Week 12: The Multiple Definitions of "Grind"

According to dictionary reference.com the verb to “grind” is defined in a number of different ways. One of which is “to wear, smooth, or sharpen by abrasion or friction.” After my almost two week "sabbatical" I have decided to embody the essence of this quote and use it as my guiding principle this week. Maybe everyone out there who describe themselves as “grinders” are already applying this mindset to their DFS games every week but it’s interesting to think about this definition when it comes to picking fantasy teams.

Every week we’re faced with a rocky surface of options all of which have a number of outcomes. It’s like a boat attempting to dock on a jagged coastline while the waves are crashing and the winds are howling. There’s a couple of thousand other boats attempting to do the same thing as well, except they want to do it better than you and possibly take you out in the process. It’s a lot of pressure. Sure you could take a shot and aim for what looks like a safe place to land. You didn’t actually plan this scenario out before but the water looks calmer there and everyone else seems to be aiming for that spot so what could go wrong?

Rocks. That’s what could go wrong. Big, giant, boat destroying rocks forged over millions of years just lying in wait for your stupid ass to attempt to dock your expensive boat right on their house.  Now if you had done your due diligence and scouted the area in the days before this strange thousand boat race you’ve entered you would have known about this dangerous landing spot and avoided it completely. But you didn’t and now your dead.

That boat is your fantasy team this week unless you put in the hours of work beforehand. That race for a landing spot with thousands of other boats and howling winds is you at 12.30 am on Sunday as you frantically cobble together line-ups while being simultaneously distracted by the artistic beauty of alsmizzle’s beard on the last rotogrinders live segment before the line up lock and those rocks are god damn LeSean McCoy. I actually like LeSean McCoy this week (I’m pretty sure every FF expert has said this every week since the beginning of time) but I just refuse to watch him scrabble from side to side behind his O-line again this week as he destroys another one of my teams. 

The point is that this week I’ve been all about decreasing the possibility of having to chuck teams together last minute (wear or smooth a surface) by methodically going through each game (by abrasion and friction, that’s how I envisage my brain cells working, I may or may not be a certified medical doctor). In saying that I’m not ruling out making some crazy last minute line-ups as truth be told I love that last minute rush before the 1pm lock. This definitely isn’t a way to be profitable long term mind you but hey, it’s fun!

So I feel pretty confident in my research this week, as confident as we can be what with the 20 feet of snow in Buffalo, or whatever they’re reporting at the moment, and the numerous injuries. At this point in the week I’m just about ready to utilize the next definition of “grind”, that is “to reduce to fine particles, as by pounding or crushing.”

With all respect to NFL players I’m describing them as particles here.  As I’ve done the past few weeks I picked a team first thing Tuesday Morning without research and entered it into a large field GPP. Below are the changes I’ve decided to make to that team as a result of the “grind”.  One more thing before I get to the team, another definition of “grind” is “to oppress, torment, or crush”. This one needs no explanation.

Quarterback

Josh McCown $6,600 – Josh McCown $6,600

I had a list of three QB’s I was targeting, the other two being Cutler and Kaepernick, but in the end I stayed with McCown. Also as you’ll see from my RB & WR’s picks I think I’ve found quite a bit of value this week so when I went back to the QB spot I could have upgraded to someone like Rodgers but I decided to use that extra money elsewhere. Chicago gives up on average the second most points to opposing QB’s in the league coming in just behind the Jets. They also grade out as the seventh worst pass coverage unit according to PFF. I wanted to have some shares in the unstoppable Mike Evans but I hate buying high on a player after a huge week never mind after three huge weeks and subsequent price increases. I remember writing this blog all the way back in week 6 when the Bears were playing the Falcons in Atlanta. I was so thoroughly convinced that the game would be a shoot out it and the Falcons would have to air it out to keep up with the high flying Bears offense that I put Matt Ryan and Julio in almost every team. That was an error. So a word of warning here as this pick is predicated on the fact that I see this as a high scoring game with fantasy goodness on both sides but this is the NFL, nobody knows anything.

Running Backs

DeMarco Murray $8,500 – DeMarco Murray $8,500

It seems rather pointless to continue after the nihilistic end to the last paragraph but let’s forge on anyway and discuss why I’ve decided to stick with the No.1 RB in football who’s chasing the all time rushing record and going up against a team that gives up the most fantasy points and the fourth most rushing yards to opposing RB’s. Yeah, not exactly a shocker here but there is plenty of value just below Murray’s price point so I’m paying up as a way of getting off the possibly higher owned guys. I’m sure Forte will have a huge game as well but he’s nearly $1,000 more expensive and I’m not even expecting Murray to return 4x his price so Forte was just a stretch too far. Rashad Jennings was the other player I considered here but like all slightly lower priced players that involves an element of risk. He’s just back from an injury but more worrying than that, if the Giants continue to turn the ball over so frequently they’re going to find themselves down pretty quick in this game which could mean a smaller workload for Jennings. I like Jennings but I think Murray is a lock for 20+ carries and 4+ catches and as you will see I have a lot of risk at the WR spot so Murray is the granite based cornerstone of my team.

Tre Mason $4,200 – Isaiah Crowell $3,800

There’s an element of risk in both of these players in terms of playing time and obviously I’d swap Terrance West in for Crowell if it looks like he’ll get the start this week but as of right now Crowell is on pace to get the majority of the carries. At his price, he’s likely to be one of the highest owned players this week. That sentence is generally framed in a negative context but sometimes I find myself relieved when I hear that, as in, ‘Well if he messes up or gets injured, I’ll be in the same boat as everybody else’. The idea of living or dying with the masses is certainly preferential to fading a cheap player due to the possibility of high ownerships % and watching him go off for a monster score. This is the exact approach that almost guarantee’s I’ll never take down a large GPP but…..I have no ‘but’ here actually. That’s just the way it is so I’ll finish this paragraph with some stats about Crowell’s matchup this week. Atlanta give up the most fantasy points to opposing RB’s, Josh Gordon is back this week which should spread the field a little more and he’s only $3,800. If he rushes for 80 yards and a TD with one or two catches out of the backfield, he’s more than worth the money. One last thing, Mason and Crowell are 17th and 18th in fantasypros.com rankings this week so I have them both in a few line-ups.

Wide Receiver

Josh Gordon $6,300 – Torrey Smith $5,400

I can’t decide what to do with Josh Gordon this week. I’ve stashed him on my fantasy team since about week 2 and that all becomes rather pointless unless I play him in this spot. That feeling along with the over the top media coverage made me think he was a lock earlier in the week. Now I’m not so sure. He hasn’t played since August 23rd. In the other type of football (soccer that is) you always hear pundits talk about how players coming back from injuries need a few games to get into ‘match fitness’. Surely that also applies to the NFL? Wasn’t he selling cars and not allowed to practice with the team? I honestly don’t know what to do with him, reports are that he’s looked great in practice and the Browns desperately need an explosive WR so he could have a huge game against the incredibly mediocre Houston secondary. On the other hand, he might struggle to keep up with the pace of the game and be a complete non-factor. So I went with Smith instead. I haven’t rostered Torrey Smith at all this year but I’m looking to exploit a poor New Orleans secondary and the second highest over under of the week. Obviously other people will do the same but I’m hoping the majority of people will opt for the cheaper of the Smith’s who is also getting more targets and will probably avoid the Saints top CB in Keenan Allen.  Torrey has big play ability and Flacco has attempted an average of 35 passes in his last three games so there should be plenty of opportunities in what is projected to be a high scoring game.

Vincent Jackson $5,200 – Allen Hurns $3,200

I tried this Vincent Jackson play last week and it was a resounding failure. I think there’s merit to it again this week but I don’t feel confident enough to roster both McCown and Jackson in the same team. He’s clearly not the No.1 WR in this offense anymore so even though the Bears secondary is eminently beatable, they’re still the Bucs. I’m not having almost a quarter of my team being held hostage to the possibility of another apocalyptic meltdown.  Hurns is, along with my next wide receiver pick, a bargain basement play who is in line to get more targets this week due to a teammate’s injury. Allen Robinson is done for the year so Hurns should see an uptick in playing time. This pick could easily blow up in my face of course as Hurns will probably be covered by PFF’s No.2 ranked CB Vontae Davis and I fully expect him to have maybe one reception for 9 yards coming into the fourth quarter but I have two words for you my friends, garbage and time. I see the Colts laying the smack down on the Jags here (that’s why I’m not touching Denard Robinson this week) and Bortles throwing it all over the place during the fourth. Hurns should take on Robinson’s big playmaking role so I’m hoping the Colts take Davis out early and Bortles can connect with Hurns on a couple of deep balls for a nice ROI.

Kenny Stills $4,200 – Kenny Stills $4,200

This pick follows the same thought process as the Hurns one, for Robinson read Brandin Cooks. The Saints offense is generally a bit of a crapshoot in terms of figuring out who’s going to get the majority of the targets outside of Graham but with Cooks out for the season you’ve got more of a shot of picking the WR who is going to go off on a given day.  The Ravens have a fantastic pass rush but with top corner Jimmy Smith also out for the year they have a secondary that is exploitable. From the WR’s left with Cooks out, Stills has more big play ability than Colston. They’re each $4,200 this week so I didn’t have to think too hard about this one as evidenced by the fact I picked him in my early week team and left him in there.  A note of caution here, or maybe even a disclaimer, all these picks could blow up in my face so if you feel like rostering Steve Smith Sr, Cecil Shorts and Marques Colston go right ahead.

Tight End

Rob Gronkowski $7,900 – Rob Gronkowski $7,900

As JMToWin pointed out in his always excellent piece there are some great cheap TE options this week in the form of Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Martellus Bennett. But if you think I seriously considered rostering McCown, Jackson and ASJ on the same team than just stop reading this right now because your thoughts hurt me and I don’t need that in my safe space. Bennett is an option and both teams are certainly week to opposing TE’s but similar to the Bucs I couldn’t force myself to have that much exposure to this Bears team (see flex position). There’s an alternate universe where I’ve rostered Cutler, Jackson, Marshall, Evans, Bennett and ASJ in the same team but that’s not a reality I’m ready for yet. Luckily I’ve managed to waffle on about the Bucs Bears game (I’m really starting to talk myself into that game now) for so long as there’s really nothing much to say about Gronk at this stage. I still think he’s worth the price. He easily offers the highest floor at the TE position which has been a veritable black hole this year in terms of consistency. I imagine he’ll be in every line up of mine this week.

Flex

Larry Donnell $3,900 - Brandon Marshall $ 7,100

I don’t know why I went for Donnell here, I guess it’s due to the fact that the Cowboys are pretty weak at defending the TE position but obviously with the way the rest of this line up shaped up I moved away from him here. Now that I think of it, does everyone else construct these teams in the same way as I do? I plug in the players I like and then fill out the positions around them always leaving the flex position until last. Except for the odd time that I might go with two TE’s. So generally my flex choice is usually dictated by how much money I have left. That’s probably not the smartest strategy. I can see seasoned DFS’ers guffawing at me now but that’s how I approach life. I like to leave treats for myself. I eat deserts intentionally slow so that when everyone else is finished I’m still enjoying my delicious crème brulee. I like to look for bargains where I can find them and then revel in the delight of being able to get a stud player at the flex spot. Like a child who can have his pick of any candy he wants. My candy this week is Marshall. I’ve spoken about this game a lot already so there’s not much more to say. If you can pick who’s going to have the bigger game out of Marshall and Jeffery than you’re a better man than I but I remember hearing that, probably bullshit, narrative of Cutler and Marshall having a great connection going back years so when their prices are almost identical I’ll take Marshall. For what it’s worth the Bucs have the 6th worst pass coverage unit per PFF grading out just one spot lower than the Bears.

Defense

Colts $3,200 – 49ers $3,100

I’ve already used the ‘there’s nothing to say about defense’ technique to fill out this space in previous weeks so I don’t know where I go from here. Perhaps leave it out altogether in the coming weeks? Maybe. As an example, the Chiefs were the No.1 ranked team for this week according to fantasypros and they scored an earth shattering three points. Both of these D’s are in play this week, I went with the 49ers here as they are at home and the Jags have that garbage time potential I mentioned earlier but really I often think it’s good to pay low on defense and use that money elsewhere.  As an example, the Bucs were $2,700 and they scored 22 DK points last week.

That’s it for this week. This post got a little out of hand but I did warn you, I’ve spent hours going over DFS stuff so much so that I feel as if I have another 3,000 word post in me. One final cautionary note, another definition of “grind” is “to annoy; irritate; irk”. This particular definition is something we’d all rather avoid this weekend.

Week 10 I hardly knew you, Week 11 you were a fleeting dalliance, Week 12 you will be mine

I wrote this post last Friday the 14th but never found the time to edit and post it for reasons which should become clear below. I thought there was no harm in putting it up today as we all start to prepare for week 12.

I didn’t manage to write a single blog post last week which was disappointing seeing as I had set a goal of between two or three articles a week. I managed to hit that target with relative ease over the preceding weeks and if anything it should have been getting easier to churn out posts as the weeks have gone by. I make DFS teams every week, watch as much NFL as possible and I love thinking, talking and writing about it so there’s no excuse really, outside of laziness and lack of motivation. Laziness and lack of motivation, the bane of any writer’s existence. I don’t particularly want to accept this and acknowledge my failure so it’s time to pull out the excuses.

My family were visiting from Ireland. What’s that? Not a valid excuse you say, I could have found some time outside of shepherding my parents around the sights and sounds of New England and sampling the local cuisines, you think. Ok well try this one on for size. I got married last weekend. Ah the sweet silence of my imaginary heckler. Yes I took the plunge and pledged my allegiance to a woman. It may not be as exciting as a NFL contract what with the lack of guaranteed money and an expiry date but I’m hoping it doesn’t end in my agent failing to reach an agreement in a couple of years and my new wife pouring through my vows looking for a way to recoup some of that lost money. That’s a scary sentence to write less than one week into a marriage.

Anyway I’ve told my -girlfriend-, -fiancée-, wife I’m writing something about our big day this week and so there’s a distinct possibility she might end up on what she considers to be the enemy territory of rotogrinders to read this thing. That may or may not be the reason I’m now going to tell you that it was a truly wonderful day and we couldn’t be happier. I’d recommend it to anyone, what with the opportunity to wear an expensive suit and drink champagne at 11 in the morning. Finding someone to tolerate your gambling/DFS habit might not be as easy but worry about that after the fact. (I was going to write something about posting some wedding photos on my twitter if people wanted to see them in a shameless attempt to garner some twitter followers then I realized how pathetic that sounded so look, just follow me on twitter will you, I want to start talking DFS with people, @stephengaffney)

I managed to roll some teams out last week without even a hint of research besides reading one or two articles on rotogrinders. The results were what you would have expected. I went with the mostly chalk plays and managed to cash some minimum GPP’s due to Benjamin’s garbage time TD’s. The pre wedding build up is a legitimate excuse for last week’s lack of research and posts, but the post wedding activities have also taken up a lot of my time and I subsequently find myself furiously trying to piece this thing together early on Friday morning.  With that being said, I’m doing it while sitting in a wood cabin in New Hampshire gazing out at the first snow of the year so I can’t necessarily complain. The post wedding activities do have their advantages.

Following on from the theme of the last week I’ve decided to pick my DFS team for week 11 through the guiding principle of love. I know all this ‘love’ talk is getting a bit heavy handed at this stage but bear with me.  One of the best writer’s on this site, JMToWin, always talks about going through every player each week and finding a reason to either play them or leave them out entirely. This is excellent advice and you should do what he says, but with all respect to JMToWin, I am completely ignoring it this week.  As I’ve mentioned, these past few days have been busy, hell I barely even got to watch any football on Sunday, but I’m not letting another week go by without writing something and putting in some half decent teams. I don’t feel like I have enough time to research and include or discount every player and so like a lovesick teenager, I’m letting myself fall in love this week.

As any of you who have read my posts in the last few weeks will know, I have been building a, let’s call it, ‘gut instinct’ team early in the week and then expanding on those picks later in the week through research and what not. Well this week I’m doing the slightly upgraded version of the early week plan. I’m finding one thing I like about a player and sticking with him. I know some players employ this strategy almost every week and I can certainly see the merit in it but after that week where everybody and his mother had Rashad Jennings and he got injured against Atlanta I got scared off anchoring all my teams around a couple of players. There is just too much randomness and potential injury every week to do that, or else I don’t have the balls, who knows. I was going to make a joke about not having the balls being linked to getting married but maybe that means I have more balls? I don’t know. Answers from the married folk in the comments below would be appreciated.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. This is a DFS website after all, not a recently married men helpline. I entered the team below in a large GPP on DraftKings on the basis of one thing I liked about their matchup this week and for the sake of clarity I’m just going to give the one reason I based my decision on.

Quarterback

Aaron Rodgers 

He’s Aaron Rodgers. He throw 6 touchdown’s last week and his price hasn’t gone up. They could have priced him around 11k and I think I would have found room for him.

Running Backs

Le’Veon Bell

He’s underpriced this week and offers the best value out of the top RB’s.

Jeremy Hill

It was him or CJ Anderson and I went with Hill as he’s slightly cheaper and will probably be under owned after the disaster of last week. Speaking of that atrocity, I’m discounting it completely. Just one of those crazy games where everything goes wrong. The Bengals aren’t that bad.

Wide Receivers

Keenan Allen

Targets. That’s why I’m playing Keenan Allen this week. He’s also reasonably priced and coming off a bye week so he might get slightly forgotten about.  Playing any Chargers receivers is a shot in the dark though so I could easily have put Malcolm Floyd in here as well.

Kelvin Benjamin

Vincent Jackson

See that blank space above. That’s not a typo or the staff at rotogrinders censoring some fascist statement I’ve made, that’s the amount of space I deem necessary to explain my reasons for starting Benjamin this week.  If in doubt ask yourself because despite those drops, you know you have him somewhere this week. As for Jackson, I want to target the Washington secondary and fade Mike Evans.

Tight End

Jimmy Graham

Clearly it’s Graham or Gronk this week.  I went with Graham. I don’t feel good about it but the reason I feel in ‘love’ with him, and I use that it its loosest form, is the price differential and the fact that more people will be on Gronk.

Flex

Davante Adams

Aaron Rodgers. That’s my one reason. I think Adams will grab one of those sweet passes from No.12 and get in for a TD. A couple more receptions and he should offer a nice ROI.

Defense

Broncos

Ok this is where my shaky pretense falls apart. I don’t love the Broncos but I like them, and sometimes that’s enough.  You might not be in the market for love, you might want a casual acquaintance who provides just a whiff of romance. That’s the Denver Broncos this week.  Take them out, buy them a drink or two, don’t splash out on the expensive restaurant yet, and see how you feel after.

To put a bow on the theme this week I also generously let my new wife select a team.  This was done with lots of cute smiles and chuckles as I tried not to be a patronizing jerk like you often see women treated in anything sporting related but let’s be honest here, if her team beats mine it would be nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. If that happens I might pull an ‘Into The Wild’ and walk into the woods never to be heard of again. I’m only kind of kidding.

For those of you wondering, my team comfortably beat my new life partner's one. All is right with the world.

Week 8: Draft Kings GPP line-up

Last week I picked a team based purely on my initial feelings early on Tuesday afternoon, then spent the week researching and made any changes to that team later in the week. The modified team performed to an adequate level and so I’m back this week in an attempt to seek out more mediocre performance levels. After all, when you crack the code on how to place 6,385th in the millionaire maker you don’t just bask in the glory, models and fast cars that get thrown at you, you take that sh*t to the bank. 

I forced myself to pick them team as quickly as possible using only the schedule and the other information offered on the site. The first thing I noticed was that there seemed to be more players missing than normal, the London game of course!

It’s only one game and I know you can pick teams before kick off on Sunday but you soon realize how many big name fantasy players there are missing for the Sunday slate of games. Peyton and the rest of the Broncos, Philip Rivers and his hot and cold WR’s, the formally match up proof Julio Jones, and the sneaky-good Joique Bell with the possibility of Megatron coming back. With all that talent missing I think I’m going to stick one or two more teams than usual in the Thursday night competitions.

And while I’m on the Thursday night games, can we stop with the ‘Thursday night games are awful’, stuff.  It seems like no matter what happens there is an army of people who are intent on moaning about the Thursday night game. Once Green Bay destroyed the Vikings to complete a third blowout game in a row it seemed the Thursday night game was forever to be labelled as some sort of sub football, not worthy of our eyes that were being forced to watch. 

If you really think that, here’s a thought: don’t watch them.  But don’t attempt to blame that on the fact they are being played on Thursday night. You never hear anyone, ever complain about the quality of the Sunday night games but the average margin of victory in those games this year is 18.8. Pretty similar to the Thursday night average of 21.7. And if you look even closer you realize that the first Sunday night game between the Broncos and the Colts was, for all intents and purposes, also a blow out as the Broncos led with by 14 points with 4.15 left in the 4th.

It’s similar to the U2/itunes mess last month where people were in uproar over something they were been given for free. FOR FREE! People just love to complain but then again I’m just complaining about those people complaining and perpetuating the complaining! Bottom line is that there is no conclusive proof the Thursday night games are any less competitive than any other games. There are blowouts every single week in the NFL, there just happened to be a few of them in a row on Thursday.

Anyway, on to the team. Just as a reminder, this team is selected without research or fact checking so this is basically a disclaimer for anything that might be incorrect and/or complete rubbish below. I’ll post a fully researched team later in the week to see what changes I want to make after studying the numbers.

!http://i59.tinypic.com/5nn56v.jpg!

h2. Quarterback

h3. Andrew Luck - $8,800

I had trouble with this one straight away as nothing jumped off the list for me. I actually left this pick second to last to let my remaining budget be the biggest deciding factor. I went with Luck as he’s just so damn reliable and not in an ‘only for cash game’ type of way like say Andre Johnson has become. He’s almost guaranteed to get you 25+ points with the possibility of putting up numbers like Wilson did last week. He’s averaging 28.6 points on Draft Kings with his lowest total of 19.88 coming in week two. His price has dropped by $900 and I think Rodgers, Brees and Wilson will all have a higher ownership percentage than him this week.

h2. Running Backs

h3. Le’Veon Bell - $6,300

This one was easy. He’s probably going to be my Jamaal Charles of last week as I’ll have him in nearly all of my GPP and cash game line-ups. Monday night’s performance hasn’t been factored into his price as he’s actually dropped by $300 this week. He’s a monster in the passing game, hauling in 8 passes last week. He’s going to be highly owned but ultimately that won’t matter if he manages to score 4x times his salary. I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t make the cut for my team later in the week as well.

h3. Justin Forsett - $5,100

I was split between three guys here. Forsett, McKinnon and Shady McCoy. McCoy’s price has come down after the bye and even though I heard countless people say you wouldn’t get a talent like McCoy  for as cheap as $6,000 again this year you can take him this week for $5,800.  I just didn’t want to pay that much for my second RB and Arizona has a pretty decent run D even with Philadelphia’s offensive line improving every week. I think McKinnon will be highly owned and both players have the problem of other RB’s vulturing their goal line opportunities but I just trust Baltimore’s offense more than Minnesota’s right now.

h2. Wide Receivers

h3. Dez Bryant - $6,900

After Bell, Dez was the next name that jumped out to me. I’ve been consistently fading Dallas (apart from an occasional dabbling in some DeMarco Murray stock) in both DFS and straight up gambling. This has not been one of my strongest strategies. Bryant looked great last week and his price has come down by $600. I really fancied Antonio Brown in this spot but it seems like the Indy D is pretty legit. Generally I like to go against the grain and pick top players coming off lacklustre performances, i.e the Bears but I just can’t trust Cutler and his WR’s after all the crap that has come out this week.

Michael Floyd $4,900 & Jeremy Maclin $5,500

I put these two together as I found picking this position without looking at stats etc. to be pretty tricky. Both players are no.1 receivers going up against pretty mediocre secondary’s. Floyd is at a decent price point and although he’s only averaging 12.1 points a game he’s always a threat to bust a big play. With Carson Palmer definitely back under centre and after a full week of practice, Floyd could have a big game. As you can tell I’m a stickler for picking players with a significant price drop or coming after a poor performance. When I can get both, I can’t say no. Maclin’s price has dropped $1,300 after a 3.6 point outing against the Giants and a bye week. I’ll take that. 

Tight End

Greg Olsen $5,500

He’s the Andrew Luck of the tight end position. He’s been consistently great all year but he’ never been as highly owned as people like Graham, Gronk and Thomas.  I was torn between him and Jordan Reed as both the Seahawks and the Cowboys are weak against opposing tight ends. Reed is cheaper but it’s looking like he’ll have Colt McCoy throwing him the ball so who knows how that will go. I’ve been burned by Cameron and Donnell in this position over the last two weeks so I’m paying up and trying to guarantee at least some points this week. You can construct the greatest roster of all time but if you get between 0-1 points at one position it’s pretty hard to place highly in any competition. Outside of one game where he scored 5 points, Olsen’s lowest scoring day was 13.2. I’ll take it.

Flex

James Jones $4,300

I’ll be honest, I had no clue who to go with here. Maybe I don’t know as much about football as I had first assumed. I’m going with Jones as his name is alliterative and I remember him catching all those touchdowns from Aaron Rodgers that year. Also he’s probably going to be up against Joe Haden who has been awful this year and he gets more targets than his fellow Oakland wide receiver Andre Holmes. So Jones very tentatively makes the cut this week but don’t get comfortable James…

Defense

Cleveland Browns $2,700

If you read anything I wrote last week you’ll know my feelings towards this position. Total crapshoot. The Browns are cheap, they’re up against a rookie QB and they’re home. That’ll do.

Ok, that’s it. I found it really hard to pick this team and I’m glad they’re only been entered into a $2 GPP as I don’t feel confident with a lot of positions. I’ve somehow managed to leave writing this up until Thursday afternoon again so I’m off to begin my proper research now before the Broncos whoop the Chargers tonight. The researched team is 1-0 against the gut team so far so we’ll see how it goes this week. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments/criticism below.

Week 9 Draft Kings GPP Line-up

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.

Week 8 round up: Jordy Nelson stole my $1,000,000.

Hope. That’s what playing DFS every week gives me. The hope of this being the week you nail the line up to take down a large GPP. The hope of being the absolute best at something if even for one week. The hope of beating out thousands of other people. The hope of winning life changing money and donating it all to a charity…..ok that’s a stretch.

I know using ‘hope’ in such a grandiose fashion when discussing fantasy football is a little extreme so I want to reassure you that I do have a life outside of playing fantasy sports and I’m not depending on it to provide meaning in my life. However, from Tuesday’s opaque dreams of hitting it big at the weekend through to the excitement of building last minute teams on Sunday morning my week is filled with varying degrees of hope that all rest on a bunch of men I’ve never met running around in various locations throughout the country.

It sounds crazy when written down and by its very nature fantasy football does not make rational sense. It is by definition a step into the world of fantasy but one where we feel we can control the outcome in some way. One where we have a set of expectations for a series events we absolutely cannot control. Those expectations usually manifest themselves in the form of hope, and hope is what nearly ruined a very profitable weekend for me.

First the positives. I placed in all of my cash games, destroyed my opponent in my first ever head to head game, scored an all time high 245.26 points in a GPP on Draft Kings for a 150th place finish and finished in the top 3,000 in the when-will-it-ever-end Millionaire Maker. Overall, a very nice weekend where I had plenty of Gronk and Maclin a smattering of Brady and Foster and one each of LaFell and T.Y Hilton.  What could possibly have gone wrong?

I dared to dream. I dared to ask the question, ‘what if’? That’s what went wrong. Over these past 8 weeks of football season I’ve often wondered what’s worse, to have no players left and watch as you slowly slip down the leader board or to watch those players in later games bomb out and not move up as much as you had hoped. I used to think it was the former but after this week I’m leaning towards the latter.

I entered a team into the millionaire maker that had two players in the early afternoon games and one player and my defense in the late.  Those three players were Arian Foster, Rob Gronkowski, Jeremy Maclin and the Cleveland Browns. The Dolphins were clearly the play of the day at defense and I had them in the majority of my teams but the Browns were the 5th highest scoring team of the week and a pretty decent play considering their price point.

Those other three however. They were the cornerstone, the rock, the granite and the cement of any GPP winning team. Things couldn’t have started much better. It seemed like you would have to have these three in your team to have a chance, and I did, I actually effing did! You can sense the level of enthusiasm I had on Sunday afternoon even as I write this on Tuesday in the shadow of a crushing disappointment.

I had 145.9 points from four picks. As the Steelers Colts game exploded in record breaking fashion that total didn’t like quite as good but this is where I had an ace in my pocket. I had a Rodgers, Nelson, Adams stack waiting in the wings to trump anything that had come earlier in the day. I also had Travaris Cadet at $3,000 who I thought was almost a sure thing to return value and possibly even bring one of those Brees screen passes to the house.

Needless to say I felt confident, in retrospect far too confident, and as the game went on and Nelson slowly scuppered my selfish dreams (seriously, I watched him at the line of scrimmage every time, he would run straight out of the picture, something would happen and then he’d reappear trotting off the field, you can’t tell me he didn’t just evaporate into the night sky every time, you have no proof) I realized I was not actually enjoying the game at all.

My hope had killed my enjoyment. I was not alone in expecting a big game from Jordy, he had a ridiculous 39.5% ownership in the millionaire maker, but I couldn’t take any solace in that. Michael Floyd’s big fat donut seemed to hurt even more people and I had him in quite a few line-ups but I couldn’t derive any comfort in that either. Cadet, Rodgers and even Adams, to a certain extent, all had in the range of decent to mediocre games but nothing could get me past the fact that Jordy Nelson had metaphorically given away my $1,000,000 to some other chump. This irrational annoyance might also be due to my seven team teaser that would have paid over $500 if Steve Smith’s OPI had not been called and the Ravens had covered but that’s an article for a gambler’s anonymous. So it was a weekend of mixed emotions, like most Sunday's during the football season but we must move forth and conquer and that means picking more teams for this week.

As I’ve been doing for the last few weeks, I picked a team this morning without doing any research based just on what I know already and my gut feeling at the time. I’ll do my normal research this week and see what changes I want to make as we get nearer to Sunday. For those keeping score at home, my researched team is now 2-0 and in a nod to ESPN’s naughty pupil, these are actual picks from my actual brain.

Quarterback

Colin Kaepernick $7,000

Jesus. Draft Kings have tightened up their salaries. That and the fact that so many teams are on a bye and two fantasy relevant QB’s are suiting up on Thursday made the QB pick pretty difficult. I originally chose Carson Palmer at $6,800 as he’s putting up consistent fantasy numbers but Kaep just has that higher upside we love so much when it comes to GPP’s. As I’ve found with so many of these early week picks, I don’t feel great about this one but with Luck at $10,000, Peyton at $9,800 and with the memory of Kaepernick torching the Rams for 32.42 points a few weeks ago I’m going with the 49ers QB at this stage.

Running Backs

Jamaal Charles $7,100

I’ve picked him every week I’ve been writing this blog. I think Foster is probably the best RB in the league at the moment, and that’s not to take anything away from Murray, but at $9,900 it’s just a bit too steep for me. Charles’ price has only gone up by $400 this week after the 27.7 points he put up on Sunday. Compared to some of the other price increases this week that’s a veritable steal. The Jets have a stout run defense but Charles is always good for a few catches in the backfield, picking up 4-44 yards against the Rams. He's back to being one of the top RB's in the league and possibly still a bit under the radar.

LeSean McCoy $5,200

When will we see this ‘big game’ that people seem to think is inevitable? Truth is I don’t actually think we’re going to see it this year but at this price you don’t need it. It seems like McCoy’s ceiling this year is about 20 fantasy points which would nearly be the 4x his salary we’re looking for in GPP’s. He hasn’t scored since week 2 and he’s averaging 22.3 carries and 3 catches a game over the last three weeks. If he keeps up those numbers he’s bound to hit the end zone this week. Lock him in.

 Wide Receivers

DeSean Jackson $6,000

Is DeSean Jackson the ultimate GPP WR out there? Take out week 1 and his scoring on Draft Kings over the past 7 weeks is as follows: 2.9, 25.7, 1.9, 29.7, 24.0, 7.9 and 22.6 last night. He’s a professional boom or bust play and right now he’s proving more boom that bust. Colt McCoy looked his way all night against the Cowboys and talked afterwards about how he’s impossible to overthrow. I think I might just play Jackson in every GPP for the rest of the season. He’s only gone up by $300 this week as well so he’s good value.

Odell Beckham Jr. $5,000

I picked this one purely on a gut feeling. I didn’t even look at his game log on Draft Kings. I just did. He’s gone up by $1,200. Damn. So my theory that Draft Kings somehow misses players coming off a bye goes up in flames.  I never like to pick players with such a huge increase in price but I’ve done it now so I’ll try to defend it. Beckham looks like the real deal. It’s a small sample size but in the one game against Philly, Beckham looked like he might become the new No.1 in the Giants offense with Cruz out. Randle got more of the targets but Eli looked for the rookie more often in the red zone. 

Mike Evans $4,700

Sometimes you pick players because of stats, sometimes it’s because in the game you watched that player just looked awesome, sometimes it’s a good matchup and other times you pick players because they looked unbelievably athletic jumping over the hood of a car in a TMZ video of a brawl outside a nightclub. That is why I’m picking Evans. Also he’s one of the few Bucs players that haven’t been involved in trade rumors lately so, ya know, that’s something.

Tight End

Julius Thomas $5,600

Julius Thomas has been driving me crazy. I wasn’t on him for most of the first 5 or 6 weeks. Then I decided that my strategy of fading the tight end wasn’t working out and so I’ve had him in a few line-ups the past few weeks.  That’s been going just great. This pick is based purely on the notion that Peyton likes to keep all his receivers happy. By that rational it should be Julius and Welker’s week this week. I won’t be buying any shares in Wes’s stock but Thomas is the cheapest he’s been all year. Gronk is not going to catch 3 T.D’s every week and he’s an insane $7,600 this week so Thomas makes it ahead of Gates and Allen here. 

Flex

Andre Ellington $5,900

I wanted a high up side receiver here similar to Jackson but this was my last position to fill and I was somewhat hamstrung by the remaining salary. As opposed to later in the week I try not to take any players out of this line-up and stick with my first instincts. Ellington is only averaging 3.6 yards a carry but he’s getting a bunch of carries and he’s basically a lock to catch 3 or 4 passes every game.  Those catches are crucial for point scoring on DK. His price has come down this week by $700 as well.

Defense

Cincinnati Bengals $3,300

I mean, were you expecting anything else? They’re at home against Jacksonville and Blake Bortles who just can’t stop throwing picks. The Dolphins served me pretty well in this spot last week and I’m gonna be riding the ‘whoever is playing Jacksonville’ train for a while longer.

That’s it. That’s my early team who seem destined to finish smack bang in the middle of some large GPP this weekend. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave any thoughts or comments below.

Week 7 Breakdown

What a strange, topsy-turvy week of fantasy football that was. The day started off like every Sunday does with me building and tweaking my teams as the 1pm cut off point approached with all the naive enthusiasm of a kid on his first day at school. With a clear two fingers in the face of logic and reason I believed that all my times would some how take down every competition they had been entered into and that I would have a pirate’s bounty worth of cash by the end of the day. 

Then the games started and nobody, not the players I had rostered or the ones I hadn’t, seemed to be doing anything. There was a point early on Sunday afternoon where I actually wondered whether a big GPP might be taken down by a team scoring under 200 points. And if this fanciable notion were to actually happen, why couldn’t it be me. I had a team with a Rodgers, Nelson, Adams stack that was somewhere around the bottom 1,000 in the millionaire maker and as the afternoon sun peered in the glass doors of my living room and the clock marched towards 2 o’clock I allowed myself to dream. The Packers were destroying the Panthers, Rodgers was throwing it effortlessly around the hardening turf of Lambeau and if Jordy could just catch another say, two TD’s, this dream might have a shot of growing into reality.

Then Russell Wilson started going berserk, Golden Tate caught a 75 yard touchdown pass, Sammy Watkins caught ALL the passes, the Packers destroyed the Panthers just a bit too much and that’s even before Peyton and the rest of his merry bunch of pass catchers broke every record going, at least I think that’s what happened judging by NBC’s superlative laden broadcast. I didn’t win the $1,000,000, in fact that team who earlier in the afternoon had filled me with such hope crashed and burned to 51,717th place finishing with a thoroughly demoralizing 115.40 points. I was a cool 126.22 points behind the winner. How embarrassing. 

Anyway, the weekend wasn’t a complete loss for me and as I foolishly enter this bankroll crushing tournament every week my expectations of winning the thing have fallen more in line with the statistical chances of me winning and so the crushing disappointment isn’t quite as tough to handle. 

I wrote last week about picking two different teams, one based on my early week gut feeling and the other following a week of research. Let’s take a look at the results of both teams. 

Early week team

Late week team 

So the late week team did considerably better than the early and I’m happy about that, I think. I don’t know, would you rather have really good instincts here or better research skills? It’s only one week so luck and randomness have to be factored in of course but if anything I’m glad my time and effort actually paid off. 

The biggest bonus to my second team was adding Sammy Watkins who scored more than 7x times his salary. He was an absolute beast. I felt pretty good about putting him in and he obviously paid off. His low salary also let me pay up to get Jordy Nelson. As I alluded to above, I thought he was in line for a monster day but after such a hot start he finished with 18 points. Nelson caught a 59 yard touchdown pass on the opening drive, followed that up with 3 more catches on the next Green Bay drive and that was it. His fantasy scoring was over with 6.36 left in the first quarter. Hard to be annoyed with 80 yards and a touchdown but….. actually it’s not that hard. I am annoyed. 

Elsewhere, the Cutler Kaep swap was the right call but overall it was just two poor decisions at the QB spot. I was starting to feel confident watching Kaepernick put together that drive at the end of the 2nd quarter and he made plenty of those classic ‘Kaepernick’ plays running around making ridiculous throws but once he threw that awful interception at the beginning of the 3rd, San Francisco were done and alas, so was Kaepernick (Am I the only one who has to look his name up every.damn.time I write it?) That didn’t stop me slamming something, I can’t remember what, in disgust as I saw Blaine Gabbert enter the game. This is where fantasy football turns me into an irrational knucklehead. I didn’t care that it was the correct decision and could even have been made the drive before, I WANTED KAEPERNICK TO SCORE MORE POINTS!

The other main difference in final point tallies came down to the swap at tight end and it was a strange one. Jordan Cameron accumulated 1.5 points with just one reception. He had an ownership percentage of the 20.7% in the millionaire maker so a lot of people were banking on a better performance but this is always the risk when you roster pass catchers on teams with below average QB’s. This wasn’t all Brian Hoyer’s fault as the Browns failed to get anything going offensively but he missed a wide open Cameron in the red zone in the first half and over all the tight end was targeted 6 times as Hoyer compiled an anaemic stat line of 16/41 for 215 yards.  

Donnell proved that the Cowboys can indeed be attacked through the TE position as he tallied up a respectable 14 points but those two fumbles left a sour taste in my mouth as it cost the Giants any chance of getting back into the game. Is it me or does there seem to be an unusual amount of drops and fumbles this year? I don’t know if it’s poor concentration from offensive players or improved tackling but it’s one of the most frustrating parts of watching football to see a guy you have in your team drop or fumble the ball. 

None of the big names really dominated at tight end this week with relative unknowns like Cooper Helfet and Gavin Escobar finishing as two of the highest scoring players at the position. I saw Helfet rostered in a team high up in the millionaire maker and his ownership percentage was 0.00%. I originally put that down to a shot in the dark but upon further inspection the Seahawks ruled out Zach Miller before the game on top of their No.1 Willson already being out due to injury so maybe this was just somebody paying really close attention to the in actives list on Sunday morning. If so, it was a shrewd move and I'll be sure to bring it up next week when when my girlfriend attempts to bring me knick knack shopping on Sunday morning. 

As for defense, I think my feeling of it being a complete crapshoot held up. In case you didn’t know, the Jacksonville Jaguars were the highest scoring fantasy team this week. There isn’t much more to be said. As for my teams, the Browns scored one point more but they had a higher ownership percentage and were more expensive than the Steelers. For this week I’m again going to be using my strategy of looking for a home team going up against a shaky QB at a discount price. Outside of the Lions there isn’t really a dominant D right now. 

I think that just about wraps up the two teams. The running back change was a wash and Marshall went down (shouting at least) with Cutler. Golden Tate was phenomenal, Rueben Randle was less so, #analysis. Luckily I stuck my second team in the millionaire maker and they finished 6,385th giving me the minimum payout. After missing out on that 2 weeks ago by 0.02 points I was happy to at least get some return on the competition that seems intent on destroying my bank roll. I’m going to select another gut/instinct team right after this and put it up in post tomorrow followed by a researched team later in the week and we’ll see how they both fair up on Sunday. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments/criticism below.  

Week 7: DraftKings GPP lineup (update)

I wrote earlier in the week about how I wanted to build a GPP lineup at the start of the week based purely on my own gut feeling and without any research except for the upcoming schedule. The basic premise was to build one team, spend the week researching and then come back later in the week with what should be the research-enhanced-premium-director's-cut-no-holes-barred-max-turbo-charged line up to end all lineups. We'll see how that hyperbolic names holds up at around 11.42 EST on Monday night.

I'll get to the line up in a moment but what I also wanted to test was my ability, of lack thereof, to make a calculated, rational judgment, whether that decision involved sticking with a player or taking him out. You will often hear people extolling the virtue of 'sticking with your first choice', or to 'just go with your gut', generally due to the fear of that first choice succeeding in whatever form of gambling you're engaged in. I don't believe you can let this type of emotion, and an emotional reaction is all it is, dictate how you wager your money. The performance of a third party will in no way be affected by the decision you make.

Using your first instinct as factor in your decision is all part of the process but it's just a small part. It's frustrating when you have a player in your line up, you take him out at the last minute and he goes crazy but if the decision was correct and you followed a thorough process you should be able to rest easy. We rarely think of the times when we stick with a player due to some perceived emotional attachment, he does nothing and we wonder why we didn't play the guy who had a great match up instead. It's as if the instinct/gut feeling factor is used as an excuse, a way to avoid pushing past that first feeling, analyzing what the correct option is and either trusting your first choice or changing your mind.

Of course if I was sticking with this rationale I should be entering the one line up and taking out any players that were chosen for the wrong reasons but I'm intrigued to compare the performances of both teams. Or it could be that I am actually terrified of not selecting players I was originally gravitating towards because I stupidly believe that if I don't have them on my team they will all individually score 50 points and together they will combine for the highest scoring DFS team of all time and I will have blown my chance to win millions and millions of dollars all because I wanted an intro to this article, who knows.

Ok, with that momentary flash of panic out of the way let's take a look at the team.

Quarterbacks

Jay Cutler $7,900 – Colin Kaepernick $6,500

I still like Cutler this week and after I made this pick I have seen plenty of people talking up Kaep’s prospect’s so I think he may be the more contrarian   play here but I just can’t get past Kaepernick’s huge potential upside this week. He had his best game of the year last week scoring 32.42 on Draft Kings which hasn’t been factored into his price, he’s almost inevitably going to be attempting to keep up with Manning’s quest for the TD record and Kaepernick by and large shows up for the big night time games. You feel like he knows how many people are watching him and his biceps strut around under the lights and he plays up accordingly. When Kaepernick is on, he has the potential to be the highest scoring fantasy QB with his powerful running and cannon like arm. My only worry is after hearing so many other people talk him up he’s going to be highly owned.

Running Backs

Jamaal Charles $6,700 - Jamaal Charles $6,700

Couldn’t move past Charles as my No.1 back this week especially with the full point PPR on Draft Kings. He’s almost $3,000 cheaper than DeMarco Murray. That’s insane. He’s averaging 5.21 YPC since returning from a knee injury and he’s also scored two TD’s. He was the highest scoring fantasy RB last year and he looked fully recovered on his return against the Pats in week 4. Draft Kings must calculate their prices with a heavy bias towards last week’s score as there is no way he should be down at $6,700.

Ben Tate $5,300 – Alfred Morris $4,700

Some of this decision was based purely on the idea of moving away from the likely highly owned player in favor of a low owned player with high upside. The Titans rank as the 9th worst rushing defense and the 11th worst defense overall per Football Focus. Morris isn’t a huge target in the passing game although he’s not overlooked completely, catching 5 passes in his last 3 games. He’s only had 13,13 and 12 rushing attempts in those 3 games as Washington was forced to play catch up and that’s where I think his value lies. I can see Washington getting out to a lead early and looking to the run game to burn some clock. The worry here is Helu and his propensity to vulture touchdowns but there has to be some level of concern for a decent GPP play.

Wide Receivers

Brandon Marshall $6,300 - Brandon Marshall $6,300

REVENGE GAME! I hadn’t even thought of this more-than-likely-overblown-narrative when I picked Marshall earlier in the week. Revenge game or not Marshall is one of the best WR’s in the league when he’s healthy and he sure looked back to his best last week when he caught 6 passes for 113 yards against Atlanta. Marshall is a no brainer for me and I found myself looking for reasons to take him out rather than actually finding any. I have him in most of my cash and GPP lineups this week. $3 cash game enthusiasts beware.

Rueben Randle $5,300 – Jordy Nelson $8,200

With the value at RB this week and the saving of having Kaep at QB I decided to focus on the wide receivers. Nelson is the highest priced WR on Draft Kings this week and it’s going to be a tough ask for him to score 4x his salary but I think he has a shot. Nelson leads the league in red zone targets with 14 which work’s out at 2.33 a game. He’s two ahead of Marshall and the player he replace’s here, Rueben Randle. The Panthers have given up 9 receiving TD’s to opposing wide receivers and in a game that projects to be a high scoring affair, look for Rodgers to feed the ball to his favorite target.

Golden Tate $5,900 – Golden Tate $5,900

Another player I just couldn’t move away from as the week went by. That is until this afternoon (Saturday) when I read that the Packers have ruled out their top CB James Shields making Kelvin Benjamin an even more enticing play this week if he suits up. Anyway, Tate, look, the Saints D have been awful inside and outside of a dome, home or away, I don’t need Pro Football Focus to tell me that but if you do, know that those football scientists rank New Orleans 31st in pass coverage and 30th in over all defense. You have to believe Brees and Payton will come out firing this week which makes it all the more likely Stafford will spend the afternoon slinging it around that comfy dome of theirs. (Side note: With the possibility of Graham coming in for red zone packages this week, would a Brees Graham stack be the ballsiest stack of all time?)

Tight Ends

Jordan Cameron $4,600 – Larry Donnell $3,500

I don’t feel good about this one. I’m projecting Cameron for a big day. Hoyer only completed 8 passes last week but 3 of them were to Cameron and he also got the one passing TD. Both of these guys are on my fantasy team so maybe I’m subconsciously hedging my bets but with Cruz out and Donnell’s putrid showings in his last two games I just feel he’s in line for a bounce back game. I also think the Giants are going to straight up win this game so maybe I’m feeling the effects of that beer I just opened. The Cowboys have been weak against the TE position, giving up 424 yards and 4 touchdowns, and you have to think OC Ben McAdoo is going to scheme to get the formerly smoking hot Donnell involved. Also, the majority of people are going to be off him this week which is music to any GPP line up builder’s ears.

Flex

Lamar Miller $5,300 – Sammy Watkins $4,80

The flex spot was probably always going to be changed. I think Miller has value this week but Watkins certainly has a higher upside. He’s a low floor/high ceiling play but that’s what we want for a GPP. He only had 2 catches for 27 yards last week but we can put that down to Revis Island. In Orton’s first game he targeted Watkins 12 times with the rookie receiver grabbing 7 of them for 87 yards. Watkins has undoubted talent and as Orton becomes more familiar with the system he will surely look to target the Bill’s first round draft choice.

Defense/Special Teams

Steelers $2,700 - Browns $3,000

Defense is so hard to predict week to week and this week is no different. The Patriots were the consensus No.1 fantasy play this week and they ended up with a pretty measly 5 points on Draft Kings. I didn’t put too much thought into this except that they’re playing the Jags. Bortles has thrown 7 interceptions in the 4 games he’s played which is always the stat I look for when picking a defense.

So that’s my post research team. I found it hard to get off some players but I’m happy with Charles and Marshall. Tate is probably the only player I would change at this stage as I think he might be more of a cash game play. Brandin Cooks or the aforementioned Benjamin might be better options in that spot but overall I’m pretty happy with the selections. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments/criticism below.