The Football Diaries: Week 4
This is going to be a weekly segment in which I break down a cash game lineup I used and a GPP lineup. 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
Players
Blake Bortles: You’re going to see some overlap between my cash team and my tournament team. For me that is fine and normal. The problem becomes when you get to making tournament teams and you can’t get out of that mentality before making cash teams. Some overlapping RBs and WRs are fine, but QB is a different beast. I got caught with a little too much Bortles hype and played him on this set of 67 cash games. Not a smart decision when you should be grabbing those solid Aaron Rodgers and Matt Stafford points.
Donald Brown: A tournament fade was more than a wise decision, both in hindsight and after the fact, however in cash games he was a must play at his price going into the game. It’s just not often you’re going to get a feature RB with three-down work plus goal line carries in a run-centric offense for a mid-level price. His performance disappointed coming off those 30+ touches last week, but the decision to play him in cash games was solid.
Khiry Robinson: Well that’s two weeks in a row he has failed to “Wow”. The price was very good and the matchup seemed solid also, but Saints RBs are always going to be a hit-or-miss proposition. Even when there is a healthy Mark Ingram, it’s still risky. There are just too many times when Brees dominates all the production in this offense. Robinson has probably moved to a GPP-only play for me, as I won’t chase his goal-line touches into cash games anymore. If he puts up a monster two-TD game then the benefits will be reaped in tournaments, but I’m not risking another 50-yard, 5-point effort on my cash teams.
Vincent Jackson: This was 59 minutes and 50 seconds of pure disappointment until that last second TD that boosted his fantasy total to an acceptable level. By Sunday morning I was all in on the Pittsburgh weak secondary hype, even though all week long I was worried about VJax’s fractured hand. I really find it hard to believe that he is not struggling with that injury, and I’m probably not going to tempt fate again and put him on cash teams. He’s a GPP play. He always has been actually, because his consistency isn’t good but his big days are HUGE.
Alshon Jeffery: Well the opportunities were there. He got plenty of looks down in the red zone. Cutler was really off on Sunday and Jeffery suffered because of it. The price was modest so I won’t complain, with a TD and a handful of catches, but it could have been a monster day.
Reggie Wayne: I find Reggie Wayne to be a fantastic cash-game option on DK, because he is Andrew Luck’s security blanket and will normally have a nice floor with the PPR format. If you look at the “Tale of the Tape” article by Leo written here on RG and saw the piece on Edelman, then watch Reggie Wayne play, you’d see some similar qualities. Some routes each run are indefensible and will lead to stockpiling catches. I’m a fan of the old man.
Jimmy Graham: About 70% of the Tight End spot in all games across the industry I used on Graham. He was just the best play on the board at the spot and I didn’t want to overthink it. Cash games were an easy call.
Julian Edelman: Just like Wayne, Edelman makes for a solid cash-game option on DK, because he usually is good for a floor of about seven catches. Of course he didn’t do jack this week, but it shouldn’t be something that is a constant occurrence.
GPP Team
Players
Blake Bortles: Bortles belonged on a few GPP teams and that was where he should have stayed. I had no business taking him in the cash games, but he is perfectly fine in large field games.
Matt Asiata: Not a huge fan of his talent, but early in the week I made a few Asiata teams. As the week went on, I didn’t make anymore because I was starting to get cold feet on him. He had a good matchup on paper and that’s why I kept him in there. He certainly didn’t disappoint.
Lamar Miller: This was a really chalky play, but I thought Lamar had some upside in this game. If I would have known only 14 touches were coming in this game, I would have backed off completely. He did well with the limited feeding though, so can’t complain about it.
Michael Crabtree: My huge bust of the day was Crabtree. He was in a plethora of cash games for me and also a bunch of tournament teams. I don’t even want to look around and see what I could have done with a good game from him. It’s too heartbreaking. I have been so off on Crabtree this year. The two weeks I played him heavy were Week 1 and this weekend. He combined for seven catches for 68 yards and zero TDs in those games. His other two games were a fade for me, and he went off for 17 catches, 162 yards and 2 TDs. I just can’t get him right and it is going to cost me until I do.
Cecil Shorts III: The pitfalls of forcing a pairing with your QB. That’s all.
Reggie Wayne: I mentioned Reggie as a nice cash-game option and there is the occasional blowup game from his also. I just figured Luck would put up good numbers and Wayne would get a big part of it.
Jimmy Graham: Used JG everywhere and it turned out to be an acceptable move. For a while it was a total sweat as to whether he would be the huge bust of the month, but he salvaged his line.
Jeremy Maclin: Oh how disappointed I was when Philly kept scoring special teams and defensive TDs, which took all the steam out of their offense.