Cal and SClement Discuss Top 10 FFFC Finish
Cal and SClement Discuss Top 10 FFFC Finish
Another week, another successful large-field fantasy contest. Week 2 of FanDuel’s Fantasy Football Championship wound up sending a second contestant to Las Vegas to compete for $25,000 in the FFFC Finals, and had two Grinders earning a Top 10 prize. Cal Spears (Braskey on FanDuel) earned $150 for a 4th place finish in the event with 152.8 points (4.46 behind the winner) and Sean SClement21 Clements (sclem21 on FanDuel) finished 10.5 points behind the winner, good for $80 and 7th place.
Both #6 ranked SClement21 and #20 ranked Cal discussed their varying strategies used while preparing for the huge field sizes that Week 2 of the FFFC drew. While Sean based his lineup around a risky and high-upside Mike Vick, Cal was the only one in the Top 10 that didn’t use Mike Vick instead opting for Colts QB Peyton Manning. When discussing the logic behind selecting Mike Vick, SClement21 told us “You have to take calculated risks to place in a competition like this. Nine of the top 10 teams played Mike Vick. Sure, he had crazy hype all week but a calculated risk at QB…allowed me to pick my top guys at every other position but [Running Back], eventually settling on Charles as a middle price range guy.” Cal meanwhile seemed to be more focused on utilizing players with lots of upside, and he also made sure to take advantage of of being able to enter multiple rosters into this contest: “My strategy for the FFFC is really no different than any other one day fantasy game, except that I can enter multiple teams. I’ve been entering five teams per week. Last week I entered four teams that I thought had ton of upside and very little downside, and one team that was a total wildcard. One of my solid teams, the one featuring three Colts players, landed the fourth place finish.
As mentioned earlier, SClement21 used Eagle’s Mike Vick as the focal point of creating his team, mainly due to his “Matchup, price, and the flashes of excellence he showed the week before.” This allowed him to get his top RB of the week, Adrian Peterson, who he knew he “wanted to fit [in his lineup], no questions asked.” By using Mike Vick, Sean was able to upgrade to three stud WRs: Andre Johnson, Miles Austin, and Roddy White. He rounded out his skill roster spots with Antonio Gates and Jamaal Charles, the latter being the only real ‘miss’ for Sean that week. Clement also made sure to pay attention to the details of the roster, grabbing Neil Rackers as his kicker and the Packers defense/special teams. Sean noted that “this goes to show that every position
matters in this big of a field. Every one in the top 10 got a contribution of at least 9 points from their kicker.”
Instead of using Michael Vick as the foundation for his lineup, Cal instead decided to focus on LeSean McCoy and Darren McFadden. As Cal told us, “I loved LeSean McCoy and Darren McFadden this week, as I mentioned in my salary sleeper post last week. I was not high on McCoy coming into this season, but with Leonard Weaver out for the season and Mike Vick drawing attention in the run game from a subpar Lions defense, I knew Shady was going to be a beast. $7500 was a steal for him. He’ll be on many of my teams again this week at only $8300. McFadden vs St. Louis with no Bush was just an easy call for $5500. Those two guys were cheap enough that I could stock up talent everywhere else.” Cal told us that his “only miss was Brandon Marshall at WR3, and he was very close to a hit – had he been able to run his one long pass into the endzone I’d be headed to Vegas.”
Though dissapointed about Brandon Marshall’s performance, there are still 8 more chances to win a trip to Vegas for the FFFC. An FanDuel representative told us that they “continue to be happy with the exposure and buzz it’s creating around Fanduel, and we’re beginning to see that convert to more new players trying out the cash contests.” Week 2 of the FFFC generated 526 total entries, of which we were told the number of unique participants was close to the Week One total of 407. You can get more information on the FFFC here.