Photo: USA Today Sports

NOTE: The pro projections below are first posted on Thursday, then updated on Saturday afternoon. On Thursday, commentary will be limited to early impressions. A more-detailed discussion of specific players will be added on Saturday afternoon.

Welcome back for Week 13 of Footballguys' new feature that uses a statistical model to project the roster percentages of "professional" tournament players on Draftkings. If you're curious about the full methodological details of the model, click here. The most important detail to keep in mind, however, is that the "professionals" in question were identified using a clustering algorithm and can be characterized by the following statement: Compared to the rest of the population, these 205 pros play more, they win more, and they do both consistently.

Quarterbacks

Below is the table for quarterbacks. In this and all subsequent tables, "Overall" is Steve Buzzard's projection of roster percentage. "Pros" is the model's projection of roster percentage for Draftkings pros only.

Early Impressions

Cam Newton is the current frontrunner this week both overall and according to pro projection model. Despite his high price tag, he still ranks fifth among quarterbacks in terms of 4x value probability (which, remember, is based on salary and point projection). He also faces a Buccaneers defense that's projected to appear in only 1.5% of tournament lineups.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Newton is now even more favored by the model, with the overall/pro gap increasing from 0.8% on Thursday to 1.4% today. This is entirely due to the Buccaneers defense dropping from 1.5% projected rostership to less than one percent. The more the market dislikes his opponent, the more roster exposure you should have to Newton.

Jameis Winston ($6,000, 11.7% Overall Roster Percentage, 13.6% Pro Roster Percentage)

For $600 less than Newton, you can have his counterpart in what Las Vegas has as the third-highest over-under on the Sunday Main Slate (54.5 points). What's interesting about Winston's big leap over the past couple of days is that it isn't due to the model's most important factor, 4x value probability. In fact, his likelihood of achieving 4x value has actually decreased from 41.1% to 38.0% since Thursday. No, what drove Winston's ascension to second place in the table was that his wide receiver corps has gone from a sixth-ranked 19.6% to a top-ranked 40.6% in aggregate projected rostership. As we'll see, this is almost entirely thanks to Chris Godwin.

Kirk Cousins ($5,500, 4.7%, 5.1%)

If you want to drop down another $500, Cousins represents a solid value that the pros are projected to roster more often than the overall public. In terms of model factors, Cousins has the No. 1 probability of achieving 4x value, at 41.6%, and his wide receiver corps has an aggregate projected rostership of 20.5%, which ranks him fifth among quarterbacks. Outside the model, it's also worth noting that he's facing a Patriots defense that, over their past five games, has allowed 32% more fantasy production than league average to opposing quarterbacks, which ranks worst in the NFL over that time period.

Running Backs

Below is the table for running backs: