Stuff Happened - Week 10 Edition
The points are back!
Were the last three weeks an aberration? I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t care. Maybe, in the coming weeks, I’ll spend some time trying to figure out their whereabouts the last few weeks. For now, I just want to hug them and kiss them and tell them how much I love them. We’ve got a lot to unpack this week, so let’s get right to it.
Stuff Happened, Week 10 Edition
Here are the highest scoring and optimal lineups this week. Have a good look because a lot of work went into deciphering the optimal lineup. When you’ve got to trim almost $7,000 off the highest scoring lineup to do so, that will happen.
Going down from Le’Veon Bell to C.J. Prosise and from Antonio Brown to Doug Baldwin would have come close to optimal. Going from Aaron Rodgers down to Russell Wilson, from L. Bell down to C.J. Prosise, and Jordy Nelson down to D. Baldwin would be closer yet. As you can see, closest to optimal (that is, actually optimal), was going down from A. Rodgers to M. Mariota, from A. Brown to D. Baldwin and from J. Nelson to Tyrell Williams.
My main takeaway from all of this was that DraftKings was hard this week. You had to make tough choices. There was no way to come close to fitting all the best players into your linup, knowing the results, and without the benefit of hindsight, it was no easier. For instance, the top twelve scoring wide receivers were too expensive to be considered in my Fantasy Grout article.
As it was, we did make choices and on the aggregate, those choices totaled many more points. The optimal lineup spent three straight weeks below 270, but this week, it was back up to 283, the third highest optimal lineup this season.
After having four 30-point running backs in the first five weeks of the season (two on the main slate), we had twelve over the four weeks, from Week 6 through Week 9. This week, we added four more, including our first 40-point back of the season: Ezekiel Elliott (43.9), Le’Veon Bell (34.4), Ryan Mathews (32.9), and DeMarco Murray (31.0). To package those another way, from Week 2 to 4, we had zero backs accumulate 30 points in a game. From Week 5 through this (unfinished) week, we’ve averaged three per week.
Here was the most remarkable part to me. Of the 20 total instances of 30-plus, you’d expect it to be all the usual suspects: Zeke, Lev, DJ, etc. Kinda. Four backs, E. Elliott, M. Gordon, D. Johnson, and J. Ajayi each had two 30-spots. Those are mostly the names we’d expect, but only twice each. The other 12 instances were 12 different backs, one-time a pop. It can happen to you(r running back).
At wide receiver, we also had four guys hit the 30-point plateau, a much more common feat at receiver. A. Brown (37.4), J. Nelson (33.6), S. Diggs (32.4) and A. Robinson (30.7) all hit the mark. You had to go all the way down to 20.9 and Kenny Britt before you found a $5,000-or-less receiver on the final ranks.
At the top of the quarterback scores there was a little four player ladder. You could have paid $7,600 for Aaron Rodgers and his position-leading 32.54. Or, you could have paid $800 less for 1.12 fewer points with Ben Roethlisberger. Down $600 more would have cost you an additional 1.9 points, with Russell Wilson as your QB. From there, a $500 drop would have left you Marcus Mariota and 0.92 few points.
Finally, at both tight end and defense this week, there were two options. The nuts and everyone else. For tight end, “the nuts” was Delanie Walker, who bested the TE field by 9 points, and for defense, it was the Buccaneers, who were 7 points clear of every other DST.
Making a Millionaire
This lineup did make Zbb123 a million dollars, so it is, you know. Still, it doesn’t feel right to include a $444 buy-in where a $20 buy-in usually resides. The $4 Mini Midseason Celebration only paid $100,000 to first, but its 588K-and-change entrants felt more like a FF Millionaire than the 11,000+ in the Main Event Millionaire. Ultimately, I think I’m pigeon-holed by my header, so we’ll use the tournament that made a millionaire.
Zbb123’s best lineup racked up 220.70 points, which was a 62.30 points shy of optimal, or 78%. If you recall, the typical ratio between the million dollar and perfect scores is 89%. You can see when the field shrinks, it’s more likely to win with a lower score. Zbb123 did have 4 of the 9 players in the highest scoring lineup (L. Bell, A. Brown, J. Nelson, & D. Walker), but he also had a 3.9 from J.J. Nelson. Win-some, lose-some, I guess, but his “some” in win-some was one million, which is a lot of somes.The key was that he had C.J. Prosise’s last yard, as that last one was the yard that put him past SaahilSud into first place.
Grout for a Shout
Here’s how the week shook out.
First off, I wanted to welcome in a load of first-timers this week. The more, the merrier, guys! Come on in.
You’ll notice one of the yellow names, JMtoWin, is higher than the other, GiantBallofOil. Man, I’m frustrated. JMToWin bested me again this week, to take a 6-4 lead. I was as confident in Inman as I was in any pick this year. Instead, Rivers completed only five to Inman, while connecting on four passes to the Dolphins.
I’d like to dive a little deeper into the ten weeks of the JMtoLose challenge. In Week 2, he added this quote, with his pick.
“You took Fuller, so I already lost. Not even joking. So…vying for second place, out of two, I’ll go LeGarrette Blount
He beat me.
I felt bad that I got to “pick first,” so I granted him the right to just take a guy from me, if he wanted him. He exercised that right in Week 8, taking chalk back Devontae Booker from me, and eventually taking the victory as well. Then, there was Week 10, where I texted him for his pick as kickoff was being, uh, kicked off. He went with Dontrelle Inman, same as me. Rather than bumping me, I think out of guilt for not remembering to pick, he swapped to Rishard Matthews. Want to guess what happened? Yep. Got me again.
For those keeping score, that means in the seven weeks we’ve had a different pick, I’m leading (4-3), and in the three weeks we had the same initial pick, I’m (0-3). Yes, Dude, it is.
You know who isn’t frustrated? My brother-in-law, daddywarbuttocks. He’s won the Shout three times, in ten weeks, leaning on his “Cheap Tight End” strategy. This week, it was Cameron Brate who stepped up for him. Craig, this is just for you!
Yep. I made a butt out of Daddy Warbucks’s head. To think I got a “C” in art class in elementary school?!
In non-bum related news, Week 10 marked the start of the Grout for a Shout second half. We’re still running the season long competition, as you will see below. The first half was taken down by SwaguarsFan. He put in the minimum six selections, over nine weeks, but in two of them, he people started yelling. (People = A Meme). If you’d like to see his congratulatory meme, head back to the Grout from last week, where you can find a tiled db730 Shout, which is now, officially retired.The standings for the second half? Scroll up. One week in, the second half is just Week 10.
As to the season long competition, we have more tuchuses to discuss because daddywarbuttocks has jumped back into the lead in the season-long competition. SwaguarsFan, JGroove5 and justcorbin are nipping at his heels. Also, don’t lose sight of Datperpdaron, who has a season-long PT/$K of 4.8, but only six entries. If he maintains that level, while entering the next two weeks, he’ll cross back over the two-thirds threshold and right back into first place.
