The Fantasy Grout, Week 17 - The "Chuck It List"
The lead singer of the band Motörhead, Lemmy Kilmister, passed away on Monday.
If you’re expecting a eulogy, you best look elsewhere. Here’s what I could tell you about Lemmy and Motörhead, as of Sunday afternoon.
1) They are heavy metal a band.
2) They have some foreign letter in their band’s name. (I notice these things.)
3) Well …
Not a long list. In fact, my main interaction with his death was through Facebook, where a couple of friends posted about him. The thing I noticed among maybe a half-dozen posts was no mention of a specific Motörhead experience. No concert. No backstage experience. Not even a beloved song. Mostly just ”You were a rockstar, Lemmy, and now, {frowny face emoji}.”
(Fine, you called my bluff. That’s not how they expressed it. The Venn diagram of the people who were moved by this heavy metal front-man’s death and the people that use emojis is basically a pair of boobs.)
One thing that made me say “Hmmmm” was the number of posts saying that a Lemmy/Motörhead concert was on a “Bucket List,” and would go unfulfilled. How could that be? Was there no opportunity at Rock Festival “X” or Music Festival “Y” for these metalheads? These are people that go to live music. Was Motörhead always just the second-best act playing?
This got me thinking about daily fantasy quarterbacks, which in turn, got me thinking about how much I think about daily fantasy. After I concluded that I spend way, way, way too much time deep in DFS thought, I got back to the quarterbacks. I went through and analyzed who I played in cash this year, which was more surprising than it should have been.
I hardly ever pay-up for quarterbacks, which has its pluses and minuses. A minus? I started Cameron Newton and Tom Brady a combined zero times this year in cash. So, there’s that. I see a sea of Sam Bradford early on. #Ragrets I played a decent amount of Dalton, The Rod, Rivers, and Palmer, which is fine, though I had whatever is the opposite of the Midas Touch with Palmer. Also, I got a lot of Roethlisberger/Bortles exposure over the last couple weeks, which was great, though picking Roethlisberger over Bortles last week was … not great.
This year, what daily fantasy football quarterbacks were on your Bucket List, or let’s call it your Chuck It List? You know the guys. The ones you never have a problem with, but always end up rostering someone else? For me, I thought of Drew Brees immediately. That is helped, of course, by Michael Salfino regularly pointing out that Brees yawns as he hits the 300-yard mark. Nine of 14 games, with a 400+ and a 500+ being two of the nine. Yet, I’ve played him one time this year in cash. One. In my defense, he never does get to face the Saints.
Who else qualifies? I only got cash exposure to Russ Wilson once, in Week 3, so it suffices to say he makes my Chuck It List. Also, I clicked in Kirk Cousins nary a time, and surprisingly that was a bad thing. Given Ryan Fitzpatrick’s consistency, he would have been perfect for a cash lineup. Just not mine, apparently.
What about you all? I’m curious to hear the quarterbacks that you have no negative feelings toward, yet never play? If they died tomorrow, would you have Lemmy-like remorse about not slipping them in? This week, the last week of regular-season daily fantasy football for a long, long time, consider playing someone from your Chuck It List. They may not be there for you to start next year.
RIP Lemmy
SOME NOTES ABOUT THIS WEEK
There will be a lot of talk about who has “something to play for” this week. Also, a lot of writing. Rather than do it, I’ll just reference this Seth Yates RotoGrinders article. I have a couple follow up notes.
The six NFC teams are set and there are eight AFC teams still in playoff contention. Here’s the big issue. “Something to play for,” this week, is many times over-shadowed by “something bigger to play for,” next week. For Washington, with nothing to play for this week, that is obviously the case. For Seattle, they will not know the Green Bay/Minnesota result when they kick off. Still, they are just vacillating between the 5- and 6-seed, which NFL teams typically don’t value. The same goes for New England, who won’t know Denver’s later game result. They could lose the 1-seed but have locked up a bye. Then, for New York(J) & Pittsburgh, Houston & Indianapolis, and Carolina & Arizona, the results of the other’s game, taking place at the same time, could make their result meaningless. Scoreboard watching is a big threat. In the Denver v Kansas City game, the same threat exists for Kansas City. Pending the results of New England & Cincinnati earlier in the day, it may be the case for Denver too.
There are two games/three playoff teams that I trust the most, from a motivational standpoint. Cincinnati can still achieve a bye, which is huge. There is a scenario where they lose and get it, but they are likely to go all out, as winning improves their chances vastly. The last game is the Sunday Night game, Minnesota at Green Bay. The winner gets a home game, and to coaches, that seems to matter. Ultimately, these three teams have the same risk the rest of the playoff contenders have though. If their game gets out of hand and they’re playing next week, they may stop playing this week.
That leads me to the teams not in playoff contention. So much still matters. To a certain extent, it’s true that all players are on a “one-year contract,” as a huge percentage of pay is not guaranteed. They play-for-pay, so to speak, every minute of every game. Also, in this sport more than most, going “half-assed” is literally dangerous to their health. When you consider that Blake Bortles had “nothing to play for last week,” you start to see how silly it is to worry about motivation.
The one exception I’ll make is with old players. Namely, guys who might be hurting a bit more. Guys whose spot on the team is not in any serious jeopardy. Guys with nothing left to prove. That is, if a player doesn’t “need to play” in the preseason, he probably doesn’t really “need to play” now. Frankly, many are coasting on fumes anyway, so avoiding them might simply be a function of “Play Young Players Late in the Year.”
SOME MORE NOTES ABOUT THIS WEEK
Last week, I asked readers to email Week 17 recommendations, in an attempt to crowdsource the Fantasy Grout. This went poorly. Only about a dozen-or-so readers dropped me a line, and many of those didn’t phrase their opinion in the form of a Grout-blurb. I know people tie their daily fantasy activity to their season-long leagues, so I feel like an idiot for trying this 1) in Week 17 and 2) during the holidays. Lesson learned. That said, I am going to do something of a crowdsource-sprinkle this week, just to add that reader flavor.
ONE MORE NOTE ABOUT THIS WEEK
I forgot to do the Grout for a Shout results last week. That means I’ve got two weeks to update right now. Time to get our Loud on.
Stemming from the Week 15 picks, the Shout will have to be split, as two RotoGrinders picked Danny Woodhead. That went well. Woodhead, had 11 scores, give-or-take, totaling 36.0 on a salary of $4,200, good for 8.571 PT/$K. So, to Jtreadway, I say “Hooooooollllll…” and to Ardy, I continue “…lllllllllaaaaaaaa!” Also, Ardy’s screen name gets a bonus Shout for making people think of roast beef.
In Week 16, the Shout becomes an echo chamber. Your winner is yours truly. I called Jerick McKinnon “The Chalk of the Week,” which turned out to be, less than true. Peterson played, but in mop up time, McKinnon mopped the floor with the Giants run defense, netting 23.7 on a salary of $3,500 (6.771 PT/$K). Now, I’m going full Farva:
QUARTERBACK
RYAN FITZPATRICK, $5,400 VS BUF – There was plenty of crowdsourced interest in Fitz this week, none worded better than by Actuary67 below. As a Chuck It List guy, for me, I can’t help but agree.
What happens when you combine a gimpy thumb and a score of 48 on the Wonderlic (the third highest score in NFL history)? For Fitzpatrick, you get a stat-line, over the past five weeks, of 1,525 passing yards, 13 TDs, and only 1 INT, that’s what.
Fitzy and the Rex Ryan-less Jets control their own playoffs destiny when they face the Bills in Buffalo this weekend. With Bills CB Stephon Gilmore now licking his wounds on IR, Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker will be feasting on the Bills secondary all day long, and Ryan the Mountain Man will be feeding them.
Wonderlic how Fitzpatrick will celebrate after the Jets clinch a playoffs spot on Sunday?
God, I hope the answer is this:
Another reader, Paul S., simply pointed out that at $5,400, Fitz fits. Fair enough.
I’ll add that if you take Fitzpatrick’s highest salary on the year, $5,500, and his lowest full-game score, 14.06 in week one, it makes his worst possible PT/$K, 2.56. That is crazy consistent. There is #ScoreboardRisk here, but as the biggest favorite this week, the Steelers should be at least competitive enough to push the Jets.
RUNNING BACK
TIM HIGHTOWER, $5,500 AT ATL – NickyJ51 suggested I bring this image back. Given that Hightower’s image on DraftKings is currently a picture of the number 34, any image is an improvement!
In the eternal debate of Running Back Talent versus Running Back Role, 2015 delivered the Shang Tsung to Running Back Talent. Fatality. Tim Hightower, who went three seasons straight without an NFL job is now Mark Ingram 2.0. He’s had touch totals of 29, 16, and 30 the last three weeks. He now gets the Just-Had-Their-Super-Bowl Falcons, who have allowed the second-most running back scores and the most running back receptions.
Plus, the image a gigantic chalk cliff could literally be a high tower. (These are the things I treasure in life.)
NickyJ51 also had a nice little Run DMC themed write up for DARREN MCFADDEN, $4,900 VS WAS, one that I can, in no way endorse. Old legs. Depleted team. No way. But, the write up was great. Just an FYI.
RASHAD JENNINGS, $3,700 VS PHI – I went to step into a pair of pants this week, and accidently put my right leg into the left leg hole. This ended a streak for me of nearly seven years exclusively putting the correct leg into the correct spot. On the same day, my “three-and-a-half” year-old ended his streak, at five days. (He’d end me if I called him a simple “three year-old.”) Then there’s my just-turned-two-year-old, who has an incredible three week streak of putting a leg in the wrong hole every day, intentionally.
For some reason, I find this analogous to how some teams use work-horse backs while others RBBC us to death. Eventually, my boys will start a streak like mine, it will just take a while. Likewise, the Giants took 14 weeks to settle in on a lead back, but they have. Jennings got 74% of the Giants running back carries last week, and mixed in 62 yards receiving as well.
The Eagles are playing their last game under a lame-duck coach that they basically forced out. The Giants are looking to rebound from an embarrassing, mail-it-in effort on national TV. They also get the key-piece to their offensive engine back. Assuming the Eagles don’t bring baseball bats on the field to make Beckham lose his mind, this sets up as a pretty decent spot for the Giants.
WIDE RECEIVER
DEVANTE PARKER, $4,100 VS NE – Playing extremely sporadically through 11 weeks, Parker has come on to take the “Most Valuable D-vante” Crown from Adams. Will he threaten for the “Most Valuable D-v-nt-” title next year? I think Freeman will put up a fight, but it is not out of the question.
While the “They’ll have to pass to catch up against the Patriots,” line of analysis has as many counterexamples as examples at this point, one thing is true. We know the Dolphins don’t want to run it. Like it must physically pain them to give Lamar Miller the ball. Bet on youth and talent in week 17.
JORDAN MATTHEWS, $4,700 AT NYG – Nick G. pointed out to me that the Giants are much weaker in the middle of the field. He neglected to mention, though maybe it was inferred, that Matthews has 14 receptions, 163 yards and two scores in the last two weeks. That’s good.
Listen, this recommendation doesn’t make me proud. In fact, it brings me shame. I saw how many times I started Bradford earlier this year, and almost every time was paired with Matthews. Sometimes you have to close one eye, turn up your nose, and click Jordan Matthews into your lineup.
JJ NELSON, $3,000 VS SEA – I like this flyer offered by Nick G. as well. Third and fourth wide receivers have caused trouble for Seattle, and if any offense is capable of relying on third and fourth wide receivers, it’s these Cardinals. Also, the Antonio + Odell + Julio super-receiver lineup ain’t paying for itself!
TIGHT END
ZACH ERTZ, $3,600 VS NYG – This is flowchart simple. The Giants are putrid versus tight ends, and Ertz has 30 targets in the last two weeks. There are no typos in the last sentence. 30.
TOURNAMENT DARTS
BRIAN HOYER, $5,100 to NATE WASHINGTON, $3,600 VS JAC – Now that he’s got his brainpiece in order, he’ll be fully able to sling it in this shootout. For no good reason at all, I like to imagine a pirate calling the game, watching it through his collapsible telescope. When Brian finds Washington on a deep one, the call will be “A-Hoyer, Nate-y.”
#ScoreboardRisk abounds, so do keep them out of your cash lineup!
DARREN SPROLES, $4,100 AT NYG & THEO RIDDICK, $4,000 AT CHI – The exact same situation for both guys. Getting the biggest slice of the running back pie, though it is cut pretty fairly, three ways. Also, it’s served a la mode, with their use in the pass game, which matches up nicely with the fact that both are slight underdogs. Given that both teams are likely to be coachless, come Monday, and the running back position on both teams has been kind of gross, it makes both situations rhubarb pie. Basically order a greater-than-a-third slice of rhubarb pie a la mode in your one-off lineups this week.
Looking for other running back darts? See: Murray, DeMarco; Mathews, Ryan; Abdullah, Ameer; Bell, Joique.
JEREMY LANGFORD, $3,900 VS DET & TERRON WARD, $3,000 VS NO – Keep a Sunday eye on the status of both Matt Forte and Devonta Freeman, as either sitting would clear the way for a pretty nice value behind them.
TERRANCE WILLIAMS, $3,300 VS WAS – Ten targets last week, Dez is on the IR, and Kellen Moore isn’t going to take his last to prove himself and check down. Let it fly, Kellen. Let it fly!
VANCE MCDONALD, $3,000 VS STL – Build up your own quip here. Just know that he’s playing St. Louis, which is the home of the rapper Nelly, who has a song titled EI, and his last name is McDonald. That should about do it.
ERIC EBRON, $3,000 @ CHI – You know how people that set their New Year’s Resolution to work-out gorge themselves on New Year’s Eve? “One last feast…” they say. Ditto with smokers on a night before they are “quitting tomorrow, cold turkey.” Break-up sex. Same thing. That is basically what I’m doing with Ebron. One more time and then I’m done!
(Though, as Jerry accurately points out, never bet against the backslide!)