The Football Diaries: Week 15
This week I want to review some of the players I owned the heaviest around the industry in the big tournaments and some of the thought that went into those picks. Learning from your hits as well as your misses is a key to getting better at daily fantasy sports.
Most Used Players
Peyton Manning – I really thought I was on to something here. He had low ownership, as no one felt it necessary to pay up with guys like Derek Anderson at QB this week. I figured the Broncos would struggle to run on San Diego and it would lead to a classic Peyton 4-TD game. I was very taken aback to hear AFTER kickoff that he was suffering from the flu. He just wanted to get the win and get out without exerting much effort. I don’t blame him, but Manning killed some good teams I had.
Johnny Manziel – Well, it’s not as though I thought he would go off here. It’s just that, at his price, he had too much rushing upside to fade completely. My suspicions on him this week were true, as he got shut down, and unfortunately he ended up on too many teams, especially on DraftKings. I would be leery of rostering him barring minimum salary situations going forward.
Arian Foster – Ninety-nine yards rushing and 3 receptions isn’t a terrible game, but for this price you need more. He was one of the high-dollar studs that I spent on. I figured the Texans would try to pound the ball down the throats of the Colts and Arian could have a monster day. With so many people on Le’Veon Bell, I wanted to stand out differently on some teams, so I spent on Foster hoping he could have a classic Foster game. It never materialized.
LeSean McCoy – I have no clue what’s going on with this guy. I actually rostered several Eagles in this juicy matchup and they all disappointed. None disappointed more than McCoy though, as he was vultered on three different occasions at the goal line. I have no doubts he is capable of a big game, but to think he is the exact same back as last year is being generous. Last year he averaged 5.1 yards per carry. This year that number has dropped a full yard to only 4.1 yards per carry. He needs volume this year to make those big games happen, and on too many occasions he is not getting that wealth of carries.
Jeremy Hill – Hill was by far my biggest success on Sunday. It was too bad that by Sunday morning he was on everyone’s radar at that $4,300 price tag on DK. At least the $7,100 price on FanDuel drove people away from him. He’s a stud moving forward with the bulk of work he should receive.
T.Y. Hilton – As far as expensive WRs go, Hilton was my biggest underperformer. I was high on him due to the inability of the Texans to be able to cover him in recent history. Historically the Texans have not helped out their cornerbacks on Hilton. It’s resulted in recent stat lines of 9-223 yards, 8-78 yards, 7-121 yards and 4-111 yards with 6 TDs in 5 career games for TY against Houston. Welp, that was the thinking, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. So, I was straddled with this bad performance instead of spending the same amount on guys like Dez and Odell.
Roddy White – When news broke that Julio wasn’t playing, I was all over Roddy. He still has a little juice left in his legs and usually dominates when Julio is missing. It wasn’t a terrible game, but the Falcons obviously wanted to get the ball to Harry Douglas in his plus matchups. Makes you wonder what Julio would have done to this defense if healthy.
Notable Misses
My biggest missed opportunities of the weekend were Odell Beckham and Dez Bryant. It just comes down to a point where you start making teams and there are going to be guys who get left off.
Odell was an egregious error on my part. However, I was more sold on guys like Antonio Brown, Demaryius Thomas, T.Y. Hilton and Alshon Jeffery this week, and that left me with little room for Dez and Odell. Throw in the plethora of great RB matchups and there just wasn’t much room on the roster or under the salary cap for the guys that I was wishy-washy on.
This weekend was a microcosm of my NFL season thus far, which has been unsuccessful. Through 17 weeks last year, I hit on 4 or 5 weekends and that was enough to drive my ROI through the roof for the season. This year, due to poor player selections and even worse game selection, that has turned into 1-2 big weekends, and that is not enough to make money for me. With that said, I am looking for a nice ending these last two weeks to help out, and I think having the $27 Millionaire Maker off the board is going to help. That tournament is great for the industry, but it was a drain on my time, money and the quality I was able to put into other lineups throughout the week.