Stuff Happened - Week 7 Edition
The Chalk Again?
Yep. The chalk. Enough to supply the world’s blackboards for years. Basically, this.
If you just glance at ownership in the FF Millionaire, you’ll see the three highest scoring receivers on the main slate (A.J. Green, M. Evans, & J. Jones) were the three highest owned WRs, and they were among the eight most owned players overall. The three most owned backs (D. Murray, J. Rodgers, & S. Ware) finished 8th, 11th, and 9th respectively, at their position. The second and third highest owned tight ends (R. Gronkowski & J. Doyle) were the third and first highest scoring TEs. The defense with the highest ownership (Ravens) produced the second highest DST score. Only the quarterback position, where the ownership is more spread-out and the scores more even, bucked the trend.
Related to the paragraph above is the lack of “busts” in the high ownership ranks. The 6th and 7th highest owned players, Allen Robinson and Hunter Henry, certainly warrant the “bust” tag. Matt Ryan, the highest owned quarterback at over 20%, likewise probably qualifies. Among the 20 most owned players, the only others who busted were Amari Cooper, Patriots DST, and Pierre Garcon. Six of Twenty is a remarkably low total.
Stuff Happened, Week 7 Edition
The three highest scoring wide receivers, in addition to being the three highest owned receivers, were also among the five most expensive on the main slate. I think you know what that means, at this point. The Highest Scoring lineup was far too expensive to fit under the $50,000 salary cap. The salary fix, surprisingly, requires only one change. One of the Michael Thomases had just 3.4 fewer points than Julio Jones, at a salary savings of $4,500, and making that swap forms the Optimal lineup.
It feels like just last week that I was noting there were only two instances of running backs scoring 30+ on the main slate. Oh, it was? I guess I know why it feels that way. Anyway, that total was padded by three backs in the 30s in Week 6. Now this week, we add four more to the total (M. Gordon, M. Forte, J. Ajayi, & J. Hill). Seven in the last two weeks, and nine for the year.
Possibly correlated to that effect is the decline in wide receiver production. For the first time this year, we had only one receiver with 30 or more points on Sunday. In Week 4, we had two, and in every other week, we’ve had a minimum of four. That player, A.J. Green, needed a hail mary to hit the mark. Maybe the days of Woody Hayes are returning or maybe it’s a fluke.
Come on. It’s a fluke. It’s still worth noting though.
We also had another lousy scoring day at tight end. Jack Doyle, who was named after Jack Bauer and the O’Doyle Family from Billy Madison, collected over a quarter of Andrew Luck’s targets, catching nine and totaling 22.8 points. Behind him were Delanie Walker at 21.4 and Rob Gronkowski at 19.3. That ends the list of tight ends with 14 or more points. Those three were the third, fourth, and second most owned tight ends in the FF Millionaire, which means 41.6% of people had 19+ points at the position, and the rest had under 14. A total wheat from the chaff situation.
Speaking of Andrew Luck, he led all quarterbacks with 30.82. With wide receiver scoring taking a dip, quarterbacks experienced the same drop. Only Luck and on-the-road Drew Brees had 26+. Maybe DraftKings knew this was coming. After all, they priced only six quarterbacks, five from the main slate, over $6,500.
Making a Millionaire
When a one-entry guy wins the FF Millionaire, I like to imagine he put it in confidently. He clicked submit and a grin slowly grew wider, eventually spanning from ear-to-ear. He was happy about the fortunate he was about to amass, but he was also amused at the effort all the max-entry guys were going through, feverishly. Yet, he had just submitted the entry that would best them all.
Then, his wife yells from the other room for him to come and change the baby’s diaper, and it’s a stinky one!
We can’t be sure that’s how it happened to Jtortona. What we can be sure of is that he submitted one entry, and that entry won him $1,000,000. Efficiency at its finest (and richest).
Jtortona used only 5/9 of the Highest Scoring and Optimal lineups his way to seven figures: J. Ajayi, A.J. Green, J. Jones / M. Thomas, Jack Doyle, and the Eagles. In his Doyle selection, he was not alone; the lone mainstay in all ten of the top ten FF Millionaire lineups was Jack Doyle, whose name sounds like a card game that comes with additional game pieces and is made for eight-year-olds. His high ownership speaks mainly to the high ownership of expensive wide receivers and DeMarco Murray, combined with his tight end minimum price, but his huge success speaks to Dwayne Allen being a stiff.
The winning score, 238.64, was 89% of the Optimal score, which is proving to be a bit of a magic number. This makes four times in seven weeks where the winning lineup scored that ratio of the best score possible. Jtortona fell 30 points shy of that perfection, driven by three roster positions. Kirk Cousin’s 26ish, was five shy of Luck’s 31-and-change, while DeMarco Murray and Jacquizz Rodgers’s combined 45 was 24.5 short of the 69.5 totaled by Melvin Gordon and Matt Forte.
Before I hit submit this week, Jtortona, will you just send me a DM on Twitter (@GiantBallofOil) and let me know if you’ve got Week 8 won already? Saving $20 would be nice!
Grout for a Shout
I need to offer up a “Thank You” of sorts to Thanasi, Tbn55, and dmoen21. Without you three picking Matt Jones, Terrance West, and MarQueis Gray, I would have taken last place, in my own game. Taking fourth-last is way, way, way better!
Listen, I was wrong about the Bears-Packers game. Really wrong. I was lukewarm about Ty Montgomery. I thought the Bears (Cameron Meredith, specifically) would have their way with the Packers’ depleted secondary, and I thought Brian Hoyer would maintain two unbroken arms for the entire game. My assessment of my assessment of that game:
JMToWin beat me, of course, to take a (4-3) lead in our challenge. It wasn’t without intrigue. He picked Mike Gillislee “even if LeSean plays”. Well, McCoy did play, and did not share well with others. It wasn’t until he re-injured his hamstring that he ceded to Gillislee, and even then, four of Gillislee’s five carries yielded 0 yards. That fifth needed to be at least 15 yards. It was 20, to carry JM to the lead in the series.
I don’t mean to bury the lead, but the Grout for a Shout competition was a bit anti-climactic. Jack Doyle was shared by more people than street hookers (who still need to get an office). I don’t mean to detract from geoffoz, Anttheman, Aarondh88, mbaggia08, or especially SwaguarsFan, our first two-time winner. It’s just that when there’s five winners, it feels less exclusive, is all.
Either way, they did pick Jack Doyle, whose name sounds like something car mechanics put under their tools when they set them on the end table. He did go for 22.8 on his tight end minimum $2,500, good for 9.120 PT/$K. And that pentad of pickers deserve their Shout. DB? Can you get this one for SwaguarsFan and the crew?
The good news for SwaguarsFan hasn’t ended. With his win, he has leapt into first place in the season-long competition. Also making a sizable jump is ggman0831, who rode The Gazelle from seventh place up to third. I’d mention the biggest fallers, but JMToWin and I have taken our lumps already today!
