Stuff Happened - Week 12 Edition
All jokes aside, I love you guys.
Last week, I joked about a few things for which I was thankful. In all seriousness though, I do love having this little community surrounding my articles. I thought, as a tiny show of my appreciation, I’d do a thorough breakdown of the Grout for a Shout race.
Before we get into the Top 5, let’s point out that the two-thirds threshold requires eight guesses through our twelve weeks of competition. reed1206 and reddogv31 each have seven picks in, so they will need to make the next three picks to become eligible again.
Fifth Place:
Datperpdaron – After skipping the first four weeks, Datperp has gotten two Shouts in eight weeks, and has summed 3.966 PT/$K across all eight picks. Because of those weeks idle to start, this is the first week he’s met the two-thirds threshold to be ranked. Welcome to the ranks, daron.
He’s gotten to fifth place by riding cheap tight ends, with Vernon Davis, C.J. Fiedorowicz, Lance Kendricks, Martellus Bennett, and Ben Koyack (more on him in a bit) being five of his eight Grouts. Don’t get me wrong; not all of them have worked. After logging PT/$Ks of 10.2, 4.372, 4.793, 5.464, and 5.517 on his first five selections, two of his last three failed to crack a single PT/$K. He’ll need to get things turned around quick or his time in the Top 5 will be short-lived.
Fourth Place:
SwaguarsFan – He has taken an entirely different path to success, though he did match Datperpdaron’s two Shouts. That path has led to a four-thousandths of a PT/$K lead over daron, summing 3.970 PT/$K. He’s made nine picks, skipping weeks one, five, and eight, and of those nine picks, four have been running backs. The last four, actually. Those results, 2.364, 1.794, 3.833, and 2.976 PT/$K are four of his six lowest scores. His success has been with wide receivers and tight ends. Namely, Terrelle Pryor in Week 3 and Jack Doyle in Week 7.
SwaguarsFan has been persistently in the top couple positions, provided he’d made enough picks. His overall place, starting in Week 3: 2nd, 2nd, DNQ, 6th, 1st, DNQ, 1st, 2nd, and 2nd last week. Now fourth. Might be time to hop off that running back train!
Third Place:
TherealTG – He’s made nine picks as well, though two of the three weeks he’s missed have been the most recent two weeks, 11 and 12. The third was Week 1. TG had never been in better than sixth place this season from Week 3 on. After his Week 10 pick, that’s exactly where he stood: sixth place. Since then, he’s slid all the way up to third by going the way of Seinfeld.
His cumulative score of 3.998 PT/$K was achieved despite only making three of nine picks over 4.000 PT/$K. The key was picking Marcus Mariota’s 31.92 at $5,900 and Coby Fleener’s 25.60 at $3,500. The Fleener pick was his best finish, finishing tied for second in Week 6. With the way weighted averages work, the 5.410 PT/$K of his Mariota pick at such a high salary, really has boasted his overall score.
Second Place:
JGroove5 – Like TherealTG before him, JGroove5 has never gotten a Shout. That might change this week, as he’s currently tied for first place this week, having picked Ted Ginn and his 25.8 points on a salary of $3,900. His path to second place has been up-and-down, to put it mildly. His 11 picks have ranked 7th, 24th, tied for 36th, tied for 4th, tied for 10th, tied for 46th, tied for 7th, tied for 7th, tied for 23rd, tied for last, and tied for first (currently). The last two weeks, specifically, would make Ricky Bobby proud.
He achieved his current score of 4.017 PT/$K mainly with Chargers. He’s picked a Charger wide receiver three times (8 of 11 total picks were WRs) and a Charger tight end twice more. It might be a habit worth kicking. Of his weekly rankings above, 24th, tied for 36th, tied for 46th, tied for 7th, and tied for 23rd were Chargers, leaving two 7ths, a 4th and a 1st among his six not San Diego choices.
First Place:
justcorbin – Our current leader sports a PT/$K of 4.028, despite also not taking down a Shout. He skipped the first two weeks, before entering each of the last ten, and starting in Week 6, when he first qualified for the season-long competition, his overall standing has been 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 1st, and still 1st this week.
Through the first seven weeks and his first five picks, his scores were very volatile, with two over 7 PT/$K (a second and fourth place) and with two under 0.75 PT/$K. The last five weeks, though, have been remarkably consistent, posting 3.959, 3.386, 2.400, 5.037, and 2.485 PT/$K. His player mix has featured cheap tight ends in each of the last three weeks, and five of the last seven weeks, and that mix has driven the recent consistency. His other five picks were four receivers and a running back.
We’ve got five weeks, to go! Here are the overall standings.
Stuff Happened, Week 12 Edition
With much of the firepower removed from the slate, thanks to three Thursday games, I suspected we’d see the continued trend of lower scores. That was not the case, as 277.24 is the sixth highest optimal lineup, of the twelve weeks this season. What stood out about it was not just the raw number, but the number of nearly-as-high scores that were left on the cutting room floor. Namely, two 30-point quarterbacks, one 30-point back, and one 30-point receiver were left out of the optimal lineup, though LeSean McCoy’s 32.4 was in the highest scoring lineup, as you can see.
Of the three 30-point quarterbacks, only Drew Brees (36.5, 8.45%) was owned in more than 8% of FF Millionaire lineups. Both Colin Kaepernick (37.14, 2.34%) and Trevor Siemian (32.02, 0.27%) were under 3% owned in the tournament. When Kaepernick travels to Chicago to face what’s left of that defense, expect ownership in excess of five-times this week’s percentage.
This marks the second straight week where the running back position has three 30-point backs followed by a 10+ point drop-off to the fourth highest scoring back. In both weeks, the line of demarcation has been 100 yards rushing. In Week 11, only four backs on the slate hit the mark, with three being the aforementioned 30-pointers. The lone exception was LeGarrette Blount’s relatively hollow line of 124 yards, no targets, and no touchdowns. Then, in Week 12, there were only three 100-yard ball carriers, the three 30-point RBs.
Ownership of those backs was a mixed bag, with David Johnson, the leading running back for the week, having a 39.35% ownership percentage in the FF Millionaire, and with Mark Ingram, the second-high for the position, owned in 0.31% lineups. The winner was one of the few to own both. LeSean McCoy’s ownership of 7.28% was good for 11th highest among backs.
The wide receiver position was led by four 30-point pass catchers, with ownerships of 5.63% (Michael Thomas), 4.93% (Mike Evans), 1.21% (Tyreek Hill), and 2.77% (Emmanuel Sanders). In fact, of the ten receivers with 23+ points on the main slate, only one, Odell Beckham Jr., was owned in 6+% of leagues (12.51%).
At tight end, there wasn’t a turdy pointer to be seen. In fact, there was but one 20-pointer. If not for Travis Kelce’s final 16-yard, 5.6-point catch with 37 seconds left in the fifth quarter, the high score for the week would have been Tyler Eifert’s 17.8.
Also, in a very contrarian week, tight ends followed suit. The Top 8 at the position were the only ones over 12 points on the main slate, and they included Kelce’s 21.1 at 7.82% ownership and Delanie Walker’s 14 at 9.89%. The other six were all under 3% owned, including four of them under a half-percentage point of ownership: Dion Sims (15.3, 0.02%), Jermaine Gresham (14.5, 0.31%), Josh Hill (13.4, 0.01%), and Clive Walford (13.3, 0.30%) .
At defense, the Giants’ 23 points were the top by four points. Second were the Buccaneers, with another four point drop to the rest of the pack.
Making a Millionaire
It wasn’t that travman8 won. It was that he won by nearly 17 points, the biggest margin of victory, by far, this year. His score, 234.34, was only 85% of the optimal score for the slate, but with such low ownership across the optimal and near optimal plays, the lower percentage should come as no surprise.
His lineup consisted of the highest scoring and optimal quarterback, both running backs, one of the wide receivers, and the defense. Additionally, Emmanuel Sanders fell just 0.3 shy of the highest scoring lineup. In travman8’s final three roster spots, he was roughly 43 points shy of the optimal lineup: 13 points from optimal Michael Thomas down to Terrelle Pryor, 17 from Marquess Wilson down to Chris Ivory in the flex, and 13 from Travis Kelce down to C.J. Fiedorowicz.
After last week, it’s worth noting that “the sharks” had a rough week. Contrarian weeks tend to have that effect. First, second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth place all had under ten entries. People with 50-or-more entries took down just three of the top 34. Mass-entry = mass losses this week.
Grout for a Shout
Week 12 is now in the books. Here’s that page of “the books”.
Only two picked players, Ted Ginn and Colin Kaepernick, were over 4 PT/$K, and they put up 6.6 and 6.5 PT/$K respectively. With the way our little game works, if you’re confident enough to pick a quarterback, you really should be playing him in your cash lineup. With Kaepernick, the highest scoring quarterback this week, I can only hope you agreed, pabloplyr. It would have served you well.
Our winners both selected Ted Ginn, an excellent pick in hindsight. It wasn’t just great because he caught an 88-yard TD, though that didn’t hurt. It was excellent because we all knew he had the potential to do so against that Oakland secondary that struggles with little receivers. With all these cheap tight ends, you’re just hoping for one really. Just a short score. With Ginn, you’re just hoping for one as well, but his “one” carries a lot more value. Well done.
As to those winners, we hit on JGroove5 above, with Ted Ginn vaulting him up into second place. As to the other winner: theseige. I imagine he stumbled across our little game in Week 9, made this face, and decided he’d just join and win.
It took three picks over four weeks, but that is, in fact, what he did. Let Momma Seige know, she’s up next! Now, to the business at hand. For a man of theseige’s accomplishments, I feel as though a Shout from anyone of a lower credential would not suffice. I guess that makes this a “Holla Back?”
In the Second-Half competition, we’re through three weeks. The two-thirds threshold still applies, so using the simplest math you’ll do all day, you need two entries to qualify. Here’s the standings.
Lastly, JMtoWin hit a whammy this week, which allowed me to defeat him with the Jaguars fourth-string tight end. I thought Ben Koyack was the third-string tight end, starting after Julius Thomas and Marcedes Lewis were declared out, but the Grout’s frenemy, Neal Sterling logged the first target and more targets overall.
Regardless, the series is knotted again, this time at sixes. Onward!