One of the main risks faced by many players is that they will get outshone by others on their team who are better at piling up stats and thus points. That can, in turn, cause problems for the original player, who is unable to demonstrate their true potential and show off their skills effectively as they get lost in the fray. This is certainly what happened to Rudolph, especially last season. So the key with Rudy, as it is with any player on a team where the ball gets spread around evenly, is to find the perfect game for that player to bust out and have a huge day.

Measuring six feet and six inches in height, Rudolph is mainly great when it comes to producing touchdowns – but he’s been overshadowed by those with more name recognition. It may surprise many of you to know that Rudolph is in the top-three when it comes to touchdown receptions in the past three seasons. However, Rudolph can often score in bunches, to again identifying when he’ll have a big game or stretch of big games is key.

The addition of Irv Smith Jr. may complicate things, but it could also provide more opportunity as defenses struggle to cover both tight ends. The difference in their games is key, as well, as Rudolph will be the more physical/contested pass catcher, which sounds more like what teams find when they’ve run out of daylight in the red zone. The addition of Gary Kubiak should help Rudolph, as well, as he’s famous for running two tight end sets.

-So, take a wait and see approach with Rudolph this season- as it might take a while to see just how Kubiak is going to use the recently extended tight end. However, don’t wait too long as the better Rudolph does the higher his price will be. Look for him to have big games towards the end of the first quarter of the season, around the Raiders/Bears games.

Rudolph may not end up with a ton of yards, in fact, he hasn’t eclipsed 40 yards in a single game since 2016, but he can score in bunches and should you nab him the right week he could be the difference between winning it all and simply covering the money you put in to join a daily fantasy pool.

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