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.
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