Success and regret in a post millionaire-maker world

By sgaffney, Last Updated 2 weeks ago

As a young child growing up, one of the hardest things to accept is the idea of something ending. ‘Closure’ is not a phrase a child is very familiar with and so when something comes to an end it usually leads to feelings of sadness and regret. Sadness that something pleasurable has ended and regret that you didn’t enjoy and make the most of opportunities presented to you. Generally these regrets centre around not asking for more presents before Christmas or not staying up late enough during Summer holidays.

As DFS players we too have to deal with closure and weekly daily regrets. The comparison with children works on another level of course as we spend an unhealthy amount of time focusing on something that we know to be fantasy. Children look forward to an event like Christmas from an all-consuming level. For a six-year-old child during December the world will cease to exist after December 25th, and even if it were to continue, there wouldn’t be much point in sticking around.

Which leads us to the post millionaire maker world we now live in. It’s a stark and desolate place, with no hope of winning a million dollars at the weekend. The January blues have come a few weeks early. We are now forced to cut back on luxurious foods and start back up on that exercise regimen as we can no longer blindly and recklessly throw dollar after dollar at a tournament that was the very definition of taking care of the 1% in spite of the 99%.

That’s not a criticism either, it’s not like anyone forced me to chase the millions week after week. Well that’s not true, my greedy alter ego forced me to chase the millions but I’d happily do it all over again and even this weekend if I could. What makes it even worse for me (or better I guess depending on your outlook) is that I had my best result by far finishing 95th overall along with three other teams that finished in paying positions.

This brought me great satisfaction and not only through the obvious source of getting some extra money before Christmas but also because I felt I really bloody earned this one. I had built up a few tickets through basketball qualifiers and I wanted to give it my best shot so I covered every inch of research possible without incurring the daily wrath of my wife. This was, however, not always successful.

I wanted a high finish because it’s hard not to wonder about the futility of it all as you spend countless hours on research, prioritize it over your social life, do everything you feel you can and still finish way out of the money. You need some validation. You need to be able to point to the contests page on Draftkings and say, ‘See, that’s why I do it.’ You also need it if you’re writing a weekly DFS football column and you’ve been having more success at basketball.

So last weekend was a success and it was great to finally have a touch of excitement on a Monday night as I vaulted from somewhere in the 500’s to 95th. Like any good DFS player though, there was that little voice in the back of my head wondering what could have been if it was Martellus Bennett on the end of that garbage time TD and not Alshon Jeffrey or the various other possibilities that would have pushed me even further up the leader board. We are truly never happy unless we finish in first place.

I’ve recently finished in second and joint 3rd in large field GPP’s and much as this brings great joy and delight, I’ve still spent more time dwelling on how close I came to winning or how much more money I would have won, instead of being content with such high finishes. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that If I had entered the same millionaire line-up into the $3.1 main even satellite I would have finished in the top 20 places and secured a ticket worth $1,500 to the world championship this weekend. Ah regrets, I’ve had a few.

Which brings me back to being a child and overcoming the sadness that engulfs you when the Christmas tree comes down and those presents have lost some of their luster. It’s hard to stay positive, especially when you drag yourself out of bed on the first day back at school but you keep going because even though it feels so far away, you know there will be another Christmas. There will be more presents, more stockings, more excited Christmas Eve’s as you ponder on the magic of an overweight man and his reindeers coming down your chimney. More sweets to eat and more toys to play with if you can just be patient. As DFS players though, we don’t need to be so patient because even though we don’t have a million dollars to win this week, there’s still plenty to play for so let’s get to some picks.

Quarterback

Tom Brady – $8,000

I haven’t rostered Brady much this year as he’s consistently fallen just below the top tier QB’s and above the mid range guys. It seems like I’ve always either chosen to pay up or take the bargain pick but I like Brady and his TE (spoiler alert) this week. Brees is another option here but with a classic week 16 mentality, I’m refusing to play him due to previous weeks of disappointment. I just can’t make myself click that big green plus beside his $8,300 price tag. I’m willing to bet if they played these week 16 games 100 times Brady would average out with a higher score but Brees would score maybe the 10 highest scores. I don’t know how we can put this bet into practice but if anyone fancies taking a piece of the action let me know. Dotted around his three 30+ point games Brees has dropped a 13 and a 14 pointer. I think I had exposure to him in both of those weeks. Not doing it this week. You can’t make me. I also expect the Jets to play hard and, not that New England needs an excuse, I think the Pats will end up putting up 40+ points on them with three TD’s for Brady and two for Gronk. Brady hasn’t thrown less than two TD’s since that did-it-really-happen massacre by the Chiefs in Week four and he’s faced a lot stiffer defenses than the porous Jets secondary. Brady might not hit that coveted 4x his salary but he’s almost a guarantee for 3x which I’ll gladly take and move on.

Running Backs

Fred Jackson – $5,500

Another guy I’ve barely rostered this year. Granted Jackson sat out a bunch of games earlier in the season but I will admit to wanting to put my hope in some new guys this week. Jackson is similar to Brady in that he’s been so damn consistent over the last few weeks and now he has a legitimate shot to run up a big score against poor opposition. The Raiders have given up the second most fantasy point to opposing running backs and over the last three weeks Jackson has either had at least 20 rushing attempts or 10 receptions. Meaning that if the Bills get up fast they’re going to look to Jackson to run out the clock and if they go behind, there’s going to be a whole lot of check downs and quick passes to F-Jax. Basically anything that decreases the chances of Kyle Orton screwing everything up for a team that still has an, albeit minuscule, shot at the playoffs.

Tre Mason – $4,600

Tre Mason is my RB antithesis of DeAndre Hopkins. Meaning that I only seem to roster him when he has big games. There has only been one such game I know but still, we’ve had 15 weeks of being burned by players, I’m going to cling on to my 100% record on one player if that’s ok with you. Since his explosion against the Raiders (yayy for Fred Jackson’s opponent this week) Mason has gone up against two stout run defenses in the Cardinals and the Redskins (side note: Washington ranks as the 7th worst run D according to PFF but have also held opposing RB’s to the second fewest fantasy points over the course of nearly a full season, someone needs to explain that one to me) and now he gets a shot at the Giants. His price has dropped by $2,100 on DK over the course of two weeks so I fear the masses might be back on him, plus we have to factor in the seven people that will read this post and the two of them that might actually play Mason because of it. So yeah, he could have a high ownership percentage but that’s worked out pretty well with Mason himself in week 13, Stewart in week 14 and Hill last week so there’s no way he goes for 35 yards on 12 carries with no TD’s right? RIGHT??

Wide Receivers

Marques Colston – $4,600

Yawn. Another guy I haven’t rostered all year. I need new intros to these paragraphs. But it’s true, he’s in the stable of old WR’s I never like to play week to week but his price and usage ever since Brandin Cooks went down are too enticing. Plus you know, the Falcons having a pretty terrible defense is quite nice too. With my active fade on Brees this week and my feeling that Stills will be just that bit too highly owned for his price along with the zero trust I have in Jimmy Graham anymore, Colston was kind of my only choice when it came to wanting to have some exposure to the Saints passing attack. With that being said, if Julio Jones is ruled out again this week I could easily see myself late swapping Harry Douglas into this spot and downgrading at another area.

Vincent Jackson – $5,600

Targets. All of the targets. 17 and 10, that’s the amount of times Josh McCown has thrown the ball to Jackson over the last two games. It’s not an anomaly either, Jackson has been targeted over nine times on ten different occasions this year. I know that’s too (I wanted to use ‘two’ here but it would look like an excruciatingly bad typo) many figures in the last few sentences but suffice to say that Vincent Jackson gets lots of opportunities to score DK points which is what we like, except for you masochists among us. You run along and play Johnny Football again this week. Green Bay should get up early here forcing the Bucs to throw the ball against the Packers pretty poor secondary. I know what you’re saying though, Mike Evans is getting all the red zone targets and he’s not that more expensive so why ‘target’ (boom boom) Jackson? I’ll tell you why. Jackson has actually had more red zone targets than Evans over the course of the year and gets 26.42% of the teams targets in the RZ compared to Evans’ 22.64% Evans had done more with less of course but anytime I can get a talented WR with lots of opportunities to score at a cheap price, I’ll take it.

Torrey Smith – $4,600

Torrey Smith was my ‘picked because I had x amount of salary left over’ selection. Not to say that I don’t like him but generally, if you get picked last for any sporting event it’s an unavoidable blow to your confidence so Torrey, if you’re reading, I’m sorry. Anyway, I love Smith’s price this week and strangely enough he is the third player on this team with a price of $4,600…..I have nothing to add to that, I just felt like pointing it out. He’s been a bit banged up over the last few weeks, like most players, but he looks good to go this weekend and he gets a great matchup against the Texans. They’ve given up the third most fantasy points to opposing WR’s and if Smith is fully healthy, he should easily pay off his salary.

Tight End

Rob Gronkowski – $7,000

Gronk’s price is the lowest it’s been since that crazy pricing of week eight when he was $5,900. He scored a ridiculous 44.9 DK points that week. These two facts have no relevance to each other except to illustrate the fact that Gronkowski has about as high an upside as any other player you can roster this week and if you feel you can get him at any type of discount, you should probably do that. You know the Patriots are going to make a few trips to the Jets end zone, you know that Brady will look for Gronk, you know that Gronk will probably get open and you can almost guarantee he will score a TD. You know you should roster Gronk this week.

Flex

C.J Anderson – $6,900

Do you know what the C.J stands for? Cortrelle Javon. I have never heard this name before. Coming from Ireland, we don’t quite have the wide spectrum of names that you get here in America. If Anderson were Irish he would either be ‘Chris John’ or ‘Charlie James’. You could swap them around a bit, but that would be it. Instead we get ‘Cortrelle Javon’. Fantastic. You know what else is fantastic? (smooth transition alert), Anderson’s possibility of putting up a high score this week. His price has come down to a more reasonable level after he put up a bit of a dud against the Chargers, but with Peyton Manning’s arm losing strength by the minute it looks like the Broncos will again lean on Anderson. The Bengals are weak against the run and yadda yadda Pro Football Focus, etc. etc. Football Outsiders, bla bla bla fantasy points given up, you know the drill. The real reason I wanted Anderson or at least somebody from this game? Monday night hammer. I honestly think I would take an overall lower finish from a team that had at least a shot of winning a GPP than a higher place finish from a team that was done by 4 on Sunday. The only caveat being if that team was in first with a score of 300+ points, but as that’s unlikely I’ll take a RB on the final Monday night football of the year who is getting a ton of usage in what should be a competitive game.

Defense

Lions – $3,100

Toss up between the Seahawks and the Lions for me this week. Patriots are also in play of course but like I said above, I can see the Jets putting up a decent performance and anyway, these two top calibre defenses are going up against two QB’s making their first starts of the year, if they aren’t collectively about 99% owned in cash games this week then we’re doing it wrong.

That’s it. Good luck this week and I hope all you Grinders have a profitable Christmas!

Week 14: I'll Have the Swamp Eel and French Fries Please

I have a very conflicted relationship when it comes to trying new things. On the one hand I love tasting new foods and visiting different places. I’m always interested in going to a new restaurant that’s serving a type of food I’m not familiar with and there isn’t a country in the world I wouldn’t be excited about visiting. I think it’s important to broaden your horizons, to embrace change and diversity and greet new challenges and opportunities with open arms.

On the other hand, I could quite easily eat pasta for five nights in a row and not stray more than a quarter mile from where I live for a good two weeks or so. We’re creatures of habit after all and I derive a huge amount of comfort from things that have served me well in the past. Yes I could try that exotic sounding fish on the menu and I might feel happy that I’ve tasted it but I’m almost positive I’ll enjoy the wings and fries a whole lot more. Life is like a constant game of blackjack, in which you’re perpetually deciding whether to stick or twist. And life, just like blackjack, is mirrored by DFS.

My original opening for this post was going to be themed around trying new things. I was going to share an anecdote to illustrate how stepping outside of your comfort zone is a challenging but ultimately rewarding experience. I could have talked about going on a sky dive in Australia or pushing myself to do auditions during college and how these experiences are almost always worthwhile. This idea came to me as I was looking through the player pool this week and my eyes were drawn to some new names. My thoughts were as follows ‘oh look Jonathan Stewart is $3,800 this week and it looks like DeAngelo Williams is out = maybe I should build a complete team around players I haven’t rostered this year = oh that could lend itself to a nice intro.’ I’m a pretty simple person really.

But then I realized I didn’t really want to enter a tournament with the likes of Nate Washington or Steven Jackson as my shining lights and even more importantly I don’t even believe that it’s a great idea to forget about everything you’ve done in the past and throw yourself head first into a new situation. It’s about picking what works for you at that particular time. We’d all like to build a team that has an overall ownership of under 5.0% like we’d all like to be the first person to visit every country in the world but we’d probably be just as happy to take a day trip to that national park an hour away and be back in time for the six o’clock news……who am I kidding, be back in time to set your DFS line-ups for that night’s sporting event. As for the under 5.0% team, that’s the equivalent of buying something you don’t even want just to impress your friends, you’ll feel so smug and content initially but ultimately you’ll wind up with a stupid pair of pants and a team that finishes behind the one you selected while drunk on a Friday night.

So this intro isn’t all about stripping away what’s happened before and embracing the new world of Jonathan Stewart and Nate Washington. It’s about picking and choosing from both. It’s about ordering that Chinese swamp eel you’ve always thought about trying but hedging your bets with some French fries and ketchup on the side. In honor of this analogy I’m breaking my picks this week into two sections, the swamp eels and the French fries. The swamp eels are players I haven’t rostered all year and the French fries are players I’ve grown accustomed to picking almost every week.

The Swamp Eels

Quarterback – Andy Dalton $6,000

Didn’t see this one coming did you? There’s not much in the way of supporting evidence to help back up this pick, in fact there’s quite a lot of data that should make you steer clear of Dalton. He’s thrown 13 interceptions and 13 touchdown’s so far this year, he’s been pretty terrible at home including that atrocity against the Browns and he’s only averaging 15.6 Draftkings points, a far cry from the 24 we’d be looking for with his salary this week. Honestly my No.1 QB this week (with salary accounted for) is Russell Wilson. I fancied him from my first look at the prices but he’s also the QB that everyone else seemed to like early in the week as well. I just have a feeling he’s going to be the highest owned quarterback what with the extra possessions he’ll get playing against Philly and that’s never something you want for a large field tournament.

But back to Dalton. This pick is based on two things. No.1 – The chances of a ‘Ryan Fitzpatrick’ game. What I mean is that I heard people like Adam Levitan touting Fitzpatrick as a good bet for a 300 yard, 2 TD game last week, and what did he do? 358 yards and 6 TD’s. I’m not saying Dalton is going to replicate that but he’s a similar sort of play to me this week. He should get 250+ yards and 2 TD’s but he has a legitimate shot of getting a lot more. No.2 – Opposing QB’s can rack up points against the Steelers. 19.08, 31.6, 22.32, 17.18 17.52, 30.28. That’s the amount of DK points opposing QB’s have scored against the Steelers over the last six games, and that’s including the likes of Michael Vick, Zach Mettenberger and our boy Fitzpatrick. That’s an average of 22.99. They have the 8th worst pass coverage unit according to PFF, giving up the fifth highest amount of fantasy points to opposing WR’s. I see this playing out a lot like the Carolina game earlier in the year with a lot of points scored on both sides. I think Dalton is a solid bet to score 20+ points this week.

Running Back – Eddie Lacy $7,800

This one had to be approved by the swamp eels’ committee as I have technically rostered Lacy before but only in tilting afternoon or primetime games where my week long researched teams have turned into full blown dumpster fires. The reason I don’t generally play Lacy is that I don’t think he’s very good. He’s doesn’t have that gliding style of Foster or amazing lateral movement of Bell but what he does have is Aaron Rodgers. The brilliance of the Packers passing game opens up so much room for Lacy to plough into like an overloaded but damn efficient dump truck. I want some exposure to this game due to it being the highest o/u of the week and the fact that the Packers offense is unstoppable at home. I think the majority of people will pay up for Bell or Foster or take Anderson or Jennings who are priced similarly to Lacy. Just like Wilson and the QB position, I think Jennings is the pretty clear pick this week if he’s healthy but I don’t trust him and his injuries or the Giants coaching staff. Even if he’s good to go, I think Andre Williams might get more carries than people expect. There are a lot of options in the Green Bay offense but Lacy always seems to get his as they end up in the red zone so frequently and if they get ahead fast he should see plenty of work.

Jonathan Stewart – $3,800

If Lacy is the pivot away from the more obvious choice of Jennings in the higher range of RB’s, than this is the obvious lower priced RB of the week. It seems that DK pricing has generally tightened up recently, outside of the Tre Mason situation last week, so you’re really having to find some cheap options if you want to spend big at any other position. It’s looking like DeAngelo Williams will definitely miss the Saints game at the weekend leaving Stewart as the lead back in the Carolina backfield. This is a positive when it comes to that much sought after situation, opportunity, but Stewart has also been by far the better running back. He’s averaged a decent 4.3 yards on 96 carries this year but he looked great in his last game where he averaged 7.1 yards per carry against a decent Vikings run defense (8th ranked per PFF). I would have considered Stewart as a sneaky play this week even if Williams wasn’t banged up, now that he’s definitely out, I’m going to have a whole lot of J-Stew (do people call him that?) in both cash and tournaments this week.

Defense – Chiefs $2,900

Skipping straight to D/ST as every one else falls into another category. Defense turned out to be a pretty important pick last week. If you didn’t have the Rams or at least the Vikings it was virtually impossible to finish with a decent payday. There’s a whole lot of expensive defenses this week and usually I’d jump all over a matchup like JJ Watt against the Jags but I’d rather spend my money somewhere else. There’s no way you can predict scoring like the Rams put up last week and it’s even harder to predict pick sixes which is what you really need for a decent D/ST score. I think the Chiefs against Drew Stanton have as good a shot as anybody for grabbing a few interceptions in what is projected to be a pretty low scoring game.

The French Fries

Wide Receiver – Josh Gordon $8,100

Ok so obviously I haven’t been playing Gordon all year but I’ve had him in my team every week since he’s been back and I held on to him all year on my regular fantasy team so he feels as familiar as a crispy, greasy French fry. He’s also another pick that’s dependent on an injury and now that Vontae Davis has officially been ruled out I’m probably going to have Gordon in every line-up this week. He’s going to be highly owned but like we saw with Mason last week sometimes you don’t need to over think these things. He’s had 29 targets over the past two weeks, he’s the No.1 option in this offense, Davis (15.9 CB rating per PFF) will be replaced by a combination of Greg Toller (-7.7), Darius Butler (-3.6) & Josh Gordy (-2.0) and it’s Andrew Luck on the other side of the field so they’re going to have to air it out if they have any hope of staying in the game. Gordon could well end up as the highest scoring WR of the week.

DeAndre Hopkins $6,600

Hopkins is slowly turning into my muse at this stage as he’s been heavily featured in my last two posts. In fact he’s easily my most consistent play on this team as I’ve considered or played him almost every week this year. There was never any doubting his talent and he finally broke out against the Titans. Luckily for us his price tag hasn’t come up a huge amount and much as I hate rostering players after a big week I’m making an exception here. I have a checkered past when it comes to playing him of course but he’s obviously in form and the matchup is there. The Jags have been better defensively over the last few weeks but they’re still the 4th worst ranked pass coverage unit (PFF) and they give up on average 24 fantasy points to opposing WR’s. That’s without factoring in the 100+ yards bonus on DK. Hopkins has had 9,9 and 8 targets over the last three week so it’s not like last week was a freak occurrence, he’s going to get plenty of opportunities again this week and I think he’ll make the most of them.

Tight End – Jordan Reed $4,600

Another questionable selection for the French fries section because of Reed’s injuries this year but I’ve used him as a cheaper alternative to Gronk and Graham nearly every week he’s been available. Although Colt McCoy threw for 392 yards last week he just loves to check the ball down and specifically he loves checking it down to Reed. Reed had 9 catches on 11 targets last week after accumulating 7 catches in McCoy’s last start. He’s probably going to be the chalk play at this position due to Gronk’s ever increasing salary and Graham’s mysterious donut last week but at this price he’s hard to resist.

The ‘Swamp Fries’

Wide Receivers – Jarvis Landry $5,600 & Charles Johnson $4,300

I’m breaking my own rules here and slightly contradicting the whole premise of this post but in a way it’s perfect because these two really do straddle both sides of the two categories. I had never even considered either of them until about three weeks ago but I’ve played them almost every week since. Johnson also encapsulates the classic problem of playing DFS. You go all in on a player one week, he lets you down and then you’re left with that classic fantasy football conundrum. Stick with him because it’s too small a sample size and get him at a smaller ownership percentage or realize that you made a mistake and move on to someone else. I’m going with the former here. I didn’t see the Vikings Panthers game but it seemed like an odd game from the box score. The Vikings got up fast and then….nothing much else seemed to happen. They barely showed any of it on Red Zone. The good news is that Johnson has been confirmed as the starter again this week so I’m looking for a bounce back game against a, we say it every week, suspect Jets secondary! He’s also gone up by $300 which I like as less people will be inclined to roster him again.

Landry isn’t your classic tournament play as he gets the majority of his catches around the line of scrimmage. Wallace would probably be the more obvious play here but whatever is going on between Tannehill and Wallace, they don’t seem to be on the same page. I’m not too worried about the fact that Landry won’t get me the big play because on a full PPRsite like DK a WR can quickly reach value by catching a lot of 8 yard slant routes. Landry hasn’t gone below five receptions in his last five games and although big play ability is important when it comes to a high finish in a large field GPP, possession receivers can play their part as well. One last fact, the winning line up for the millionaire maker last week had Robert Woods in the flex spot. He caught 4 passes for 71 yards giving him a total of 11.1 DK points. I think Landry can easily outdo that and be a nice reliable piece in a high scoring line-up.

And now I have to go because this guy has been patiently waiting for me to bring him for a walk for the last hour!

Good luck to everyone this weekend!

Four Questions To Help Explain A Crazy Week 13

As the late hours of Wednesday night slowly transformed into the early hours of Thanksgiving morning I realized a situation I had envisaged many times before was now unfolding in front of me. It was as exciting and exhilarating as I imagined it would be and there was a large degree of fear and trepidation, again, just how I imagined. It had slowly crept up on me and I had no idea anything was happening as I went through the normal procedures of a Wednesday night. But then after dinner as I lounged on the couch I knew something was up. I had tried to ignore it and concentrate on something else but I was hopelessly failing. So I decided to stop kidding myself and embrace the situation wholeheartedly with ‘clear eyes and a full heart.’

The situation was my DFS team soaring up the ranks in a large field GPP. A 26,161 team GPP to be exact. I couldn’t quite use the complete Friday Night Lights mantra because, and this goes against the ethos of any good school sports day, technically I did lose. I came in second. It was still by far my highest DFS pay day and a thrilling experience. I love watching sports and playing normal fantasy football but let’s not mess around, this is the reason we all play DFS. There is nothing exciting about cashing in a $5 50/50. We play week in week out to take down a large field GPP. Well I’m here to tell you that it also feels good to come second. Another reason why Coach Taylor wouldn’t appreciate me using Dillon High School’s slogan is that this was a basketball GPP.

This blog is ostensibly about football and specifically fantasy football so I won’t go into any more detail except to say that the extra bump to my bankroll has of course been graciously received but it has also added a degree of pressure. I spend hours every week reading, researching and writing about daily fantasy FOOTBALL, not basketball. I love football and although I wouldn’t consider myself an expert I also feel as if I could hold my own in a conversation about football with most people. I do not feel like that about basketball. I am very much learning about basketball and it’s fantasy version. I need to validate this blog by winning big on a footballGPP. But before we do that, let’s look at why it won’t be happening this week under four distinct categories.

DeAndre Hopkins And The Question Of Personal Bias

Ah DeAndre. You might have heard a bit about DeAndre yesterday. He had a career day going 9-238 with two touchdowns. You might also remember me writing about him last week, even bestowing him with a place in the headline. If you didn’t read it and can’t be bothered to take a trip down memory lane, I subbed Anquan Boldin out of my main cash game line-up last week for DeAndre Hopkins. It cost me a lot of money and my sanity for most of Sunday afternoon. Fast forward to this week when I didn’t even consider rostering Hopkins. I just couldn’t. Just like last week, this was a mistake.

We’re just about done with week 13 as I write this on Monday morning. That’s a lot of line-ups built, tournaments entered, roster spots antagonized over and players that have let you down. It’s hard, almost impossible, to avoid picking a team without letting personal bias influence you. For one, it makes sense. If you started the year playing the likes of RG3, Doug Martin and Cordarelle Patterson but then quickly realized the error in your ways and vowed not to play them again, that was the correct choice. Your personal bias against these players has served you well.

Secondly, and more importantly, you only have eight spots (excluding defense) to fill every week, you need a reason to move on from a player. And I don’t mean just ignoring a player who has a juicy matchup. I mean players who cannot in your mind be separated in terms of opportunity to score points. The guy who has burned you repeatedly is not making that team. Knowing what I know now, I still don’t think I would have played Hopkins yesterday. Foster was back, Tennessee run D is awful, Fitzmagic, all those things were red flags outside of my history with him. But I can’t say I didn’t consider him. He was around that sneaky 5k range, the range where you can easily fit a player in and more crucially, the range that you’re usually left looking at when filling that crucial flex spot. Hopkins wasn’t an obvious miss, but God he was a pretty painful one. Next week I vow not to do the same with Charles Johnson who burned me this week, speaking of Johnson….

Charles Johnson And The Question Of Player Infatuation

I don’t know when exactly it happened but at some stage during last week I became infatuated with Charles Johnson, his matchup and his price this week. I ended up building 15 different line-ups, based around a core group of players I was targeting and specific tournament and cash game players. I used a lot of the same players but no one was more present than Johnson. He was on 9 of those 15 teams. I wasn’t alone, he was 11.9% owned in the millionaire maker, making him the 6th most popular WR of the week.

I guess it made sense given the amount of targets he had been getting, his raw size and speed and the fact that he was only 4k. But it’s the opposite of the Hopkins situation. You become so set on one player, especially when they are cheap, and insert them into almost every line up. The painful part of this for me was that my pivot away from Johnson was generally Kenny Stills, unfortunately he only managed to crack a handful of my line-ups. It’s a question we wrestle with every week, if you really believe in a player do you a) stick to your guns and ignore the huge level of variance we know exists in player performance (and the possibility of injury) or do you b) leave out a player who you’re really high on in an effort to diversify your line-ups. Failing to diversify with Johnson hurt me this week, on the other hand, sticking to my guns with Tre Mason worked out quite nicely. Speaking of Mason….

Tre Mason And The Question Of A Complete Line-Up

I’m pretty sure at about 1.24pm yesterday every one of the few thousand people who had an entry into the millionaire maker thought they were going to win it. I certainly allowed myself to dream for a moment or two. Tre Mason was running all over The Raiders (side note, is there anything better than watching an RB you own gallop about ninety yards for a TD, every time I see that I imagine the points pilling up like numbers on a slot machine) and touchdowns were coming in from all angles. I quickly realized it wouldn’t be me because although I had a lot of the players putting up big points, I didn’t quite find room for them on the one roster.

Glaringly obvious statement coming up here but, my god it’s hard to pick the perfect team. The majority of my Sundays are spent obsessing over the players I’ve missed rather than the ones I’ve selected, when you look at the list of available players this is almost inevitable, but yesterday it felt like I had a lot of high performing players. The problem (brilliance?) withDFS sports is that you need all of them. The only dead wood you can hold on a winning roster is one player who maybe scores in the 6-10 point range, depending on their price. You need an 8 man Red Zone highlight reel. I had a team with Fitzpatrick, Mason, Allen and Anderson that will probably end up has my highest scoring team and yup you guessed it, it’s a cash game team. I say probably as it still has the Dolphins D and Jarvis Landry yet to go, speaking of the Dolphins….

Ryan Tannehill And The Question Of Who To Root For

From early in the week I had been targeting Tannehill and the Dolphins D as my main QB and defense plays of the week. I loved Tannehill’s matchup against the suspect Jets secondary, the whiff of tanking from the Jets in general, Tannehill’s form coming into the game and the turnstile of Smith/Vick at QB. In the end I basically split between Luck and Tannehill as my main QB’s for both cash and GPP’s. Obviously the Luck play worked out but throughout Sunday I had an eye on Monday night thinking I could maybe add 30-40 points to some of my line-ups. It’s not all riding on Tannehill and the defense either, I have a bit of Wallace here, a bit of Landry there, even a cheeky smattering of Dion Sims. All in on the Dolphins tonight then, right?

Wrong. Although my highest scoring team is that cash game line-up mentioned above, my most profitable team (so far) was a team I stuck in an afternoon $2 tournament featuring the likes of Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Harry Douglas and C.J Anderson. I’m currently fourth out of 5750 teams and in line for a tidy little payday. The only problem here is that there are precisely zero Dolphins players on this team. There’s also no Jets, what do you think I am, some sort of masochist? Barring an apocalyptic intervention I’m dropping down the standings as there are a bunch of teams with players going tonight behind me. Most of them probably have the Dolphins D and Tannehill. Much and all as I need them to score for the teams I have them rostered on, it will almost certainly end up costing me more money in the long run. That is of course unless Tannehill goes all Fiztpatrick on us and the Dolphins turn into the 2014 Rams. Then I might switch my allegiance again. I won’t know whether to laugh or cry, as both teams fail to score or actually score. It’s confusing, unsettling, worrying and also quite exciting. Just the way we like it then.

Thanks for reading, good luck to any of you sweating on some big bucks tonight and go Dolphins!……or not.

Week 12: When You Should Always Take An Anquan Over A DeAndre

It was late Sunday morning, around the 12 o’clock mark. Things had been going pretty nicely all morning and I was just about ready to do some last minute tinkering on Draftkings and maybe even build a few new teams. I’d had a fun evening at the casino the night before where for the first time in my life I broke exactly even at the poker table and I mean exactly like down to the dollar. I’d even had the foresight to go relatively easy on the booze so that my Sunday morning wouldn’t be blighted by the aching pain and uneasiness that comes with a hangover. I’d had a nice breakfast, my pears were just that perfect level of ripeness, my coffee was brewed perfectly and it was shaping up to be a pretty nice day. If you read my post last week you’d know I was back to my normal level of research so that last minute panic of ‘sh*t, how did I not know Keenan Allen was flying under the radar this week, I’ll have to put him in all my line-ups’ was nowhere on the horizon. All was right with the world.

Then it happened. Then I did a thing I should never have done. A thing that will haunt me until my dying day. I swapped Anquan Boldin for DeAndre Hopkins in my main cash game (and some GPP’s and some qualifiers) line up. Ok I’m engaging in some extreme hyperbole here but if ever there was a place to describe making a fantasy football error in such elaborate terms it’s a rotogrinders blog right? In case you missed it, Boldin had a pretty huge game on Sunday racking up an easy season high of 31.7 points while Hopkins suffered along with Ryan Mallett’s pectoral muscle, posting his second lowest point total of the year in 8.9 points.

It was a catastrophic error and it turned a line up that would have cashed in all cash games and maybe picked up a low payout in some GPP’s into a losing one. I felt so good about this line up on Sunday morning, and even though it didn’t live up to my lofty expectations, due to Andrew Luck some how posting his lowest DK point total of the year at home against the Jags and Robert Woods and Kyle Orton stealing all of Sammy Watkins points, that 22.8 swing was still pretty crucial. Is there anything worse than seeing the player you late swapped out of your team go off after the player you replaced him with does nothing? That’s not a rhetorical question. There is nothing worse. Not even Ebola.

It’s been quite a season for my late swaps in fact. Check out this doozy I pulled off earlier in the year. Remember that day when Emmanuel Sanders went crazy and caught three TD’s for 120 yards? Yeah I, at the last minute, swapped him out on my regular FF team for Joique effing Bell. I think that’s his official name now. For those of you keeping score at home Bell rushed for 39 yards and caught a few passes for 22 receiving yards against the Falcons in London. Yeah I know, that seems idiotic now but look, Bell was ranked ahead of Sanders that week on fantasypros so just shut up ok. It was the right decision to make. Well ‘right’ in everything except for actual results.

The Hopkins for Boldin was not the correct choice. It came down to a few factors really. I haven’t rostered Boldin at all this year and although that obviously shouldn’t make a difference, it does. We all know it does. If you roster a player and he leads you to a winning week you are naturally predisposed to him for the next few weeks. The opposite is also true, I’m looking at you Julio Jones. So Anquan and I didn’t really have a relationship outside of me putting him in the bracket of ‘old man receivers’ with Steve Smith Sr and Roddy White and refusing to play him. Reason No. 7684 why I’m not a professional DFS player. So I got a bit jittery when I thought about Kaepernick’s penchant for spreading the ball around to multiple receivers and the 49ers in general. I’m a paid up member of the 2014 Frank Gore fantasy football support group and I’ve also been burned by Kaep himself a few weeks. And then alsmizzle went and said he really liked Hopkins this week or something and that was it. The dye was cast.

Boldin went off, Hopkins went nowhere and I was left with a losing week. In fact my highest scoring team was one I built early in the week when I saw someone on twitter mention that you could fit AJ Green and Josh Gordon along with another top WR on the same team. Not one to shirk a challenge I went and built that team and it finished with a decent point total of 181.12. I didn’t think too much about it and it was easily my best team. To compound my depressing weekend the team I select first thing on Tuesday morning outscored my ‘researched’ team mainly due to Allen Hurns doing sweet f all against the Colts and Josh Gordon doing Josh Gordon things in Atlanta. The ‘gut’ team won 139.44 to 123.64 for its first victory of the year. So this week I shall be sticking with my first instincts, I will not be making any late swaps and I will certainly not be rostering any WR’s with average to poor QB’s. Except for Josh Gordon. I’ll be rostering Josh Gordon.

And with that, it’s on to this week’s ‘first look gut team’.

Quarterback

Eli Manning $7,000

After last week’s misstep against the Jags, Luck doesn’t seem like the lock for 25+ points he once was so I can’t play him here even with a pretty sweet match up against Washington. I was tempted by Brady what with the slight discount compared to the big three but I’m not pinning my hopes on any QB going into Lambeau in late November. Further down the scale I threw some admiring glances Ryan Tannehill’s way and even considered Rivers and Matt Ryan at pretty tempting price points but I’ll go with the human turn over machine that is Eli Manning. Yes I know the Dallas secondary is pretty poor and the Jags defense kept their putrid offense in the game on Sunday but…..

No one can guard this guy. The Giants D has also been terrible this year and Bortles is bound to put up at least SOME points at home so I don’t see this as a blowout. In fact it might be quite close and Eli will need to throw it around a bit. Granted Eli has been up and down but at this price he certainly has a shot at returning 4x his salary more than say Luck as at his.

Running Backs

Arian Foster $8,800

Here’s hoping Foster goes through the week with a questionable tag because it looks like Fitzpatrick will be back and the Texans are up against the awful Tennessee run D, all of which points to Foster having a huge game with relatively low ownership. Everyone’s going to be on Bell and for good reason as he also has a great matchup and is $100 cheaper (I’m actively exploring the possibility of playing both of them in the same team) but I love Foster and his questionable tag this week. I mentioned it before but the first millionaire maker was taken down by a line up that included Foster coming off an injury so I’ll be playing a lot of the Houston RB in this matchup.

Tre Mason $4,600

When I’m building this early week team I like to take a look at the high priced RB’s first. If I fancy any of them I like to pair them with a cheaper option. I might change it afterwards but it at least gives me some salary relief when I’m looking at the WR’s. Mason was pretty much the only cheap RB that stood out to me on first look. McKinnon could be in line for a big game against Carolina but I just can’t trust that he’ll get the majority of the carries or even more crucially that he’ll get the goal line work. Oakland are bad against the run, Mason looks like he’s the No.1 in St Louis now and with RB’s it’s all about volume and opportunity. Mason gets plenty of carries, he just hasn’t had a huge week yet which is great because that means he’s still pretty cheap.

Wide Receivers

Odell Beckham Jr. $6,800

Just going to leave this here again.

In all seriousness I usually hate paying up for a player who has a monster game on prime time and even though Beckham seems like the real deal I didn’t plan to roster him in this team. It just happened that way. And what I mean by that is I plugged in a few players changed some others and I was left with $6,900 to spend. My rule for this team is to not take too long agonizing over players so I basically picked Beckham over Kelvin Benjamin and to a lesser extent Julian Edelman. I said what needed to be said in the Eli blurb except for the fact that clearly there is no longer any question over who is the No.1 WR in this offense anymore. Beckham is light years ahead of Randle, expect at least 10 receptions this week.

Martavis Bryant $4,700

I rostered Bryant in a line-up on his debut against Houston. He scored a TD and had a decent enough game for someone at the minimum salary. I haven’t played him since as his price has been massively inflated (except his second game against the Colts where he racked up 25.3 points again at min salary, missed that one) but he’s back down at a more reasonable price point this week. He continued to put up big numbers until his 2-11 game against the Titans. I picked this team right as DK released their pricing on Monday but I’m writing this on Tuesday so yeah, those Saints CB’s are not good. Both Torrey and Steve Smith both had nice days so it’s looking like Bryant might find his way in to a lot of my line-ups this week.

Jarvis Landry $5,400

Have the Jets quit? Are they tanking for the No.1 pick? It sure looks like it. They were atrocious against the Bills and all Miami skills players have to be up for consideration this week, except maybe Lamar Millar. My boy DeAndre was right around this price point along with the rest of the mid table mediocrity such as Vincent Jackson, Mohamed Sanu and Torrey Smith but I went with the shiny new toy in Landry here. It’s always fun to target the Jets secondary and at this point of the season motivation starts to become a factor. Miami will absolutely be motivated to win. The Jets not so much. I like that.

Tight End

Charles Clay $3,400

I might be the worst person in the world when it comes to selecting Tight Ends. I drafted Zach Ertz and Jordan Cameron in my fantasy team this year and my T.E scoring over 12 weeks of the season is as follows: 4.7, 8.6, 1.4, 2.3, 0.0 (Thank you Larry Donnell), 0.6 (still Larry), 0.5, 4.0, 1.7, 1.9, 1.7 and 2.8. I mean that’s some astoundingly bad scoring. I’m even a little shocked when I see them laid out like that. With that being said, this is no time to doubt myself so I’m ALL IN ON CHARLES CLAY. I’m not really. I’m basically just deciding to pay low this week. Outside of Graham and Gronk any other player could get you a big fat doughnut on any given week. Gronk has served me well and Graham put up a nice line this week but I think I’m just fading the Pats in general and targeting the Jets. They’re poor against opposing tight ends and Clay is always good for a decent amount of targets. He may not put up a huge score but at least he’s not expensive.

Flex

Roddy White $6,400

Sometimes it’s ok to realize you’re more than likely not going to take down that large GPP you target every week. Sometimes it’s fine to think, ‘you know what, if can get back around quadruple my entry fee, I’m ok with that.’ Let me introduce you to Roddy White’s stat line over the last five weeks, 9-100-1, 5-66, 6-72-1, 8-75-1, 9-96. Yes people will say, ‘cash game only, blah blah blah’, but like I said, sometimes low upside is better than somebody who might go for 5-157-1 just as easily as they go 1-9. Yes those are DeSean Jackson’s stats thanks for asking. Roddy probably won’t win you a sh*t ton of money but he’s getting a bunch of targets every week and he’s still lower in price than Julio so he might get you a large UPS package size of money.

Defense

Giants $2,800

Cheap, playing the Jags. Slam-dunk.

Honestly I don’t think this team is very good right now and it should hopefully get a bit of an upgrade later in the week but then I swapped out Anquan Boldin for DeAndre Hopkins, so what do I know.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out my researched team later in the week!

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.