Noto’s NFL Positional Breakdown & Expert Plays: Week 4
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Week 4
Since I am contractually obligated (kidding), I suppose we should talk about last week. It was marred by injuries and bad chalk and I fell victim to both. Miraculously, I managed to squeak out a profit for the week. I would love to take credit for using Mack Hollins, but I was debating between a few value receivers and ultimately landed on him because he was the cheapest of the bunch. I mentioned him briefly in last week’s article, but there was no conviction behind it. I chalk it up to random luck. If you play DFS long enough, eventually you’ll get a little lucky.
As far as takeaways from Week 3, I have a few. The first is that we shouldn’t overreact to a bad week of chalk. David Montgomery was a tremendous play and we saw what Khalil Herbert was able to do after D-Mont’s injury. The same goes for Dalvin Cook, who would have easily topped 100 yards and a touchdown without having to leave the game.
The next takeaway is that running production is down across the board and many are opting to use wide receivers and tight ends in the FLEX. This is always fine in tournaments, but I’m not going to overreact to what we’ve seen the first few weeks. For starters, using two tights ends outs a ton of pressure on the rest of your roster to perform, especially if both of those tight ends are cheap. Additionally, I still view the running back position as the easiest to predict in terms of volume. There are currently seven running backs averaging over 20 opportunities per game this season, so I expect the position to bounce back as a whole soon.
The final takeaway is that we still don’t know these teams as well as we think we do. Nearly 90% of the bets in the Colts game were on the Chiefs. I’m not trying to be results-oriented here, but just pointing out that we don’t really know how these teams are going to perform on a weekly basis. We have to remember that we are dealing with extremely small sample sizes. Would you put much stock into the numbers of LeBron James after three games? This is still a great time to be contrarian, as everyone is working with the same limited sample of data.
Now, let’s talk about Week 4. This is a much softer week of pricing, which makes lineup building easier and more fun. This is one of those weeks where you make five lineups and then immediately get the itch to build five more. My word of caution is that everyone is going to feel good about their teams, especially after the brutal slate from Week 3. Don’t over-extend your bankroll just because you feel good about the way your lineups look this week.
On a personal note, my little man lost his third tooth earlier this week. Two days later, he lost his fourth tooth and it was the first of his top front teeth. For parents, losing those teeth is a shock to the system. My little baby in no longer a little baby. He’s growing up too fast for my liking. I liken it to the fact that each NFL season goes by way too fast. It feels like the season just started and yet we are nearly one-fourth of the way through it. It’s a good reminder to not take any slate for granted. We have 18 weeks to grind as hard as we can and to maximize our chances of winning. Let one bad week fuel the motivation for the next one.
Quarterback
As has been the case all season, this is a good week to spend up or spend down at quarterback. The mid-range doesn’t have many options to begin with and I’d rather pay up for a superstar that has a real chance at 30+ fantasy points or take my chances with one of the cheaper quarterbacks in order to stack up my team elsewhere.