Stuff Happened - Week 13 Edition
The equivalent would be if that song “Closer” by The Chainsmokers, which was #1 on the American Top 40 for the week of October 15th, October 22nd, October 29th, November 5th, November 12th, and November 19th, if on November 26th, the song had fallen off the charts completely and everyone hated it with the intensity of a thousand Skip Baylesses.
The equivalent would be if on January 21st, President Obama put in an application for a job as the guy who hoses vomit off the Tilt a Whirl machine.
The equivalent would be if the next time you had pizza, instead of it tasting like happiness spread over fulfilled wishes (which it does), it tasted like you were biting the claw end of a used pooper-scooper, hard plastic and all.
The equivalent would be if, in his next NFL Edge column, instead of writing detailed breakdowns of every game loaded with helpful incites, JMToWin wrote a weird column with a bunch of puns, dad jokes, and memes.
(Please entertain yourself, while we pause for a brief moment of self-reflection.)
Okay. All of those would be roughly equivalent to a player having a line of 29/46, 296 yards passing, 3 pass TDs, an INT, plus 10 rushes for 113 yards (37.14 PTs) in a week and following that up with a line of 1/5, 4 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT, plus 6 rushes for 20 yards (2.16 PTs). Yep, that unrealistic.
Only that’s exactly what happened to Colin Kaepernick from Week 12 to Week 13. He was not just the #1 QB in Week 12, but his 37.14 was the highest score for the position since Derek Carr put up 39.82 in five quarters in Week 8. Not just that, but he was just four yards from the bonus that would have turned his 37.14 into a 40.30. That would been enough to best Matt Ryan’s 39.52 from Week 4 for highest QB score of the year. Like, he was really good in Week 12.
Then, Week 13 rolled around. The stink reeks for itself, but among the most amazing stats were his two pass attempts in the first half. Two. Not to state the obvious, but that’s just two more attempts than the guy sitting on his couch, gleefully watching Kaepernick fail, all while “Not watching the NFL because of his protests.”
Because it’s hard to envision what two pass attempts in a half looks like, even in the snow, let’s pick through the play-calling a bit.
First Drive Notes: 5 plays (7 with penalties). Incomplete pass on first play of game negated by Roughing the Passer. An incompletion on 1st-and-10. Sack on 2nd-and-11. Handoff on 3rd-and-24.
Second Drive Notes: 3 plays. Scramble on 2nd-and-6 and sack on 3rd-and-4. Two possible pass plays called, but no actual passes.
Third Drive Notes: 13 plays (14 with penalties). No official pass attempts! Scramble for a first down on 3rd-and-5. 15-yard completion erased by offensive holding. Handoffs on 2nd-and-21 and 3rd-and-16.
Fourth Drive Notes: 3 plays. Completion on 3rd-and-8(!) … for 4 yards {sad face emoji}.
Fifth Drive Notes: 9 plays. All runs, including two QB keepers
Sixth Drive Notes: 1 play. Kaepernick kneels for -1. A completion for irony.
The first half, on five real drives and 36 plays called, there were 8 passes and 28 runs called. Of those eight, there was one completion, one incompletion, two scrambles, two sacks, and two plays negated by penalty. Also, three handoffs on 3rd-and-24, 2nd-and-21, and 3rd-and-16 leaves something to be desired.
Chip Kelly did open it up in the second half. There was a 3-and-out with two incompletions, followed by a 3-and-out with two sacks, followed by a 3-and-out with an incompletion and a sack, followed by Blaine Gabbert.
If it’s alright with you guys, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. For me and for 15,166 of my friends (10.12% ownership), it’s #TooSoon.
Stuff Happened, Week 13 Edition
It was feels weird to me that this week’s optimal score is only the fourth lowest optimal score this year. Through the eight 1 pm games, there were five starting quarterbacks with zero passing touchdowns (including Drew Brees), totaling 40% of all FF Millionaire QBs. Another six had only one passing score (including Tom Brady and Matt Ryan). Only four of sixteen quarterbacks starting early had two scores, and none had three. Then, there was Joe Flacco, who had a four-pack of passing scores, to go with 381 yards, which was good for 33.24 points.
That’s the thing about the optimal lineup though. It’s not an average. It’s not the median score. It’s the best score, even if it’s just outliers. By time the slate was complete, only one other quarterback had managed even three touchdown passes (Carson Palmer). Still, the optimal QB had well over 30, at 0.35% ownership.
That 0.35% of 149,860 entries equates to just 532 Wacko Ones who played Flacco, yet Flacco entries were not hard to find. They constituted 8-of-14 top spots. Only 135 of them (25%) were among the 74% of the tournament who didn’t cash.
After Flacco, it was more than six points down to the next little tier, which included Carson Palmer (26.90), Matthew Stafford (26.84), and Andy Dalton (25.18). No other signal caller was over 21 points.
Despite the optimal score being the fourth lowest this year, the score needed to cash was tied for the fourth highest mark this season, at 147.24. That’s in spite of the fact that this FF Millionaire had the smallest percentage of the field cashing that we’ve seen this season (26.33%). While that seems like a paradox that should puzzle scientists for years, I went ahead and already solved the mystery. When the four most owned running backs are all among the six highest scorers at the position and constitute 95.47% of ownership among running backs, that will happen.
In fact, the three of the highest scoring backs, David Johnson (38.5, 31.15%), Jordan Howard (32.7, 24.31%), and LeSean McCoy (29.1, 18.19%), in addition to being three of the four most owned backs (Le’Veon Bell was the fourth, 26.2, 21.82%), were among the top five highest scores on the slate across all positions. Joe Flacco and Golden Tate were the others. That high of ownership percentage for that high of scores is the reason you needed over 147 just to cash.
There were plenty of options at running back, even if you didn’t hit the nuts. Thomas Rawls, Devonta Freeman, Bell, and Latavius Murray all scored over 25 points. Salary restraints being what they are, you can’t just play everyone. If you can, you should try to fit at least two and maybe three non-Grout backs in your lineup. And if you’re paying down entirely…
Obviously with those passing scores as low as they were, receivers suffered as well. Only two WRs across the entire Sunday slate had 100 yards receiving and a score. It’s not a coincidence that they were the top two scorers at the position: Golden Tate (31.5) and Jordy Nelson (28.8). Only three more receivers had 100 yards receiving, and they each had seven or more catches, slotting in at WR4-6: Odell Beckham (23.0), Julio Jones (21.3) and Julian Edelman (21.1). WR3, you ask? Tyler Lockett. A 13.5 point, 75-yard rush-TD, was the bulk of his 24.8 points, as he totaled 138 yards from scrimmage.
Tight end was unusually high scoring this week. We had two 100-yard games. One from a usual suspect, Travis Kelce (25.0) and one from Ladarius Green (26.0). We also had a 2-score game from Dennis Pitta (29.0). We had three 7+ catch games at the position, Kelce, Pitta, and Zach Ertz, who put up a 9/79/1 line (22.9). When you add those all up and throw in Cameron Brate for good measure (6/86/1, 20.6), you have six tight ends over 20 points this week, after having only one last week.
Adding to the high minimum cash was the fact that the two highest owned defenses, Denver and Baltimore were the two highest scoring squads (17 and 15).
Making a Millionaire
For the second consecutive week, we had a rout. Coming off a week where travman8 won by over sixteen points, imsparticus won this week’s FF Millionaire by 13+. Before I breakdown exactly how he pulled that off, in respect to the optimal lineup, let’s take a different view. Rotogrinders founder, Cam MacMillan, had this insight about what it took imsparticus to take it down.
Gusto. A bunch of optimum plays. But mainly, Gusto!
The thing Cam was referring to, I think, is the two cheap tight ends approach. Not only was the approach correct, but he hit the exact tight ends in the optimal lineup. Gusto indeed. In addition to Dennis Pitta and Ladarius Green, imsparticus was one of the 532 to start the highest-scoring QB on the slate, Joe Flacco. He also had the two highest scoring running backs (David Johnson and Jordan Howard) and the highest scoring wide receiver (Golden Tate).
That means the 26 points he fell short of perfect were driven by three players. His two receivers, Julio Jones and Mike Wallace, totaled 33, which was 21 shy of Jordy Nelson and Tyler Lockett’s 54 combined. The remaining five points stem from his Buccaneers only scoring 12, while the optimal Broncos had 17. Overall, his 236.14 total was 90% of the optimal lineup, the second-highest percentage this year. A million bucks with a lineup closer to optimal than most others. You are Sparticus!
It’s also worth noting that this was not a mass multi-entry week. None of the first 17 places had even 20 entries in the tournament, which accounted for $1,306,000 of the $3,500,000 total prize (37%). Even then, Kcannon had 18th and 29th among his 103 entries, but those two, plus one from 7bushes, were the only three entries from 100+ entry guys among the top 49. To save my self the several hours of calculations, I’ll just say that MME guys lost, big-time, this week and move on.
Grout for a Shout
Before we go into the winners this week, let’s do a comprehensive review of the best Grout plays on this week. Here are all the Grout level players who put up over 4 PT/$K.
You can see that of the 18 players, five are tight ends, including the top two, and eight are wide receivers. Meanwhile, there’s only two backs and three quarterbacks who were cheap enough to qualify and had over 4 PT/$k. If that’s instructive, in any way, it’s that you should pay up at running back and go cheap at pass catchers. As it pertains to getting that elusive Shout, the PerpCorbTocks reigns supreme.
UPDATE: Monday Night, we added two more Grout level players to the ranks of 4 PT/$K club. Dwayne Allen only had four receptions, but three were for scores on his way to a 29.2 PT effort. When you figure out he was available to anyone with $2,600 and an open flex spot, it makes you sad. He went for 11.231 PT/$K. Additionally, theseige forgot to make a pick this week. Come on. Spade a spade. That’s what happened. He wanted to participate, so yesterday he threw in a pick from the last game yet to play: Robby Anderson. That went … well. Anderson caught an 11-point, 40-yard score in the fourth quarter Monday night, to run his total to 16.1, which was good for fifth this week, as you can see below.
theseige not only took fifth this week, but jumped into first in the second-half standings. His three picks over the last four weeks have been worth 2.735, 6.615, and 5.367. Not too shabby.
He only lost to one pick this week, but four people made it. Ladarius Green had 11 targets, catching six of them for 110 yards and a score. I guess the coach wasn’t joking about Green’s football readiness. What’s amazing about those 11 targets is that they came on only 35 snaps. Just imagine how much Tomlin will use him when he’s fully football ready. I shutter in anticipation.
About those four. NickyJ51 chose to use his one-time with the Grout for a Shout gods, and those gods granted that one-time. They will also offer the Shout to NickyJ51.
RotoRaff – Here’s a guy on a Moto Raft, to Shout your way.
Aniesdad had a type. He picked James White. Um. Three weeks in a row. Then, he took a week off, by selecting Dontrelle Inman, before getting right back on the Patriots running back train. He proceeded to pick Dion Lewis three weeks in a row, including one week where he was inactive, just to be sure he was the first one. Well, he finally kicked the Pats running back habit, and they congratulate him now for his trouble.
Lastly, SwaguarsFan picked up his third Shout. I might have cost us all by tapping on the glass, point out his proclivity to pick running backs was costing him. In picking Ladarius Green, he stated love me some Dion Lewis …. but maybe it is time to get off the RBs. In lieu of a Shout, which is basically old hat for SwaguarsFan, I thought that I’d note the consequence if he’s no longer picking running backs …
Lastly, JM now has a 7-6 lead after beating me by this much:
