The Football Diaries: Week 13
This is going to be a weekly segment in which I break down both a cash game and GPP lineup I used. It’s an effort to show what my mindset was heading into the games and how those decisions ultimately turned out.
I believe the decision-making process is the most important thing in DFS and not necessarily the actual outcome. Hopefully reading this can help with roster construction in some way, either through my good rosters or even learning from my bad ones.
Cash Game Team
Ryan Fitzpatrick – I know it’s a little crazy to consider Ryan Fitzmagic as your QB in cash games, but the price was so nice on him this week that I couldn’t pass him up. I was hoping for 200 yards and 2 TDs and would have been happy with that.
Tre Mason – One week too late, Tre Mason. Yes, I had this kid in cash games this week and on tournament teams also, but he was a 40% owned guy around the industry. A week ago, I ran him out there as a 15% guy in games, including the Playboy Mansion tournament. I would have been much happier had he performed more like this in Week 12.
Arian Foster – The reason I rode Fitzmagic was so I could roster Arian and some stud WRs. This was a dream matchup for a good RB. He started off hot, but the final total of 19 points fell a little short in the expectation column, considering he had about 12 of those points in the first quarter.
T.Y. Hilton – He’s not really my idea of a cash game receiver due to his volatility, but being at home against a weak secondary made me feel better about him.
Josh Gordon – While 7 catches for 75 yards isn’t terrible, he didn’t pay off that price tag. In hindsight, I would have been better moving off him and on to another one of my favorite plays yesterday, like Julio Jones. Gordon is tricky because you think a big game is coming any day now, but he still needs to get his legs under him and his price is already high.
A.J. Green – Similar to T.Y. and Gordon, the final output isn’t bad, but it feels like it could have been so much better. This was a cupcake matchup, so I think 4 catches for 57 yards is underachieving.
Jordan Reed – Reed was my third-highest owned tight end yesterday behind Gronkowski and Graham. I had a good number of shares of Reed due to the matchup, and also I felt he got a boost with Colt McCoy under center.
Miami Dolphins – My defenses were essentially split three ways. I had the Dolphins in a good chunk of games and the Rams in a bunch too, followed by a mix of teams rounding out the last 1/3 of my teams. Oh boy, I chose wrong on my cash game pick. The Rams defense would have sealed the deal for this team.
GPP Team
Ryan Fitzpatrick – I worked really hard this past week or so to acquire as many Super Q tickets as I could. I had a couple of really nice nights in the NBA in which I collected a handful of tickets, so I ended up, after buying in for a chunk also, with 51 entries in the Las Vegas Super Q finale. Out of 51 teams, I had Fitzmagic on 10 of them. That’s a great number. The bad part is that out of those 10, I only had one team where I paired him with DeAndre Hopkins, and that did me in. If you didn’t play Hopkins, then you just weren’t winning tournaments in Week 13.
Fred Jackson – This is a nice team on normal weeks, but it didn’t compete because of the outburst in scoring. However, looking back on it, out of 50 teams I had 20 shares of Tre Mason. This is one of the spots I didn’t use Mason. That extra 25 points would make this team look really good.
C.J. Anderson – He’s a solid back, and it will be interesting to see how much time he loses when Ball and/or Hillman come back. I wasn’t using too many guys in the price range, due to the fact that with Mason and Fitzpatrick you could upgrade to Le’Veon Bell and Arian Foster pretty easy. It’s odd to look at a guy score 25.5 fantasy points and feel indifferent about it, but when Mason goes for 36 and LeVeon goes 35 along with the QB and WR top plays, then CJ’s total seems a bit bland.
Keenan Allen – I feel good that I had seven shares of Keenan and he went off, but disappointed about the fact that I won’t reap the rewards of a GPP win. I made some good calls, but when the scoring is like it was Sunday, it becomes less about identifying good plays and more about just having the right combination. There have been more weeks like this in the NFL this year than ever before – weeks when players go haywire and put up absurd fantasy totals. Perhaps it’s the new rules that open up the game for the offense more, but I have struggled on weeks like this, which happen far too often now. I would definitely be better off playing more cash games and fewer tournaments with this type of scoring, but it’s a tough habit to break once you get into it.
Antonio Brown – He was just one of the many upgrades that comes from rostering a $5,000 QB. The ironic part is that if you rostered Fitzmagic, you really didn’t feel a need to save money on Tre Mason in tournaments, so you spent a little. However, rostering a guy like Andrew Luck made you feel like you needed to roster Mason, Stills and guys like that. Those low dollar specials had bigger games than Arian Foster and Demaryius Thomas in Week 13.
Andre Johnson – I love you, Andre. You are an awesome WR in the NFL. With that being said, you have cost me some serious cheddar this year. It’s a cruel twist, considering how much you’ve made me in the past.
Rob Gronkowski – Gronk, Graham and Reed. As it turns out, Fleener was the GPP guy to own.
Indianapolis Colts – Fifty-one teams. Ten shares of the Rams. Yet, they didn’t make it on my cash game team or my best GPP team. Damn, this game is a cruel witch sometimes.