Stuff Happened - Week 8 Edition

Luke+Louison+Old+Logo

In a word? Bleh.

To each their own, I guess. I suspect Eric Crain is going to have slightly different feelings about this week. Frankly, every tournament still paid out, so roughly the same number of people won this week as all the others.

What I mean, when I say “Bleh,” is that scoring was way down, driven in large part by injuries. When you score a lot and lose, it’s frustrating. When you have a low score and lose? It’s … Bleh.

Moreover, when your down week is driven by injuries, it is frustrating and depressing. It’s frustressing? If you rostered Alex Smith this week, you got half a game. For the other half, Nick Foles showed how easy it would have been for Smith to amass those points if he had just played. Nick Foles! Frustressing.

The Spencer Ware, Mark Ingram, Jacquizz Rodgers, and Devontae Booker owners feel the Smith owners’ pain, to various degrees. For Ware and Ingram, it was a concussion and a fumble that cost them 30+ minutes of football, and in both cases, their production until that point was no silver lining. Rodgers was injured in overtime, and while missing out on a fifth quarter hardly seems worthy of frustration, well f*ck you, it still pissed me off!

Oh, and for Booker owners, you might be confused. Yes, he had 84 total yards, some of it on his five receptions, and a score. Yet, if you were on Twitter when this came across the screen in the first quarter of his game, you questioned everything in life.

BookerShoulderTweet

Wide receiver wasn’t immune from the carnage either. Julio Jones, Larry Fitzgerald, and T.Y. Hilton all missed parts of their games with injuries. While they were able to make it back in, Will Fuller wasn’t so lucky. And if you were forced to do the Ty Montgomery shuffle when Jay Glazer’s ill-timed illness scoop came after 1 pm lock, I can only hope you Sanu a good player to swap in.

So, congrats Crain. I stand by my wording: Bleh.

Stuff Happened, Week 8 Edition

Even those that escaped injury in Week 8 suffered. At least their scores did. Here are the scores of the optimal main slate line-up by week:

Week 1 – 281.40
Week 2 – 269.32
Week 3 – 300.38
Week 4 – 275.92
Week 5 – 277.70
Week 6 – 303.04
Week 7 – 268.22

Now, compare those numbers with this one.

2016-OptimalLineup-Week8SundayOnly

It seems fitting that its flex spot would be occupied by a tight end when the optimal line-up had its worst score of the season, by a relatively wide margin (13+). As I detailed here, tight has stunk this year. Yet, there were four tight end scores over twenty-four this week, a high for the year. Even then, as whatever the opposite of a silver-lining is, two of those four played on a non-main-slate continent, and therefore weren’t FF Millionaire eligible.

For the rest of the line-up, you’ll see two Raiders, who both exceeded 38 points, while every other flex-eligible player failed to hit 30. Quarterback though, did have a couple other stand-outs. In addition to Carr, T. Brady and A. Rodgers both rode four score weeks to 33 point games. Also, if you zoom out, you’ll see Blake Bortles’s 32.68 on Thursday, which was the most effective use of garbage time since Oscar taught our children that some people are just dicks.

Coming off seven 30-point backs in the previous two weeks, the running back position fell flat in Week 8. Theo Riddick was the only main slate back over 25. The two RBs in the optimal line-up, Riddick and J. Stewart, combined for 7.07% ownership in the FF Millionaire. Even if a running back did well, you didn’t have him!

More shocking was the wide receiver position producing only one 30-point game. Having only four WR 100-yard games on the main slate helps explain the dearth of scoring. Unsurprisingly, of those four, A. Cooper, D. Bryant, M. Crabtree, and Terrelle Pryor, three played more than 60 minutes of football this week. Crabtree though, was the only one to significantly pad his totals in overtime. (The two other receivers to top 100 yards Sunday, A.J. Green and J. Crowder, both benefited from overtime as well.)

As for defense, you picked the Broncos (22) or the Panthers (19), or you lost ground on those that did.

Making a Millionaire

Pastedimageat2016_10_3101_48AM

For Rotogrinders contributor, Eric Crain, it had to feel like he had archers, he had a moat, and he had his wall, all defending his $1,000,000. That is, he was sitting in first, second and third place in the FF Millionare going into the Sunday Night game. Ezekiel Elliott was his biggest threat, with the highest Elliott owner being 20ish points behind. Well, that Elliott owner, CongoSong, can’t say that Zeke didn’t try, as he avoided the archers and crossed the moat, moving into second place. Fortunately for Crain, Zeke couldn’t scale the wall, and the man who goes by jakz101 took down the top prize.

Two other things I want to note. Crain didn’t just finish first, third and fourth. He also finished 30th, 38th, and 89th, all with a Carr and Cooper, and most with R. Gronkowski, D. Adams, D. Booker, and the Broncos DST. I know people (incorrectly) think that having 150 entries, out of the 221,913 in, allows you to “cover the field.” It doesn’t. The only effective multi-entry strategy (I won’t use “mass” with 0.0007 of the field) is to take a tight core and be right, otherwise known as the MaxD. Here’s the flip-side of that; you can lose it all, easily. One D. Carr concussion, or even less dramatic, just a bad day, and all that money is gone.

The bottom line is that you have to pick your core, and be right, and Crain was right. Big time.

Also, I just wanted to note that Week 6 FF Millionaire destroyer, Mallen21, was back, placing two in the top 36. The accolades go to Crain this week, and deservedly so, but what Mallen21 did a couple weeks back still reigns supreme.

Crain’s winning 231.32 was 91% of the optimal line-up, the highest total we’ve seen this year. Having the highest percentage of the optimal score, in the lowest scoring week, means you were the least raw points from perfect as well. The reason for it, beyond his amazing predictive skills, was that we didn’t have many outliers this week. We had Cooper and Carr, two guys he had. We had the Broncos/Panthers, which he had. Then? A bunch of guys with one touchdown and some receptions for yards.

Seriously. Despite coming as close to perfect as anyone this year, Crain only had only 5/9 from the optimal line-up (D. Carr, T. Riddick, A. Cooper, R. Gronkowski, and the Broncos). None of the spots he “missed” were that punitive, as so many players this week finished around 20. See below: Crain’s player, the optimal guy, and the difference.

Devontae Booker (18.4) -> Jonathan Stewart (24.0), Loss of 5.6
Mohamed Sanu (23.4) -> J.J. Nelson (27.9), Loss of 4.5
Davante Adams (19.4) -> Dez Bryant (24.3), Loss of 4.9
David Johnson (17.8) -> Travis Kelce (26.1), Loss of 8.3

Total Loss of 23.3.

So, congrats to Eric Crain and to the pancake producing community of the world on their big wins this week.

Grout for a Shout

I got bumped. I was on Booker, just like the rest of you, really just looking to solidify my overall number. I believed there would be better options out there than Booker, but that there was little-to-no chance Booker would bust. I was almost proven wrong, but ultimately he put up 18.4 on a salary of $3,700 for a PT/$K of 4.973. Then, JMToWin came in and took Booker from me! That left me with a choice to make: J.J. Nelson or Gary Barnidge. I thought Barnidge was the “safer” of the two and I went that way. Anyone have an opinion on that decision?

YouChosePoorly

So, obviously, I have a bunch of Shouts to give out. What’s that? They don’t go to the gaggle of people who picked Devontae Booker? No way.

2016-GroutforaShout-Week8FinalPage1

2016-GroutforaShout-Week8FinalPage2

That’s right, all 12 Booker bookers finished tied for seventh. They were bested by KillaChap who got as late of a score from Seth Roberts as you can get. He, in turn, was bested by the five people that picked C.J. Fiedorowicz. His volume continued, despite missing a portion of the game with injury. (Oh yeah, he missed some with injury too.) That didn’t stop him from tallying 5-for-43 and a score, on seven targets. Thanks to his bargain-basement price, that was good enough for 5.464 PT/$K, enough to take the Week 8 crown.

So, BreestoGraham

54122920

lupz27

56156117

daddywarbuttocks and Datperpdaron, for the second Grout for a Shout win for each of you –

Teddy-Long-meme

Lastly, for pastorthor, who now has won the Grout for a Shout twice, with the same player(!) –

Thor-HollaTimesTwo

For the overall results, everyone did pretty well, and not much changed. Except for our previous leader, SwaguarsFan, who didn’t show up, and dropped out. Thankfully for him and his five selections, six is the number necessary to meet the two-thirds rule this week, and it still will be next week.

2016-GroutforaShout-Week8OverallStandings

Oh, one last thing. JMToWin bumped me, then bested me. 5-3 him.

About the Author

GiantBallofOil
Luke Louison (GiantBallofOil)

Luke “GiantBallofOil” Louison is a microstakes daily fantasy player and integral member of Team KillaB2482 (Ranked #2 in NFL, #13 Overall). You can follow Luke on Twitter @GiantBallofOil

“You know Darren, if you would have told me twenty-five years ago that some day I’d be standing here about to solve the world’s energy problems, I would’ve said you’re crazy… Now let’s push this giant ball of oil out the window.”