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.

Week 7: Draft Kings GPP lineup

This is my first year of playing DFS. Like everything I enjoy in life, I have decided to embrace this new hobby to an excessive level. I spend the majority of my days from Monday through Saturday consuming every word written and spoken about fantasy football and I spend the majority of my Sunday shouting at the TV and wondering how Matt Ryan and Julio Jones could let me down so spectacularly against the porous Bears secondary. The Giants falling flat on their face in Philadelphia made the day all the more disappointing and as the sun set on another football Sunday, I found myself wondering why I bother to do this every week. I pondered the thought process behind leveraging my sheer enjoyment of watching football against the randomness and inevitable heartbreak of fantasy football and as I looked at my pathetic Draft Kings balance I thought about ending it all releasing that $28.25 into the wild.

But then Monday morning rolled into Monday afternoon and I couldn't help but take a peek at the early week rankings and before I knew it I was back wondering about whether I should stick with Kelvin Benjamin this week or was DeAndre Hopkins worth a shot after last week's disappointing performance.

The frustration with fantasy football doesn't stem from a feeling of losing per se, although that is part of it, it's more about the incredulity you feel when a player doesn't meet your expectations. These expectations might be high or low but the feeling of being wronged or let down by not only that player but numerous fantasy experts is what really hurts.

In an attempt to avoid that this week I wanted to construct a line up without being influenced by stats, previews, rankings etc.. I called it my 'pursuit for purity' (patent pending). The 'purity' aspect is of course a misnomer as I couldn't help but be swayed by information and opinions I had accumulated during the previous weeks of research but by and large I picked this team based on my own knowledge and gut feeling. The point of this article is to offer my thought process behind my picks at an early stage in the week and to see how that might differ as the week goes on.

My plan is to spend the rest of my week doing my normal research and to then construct another line up based on that. I'll compare the two and then see how they both fair in a Draft Kings GPP this week. Just to be clear this line up is based purely on how I felt at the time and thus the reasoning below might not be factually correct. The only thing I had open while doing this was a schedule. In fact I am purposely stopping myself from checking anything to see how my intuition stacks up with reality. Ok, on to the line up.

Quarterback

Jay Cutler $7,900: The Bears are at home and although they haven't been great there this year I always like to pick players playing at home if possible. They have a potent offense with top 10 caliber players at every skill position. I feel like Cutler is always good for a 2 TD 250 yards sort of day and with two of last week's studs Flacco and Newton right around his price point I don't think he will be highly owned. Miami's defense has been of the good-not-great variety and going on the basis of 3x the salary I think Cutler is good for a 24 point day. 

Running Backs

Jamaal Charles $6,700: This one jumped off the list for me. Now I will say that I own Charles in my fantasy team and it's practically impossible to not be swayed into picking players I'm going to be routing for anyway, *side note-that may be one of the many reason my bank roll has been decreasing these past week*, but he was a consensus top 3 pick before the year began and the top RB in football last year. He always catches a few passes out of the back field and when he's at full health he's a devastating runner. He's the 6th most expensive running back on Draft Kings this week and due to his injury and the bye week I think he might get somewhat forgotten about what with Forte and Murray putting up huge numbers. I initially wanted to build my team around Forte as I've had some success with him recently but he's prohibitively expensive this week.

Ben Tate $5,300: JACKSONVILLE! I'm tempted to leave it at that but to state the obvious you can score on the Jags. Except for Pittsburgh for some reason. Without checking the numbers he doesn't seem to have gone up in price after a high scoring performance last week and he seems to be the No.1 back in what is shaping up to be a pretty potent offense. Volume is probably the most important thing I look for in RB's, he's going to get the majority of the carries and just like Bernard last week there's always a chance of a missed block or tackle leading to a 90 yard run. Probably going to be highly owned but I'd rather be on him this week than not. 

Wide Receivers 

Brandon Marshall $6,300: The Cutler stack. Honestly I thought about stacking Forte with Cutler as he gets targeted so much in the passing game but I went with Marshall. The reasoning was much the same as Cutler and I still think he's the No.1 option ahead of Jeffrey even though he's $300 cheaper. I feel like he hasn't scored in a few weeks either so he's bound to find the end zone soon. Pretty sound reasoning there I think you'll agree. Oh also he's yet another super star coming back from injury that people might not trust, one trend I've noticed in recent weeks is they are often part of a GPP winning team. Arian Foster two weeks ago and Cam Newton last week. They had been underperforming and struggling with injuries and out of nowhere put in huge performances to help people win a whole heap of cash. Marshall's not quite in that category but it's something I'm looking out for this week. 

Rueben Randle $5,300: Going back to the well on this one. He burned me last week along with many others which would always make me think he's worth another shot to get some low ownership percentages. The Cruz injury puts that rationale in doubt as he's going to be the de-facto no.1 now but he's at such a low price point for someone who is now the focal point of what was up until last week a pretty potent offense. A lot of ifs and buts in this one and highly likely to change later in the week but the match up with Dallas is a classic trap game for the Cowboys and I think the Giants bounce back. 

Golden Tate $5,900: This is very similar to Randle, in fact so much so that I can almost guarantee one or both of these will change later in the week. The only difference is that I had very little exposure to Golden (I feel like people should start referring to him by his first name) last week. He's coming off a poor week, he's at home and it looks like Megatron won't be back for a while. He's also facing the New Orleans secondary. They are bound to score points.  Although I think his price dropped this week I don't necessarily see a huge amount of value as I think he was way over priced last week. 

Tight End

Jordan Cameron $4,600: Another guy on my fantasy team who I didn't start last week, curse you Larry Donnell. Although I often like to fade players coming off big weeks almost out of nowhere I can't get away from Cameron's price point. Having him on the same line up as Tate (Ben that is) is not ideal but as I've been emphasizing throughout this post I tried to force myself to pick this team based purely on my gut instinct and Cameron jumped off the list of TE's. He's an athletic tight end that Hoyer likes to target in the end zone and with Gronk playing on Thursday and my continued strategy of fading Julius Thomas (going well so far) I felt happy with this pick. 

Flex

Lamar Miller $5,300: This was the one pick that was unavoidably influenced by some recent information. Right before I selected this team I saw the headline about Moreno being out for the year. So there really isn't too much more to say about this pick. He's going to be the main running back in Miami's offense and, as with most of this article, I stand to be corrected but I don't believe his price is representative of that fact. He's going to be highly owned so he's another one I'd consider fading later in the week but as of right now he's my lock of the week which means he's going to get hurt on the first play of the game or rush for about 34 yards on 16 attempts. I'm looking at you Frank Gore.

Defense/Special Teams

Steelers $2,700: Defense is so variable that I never like to pay up for it unless it's paying up for a team I think nobody else will be on. The main factors I look for are a team at home playing against a shaky/terrible QB. I don't think Ryan Fitzpatrick is terrible but he's definitely got to be considered for inclusion in the shaky category. The biggest boost your D/ST can get is through a pick six and although the Steelers have been pretty terrible lately I'm willing to ride with them this week at home as I think they'll get back to the form they showed against the Panthers in week three.

So there is it. I ended up using all $50,000 which fills my waste hating heart with joy. My plan is to post my stats/previews/research influenced team later in the week but until then I encourage, nay demand, that you leave comments below.

Review: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

On the way to the screening of The Mortal Instruments I realised I was about to watch a film I knew next to nothing about. Apart from a cursory glance at its wikipedia page I didn't know the first thing about the film or the set of novels it was based on (the wikipedia page had to inform me about it being based on a novel). I normally like to rely on reviews to weed out the huge amount of terrible films and prefer to spend my money on something I feel has a decent chance of being at least mildly interesting. Sitting through the 2 hours plus of Lily Cooper's stomach churning journey through a love triangle and Jonathan Rhys Meyers growling constantly made me even more steadfast in my propensity to check rottentomatoes.com before stepping inside the cinema doors.

Now I should say straight away that The Mortal Instruments is a film firmly rooted in the 'teen flick' genre and so it's not a film I would ever choose to see or ever expect to enjoy. There is a scene in the middle of the movie that climaxes (not literally, it's PG-13 after all) with two characters kissing as sprinklers inexplicably shower them with rain and a gushing pop song explodes into life. It was excruciatingly cliched and to my surprise it was perhaps a step too far for some of the teenage fans beside me as the scene drew many giggles and groans.

As far as plot goes, Lilly Collins plays Clary a young girl who begins to realise she is not like everybody else (a classic teen flick trope). She befriends Jace ( Jamie Campbell Bower) through their unique ability to see things normal human beings cannot. Humans like you and me incidentally, are referred to as 'mundanes' which I for one found a touch offensive. Regardless of that, the film sees Clary and Jace team up with other 'Shadowhunters' to fight off those wretched 'Downworlders.' It's your basic good vs evil story with a rather Grecian drama take on familial relations thrown in for some comic relief.

Like almost every film at the moment, especially this Summer it seems, there are a huge amount of action sequences. The battle royal between the vampires and the shadowhunters was particularly visually impressive and reminded me of playing one of the Call of Duty games on zombie mode.

Overall I was left non plussed by virtually all of the performances with the possible exception of Robert Sheehan who turned in a pleasingly comedic role as Clary's 'mundane' friend Simon. There were also some nice deadpan moments from Jamie Campbell Bower and the dynamic between the 3 leads worked quite well.

The film is another in a long line of fantasy orientated teen dramas. The camera work, CGI and performances were all at the level one would expect from a film with a $60 million budget but overall  'The Mortal Instruments' is exactly what you think it's going to be, sentimental, action filled, and really rather dull.

4/10

Fist Bumps & Flopping.

I wrote the majority of this article in June 2013.
Oh and I know the footnotes are all out of whack, it took me ages to try and sort out and I had to wonder if the 13 people who read this will really care that much. 

I’ve been watching the basketball playoffs lately, or more specifically I’ve been watching the Miami Heat. Even more specifically than that I’ve been watching Lebron James. I have been seduced by the American sports world obsession with Lebron and have given it a very special part of my life. Last year that involved staying up till 4.30 in the morning every couple of days to watch him finally silence his critics, this year its been more of a ‘first thing in the morning’ type of deal. I purchased a package called NBA gametime which lets me watch the games on replay with, and this is the attractive part, the commercial breaks cut out. A huge advantage when you invest as much time as I do in the NBA and NFL. 

There is no rational reason for me to be following the Heat as fervently as I do, none at all. I root for them because I’ve become a huge Lebron James fan, I’m a signed up, certified Lebron Kool-Aid drinker ¹  It’s all Skip Bayless’s fault really. In case you don’t know Bayless, he’s a panellist on ESPN’s show First Take and a full time loud mouth sensationalist. You either love him or hate him and I must admit, I was slightly smitten with Skip in the beginning (mainly due to his crazed defence of Tim Tebow who I have another soft spot for) but during the 2011/12 basketball season he attacked LeBron so relentlessly it just became ridiculous and the more I listened to his rants the more I wanted Lebron and by extension the Heat to win.

They did win of course and Lebron was named finals MVP, it kind of shut Skip up but being sensationalist, hypocritical and incredibly stubborn is basically his shtick so he’s still found time to criticise Lebron even when according to any respected basketball reporter, James has been nothing short of amazing all season long.  Anyway, this post wasn’t originally meant to be about Bayless even though I’m realising I could probably bang out a good 2,000 words about him and his frustrating opinions. No, its main focus is on something else that’s been consuming my thoughts while watching Lebron so closely, that is flopping, fistbumps and (unfortunately I couldn’t come up with another ‘f’ word to complete my alliterative set) basketball players obsession with helping their team mates up from the floor. 

‘Flopping’ in the NBA is what we would refer to as diving in football or more recently the GAA. I don’t know exactly why the Americans chose to go with ‘flopping’ over the perfectly suitable ‘diving’ but then they have a track record with this sort of thing, gasoline, sidewalk, elevator etc. To the ear I prefer the word ‘diving’ but as it’s generally considered quite the ignoble act maybe the more languid ‘flopping’ is appropriate. The definition of flopping is ‘to fall or plump down suddenly,especially with noise’, while diving gets the rather elegant description of ‘to plunge, fall, or descend through the air.’ Upon finding out these definitions there might actually be some practical sense to this. The opportunity to dive in football generally arises when a player is tripped or apprehended while running, hence creating more of a falling or descending motion. Basketball players usually prefer to hit the ground when they take issue with a slightly over zealous body check. This leads to said player falling or plumping¹ suddenly, and ya, generally I’d say they make some noise while doing so. Now, it must be stated that if basketball players had the room afforded to their soccer-playing brethren I firmly believe they would take to the air like Jurgen Klinsmann in his hey day but lets not get side tracked again. There is also the obvious, lets call them ‘unmanly’ connotations to the word so if we are discussing millionaire sports men throwing themselves to the ground in front of thousands of people to gain an advantage, it seems the Americans might have been right to go with the slightly more shameful ‘flopping.’

Flopping in some form exists in almost every sport. These next issues do as well but they seem more common in basketball. They are: 1. NBA players almost refusing to get up from the floor until they have at least one teammate to help them up, and 2. Ritualistic bumping of fists after every free throw. 

I find these actions both fascinating and annoying in equal measure. 

I know it’s all to do with creating and fostering a sense of camaraderie especially with the free throws, but after every single one? Wouldn’t it start to lose any meaning after a while? It’s like someone telling you they love you. It’s fantastic in the right context when the other person just understands that is what you need to hear. However, if something happened every day or even a few times a day where both people knew they had to either give or receive an ‘I love you’ wouldn’t it begin to grate on you, wouldn’t it become a burden?

Most of the time they don’t even care either. They just throw their arms out without acknowledging their fellow man or putting any effort in. It’s not a ‘you just nailed a 3 pointer with 2 seconds left’ type of fist bump, far from it, it’s a ‘I’m just gonna rub your hand because every other basketball player does and it would be weird if I didn’t’ situation. It’s the same when it comes to helping a teammate from the floor, there is an obligation and a very strange obligation at that. These are some of the fittest, strongest men on the planet. They can pick themselves up from the floor, at least a few times. They don’t need help every time, surely. I mean how much energy are you actually saving by having two guys grab your arms and pull you up, you still have to get those quads working and push yourself up. And isn’t any energy you save nullified by the amount of effort the two guys put in sprinting over to you and pulling you up while you petulantly sit waiting to be helped up? I’m looking at you D-Wade.¹ 

This photo is strange on so many levels.

Which brings me on to my final point and the most interesting observation. There is such a clear hierarchy going on in all this. I’ll use the Miami Heat as an example as I have watched them more than any other team throughout the year. Lebron is the alpha dog, therefore he almost never helps people up and is always helped up. He partakes in the fist bumping if he is shooting free throws, less so when he’s watching on. Dwayne Wade comes next. He will steadfastly refuse to get up until his teammates come to help him, sometimes to the detriment of his own team. More enthusiastic on the free throws bumps than Lebron. Chris Bosh and Mario Chalmers come next. They will help if they are in the vicinity and will occasionally pick themselves up from a fall without help. Extremely reliable fist bumpers. Then comes Shane Battier, Mike Miller and Chris Andersen. These guys don’t mess around and are highly aware of how lucky they are to be along for the ride with Lebron. They will accept help if it’s there but have no problem jumping back up and getting on with things, they will always fist bump the free throw shooter and go out of their way to make contact with the four other guys on the court after their own free throw attempts. But most importantly they will never, under any circumstances, let Lebron or Wade take on the mammoth task of lifting themselves off the floor on their own. They complete this task so enthusiastically that it could possibly be written into their contracts. 

I guess this is just a more obvious representation of the hierarchies that exist in every sport. Players know their place within the team and generally act accordingly. In a smaller team sport like basketball this becomes even clearer, especially when there is such an emphasis on ‘star’ power in the NBA. I have never come across a sport that so clearly breaks down the quality of players into specific categories such as; super stars, all-stars, normal stars, all the way down the line until you reach the derogatory term of ‘scrub’.  Shane Battier and co are in no way scrubs but they are far enough away from bona fide superstars like Lebron and D-Wade that when Lebron falls on his ass, someone further down the food chain will be there to pick him up. Every time. Without fail.

Thought of the day: If you have to count 413 letters, make sure you count them correctly. Or you will have to count them again. You have been warned. 

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1 If you don’t get that reference you’re not watching enough American sports in my opinion.

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1 Never had cause to use the word 'plumping' before today

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1 Chances of D-Wade reading this? I'm gonna say 6/1. I'm feeling cocky today

Review: RED 2

I love the beginnings of movies.  I get excited as the camera zooms in on a city skyline, a glistening ocean, a snowy mountain top or even just a character that I may or may not get to know over the next 2 hours.  There is a pleasure in the uncertainty of what will happen. Will the first character on screen be the protagonist, an extra, the protagonists’ significant other? I enjoy the feeling of the unknown and the possibility that what I’m watching might be an instant classic. I enjoyed the beginning of RED 2. And that was pretty much all I enjoyed.

            RED 2 is the sequel to 2010’s surprising hit RED. Bruce Willis is back in his role as former CIA black-ops agent Frank Moses.  The film sees him and his old pal Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) getting into all sorts of dangerous situations in numerous cities while chasing, or being chased by, an increasing amount of bad guys. The plot centres on some sort of nuclear bomb planted by somebody, sometime ago that might or might not go off.  This intentionally vague description is not because I dozed off (although I thought about it), it’s because, what does it matter?

            A film like RED 2 just foregrounds the idea that an interesting or intricate plot line is of nowhere near the importance than say, a car chase through a European city or a bunch of muscle bound men shooting at a handcuffed and weapon less Bruce Willis (you’ll never guess who wins that particular showdown). RED 2 has been done thousands of times before and will be done thousands of times again. It is a contrived, cliché driven film in which 67 year old Helen Mirren can knock out an able bodied Iranian guard with the palm of her hand and Bruce Willis can catch a knife with his hands just before it hits his girlfriends face.

            I can see why they keep making these films. People like huge explosions and frenetic chase sequences. It brings people into movie theatres which is a good thing so I’ll save my rant about so called action movies for another day but why on earth do you cast Catherine Zeta-Jones as a Russian spy when she does not utter one syllable in anything closely resembling a Russian accent throughout the entire movie?

Don’t go to see RED 2 if you like a film to do anything more than give you obvious storylines, stock characters, expensive action sequences and John Malkovich doing a strange pouty thing with his mouth. 

2/10.

Originally published here: http://campus.ie/ents/movies/red-2-review