Another Bad Call

After 3 straight losing weeks that could have been winners when it boiled down to my final decision of the week went bad I really dug in and got back to the basics. I had not been prioritizing the running back position in my cash lineups and was determined to correct that. With pricing tight it was going to be difficult to fit three high priced RB’s in the lineup without finding value. I had decided pretty early to lock in James Conner as the anchor of lineup because Atlanta has been convulsing points to opposing RB’s and this was just good to pass up. I really liked Christian McCaffrey and his passing game usage so I pinned him as my second RB. TJ Yeldon was some nice value that I had been considering but when Green Bay was down two WR’s (Cobb and Allison out), it became vital to lock in on Valdes-Scantling at $3300 in a starting role playing in a game with a 50 point expected total. Getting that value allowed me to get a third high-volume, high-priced RB in Gordon who has been consistently good this year and had a nice matchup against the Raiders.

The rest of plays kind of fell in place based on available money left to spend and what the models on FantasyLabs were showing. Marvin Jones was popping as a top value at WR and I wanted to have another piece of the ATL-PIT game so Vance McDonald was enticing. I should have considered Austin Hooper more but I let recency bias keep me off of him after he had disappointed the week before. Matthew Staffod made sense at QB as he looked to have a safe floor playing in a game that had a high total and being at home. He could have had a much better day if not for 2 goal line TD rushes from Blount. The Lions defense really started making sense to me with Aaron Rodgers being limited by having to use so many rookie WR’s and Davante Adams being banged up even though he ended up playing. Cooper Kupp was the WR who fit as the last piece and I really like his floor as Jared Goff has a nice chemistry going with him. He would have likely gotten the 100 yard bonus if he hadn’t been concussed.

This week got back on track as I booked a small win. Took down 22 out of 30 H2H’s and cashed the one double up I played. Had zero success in tournaments this week which is what limited the total upside. Need to consider throwing the cash lineup in a tournament or two each week. Got the needle pointing in the right direction now so I’m excited for week 6.

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It can be easy to get frustrated playing a game that for all intents and purposes only has 17 opportunities in a year and having to wait a full week to redeem yourself when you’ve missed the mark. After week 3 I was chomping at the bit and glad to be able to get back to my normal routine in regards to research and lineup building.

• Opportunity and matchups locked me onto Gio Bernard against the Falcons D that funnels to pass catching backs and Sterling Shephard who got the dream matchup against a Saints D that has been throwing up points to #2 WR’s this year.
• I was also fairly locked into Mel Gordon going against a SF team that isn’t good against the run and in a bit of turmoil with the loss of their QB.
• I liked Sony Michel with Rex Burkhead going to IR which gives him a clear path to the lead back role in New England.
• With Allen Robinson facing a bad Tampa secondary and his 25.6% target share I felt he had a safe floor.
• There were not any TE’s that I loved this week so I decided to punt at that position which turned out to be a mistake.

The crux of this week for me turned out to be the QB/WR decision where I was stuck between Andy Dalton & Michael Thomas or Deshaun Watson and Julio Jones. My initial look of the week really liked the games for CIN/ATL and NO/NYG better than the HOU/IND game. Some recency bias of getting burned by Julio last week is what ultimately got me off that direction. I don’t feel terrible about my lineup as whole. Thomas just had a clunker. This week had a lot of high scoring, almost like week 1 so 170.08 didn’t stack up well enough.

I’m thinking that I need to weigh my $ spend on the premium priced players towards the RB’s in cash as I should have been on Kamara. The week resulted in only a 22% win rate in cash which makes 3 bad weeks in a row. Had I gone the other way at QB/WR it would have been a positive return. What this tells me is that I am on the right path and will be piecing things together the right way more often than not. As of Sunday evening I was feeling a bit tilted but this is why we manage our bankroll and don’t get too high or low as we could just as easily run of 3 winning weeks in a row when we know our research is good, or hit a jackpot in a GPP with a lineup that goes nuts.

Speaking of GPP’s, if you listened to the podcast last week you heard me tout Mitchell Trubisky as a candidate for a breakout game based on some of the deeper research I did looking at passing zones both from the player side and the defensive side. Now, I couldn’t have known he would go off the way he did, but we are playing for outcomes in a range and he lined up to be a good tournament play. I did play a couple of Trubisky lineups this week but unfortunately 1 piece of 9 doesn’t solve the puzzle and I missed some of the other homeruns this week. Next time I uncover a play like this that I know will be super low owned I will make more lineups to give myself a chance at putting it all together. Looking forward to week 5 as the tighter pricing and data gets the more our research will give us an edge.

Week 1 of the NFL season always brings a lot questions and surprises. You have a lot of time think, overthink, and confuse yourself before the games start. Boy did week 1 deliver on some big fantasy outputs. The plan here is for me to post about my process each week and how I ended up on my cash lineup as well as a quick review on my success/fail rate. This process is as much for me to reflect on what I did as it is for you to get an insight into one players process. I play on DraftKings under the username Bigjw520.

I spend each week listening to podcasts, reviewing stats, following Twitter accounts to get latest news, and reviewing games to try and find what I think will be positive opportunities. As I looked at the week I had come to fall in love with a few receivers. I knew for sure that I wanted to play Sanders due to his increased slot role and new QB Keenum who had a big year in 2017 throwing the Thielen. The other guy that I was locked in on was Allen. He has a huge role for the Chargers and the matchup against the Chiefs looked juicy.

I also really liked Thomas and Kamara on a Saints team that seemed to have an walk of a matchup against what was supposed to be a weak Bucs defense. Then there was Gronkowski. I knew there was going to be no week this year where his price was cheaper and the targets are going to be really concentrated in New England this year.

Knowing I had so many options but that I wasn’t going to be able to play all the high priced guys I had some decisions to make. Originally I had settled on a lineup with Dalton, Collins, White, Goodwin, Sanders, Thomas, Gronkowski, Allen, WAS D. After mulling that over I decided for cash I needed a better floor at RB so I had to come down to Doyle at TE in order to get Kamara in the lineup. This turned out to be the right decision.

The biggest mistake I made this week was to fade the usage and cheap price of Conner in PIT in favor of Cole in an offense that just doesn’t throw enough. Going forward I need to look at prioritizing value at the RB position when there is guaranteed volume.

Results: Won 71% of cash entries. Only mistake was entering a large field double up that was not single entry. Ended up missing the cash by 1 pt with very solid lineup because it was filled with a lot of sharks who had entered trains (i.e. max entries of the same lineup). Need to watch the game selection but if I continue at this win rate it will be a very successful season and allow me to keep taking shots in the large field GPP’s. Overall netted a 92% profit on the week.

I did have a nice tournament lineup in the Milly Maker with a SD/KC game stack.