Earlier in the week I wrote about hope and
more specifically the hope that stems from playing DFS. I talked about how hope
can be a double edged sword, providing you with a sense of purpose throughout
the week and filling your head with aspirational dreams of hitting it big,
while also turning into frustration and disappointment on Sunday even if you
have had a financially successful week. Well, ‘hope’ in its early week
incarnation has not failed to disappoint. Like a disorientated traveller
trudging through a hot desert who has been tricked by mirage after mirage, I
see a beautiful, luscious oasis on the horizon and I fully believe it to be
filled with cooling water. To put that in less flowery terms, I think the team
below will win something this week. The use of the word ‘something’ here is
crucial.
My early week ‘hope’ has followed a
well-worn route and transformed itself into excitement. This happens every week
around the time of the Thursday night game. It reaches its calming centre on
Friday afternoon and its giddy height on Saturday evening. I get too
anxious/nervous on Sunday morning. The plan this week is to avoid setting
expectations too high and turning into an irritable buffoon who begins cursing
players and throwing things around the room come Sunday afternoon. This week I
shall be Zen like and let the chips fall where they may. Or at least I shall
try, that’s all I can promise.
And it’s a shaky promise at best as I’m
feeling quietly confident about this bunch of players. If you haven’t already
you’re probably on the verge of just scrolling down to see who I picked as I’m
treating this selection like an explorer who has just found the lost treasure
of Sierra Madre but bare with me.
I mentioned a few weeks ago about how I had noticed a small trend with
line-ups that took down huge GPP’s. That trend was using legitimate stud
players coming off an injury. The team that won the first millionaire maker had
Arian Foster coming off an injury and with 0.6% ownership. He had had a
disappointing day against the Bills, rushing for just 6 yards and there was
wide spread concern about his dodgy hamstring. Nobody (well I guess 0.6% of
people to be precise) started him and he racked up 34.2 points on Draft Kings.
That team also had Ben Tate. He only
accumulated 16.2 points against the Titans but again, his ownership was at 0.7%
as he had been hurt in week 1, missed two weeks due to injury and was then on a
bye. His point total wasn’t huge but when 93.7% of the teams you’re up against
aren’t getting those points you've a got a nice edge. The interesting thing
about these two is that neither of them were particularly cheap. Foster was
$7,400 and had only dropped by $100 from the previous week. Up until his crazy
price inflation this week Foster’s price has always been in and around the 7k
to 8k range so he wasn’t too much of a perceived ‘value’ play that week. This
applies even more so to Tate. His price that week was $5,000. His price this
week is $4,600. He wasn’t a ‘he’s so cheap, I’ll just chuck him in and hope for
the best play’, there were plenty of other options that week.
This is the thought process I’ve tried to
apply to my team this week. I’ve made mistakes in previous weeks by thinking
I’m picking contrarian players when in fact they’ve been relatively obvious.
Obvious in the form of if everyone is zigging this week I’m going to zag and
pick a stud player that had an average outing last week and their price has
dropped accordingly. Everyone is picking that player. I think the real
contrarian plays are somewhere in the middle. They are the players that are coming off poor performances
or dealing with injury or just facing a tough match up but their price hasn’t
dropped significantly. If those players also happen to be ones I think are
going to have big games, then we’re in business.
As I’ve done the last few weeks I picked a
team earlier in the week based purely on my gut feeling with zero research.
These are the changes I’ve made to that team by the end of the week.
Quarterback
Colin Kaepernick $7,000 – Tony Romo $7,500
This is the first of my ‘picking
injured/underperforming high priced players’. As of Friday evening Romo is
‘very questionable’ according to Cowboys VP Stephen Jones. For the theme this
week, that’s perfect. Nobody is going to want a piece of Romo in this
spot. If he plays I imagine the
coaching staff are going to want to limit his time spent running around outside
of the pocket and will look to get the ball away quickly, a thought process
that leads me to my pick at WR. On
nfl.com the Cardinals rank last in points given up to WR’s and first in points
surrendered to RB’s. I know it’s Demarco Murray but that makes me think the
Cowboys are going to have to throw the ball quite a bit to get the win. And if
Weeden starts? Lovely, I’ll roster him and use the salary saving elsewhere. In
fact, maybe I won’t. I feel so confident about this team I might enter it with
$2,500 left on the table.
Running Backs
Jamaal Charles $7,100 – Andre Ellington
$5,900
I finally found a way to get off Charles. I
still like him but there are some decent, cheaper alternatives. Andre Ellington
being one, if not the best of them. Evan Silva mentioned in his preview piece
on Rotoworld that all of Arizona’s other RB’s are either suspended or injured
leaving only practice squadder Marion Grice as a threat to Ellington’s touches.
Not much of a threat I think you’ll agree. The Cowboys are also susceptible to
the run, giving up an appealing 5.24 YPC. Add to that Ellington’s threat as a
pass catcher, he’s almost a must start in every game of mine on DK. He’s only
behind my next pick.
LeSean McCoy $5,200 – LeSean McCoy $5,200
Ah LeSean. McCoy was my highest priced pick
in the auction draft for my most important fantasy team. Needless to say, McCoy
has been on the end of almost weekly verbal assaults from me. But that team is
2-6 and going down quicker than the Titantic so I’m giving him a chance to make
it up to me this weekend. Jason Kelce
finally looks he’s going to play this week which bring the offensive line
almost back to full strength after RT Lane Johnson came back two weeks ago.
Since the bye week McCoy has averaged 6.8 and 4.0 YPC and was unlucky not to
make it into the end zone last week, getting stuffed at the goal line. It
shouldn’t be too much of an ask for McCoy to get 100 yards rushing, catch 2 or
3 passes out of the backfield and if he can score a TD, we’ll be golden.
Wide Receivers
DeSean Jackson $6,000 – Dez Bryant $8,200
Here’s another of the ‘potential problem,
most people will stay away’ pick. Of course it’s all to do with Romo as Dez is
a fantasy stud. I just found myself automatically ruling out Bryant early in
the week due to the question marks around the QB. I think most people will be
of the same mindset and it’s an undoubted risk as he’s the 3rd most expensive
WR on DK this week. People will take Hilton for $100 less or Maclin at a $500
discount. But that’s exactly what
we want. The Cardinals are weak in the secondary with former lock down corner
Patrick Peterson grading out at -4.8 and the 23rd worst CB in the league per
PFF. Interestingly, Bryant gets a grade of 5.3 and is ranked as the 9th best
WR. That’s math I like to do.
Odell Beckham Jr. $5,000 – A.J Green $6,300
After my intro you could probably guess
this pick was coming. Again, my initial thought when scanning through the list
of WR’s was ‘nope, too risky’.
Green is a top notch player but he’s been out since week 5. People pick
players they see filling the highlight reels on Sports Centre. Not that I see
the Bengals struggling to win this game but the Jags have been pretty decent
against the run and equally as weak against the pass. Dalton will air it out
and Green assured the media (make of that what you will) that if he’s out there
he won’t be playing the part of a decoy. He’s the ultimate boom or bust play
this week. Or else he’ll catch 5 passes for 70 yards in which case he’ll be a
beacon of mediocrity, which could also happen.
Mike Evans $4,700 – Jermaine Kearse $3,100
You know earlier I said that if Weeden
started I wouldn’t even use the left over salary? I’d like that sentence back
if that’s ok with you. I’d probably use it to upgrade here. I was pretty
definite about the 2 RB’s and 2 WR’s I wanted on this team and once I slotted in
Romo I decided I wanted a high price player as a flex play, which meant bargain
basement play at the 3rd WR spot.
The O/U for this game is 43 and the Seahawks are favored by 15 which
means Vegas is projecting Seattle to score 28 points. One or two for Marshawn
(see below), one for Russ and my boy Jermaine will grab the other one! Per Evan
Silva’s Rotoworld piece Kearse has been on the field for 93% of Seattle’s
offensive snaps since Harvin left and he’s the WR 2 on a team that will surely
be busting a gut to lay the smack down on the unfortunate Raiders. I think he
has a good shot to grab a TD and a couple of receptions.
Tight End
Julius Thomas $5,600 – Larry Donnell $4,600
Gronk is the obvious play here and even
with his high price I see him having a high ownership percentage this week.
Thomas always has a shot to grab a TD but I’m moving away from him here. I seem
to get burned by TE’s almost every week and Donnell has often been the
pyromaniac behind many of the fires but I’m rolling with him this week. He’s tied for second with Beckham Jr.
in targets since Cruz went down against Philadelphia and the hope here is that
the Giants spent the off week scheming to get Donnell more involved, especially
in the end zone. The Colts have allowed the 6th most fantasy points and 4th
most yards to opposing TE’s. I think Jordan Reed, Clay Harbor and Travis Kelce
are all in play here but I’m going with Donnell for two reasons. One, I think
they’re going to need to air it out in order to keep up with Andrew Luck which
means he should get a healthy amount of targets and two, it’s always nice to
have somebody in play for a possible Monday night sweat.
Flex
Andre Ellington $5,900 – Marshawn Lynch
$6,100
Obviously I have Ellington in the No.1 RB
spot so this isn’t a direct replacement. I haven’t been a fan of Lynch this
year and have faded him most weeks. There were just too many warning signs
coming into this season and this slump he’s in right now seemed inevitable to
me. In saying that, he fits in perfectly here. He’s been a complete dud over
the last three weeks with DK scores of 7.2, 9.1 and 7.4 while averaging just 14
carries a game over that same three week period. The Seahawks lost 2 out of
those 3 games. They’re back in Seattle now where their home fans last saw them
lose to Dallas. If Marshawn still has it, this is where he’ll show it. The
Raiders have given up the third most fantasy points to opposing RB’s and
there’s other stats out there that prove the Raiders are pretty terrible if
you’d care to look them up. I’ll be shocked if Lynch doesn’t get at least 1 TD.
Defense
Cincinnati Bengals $3,300 – Minnesota
Vikings $3,000
The Bengals, Chiefs and Seahawks all look
far more appealing on paper and they’ll probably score more than the Vikings
but you can just never tell with defense. RG3 is back, he might be rusty, he
might be out of sync with the offense, I smell a pick or two here with a couple
of fumbles thrown in for good measure. I wouldn’t blame you for paying up this
week as there isn’t even much salary saving here but I think those 3 teams will
be highly owned and I’d rather roll with a lower owned team this week.
Unlike the kind and generous JMToWin, if
any of you win using this team I’m going to need you to give me 51% of your
winnings. And I will check every.single.winning.lineup on every.single.site.
Just kidding, feel free to use and lose
away! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave thoughts/comments below.
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