The Fantasy Grout, Week 1 - Party Up

by Luke Louison (GiantBallofOil) Last Updated 2016-09-12 19:19:52

Ain’t no party like a west coast party cuz a west coast party don’t stop.
— Coolio

That’s probably the reason they moved this party from the west coast. This party definitely stops, Monday. See:

And, frankly, it’s probably a good thing. With all the live music, hot chicken, and booze Nashville has to offer, having simultaneous ear – stomach – liver triple organ failure is in play. Also in play, karaoke, but more on that in a bit.

It’s worth noting that this is a dual party sponsored by DraftKings and RotoGrinders. My invitation came through the latter channel. Because RotoGrinders is headquartered in Nashville, this party has to be bittersweet for the home office employees. It should be a nice time, but at the end of the day, you’ll probably still have to go home and empty the dishwasher.

Also, RotoGrinders is nice enough to host some of its writers from time-to-time, so this will be my second trip to the Music City in the last two years. After witnessing bars with multiple live acts playing at the same time, with only a mass of humans dividing them, it became clear to me Nashville and Stan Van Gundy have more in common than you’d think.

The DraftKings contingent is coming in from all parts of the country, which makes it a lot like a live final, but without all the lying about how much money you blew winning your seat. As part of #TeamKillaB, we qualified for a handful of live finals, but personally, I never made it, in the flesh, to any of them. Two of them were at the Playboy Mansion, so despite my absence, the flesh did make it.

I mentioned all that to set this up. I’m not sure what to expect this weekend.

Most of the guys who get the DraftKings invite know each other, from prior events and from Twitter. JMToWin wrote about this dynamic a while back. He called it a “Boys Club.” Unlike JM, I am not an introvert. If you want my opinion on something all you have to do is … nothing. I’m going to give it to you either way. Still, being the “outsider” isn’t great.

I’ve been to a bunch of events like this for my “day job,” and many times they devolve into a game of regional oneupsmanship. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got the goods there: My college’s football program is one of the ten winningest of the century. Our basketball program has been to the NCAA tournament every year this century, which includes two trips to the Final Four in the last three seasons. I own my local pro football team, which is cool. It’s led by the best player on the planet, and we have Aaron Rodgers. Things are on the up-and-up here in Badgerland. That sort of banter, though, gets tired quickly.

It’s nice that there’s a beer pong tournament to fall back on. Competition is nice, especially among a room full of competitionaholics. My partner, KillaB2482, is also a Badger alum, so if beer pong is anything like riding a bike, we’re a shoo in. After all, our senior year, Wisconsin was named the #1 Party School by The Princeton Review, by Playboy and by a drunk guy on the corner of State Street and Frances at about 1:30 am. Speaking of drunk guys…

You know, I think I’m getting more and more excited for this regional pissing contest.

Then, there’s the actual sweat. Being in a room with 100s of guys who all have way too many bucks riding on each play has to be cool. The problem? This ain’t the first rodeo for any of them. It’s business. Unless someone has a sweat for the $1,000,000 first prize, it’ll probably be more subdued than any regular season Packer game. (My region IS the best!)

I’m no different. I don’t usually want to talk to anyone when the games start. My children have figured out that at noon on Sunday, the answer is a guaranteed “Yes” to the question “Can I watch the tablet?” What they haven’t figured out yet, is that I’d let out an absent-minded “Yes” to “Can I take the car?”, “Can I get a drink from the liquor cabinet?”, and “Can I hit my brother with a hammer?”

The season is a continuum, so while I hope I win, in week one, my main focus on any Sunday is taking in as much information as possible, to inform future decisions, future columns, and future shows. More on that in a bit.

Still, it’s a party. In an effort to get the best out of this experience, for someone anyway, I’m rolling out my #WeThePeople campaign. Is it inspired by this?

It isn’t not inspired by this!

More so, it’s because I’m more like you than them. I don’t play nose bleed stakes or 100s of lineups. I have a “real job.” I don’t have a proprietary algorithm or million dollar bink under my belt. I’m you, with jokes. So, I want you to feel free to interact with me in the comment section or on Twitter. I’m @GiantBallOfOil, naturally. It’s my goal to reply to every comment in either of those places, for the entire year. I’m yours.

#WeThePeople starts this weekend. I’m your man on the ground. Need me to figure out how SmizzLife started? I’ll try. Want me to fish out some forum horror stories from Cam or Cal? I’ll bring my pole. Need to know who sweats the most when they sweat? Why would you need to know that? Creep! But I’ll check, all the same. Hop in the comments or over on Twitter and let me know.

Speaking of the comment section, you know Grout for a Shout is back. This year with two additions. For those of you who are new, please stand up, state your name, and then give one interesting fact about yourself. We’ll start with you, over there. Yeah, you. Nevermind. So, I’ll go into more detail below, but Grout for a Shout is you naming a player in the comment section of the column that you think will score the most DraftKings points per thousand dollars of salary (PT/$K), who also fits in the given salary parameters. The next week, the person with the highest PT/$K player gets a shout-out.

This year, that shout is going to come in two places. (Grout for Two Shouts?) I’m going to (try to) do a weekly short review article Monday Night, giving the winner, as well updating the season-long Grout for a Shout standings. For the season, the person with the highest cumulative points per dollar of salary, with a minimum of two-thirds of a season of submissions, will get a yearlong shout-out my Twitter bio. Yep, every little boy’s dream.

The other thing I’ll be updating is a little challenge I’m calling #JMToLose! That’s right, Jordan. I’m challenging you to a duel. A weekly GfaS duel. You pick your guy. I pick mine. Seventeen times. At the end of the year, we see who really knows what the Grout is all about. Don’t make me go the Biff Tannen route, and call you a chicken! I’ll do it. Hell, I’ll go Buford Tannen, and call you yellow. Yeah, it’s like that. Bring it.

While I’m running down the syllabus, let me finish with what teased earlier. (Yep, I tease now.)

They gave me my own show! At 8 EST / 7 CST on Fridays, right here on GrindersLive, Dean the DFS Almanac and I will be doing Friday Night (DFS) Live. How is that different than the show in the same time slot from last year? Well, in the first five minutes of the show on Friday, we’ll cover JMToWin, Notorious, Incentives, AG Schneiderman, Dean Murray, The New York Times, Jay Caspian Kang, Crazy Gabey, Joe Drape, Don Van Natta, Winnie the Pooh, and Larry David. So, different. I’ll say this, it’s definitely sponge-worthy.

Oh, did I mention karaoke? Okay. Just wanted to be sure.

Now on with the Grout!

The Fantasy Grout

Everyone knows Julio Jones. Adrian Peterson. Aaron Rodgers. The Fantasy Boulders with which you build your lineup. Here’s the thing though. There’s a salary cap. You can’t have all the rocks. To fit in the guys you do want, you need mortar, you need glue, you need Grout. Here, we talk about that Grout. The low priced options you need to make your fantasy budget work. Speaking of budgets, here are the pricing parameters:

$6,500-or-less – Quarterback
$5,500-or-less – Running Back
$5,000-or-less – Wide Receiver
$4,500-or-less – Tight End

The pricing is subject to change, especially if DraftKings starts changing things up.

Also, at least for this week, I’m rolling these out like an awards show, in reverse order. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

YADA, YADA

Zach Ertz, $4,300 VS CLE – The beat reporters have consistently said, “Lots of tight end targets in the end zone.” No Celek. No Celek. No Celek. No Celek. STOP!

Michael Thomas, $4,000 VS OAK – Make sure you pick the right Michael Thomas. There are like a 100 of them in the NFL. No Foo Foo Schma Schmas, 100 Michael Thomases. So disappointing.

Anyway, this is the Michael Thomas who is starting for the Drew Brees and the Saints. The one Sean Peyton suggested you draft on your fantasy team. That Michael Thomas.

Terrelle Pryor, $3,000 AT PHI – There’s another former Buckeye QB in play as well. Pryor seems to be that guy that you could teach the basic rules of water polo to, and two months later, he’d be an alternate on the Olympic team.

With Josh Gordon suspended and with the porous Eagles secondary across the line of scrimmage, the only question will be if Bob Griffin’s grandson can stay upright long enough to heave it 55 yards downfield. I’m betting at least one time, he can.

Jermaine Kearse, $3,500 VS MIA – If “Nobody Believes In Us” is really a thing, then “Nobody Believes in Me” has to be one as well, right? Having Lockett get drafted ahead of him in every single draft is a slap in the face. Oh, and I believe Miami’s secondary is #bad.

Christine Michael, $3,700 VS MIA – See Ware, Spencer.

Theo Riddick, $4,000 AT IND – In DraftKings heaven, there will be passing down backs in shoot-outs as far as the eye can see.

Dak Prescott, $5,000 VS NYG – He’s looked like the best quarterback in the NFL, in the preseason. If you want to crown him, then crown his ass. But if he is who we thought he is, then he’s a 4th-round pick with some warts. (RIP DENNY GREEN)

Heavy run game and rookie mistakes are both in play.

TIGHT END

Vance McDonald, $3,100 VS LA – Vinny Mac? Vinny Mc? V-EIEIO? Look, we’re going to need a nickname for him. He’s going to be a thing.

I’m just going to go full factoids here:

Factoid – Chip Kelly teams run a lot of plays. (More specifically, a f*ck-ton.)
Factoid – The 49ers will be a bad team this year.
Factoid – Bad teams tend to have less points.
Factoid – Passing is a more expedient way to catch up.
Factoid – Tight ends catch passes.
Factoid – The 49ers depth chart currently lists the following wide receivers, Jeremy Kerley, Quinton Patton, and Torrey Smith, as starters.
Factoid – Kerley was traded to the 49ers last week.
Factoid – Between Smith and Patton, they have one season averaging more than 4 receptions per game, Smith’s 4.06 in 2013.
Factoid – In 22 preseason attempts, Blaine Gabbert targeted a running back five times, a wide receiver seven, and a tight end ten times.
Factoid – Vinny Mc accounted for 27% of those 22 targets.

EDITOR’S NOTE – Due to a Sunday morning swap, MC Don is no longer my Grout for a Shout pick. Still like him. Just don’t have enough trust in his quarterback.

WIDE RECEIVER

Tajae Sharpe, $3,000 VS MIN – In my pricing spreadsheet, I note when the third wide receiver is priced as the second, or the second as the first. Next to Sharpe, it says “Best wide receiver, priced as the fifth best.” And, that’s after I took Dorial Green-Beckham out!

A precise route runner is just what Mariota needs, and that’s just what Sharpe was coming out of UMass and leading all of FBS with 111 receptions last year. In the preseason, he showed everything. Big play and possession. He makes things easy on Mariota, as Mariota implied when he said, “He makes it easy on me.”

RUNNING BACK

James White, $3,600 AT ARI – I have to hand it to Johnny Bananas. The star of MTV’s The Challenge not only made the hard choice, but then did round after round of media defending the choice.

For those not in the know, first off, weird. Bananas and his partner / Rival Sarah Rice finished the final challenge first and were entitled to the $275,000 first prize. The catch was that he had beaten her in a series of little challenges putting the choice on him: keep it all or split it evenly with her. He kept it all.

You’d think the decision about whether to give your rival $135,000 would be an easy one, but after all that grueling work, with both contributing, and knowing the sweeping consequences of the very public act, it had to be tough. But he did it. #RottenBanana

Wow, that is a very roundabout way to say it’s not easy to stick White into your cash lineup, but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. Maybe Belichick will use only LeGarrette Blount. Maybe he’ll turn to DJ Foster or Brandon Bolden or Kevin Faulk to catch passes. Who knows.

Context clues tell me that the shine might be off Jimmy G, who looked fairly pedestrian this preseason. That’s probably why, despite opening as an underdog, the Cardinals are now 6 point favorites. Over 26% of Garoppolo’s preseason targets (14/53) and nearly 28% of his passing yards (112 of 460) went to backs. In a shootout, I see White on the field, as he was in most “two-minute” situations for the Pats in the preseason. On the field, and in your lineup.

Sometimes you have to take the $275,000 and sometimes you have to take the salary discount a $3,600 price offers.

Spencer Ware, $4,400 VS SD – It’s not Ware by a mile. It’s Ware by a smidge. Here’s the tale of the tape. (I’m assuming Charles sits and Rawls plays but is limited.)

QUARTERBACK

Marcus Mariota, $6,400 VS MIN – I get that he’s Chalk Prescott. I understand how math works, that $5,000 is less than $6,400. You want some math? Here’s some math. 100% of Mariota’s Week 1 starts have resulted in at least 24.96 DK points and at least a second-place finish in the Millionaire Maker. #Math

For me, it’s Mariota’s upside. With Murray and Henry actually posing a serious threat on the ground, I expect a floor of 20 yards in zone-read keepers. I expect distracted safeties and linebackers, creating space down the field. I expect extra possessions and short fields thanks to Sham Bradhill. This game script might as well be written by Charles Dickens, because I’ve got Great Expectations for Marcus Mariota.

Also, I want you to take a look at his preseason. Ignore that in 10 drives, he led his team to 37 points. Pay no attention to 23/31, for nearly 75% completions. Disregard the five rushes at nearly seven yards a pop. You only have to see that they ran a flea flicker and the statue of liberty in the preseason. What could the regular season hold if those plays are throwaway preseason calls? A regular Fantasy Party, that’s what!

MY GROUT FOR A SHOUT

Marvin Jones Jr., $4,600 AT IND – I would usually lend a few extra words to this, my top wide receiver play. What else is there to say? Everyone is on him, and sometimes, everyone is right. What if Calvin Johnson was $4,600 against a team missing multiple key pieces in their defensive secondary? Would you start him? Exactly. Just consider him Marvitron.

EDITOR’S NOTE – Due to a Sunday morning swap, Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation as my Grout for a Shout pick.

Another Factoid – Marvitron is going to outscore JMToWin’s Grout for a Shout pick.