Another Bad Call

A little late this week but I wanted to get a quick recap of my week 6 play none the less. Vacation kept me from a review of week 5 (I know, poor me) but I played a lighter than normal schedule as I was out of town yet still managed to screw myself by making a late swap to Geronimo Alison from Courtland Sutton which cost me a positive return.

Week 6 proved to be a tough one for me to crack. I played my normal allocation of cash with just a few GPP lineups. I did not have my normal week of research and review and had some troubles settling in on a cash lineup. I’ve known for 3 weeks that I would likely be playing Hooper against ARI and Matt Ryan’s price was right from a cash game QB standpoint. The other guy that I locked in early in my process was Chris Carson. Those 3 plays turned out exactly how I would have wanted so no complaints there.

When it became apparent that Todd Gurley wasn’t going to play I just thought Brown would be hard to fade in cash. I didn’t spend enough time researching his usual role, nor did I weight the matchup enough. The other big miss-step was DJ Chark. He’s been very good this year but I should’ve weighted his match against Marcus Lattimore a little more.

I felt fine playing Jets D at a super low price as it allowed me to fit other high price guys in. Thielen was very attractive going against a hapless Eagles secondary. He just didn’t get as much love as we would have liked since Diggs went crazy. I also feel good about the Hopkins play with his price and situation even though the result wasn’t there. This was the first week I’ve had a lineup nearly tanked by the bad luck of an injury. I loved Cooper and was really bummed too see him go out in the 1st quarter of his game.

So, I wasn’t comfortable with this at lock and was forced to sweat it down to the last seconds of the last game but did manage to finish in the black. The lineup scored at about the 40% which was just good enough to cash in all 3 double ups and won 20 of 30 H2H’s. Ready to grind it out for week 7 and hope to find some GPP success as well!

By JD West       Oct. 11, 2019

Week 5 was something else in the DFS world. Hopefully you all had great weeks. Let’s go ahead and take a look at the players we talked about in last week’s column. We were looking for players whose TPG (touches per game) was greater than the number of touches they would need to reach 3x value (TNF 3x).

Of the 12 players, 7 had more touches than their TNF 3x. 5 of those 7 had an ROI of 3x +. Those are pretty good odds. For context purposes, please remember that this doesn’t take into account the defense or anything else.  Below you’ll see how the whole slate looked.

As you can see there was a decent number of players who outperformed last week which accounts for so many high scoring lineups. Now let’s move on to week 6. As a reminder here’s the criteria. A player must average more TPG than their TNF 3x Value and their 3x ROI must be greater than the value in this next table.  These totals should be a decent cash game lineup.

Here’s the breakdown by position for the main slate.

Some of the players on the list have difficult matchups this week so it will be interesting to see how they fair. It should be a good test of this little experiment. As mentioned in this week’s podcast I love Kupp and Hooper this week. Of course the expectations for Mahomes and Watson are pretty big this week too. I’m looking forward to a great day of football on Sunday. As always feel free to reach out if you have any questions.  The end goal is to make sure someone is getting value out of this. Best of luck everyone.

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By JD West       Oct. 4, 2019

I’m back at it again for week 5, but before we look at this week I want to review week 4. We were looking for players whose TPG (touches per game) was greater than the number of touches they would need to reach 3x value (TNF 3x). Below you’ll see how those players did minus TY Hilton since he didn’t suit up.

Ten players had more touches than what the math said they would need for a 3x return on investment.  It split right down the middle. Five of those players had a greater than 3 ROI while five players had less than 3.  Here’s what it looked like across the board.

Now let’s move on to week 5. As a reminder here’s the criteria. A player must average more TPG than their TNF 3x Value and their 3x ROI must be greater than the value in this next table.  These totals should be a decent cash game lineup.

Here’s the breakdown by position for the main slate.

I think there are some values here that could come up big this week. As always feel free to reach out if you have any questions.  The end goal is to make sure someone is getting value out of this. Best of luck everyone.

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Every week that we play DFS is a unique study. We hope that we have the best information and learn from our previous experiences in order to build the best lineups. After 2 rough weeks I was able to put things together and get things going in the right direction again. Not that my 2 previous weeks were bad plays, I just didn’t consider enough variables. This week I am going to approach the breakdown a little bit different.

Results were about as good as they get from a cash lineup standpoint. My lineup cashed in the top 5-7% of the 3 double ups that I entered and won 17 of 20 H2H’s. It was actually a good enough lineup that I was surprised it didn’t win the 2 small leagues that I used it in but that will happen from time to time.

QB

I was torn here. I had considered Case Keenum (whew, avoided that landmine) and Russel Wilson. I liked Wilson’s game opportunity against AZ quite a bit. In the end I thought that paying up for Mahomes would be the ideal way for me to get exposure to his 54.5 point game total rather than trying to guess which WR was going to hit this week.

RB

To me this was the easiest position to settle in on this week. CMC is always in play for me. With Kyle Allen as QB they are really leaning on this guy and he never comes off the field. Ekeler had the dream matchup against MIA with Jackson out and Gordon only available in an emergency role this was impossible to pass up. Gallman’s price an roll against a bad Redskins team allowed me to pay at the other positions. The only other RB that I seriously considered this week for cash was Kerryon Johnson. He was a good play and top of many models but I just liked the other plays and how they fit a little bit better.

WR

With the big investments at QB and RB I wasn’t going to be able to pay a ton at WR. I toyed with a lineup that had Cooper Kupp but I really wanted to play Keenan Allen against the ‘Phins and his role has just been phenomenal this year. I figured it would be even more reliable with a shorter RB bench. It didn’t work out but I still think this was the right play. I was already considering Trey Quinn at the minimum salary as I felt that NY-WAS game could shoot out and he has a decent role for the price. When McLaurin was ruled out it sealed it for me. I’ve been liking Curtis Samuel and thought he could be due for a breakout. He was actually the last piece that I fit in. I also considered both Lockett and Kirk but I chose to get exposure to them in GPP’s.

TE

As I talked about on the podcast last week, Will Dissly had the dream matchup for a TE this year. ARI had given up all of the goodness to TE’s and his opportunity had expanded as SEA traded away Nick Vannett. The $3600 price tag was just too juicy not to squeeze.

DST

I almost always pick this position last after I prioritize my must plays at the skill positions. I wasn’t going to have the $$$ to pay up at this spot so the CAR play fit well.

GPP’s

I did have some success at GPP’s this week and had one lineup contending for the top 10 in DFS Edge Listener League until the TB-LAR game went nuts in the second half. That lineup was simply a variation on my cash lineup which tells you why it did so well. Overall this was a profitable week and I hope to continue building off of it moving forward.

By JD West       Sept. 27, 2019

The wonderful thing about numbers is that they don’t lie….as long as you have the right ones. We’re three weeks in and the data just gets more interesting and telling. Today we’re looking at the touches needed for a player to reach 3x, 4x, and 5x their DraftKings salary.  The hope is that over time we’ll see consistent success at determining where to spend up and where to spend down.

I’ll post how I got here another time, but for now let’s see what week 4 looks like. For all skill positions (QB, RB, WR, TE) we’re only looking at players whose touches per game (TPG) are less than the touches they would need to hit 3x value (TNF3x). I started with TNF4x, but this eliminates too many players.

3x                                                                               4x

From there the only criteria I used differed depending on position. For each position I picked a minimum score I’d like to from each position in order to have a chance in a cash game. In other words, setting the minimum 3x value I’d accept at each position.

Here are the top 5 at each skill position matching the above criteria.

Keep in mind this is based only on the last 3 weeks and doesn’t consider the matchup. It would be hard (possibly impossible) to play all of the top guys, but hopefully you’ll find value in these tables.  I hope to continue doing this weekly. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Good luck everyone.

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Daily fantasy football can be a humbling experience. Even when you put in the work, sometimes you just make a few wrong decisions. After coming out of the gate strong in week 1, I was quickly humbled as week 2 was nearly a complete misfire. I feel pretty good about my process but there were a couple of things that I can look back on that I will need to keep in mind going forward.

When studying up for week 2 the KC-OAK game stood out as one to target from a game flow standpoint. Derek Carr, Josh Jacobs, Tyrell Williams, and Darren Waller all stood out as values based on pricing. I knew that I couldn’t play them all and both Jacobs and Williams popped at the top of my FantasyLabs model. There were several other QB’s that I liked so I knew I wouldn’t go with Carr. The price on Jacobs was just too enticing to me even though I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be a stud on the day because he isn’t involved much in the passing game. Clearly I should have paid attention to that feeling.

The first guy that I locked in on for the week was Alvin Kamara. After the Rams got shredded by CMC the previous week, he was set up to have similar success given his role. The Brees injury really derailed this play so I can’t fault it too much. With all the value available this week it wasn’t hard to fit Barkley in. It’s always nice when you can get 2 stud RB’s in the lineup. He started off fast and it looked like he was in for a big day. The production was acceptable but not enough.

The QB decision came down to Allen or Mahomes. I just felt that Allen’s price and equity with his legs was the better route for a cash lineup. Pairing Brown with his QB fit well as he is the number one in Buffalo and priced well. I wanted a piece of the KC offense and even though his price jumped I felt like Watkins was a solid play. I don’t really think that was the wrong route to go, it just so happened the TD’s didn’t go his way. As for the balance of the lineup, I really like Texans D against a 6th round rookie QB so that play was easy to lock on. TJ Hockenson seemed like he was going to be a sizable part of the Lions offensive attack after week 1. Clearly playing rookie TE’s is a little thin.

The lineup misfired and it cost dearly in the win column. It missed out on the cash line for all double ups and only won 3/40 H2H’s. No luck in the GPP realm this week as my core players missed. Just goes to show that we can’t get too high or low off a single week performance. Still up for the year so gotta look at the bright side. Back at it again next week.

After months and months of review, analyzing off-season moves, and over preparing for weeks the time finally arrived to put it to work and see if I could make it happen again. As I can be prone to do, I got a little ambitious with my total play this week so the stomach was churning and the sweat was real. It was fantastic! I love the NFL and fantasy football. Week 1 turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. I crushed in my opening matchups in both of my season-long leagues, but more importantly I had a very nice result on DraftKings to start the year off.

If you haven’t read the blog before I am a fairly low stakes player, though I play a decent amount of volume. I never seem to get the 80/20 rule right but do try to play enough cash each week to balance out my tourney play. Each week I will come here to blog about my results and mostly focus on my cash lineup construction.

This week there was plenty of value at the RB position so there were several decisions to be made. The easy route would’ve been to plug in Dalvin Cook and Nick Chubb  and build from there, both of their prices seeming very attractive. However, I remembered one of the tenants that ended in success last year so I wanted a stud in there. McCaffrey stood out to me based on his role and tremendous pass catching ability. I favored his probable game flow in what I thought would be a shoot out versus a tough matchup for Barkley and probable limited usage for Elliot.

The next guys I locked in were Wentz in smash spot with an implied team total over 27 at home, and Chris Carson who has locked in the starting role in a Seattle offense that will at the very least be one of the most balanced offenses playing what I thought would be a hapless Bengals team. After these two I zoned in on Ekeler for his price and role I thought he would be good in a spot versus Indy.

As far as pass catchers go I liked Westbrook at $4800 in a what was sure to be a negative game script and necessitating a heavy pass load. I was anticipating a high scoring affair between the 49ers and Bucs which made Kittle appealing as the number 1 option for Jimmy G. The rest of the roster just fit in to place.

Clearly this worked out and 193 in cash is almost always going to do well. I was fortunate enough to win 27/30 head to heads and cashed in the top 10 percent of all 3 double ups that I entered.

The week really took off as I won the MANZ league 50-man GPP with a lineup that I will insert below. Needless to say this was a great way to start the season and I hope that I can keep the momentum rolling in the weeks to come. Research and preparation tend to pay off so the process will continue.