Daily Fantasy, Daily Life: Volume III

I don’t consider myself a superstitious person, because superstitions are stupid.

But uh … someone spills salt, I make sure they toss some over their left shoulder. I refrain from stepping on cracks, lest my mother end up in traction. The list, sadly, goes on.

And it’s not just the hackneyed superstitious stuff; I’ve got my own weirdness going on. For instance: The first time I got on an airplane with my wife-then-girlfriend back in 2000, I wore a pair of orange Hawaiian print boxer shorts. (Please note these were not vacation-themed or anything; they were just my underpants. I was wacky. Like Kramer.) But those are the underpants I wore, and we had a safe trip.

Next time we flew, I decided to wear them again.

To this day, I still don’t fly without them. They are tattered, torn, beaten, and un-elasticized. I stuff them in my carry-on. I’m like the babysitter from Goodfellas with her lucky hat.

Some might say I have issues.

You know what else I don’t believe in? Signs from the universe, because signs from the universe are stupid.

But when I couldn’t smell my wife’s Bath & Body Works Tea Tree Peppermint body wash in the shower Sunday morning, I knew Tee Higgins was going to have a floor game. No tea = no Tee.

As I wrote last week, I somehow stumbled my way into the finals of Underdog Fantasy’s Best Ball Mania II contest. There were over 155,000 of us to start, and only 160 of us were left. Winner gets a million.

And yeah, I was dreaming about that million. Seriously: How many times do you get to wake up in the morning and have a 1-in-160 shot at life-changing money?

The only issue, really, was that my team kinda … sucked. As in … not good. As in … I didn’t have a second running back, for one thing.

But I had high hopes nonetheless.

That is, until I jumped in the shower around noontime. I had been feeling half-lousy for a few days, one of my (vaxxed) kids was a little sick, doc said it was textbook Omicron, but rapid came back negative, so we’re waiting for the PCR, and there I was, soaping up and singing a happy tune when I noticed the Tea Tree Peppermint.

“That’s new,” I thought to myself. So I grabbed it to get a whiff.

It smelled like air with a hint of water.

“Boy, those Bath & Bodyworks chemists really need to step up their game,” was my next thought.

And then it hit me: Stefon Diggs was going to disappoint.

I couldn’t smell anything. To test this, I got dressed and went down to the basement, grabbed the bleach – well, first I threw in a load of whites, then I grabbed the bleach – and took a deep inhale to see 1) if I could smell anything and 2) to cure this potential case of COVID because you never know, what could it hurt.

I couldn’t smell a thing.

It was then it dawned on me: CeeDee Lamb was going to shizz the bed.

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Yes, I probably have Omicron and yes, I took that as a sign from the universe that my team was going to crater.

And I was right.

Universe 1, My checking account 0, and here’s the math behind that:

Lamb+Higgins+Diggs = 11-165-0.

Oh, I also had noted rap artist Antonio Brown, Russell Gage, and Mecole Hardman (7-129-0).

Heading into Monday night, I just needed Jarvis Landry to go for 108.75 half-PPR points to take this thing down, something like 30-600-6 to give me a little breathing room. I DVR’d the game, no spoilers please.

Other highlights from my Best Ball Mania II experience …

Things actually started off hot, with Patrick Mahomes – my only QB – throwing for two first quarter touchdowns. And Rhamondre Stevenson scored twice. The rest of the team? Zero touchdowns …

I set a record (54,233) for most times sending the “Not great, Bob” gif from Mad Men when friends and family would check in to see how I was doing …

via GIPHY

Still no PCR test results for the kid (took it Friday) or me (took one Sunday). I feel like I have a bad cold (I’m vaxxed and boosted), still can’t smell anything, and still haven’t put the whites in the dryer …

Oh, and of course, this …

ME: Sorry I didn’t win a million bucks.
WIFE: Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it.
ME: How do you like your new body wash?
WIFE: {narrows eyes, questioning}

DFS Gripe of the Week

Holy moly, I did it again. Last week I said the super sneaky stack was Russell Wilson // Tyler Lockett // DK Metcalf and bring it back with Amon-Ra St. Brown. The cumulative ownership on these four was 18% in the Milly Maker, and they went for more than 4X combined even with Lockett’s 12 points and …

And how many lineups did I build with this foursome? Two. Two freaking lineups. Of course, without Ja’Marr Chase, you weren’t winning anything last week, but still: I need to listen to my gut more. Of course, we all know how that ends: With a stomach ache.

A Look Ahead

Do I dare throw out another potentially low-owned stack that I’m going to be too afraid to play with conviction? You know, I’d really like to, but at this point of the week, I don’t see anything that jumps out. And you know why? Because this week is going to be one of the more bonkers final weeks of the season in recent memory.

There are precious few teams who have anything to play for. By my count, there are only 13 teams playing for anything, and of those, a few of them are in games that don’t look particularly competitive on paper and/or have wildly low percentage chances of influencing anything.

Listen: If you plan on playing DFS this week, it is a 100% pure information game. There is legit potential that someone is going to win a million bucks with a Jordan Love // Equanimeous St. Brown stack, you know?

This is not the week to be building lineups early. Seriously.

I also look forward to building 50 lineups by Thursday and then painfully changing every last one of them at 11:30 a.m. Sunday while I’m picking up the groceries, dropping my daughter at her friend’s house, picking up my son from his lacrosse practice, and rewashing the whites.

Player Image Credit: Imagn

About the Author

jedelstein
Jeff Edelstein (jedelstein)

Jeff is a veteran journalist, now working with SportsHandle.com, USBets.com, and RotoGrinders.com as a senior analyst. He’s also an avid sports bettor and DFS player, and cannot, for the life of him, get off the chalk. He can be reached at jedelstein@bettercollective.com.