The Past is Prologue: Week 4
I have a confession to make. It’s a long one, so if you just want some picks, skip the next eight hundred words or so.
I’m a max entry player. Not just multi-entry. Maximum entry. If a contest allows three entries, I enter three. Maximum five entries, I enter five. On Yahoo DFS, I enter the maximum 10 entries in tournaments where possible. Sure, with single entry I only enter once. But if I’m allowed 150 entries? I’ll generally make 150 entries, as long as my budget allows it.
A lot of people have a problem with this. Their argument is that this prevents normal people from ever having a shot at winning a large tournament. As a conformist who has won a number of large tournaments, I have a problem with this argument on multiple levels.
First of all, I think objections to multi-entry are a lot like the old George Carlin routine on speeding: Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? If you are comfortable with 10 entries, you think anyone making 11 or more is a professional player colluding with Russian hedge funds and the pro-DFS-player cartel. Anyone making only 9 entries just isn’t into DFS enough to think through all of the possibilities on that slate.
Second, I believe the normal casual player enjoys playing in the largest possible tournaments, where they can win a life-changing amount of money – and this does not make them ignorant in any way. If I am heading out to watch the games with some friends, and I have $3 in my DraftKings account, am I getting more value from the experience knowing that if I hit the optimal lineup for the week I will win $1 million, or that because of entry limits, I could only win a much smaller amount, but don’t worry because no one was able to enter a 151st lineup?
And what about unfair “scripting”? To be honest – and I’m not necessarily proud to admit this – I have hand entered 150 entries. I ride the bus to and from work, and during NBA season when I have accumulated a large number of Slam tickets through qualifiers, I have manually mass entered and edited during my commute. Did I once run out of time and end up with 35 identical lineups with the tickets I didn’t have time to edit? Yes. Did I hope that since I’m highly ranked on RotoGrinders, people would assume this was an intentional train-strategy by my cartel hedge fund to take down the top 35 spots, and not an embarrassing mistake made while the toothless elderly gentleman seated next to me on the bus slowly fell asleep on my shoulder? Also yes. Do I hand-enter most contests with 150 lineups? Absolutely not, but there are free tools (including the RotoGrinders LineupBuilder) that can generate the files used on FanDuel and DraftKings to enter 150 lineups, so I don’t feel that I am part of an exclusive cartel when I’m doing so.
Oh, Derrick.
Now I didn’t always feel this way about entry caps. Entries used to be unlimited, and I thought that was crazy. Then the maximum was changed to 500, and I thought that was more than enough for anyone. Then the entry limit on FanDuel was changed to 500 per football slate and 250 per other-sport-slate (for contests $10 and below), and I thought that was slightly restrictive but still reasonable. Now we’re slipping down the slope with an entry limit of 150 per contest written into law, and I’m left wondering if life-changing prize pools will still be possible in the future if the growth of DFS stalls or even just slows down.
So if you are clamoring for a reduced maximum entries cap on every contest – as someone who has won multiple large tournaments with less than the maximum number of entries – I ask that you keep in mind that what you personally find a reasonable limit may restrict the first place prize that some guy on the bus (or even you) might win in the future. FanDuel and DraftKings both have regular three-entry max and five-entry max contests (one of which I analyzed last week), along with single-entry contests available at every price point from $1 to $5300. FantasyDraft has a 50 entry limit on their largest tournament. Yahoo DFS has a 10-entry limit per tournament site-wide cap. (For the record, as of July 1st, FantasyAces has enacted a zero-entry limit in my home state of Virginia, thus maximizing the safety and compliance of the site for our residents state-wide). No matter what entry limit or price point you prefer, there is a site and contest out there for you that should meet your preference. That is, of course, unless you’re some kind of maniac who prefers 151 entries.
In honor of my maximum entry tendencies, this week I’ll be looking at the $5 Entry, Week 3 $250K Thursday NFL Rush. If you follow me on Twitter @jbresl, you already know… …that I won! Along with the first place prize, this win comes with the ease of being able to analyze my own lineup for my article.
So, let’s start with a question that came up on Twitter – why didn’t my winning lineup have any of the players I mentioned in the article last week? That’s a fair question and there are a few reasons:
a) My article focused on the Main slate only. Three of the players on my winning team played on either Thursday or Monday, including key contributor Gronk, so they weren’t under consideration for my article.
b) I write my article on Monday night and Tuesday morning, with the goal of giving an early look at some players and games of interest, and teaching some DFS strategies in an entertaining format. Obviously a lot of information comes out between Tuesday and Sunday, and even between Tuesday and Thursday night. For example, my article recommended Antonio Gates and Delanie Walker at tight end – both of those guys were ruled out by Sunday. Of course, they still ended up with the same score as the tight end I did select.
c) This was a hedge lineup.
What’s a hedge lineup? Well, out of 150 lineups, I enter some proportion knowing that if most everything I think is wrong, I’ll still be in the running. This serves several purposes. One is emotional – if I’m following on Sunday and see some of my main players go down, I know that there is still a chance I’ll win. There is also a financial aspect, where the possibility that I get completely wiped out on a slate is reduced if I’m diversifying across different game scenarios. Does this usually work? I’ve had a hedge lineup cash before, but never come close to winning a tournament.
With that being said, let’s dive a little deeper into why I selected the players that I did.
Quarterback
In my article last week, I suggested Andrew Luck, with the thought that the game had the highest Vegas point total on the week. For the Thursday – Monday slate, however, the Monday Night Atlanta – New Orleans game had an even higher total, making Drew Brees and Matt Ryan the chalkier QB selections for that slate. After both of those games, the Detroit – Green Bay game had the third highest total. Believing that Green Bay would come out firing at home after an embarrassing loss to Minnesota, I thought that the Packers would roll over Detroit. For my 150 entries, I went with Andrew Luck as my most selected QB (including my second-best entry, which finished 124th), followed by Ryan, then Brees, Rodgers, Ryan Tannehill and Phillip Rivers all tied for third. I had two entries with Matthew Stafford, figuring that Packers CB Sam Shields could miss the game, causing a shootout. One of those entries ended up winning the tournament.
Who fits that contrarian mold this week? The highest-scoring games this upcoming week according to Vegas will likely be New Orleans at San Diego, Indianapolis – Jacksonville in London, and Kansas City at Pittsburgh. While a lot of familiar (and highly-owned) QB names will be involved in those games, is anyone going to be on Alex Smith ($6,900 FD, $5,600 DK)? He’s not the most exciting play, but let’s not forget the FanDuel NFL Sunday Million from last year:
Congrats to jeremybronson.
Like Stafford this past week in the Rush, Alex Smith was less than 1% owned in Week 1 last year, and could very likely be owned at a similar percentage this week. For a $1,000,0000 top prize, sometimes you have to think outside the box, and Alex Smith definitely qualifies.
Running Back
Like a lot of people, I was sure that Houston would beat a Jacoby Brissett-led Patriots team last week. I had the Texans ranked as a top-3 defense in my Expert Rankings, and I had Will Fuller as a top-10 WR play. But what if they didn’t? Assuming that Bill Belichick didn’t want to put the game in Brissett’s hands, it would likely be on the backs of two players – LeGarrette Blount and Rob Gronkowski. Well, even in my contrarian mind, I was only half right. Out of 150 teams, I had LeGarrette Blount on only one, but you only need one to win a tournament.
This week, there are several off-the-radar RBs in the lower price range that I will be keeping an eye on. While a lot of people will be plugging Bears RB Jordan Howard ($5,600 FD, $3,700 DK) into their lineups due to his increased role, and I can’t argue with that value play, I’ll also be looking at Duke Johnson ($5,400 FD, $4,000 DK) on the road against Washington and Charles Sims ($6,500 FD, $5,600 DK) at home against Denver. The Browns are again heavy underdogs, however as the passing back, that doesn’t necessarily spell doom for Duke Johnson. As for Sims, did you realize that Denver is in the bottom fifth of the league for rushing yards allowed? Most people don’t, and so most people will look at a RB facing the Denver defense and automatically move on to the next choice.
Wide Receiver
At wide receiver, I paired Stafford up with his favorite WR target in Marvin Jones, so if we’re going with Alex Smith at QB, it makes sense to select Jeremy Maclin ($6,900 FD, $6,000 DK). My other two choices for my winning lineup were Odell Beckham, facing a tough CB matchup with Washington’s Josh Norman, and Terrelle Pryor, who went 0.6% owned as a heavy underdog against the Dolphins. I thought Pryor was a longshot to get snaps at QB (which actually happened) and that he would be more heavily targeted than people realized since they hadn’t fully digested the Corey Coleman injury news by Thursday night’s lock.
With both possible QB snaps and heavy targets again in play this week, I think Pryor ($7,000 FD, $4,300 DK) is again a viable (although likely much more heavily-owned) tournament play. As for a Beckham comparison, I’ll again select a player from the Steelers-Chiefs matchup and select Antonio Brown ($9,400 FD, $9,700 DK).
Tight End
I can’t really justify picking a tight end who scored zero points on a tournament-winning team or rationalize selecting a potential zero-point comparison for this week. It’s tempting to select Charles Clay ($5,100 FD, $2,600 DK) who should have seen an increase in targets with Sammy Watkins out but instead matched Gronkowski’s donut, but with salary to spare I’ll select Jordan Reed ($7,500 FD, $6,300 DK) and hope that the Browns-Redskins game goes well over its Vegas over/under of 45.
Kicker
At kicker, I selected the best real-life kicker available with the salary remaining and ended up with Greg Zuerlein. How can you not love a kicker with the nickname Legatron? Using the same thought process, for this team I will select Justin Tucker ($5,100 FD).
Defense
For my winning lineup, I selected the Kansas City defense, a notoriously tough defense when playing at home, against the New York Jets, possibly my least contrarian choice in the lineup. With the Arizona Cardinals ($5,300 FD, $3,900 DK) facing the Rams, they fit nicely as a team with a strong defense playing at home against a team with the potential to commit several turnovers.
Sometimes being contrarian looks a little odd.
So, there we go. What do I think of the lineup put together above? Well, I’ll probably enter it in a tournament, but frankly I think it’s embarrassingly contrarian. Then again, it’s no more embarrassing than having the same lineup with a scoreless, late scratch Derrick Rose repeated 35 times or a scoreless tight end coming off an injury that has a third-string rookie QB. Sometimes it’s good to plan as though things won’t go exactly as you expect.
As always, give me your thoughts in the comments section and good luck to everyone this week!