The Reid Option: Week 11

by Sammy Reid (SammyReid) Last Updated 2018-11-17 09:21:17 Premium Content Part of the product Core4

Each week, Sammy Reid will break down each position in detail, pinpointing his favorite plays at various salary ranges. Who should we be focusing our core on this week? Read below to find out!

Week 11

Once November hits in the Reid household, it means one thing: Lots of Hallmark Christmas movies. And when I say lots, I mean LOTS. Like, way too many. There’s a Hallmark Christmas movie on right now, as I write this. It’s the second one of the night.

My wife puts up with me watching baseball and football all the damn time throughout the year, so I let her have this one thing. She’s a small-town girl from Wyoming who likes cheesy holiday stuff; it makes her happy. But I’ve gotta level with you guys – these movies make me tilt like the artwork at Stevie Wonder’s house.

There’s like a hundred of these damn movies, and they’re all the same! A small town-girl (who has moved off to a big city and found some douchey corporate boyfriend) returns home to said small town, and rediscovers herself through the joys of the Christmas spirit. She breaks up with her boyfriend (amicably, always) and ends back up in the arms her old small-town flame who she’s loved all along, culminating with a romantic kiss (always sans tongue) on a sleigh ride or under snowfall next to a Christmas tree or some other cheeseball nonsense.

My wife loves it because she knows what’s going to happen. There’s no drama, no anxiety. There’s safety and comfort for her in knowing exactly how it’s going to turn out. It’s basically the opposite of what makes us tick as DFS players.

We court the volatility and the unpredictable outcomes. We sweat the games with our hard-earned money on the line. Every week, we try to put ourselves in the best position possible to succeed, then we watch things play out with zero control over them. It’s terrifying, it’s thrilling, and it makes us feel alive.

At this point in the season, however, we need to make sure our lineup construction doesn’t turn into a Hallmark movie. We all have our preferred method for building; for me, I almost always go cheap at QB, TE, and DST, while paying up for two stud RBs and a stud WR. Then I often fill out two value WRs that are underpriced for their projected market share numbers, and finish it off with one value RB in my flex spot.

This construction has been very successful for me this season, but it’s important to remember that every slate is its own animal with its own unique nuances and pockets of value. If you go into it already knowing how you’ll come out, you’ll miss what could be the optimal construction for that specific slate.

This week, I challenge you to start with a clean slate. Try something new – if you usually start with the must-play studs, try building with your top values first. If you usually start with quarterback, try starting a lineup through your WRs. If you usually pay down at TE, try building a lineup that starts with Zach Ertz. You don’t have to end up with that lineup, and you can go back to your normal way of building afterwards. But challenge yourself you really explore this slate, and explore your process while you’re at it. You never know what new plotline you’ll write for yourself for the rest of the season.