The King's Fantasy Grout: Week 1
What makes a strong Fantasy Wall?
If you said giant boulders, literally* the size of Barry Bonds’ head, or strong bricks, as dense as the writers keeping him out of the Hall of Fame, you were wrong. The boulders and bricks are important, but the real key is the stuff between them. The Fantasy Cement, the Fantasy Mortar, the Fantasy Grout. Without that goop holding the major bodies together, your Fantasy Wall is susceptible to collapse.
Because of the Legion of Dumb’s frequent misuse, dictionaries have been forced to add a definition to “literally” (I assume with a tremendous sigh) to now mean “figuratively.” Yes, “literally” now means “not literally.” Either way, the boulders’ size above is LOD-proof, as it fits both definitions.
Realistically, you start your line-up with the LeSean McCoy’s and Dez Bryant’s of the world, but it is those value guys that really win for you. Their low cost allows you to afford the major salary chunks that the studs cost. When they go off at those low salaries, it wins GPPs. It’s these guys whom we will be focusing on, week in and week out: The Fantasy Grout.
Quarterback:
This position is the most cut-and-dry. There’s no third down quarterbacks, 3- and 4-quarterback sets, or second quarterbacks in 12 personnel. Also, with no injuries or position battles at this point, we have 32 options. We’re going to use DraftKings’ pricing, and today, we’ll be looking at $6,500 or less, leaving us 10 options (in descending price order): Geno Smith, Jake Locker, Brian Hoyer, EJ Manuel, Matt Cassel, Josh McCown, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Chad Henne, Derek Carr, and Shaun Hill.
Jake Locker @ KC – $6,100 – As the 2nd most expensive of the group, this isn’t out on a limb as much as it could be, but at 60% of Peyton Manning, it’s still a huge price savings. Locker now benefits from his new head coach, Ken Whisenhunt, who did Fantasy Mouth-to-Mouth to Phil Rivers’ career. The preseason has shown this effect, with Locker and his back-ups all airing it out, quite effectively. His three main receiving threats, K. Wright, J. Hunter, and N. Washington all have flashed this preseason, D. McCluster figures to get some volume out of the back field, and his trusty tight end, D. Walker, hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s that trend, coupled that with a match-up against the Kansas City secondary, which makes Locker the pick. Kansas City’s pass defense declined significantly in the 2nd half of year, hitting the nadir in the play-offs, with Luck going off for 4 scores and 443 yards, ago.
The final reason for picking him is the fact that his spot in the trainer’s room is currently occupied by a simple 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper, folded once into a tent, with the words “Reserved for Jake” on it. Yes, he’s currently not injured.
Editor’s Note: KillaB finished ranked 2nd in the RotoGrinders NFL Rankings last season. Create an account on RotoGrinders and you too can participate in the Grinder Rankings and Tournament Player of the Year Race.
Left in the Bucket
Geno Smith v OAK – $6,500
Running Back:
Generally speaking, the key to finding value here is role changes, with many driven by injuries. Unfortunately for our purposes, these changes have been light. Maybe Benny Cunningham has taken Zac Stacy’s job, but the current depth chart doesn’t reflect that. Maybe Bernard Pierce will miss the game with a concussion, but it’s hard to tell. Basically, this week, we’re sifting through valuable role back-ups. It’s a dirty job. But we want Demaryius Thomas in our line-up, so we’ve got to do it.
It’s here I’ll note for the first time that, in addition to using DraftKings’ pricing, we’re using DraftKings’ scoring. That means full point-per-reception and bonuses for milestones. We’ll look at running backs for $6,000 or less this week (and miss out on Shane Vereen). With value running backs rarely hitting the yardage milestones, we’ll lean heavily on that point-per-reception.
Fred Jackson @ CHI – $4,400 – Old, boring Fred Jackson doesn’t exactly fit the mold of a receiving back, but given the 14 targets he had in the two preseason games that he played significant snaps, maybe the mold of a receiving back should look more like Fred Jackson! Lest we forget, Fred Jackson was 15th in targets and 16th in receptions last year among running backs.
And, let’s be frank: EJ Manuel is not good. In fact, “not good” is what his best friends call him. Fred Jackson plays most 3rd downs (in addition to rotating in some series), so if the preseason is any indication of what’s going to happen in Week 1, Manuel is going to make like Mike McD, heads up against Teddy KGB, and “check, check, check” down to Freddy. The only difference with Manuel is that no NFL team will ever “pay that man his money.”
Andre Ellington v SD – $6,000 – I should have picked $5,900 as the cap. Allowing Ellington into this group would be like if LeBron had gone to play with the Cavs out of high school but escrowed all his pay. Then, after his rookie contract was up, he went and played for the University of Akron and dominated. Technically, he’d have eligibility, but really, it wouldn’t be fair. The nice part of this analogy is that we, as DFSers crafting a team, are the University of Akron. You’re damn right we’d take LeBron, and Ellington is no different!
Ellington is going to get the lion’s share of Arizona’s carries. He might trade in a few targets in the pass game for those carries, but the extra volume will be assuredly a net positive. That’s especially true when you consider he averaged well over a Fantasy Point per touch last year. It’s one thing to buy bottle rockets in 144 count packs; it’s quite another to buy TNT in that quantity. Fantasy Boom!
Darren Sproles v JAC – $4,700 – There’s a bit of an unknown about what Sproles’ role is going to be in Philly. This is his first year there, and we only have one year of data of what Chip Kelly is going to do on offense. Let’s play sleuth together.
-We know McCoy was in the Top 3 at running back last year, so there’s production available.
-We have all heard that the Oregon offense was primarily a running offense, and Sproles is a running back.
-Sproles got 6 carries in the “dress rehearsal” pre-season game, to go with 4 targets. Those carries were missing from his role the last couple years in New Orleans.
-Sproles was quoted, when asked about his usage vis-à-vis the preseason, as saying “We haven’t shown anything yet.” Sounds enticing.
-One of the things reporters are saying the Eagles are using in practice is Sproles and McCoy on the field at the same time, something they haven’t shown once in actual gameplay, yet. Hmmm.
I’ve solved the mystery. It is Sproles, in your DFS line-up, for $4,700, in Week 1!
Left in the Bucket
Frank Gore @ DAL – $5,200
Chris Johnson v OAK – $5,100
Wide Receiver:
With wide receivers, the game is different. You aren’t exclusively trying to find high usage, as there is much more variance from game to game. That’s not to say that volume doesn’t help, especially in a PPR format. It’s just that with receivers, one play can do it. You’ve just got to find it. To tighten down the pool a little, we’ll move the threshold to $5,000 or less, using DraftKings’ pricing.
Emmanuel Sanders v IND – $4,800 – While we didn’t get much role change to take advantage of on the running back side, here is an obvious situation where the price is outdated. With Welker’s suspension, it’s easy to envision Sanders sliding into the slot and gobbling up volume. Tony Dungy, in an interview with Dan LeBatard, once estimated that in a Peyton Manning offense, a shopping cart with a mannequin hand attached would go for 500 yards and 5 touchdowns. Running routes in the same part of the field that a tight end does, Sanders is a slight upgrade over the grocery store staple. To quote Dan Back, “If you are not playing (Emmanual Sanders) in your head-to-head game, you are just going to lose.”
Markus Wheaton v CLE – $3,300 – Here’s what left the Pittsburgh pass game, when the aforementioned Emmanual Sanders and Jericho Cotchery walked out that door.
188 Targets. 113 Receptions. 1,359 Yards. 16 Touchdowns.
If Wheaton had shown us nothing in the preseason, we could have written that production off as “a little for Heath Miller, more for Antonio Brown, more running the ball, etc.” But after that nice catch in the back of the end zone in the 2nd preseason game, it is clear Roethlisberger and him are on the same page. It is easy to envision a scenario where J. Hayden follows A. Brown all over the field. Then, Wheaton makes like a horse and has a heyday.
John Brown v SD – $3,000 – MIN WR OF THE WEEK! Brown was a third round pick despite playing for Pittsburgh State. What state is Pittsburgh State in, you ask? Not Pittsburgh. Or Pennsylvania. From a minimum salary standpoint, his stats will put you in a state of euphoria.
He’s playing the 3rd wide receiver in Arizona, having wrestled the gig away from Ted Ginn. Mike Clay of ESPN says Brown was on the field for 63% of Arizona’s 54 first team snaps. He was 12th in preseason receiving yards in the NFL. As long as those trends continue, he’s a great bet for a minimum salary touchdown against what was a porous San Diego secondary last year.
By the way, if you guessed the state of Kansas, I will state that you cheated.
Left in the Bucket
Riley Cooper v JAC – $4,400
Kelvin Benjamin TB – $4,200*
*Justin Hunter KC – $3,800
Tight End:
You could very conceivably define Tight End Fantasy Grout as “not Graham or Gronk or Thomas.” I’m going to go down to $4,500, clipping Jordan Reed and Greg Olsen out of the picture, like a teenage girl on Instagram. A man’s gotta do, what a teenage girl’s gotta do? Um?
Antonio Gates @ ARI – $3,400 – Can’t you see it on Tuesday. Gates just lit up the Cardinals, who despite being an elite defense last year, struggled mightily against the tight end. And that was before their linebacking group was ravaged by free agency and injury. L. Green was everyone’s sleeper, but now, we realize Gates wasn’t healthy the last couple seasons. San Diego had only 1 tight end on the field in 84% of their pass plays last year, and Green was only on the field with the first team in 46% of the snaps Gates was active in the preseason (Mike Clay, again). Then we feel stupid, on a Tuesday.
Left in the Bucket
Zach Ertz v JAC – $4,100
Heath Miller v CLE – $4,000