DK Building Blocks Week 2

Sunday Morning Update

Feeling good about Rivers and a stack with one or two receivers, rather than playing Taylor or Hines.

I’m ending up with more Ronald Jones ownership than I had planned also. Great spot against Carolina if he gets the work and Fournette doesn’t.

QB – Almost any QB I have, I’m going to stack with one of their pass catchers and sometimes two. In most of the cases, and even more so when I go with 2, I’ll bring it back with someone on the other team when playing in a large field tournament. The idea, of course, is that if you have situations where your guys are producing points, it’s typically because they’re in an environment that caters to it. If that’s true, then in turn there are points being produced by the other side as well. It’s why this stacking strategy is viable. (Over 30% of MM winners have this type of lineup construction.)

Lamar Jackson $8,200 – Do I really need to explain this one? He’s always viable. As I discussed last week, I prefer him at home, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad road play. He’s expensive so you’ll have to find some other value plays to make him fit.

Patrick Mahomes $7,700 – Again, every week you can make a case for Mahomes. The Chiefs zone defensive scheme does make his path to fantasy success a bit more difficult. That and the appearance of their offense being inept makes it less likely that KC plays from behind. Which makes me like Clyde Edwards-Hellaire a bit more than Mahomes.

Josh Allen $6,700 – Allen looked great last week. It was against a poor Jets defense, but this week he gets another defensive unit that leaves a lot to be desired in Miami. He should be able to pair another super-efficient passing week with his rushing upside. He’s a huge discount compared to the guys above him that have that same upside. His 312 yards passing last week were higher than any week last year.

Matt Ryan $6,600 – Ryan has been a prolific passer for years now. On a regular basis, he’s dropping back to pass 40 and in a lot of cases 50+ times in a game. This gives him huge upside in terms of the 300-yard bonus. This Falcons defense still looks terrible and the Dallas offense has weapons all over the field. The game total, dome location, and that defense all point to Ryan crushing that 6k salary. It might not be until late into garbage time, but I think pairing Ryan with 2 of his pass-catchers and a Cowboy running back will be a popular build. There are a lot of pieces on each side so you can still get to a unique lineup build despite the chalky nature of this game.

Ben Roethlisberger $6,300 – While Ben looked really good on Monday night, I have to ask myself was that because he’s returned to form coming off a year where he missed most of the games, never shaved, and revitalized himself? Or was it because he played one of the worst secondaries in the league and exploited them as any competent QB should? It’s probably a bit of both if we’re being honest with ourselves. Ben has always been a better home QB and this game is at home, against a revamped Broncos secondary that did lose its best cover corner in Chris Harris. There are just too many weapons on the outside to ignore this spot for Ben. This Steelers defense looked lights out on Monday and if that continues to be the case against a Bronco’s offense that struggled in their Monday night game we should see some very favorable field positions for this Steelers offense.

Kyler Murray $6,100 – It’s hard not to like Kyler at this price. An additional year into the offense, a new weapon to play with, and a game at home. Unlike Wentz, he’s a bit more mobile at this point in their careers, and I expect him to be able to scramble away from some of the sacks that doomed Carson last week. I’m not sure he can top that 91 yards rushing from last week, but that’s not even his career-high. However, there are a lot of warts to beware of here. To be successful, they’ll have to mirror last week’s game plan with a lot of short throws that get out of Murray’s hands quickly. The sky is the limit, but the floor is legit super low. I love the play more than a lot of people in the industry and I’ll have at least one Kyler stack among my 5 main lineups.

Ryan Tannehill $5,900 – I’ll talk about Tannehill to some extent later when talking about Derrick Henry. In essence, playing one or the other guy is pretty safe if you think the Titans win or stay competitive. They correlate pretty poorly with each other, but when one guy has a bad game the other typically plays pretty well. With AJ Brown out a Corey Davis/Adam Humphries/Tannehill stack is playable if you want to get away from Derrick Henry.

RB – As the week started, I was a bit higher on some of the value guys under 6k. As the week progressed, I’ve come off a lot of those guys. Sure, players like Benny Snell and Melvin Gordon are fine. Nyheim Hines is another one that I expect to be overly popular. But their matchups aren’t ideal and their roles aren’t certain. Hines almost certainly needs that passing game volume to come close to hitting his value. Even with 8 targets, it took touchdowns to get him there based on his price. Then you have a guy like Mostert who I expect to have some ownership, again based on that week 1 performance. The context of course is if you take out the 76-yard touchdown catch, he goes overlooked this week. In part because he’s in a committee and the volume isn’t there to eliminate the volatility. Play them if you want to; I’m going to have at least one of these guys in the vast majority of my builds.

Saquon Barkley $8,400 – Not my favorite play of the group, but his price has a lot to do with that. There’s a fair amount of personal bias we have to put aside when it comes to Barkley. It’s difficult to put together what we’ve seen over the last two years and figure out what’s real and what isn’t. In his rookie campaign, he set the world on fire. He was always one play away from the end zone and made a strong case to be the number 1 overall fantasy pick going into last year. The disappointing sophomore campaign comes with an asterisk as he was hurt throughout most of the season. That aside, we expect him to get back to what he was at the start of his career. Last week was tough. He went against a strong Pittsburgh defense but still saw the workload we’d want from a guy priced as the second-highest RB. 59/64 Snaps, 15 Rushing Attempts, and 9 Targets. Not going in his favor is another somewhat difficult matchup on paper, however one that Adrian Peterson, despite his wear and tear, was able to exploit on some levels last week. The other thing going against Barkley is everyone is healthy for the Giants. This is the first time that Engram, Shep, Tate, Slayton, and Barkley have all played together and while I believe that will hurt some of their market share, Barkley should be safe. GPP only, probably my least interesting pick on the list.

Ezekiel Elliott $8,200 – One of the last true bell cows left. Zeke will most likely touch the ball in excess of 20 times and have the opportunity to have it in his hands 25+. The way he fails is if Dallas falls behind and has to sling the ball around the field a bit more and/or Dak snakes all his carries within the 5-yard line effectively taking the touchdown points. Even in those cases you still probably get 15-17 points from Zeke, so he won’t kill you if those two things come to fruition. For me though the upside outweighs the chances of those two things occurring and I feel super safe going to Zeke.

Derrick Henry $7,900 – This matchup just looks great for Henry. The colts had success running the ball against the Jag’s last week. Heck almost everyone had success running against them last year. Henry has some of his biggest games and best moments against this team. Granted it’s a very different team that we’re talking about but as I mentioned in the previous paragraph there aren’t many bell cows left. Henry carried the ball 30+ times last week, that’s a massive workload that I don’t expect we see again this week. Still, another guy that’s almost guaranteed to touch the ball 20+ times and seems to have added some pass-catching upside into his repertoire catching 3 passes on 3 targets which both were season highs for him last year.

There were only Four Games last year in the regular season that Henry didn’t return 3x value on his pricing. Yes, some of those games he was much less expensive, but let’s look at the usage in those games.

Mariotta as Starter

9-19-19 @ Jacksonville -2.25 points vs value, 38/80 Snaps played 17 carries for 44 yards. Time on the field obviously was an issue here. Loss 7-20.

10-13-19 @ Denver -9.27 points vs value, 37/70 Snaps played. Playing time again. Loss 0-16.

Tannehill as Starter

10-27-19 vs Tampa 42/63 16 rushes and 1 target, -4.98 points versus value. Win 27-23.

12-15-19 vs Houston 39/67, -11.77 points vs value. Loss 21-24.

Both of these games Tannehill threw the Ball over 30 time, which only happened 4 times total. There’s context to understand here, the sample is small so it could just be noise.
I like Tannehill this week, I just don’t like him with Henry. Take a stand if you want either and avoid them as a stack. They have a -.07 Correlation with each other.

Edwards-Helaire $7,400 – There’s a lot to be excited about with CEH for the season. This isn’t the easiest matchup for anyone on the Chiefs and when you add that it’s a divisional match up it gets a bit tougher. We tend to weigh those a bit heavier the second time around each season so let’s set that aside. CEH had a massive workload against Houston and my belief that KC leads for most of this game will play into the hands of the lead back. His line could have been much bigger in week 1 as he did fail to score on two short runs inside the 10. He has multiple touchdown upside every week, and if we see him more involved in the passing game, the sky is the limit for this kid. Might as well play him a bit before his price catches up.

Kenyan Drake $5,900 – What a bargain. This is another guy that when we look back in a few weeks we’ll be looking down at this 5,900 dollar price tag and wishing that was still the case. Drake played 58/78 snaps, had 18 touches to Edmonds 11. I fully expect that workload to increase. Drake missed much of camp with an injury and the air quality in that first game wasn’t the best. They may have split the workload a bit for one or both of those reasons. On top of that Hopkins was just taking the 49ers to the cleaners so there was a little less to go around for the other pieces. I expect a lot of people to look at Hopkins as the main piece they want from this game, which I have no problem with. For me, I’m going to prioritize Drake over Hopkins and hopefully, he takes me to the green.

** Note I like Miles Sanders a bit as well. There’s a bit less to talk about as he missed week 1. The thing that I like about him is that a lot of people like to hold off on players coming back from injury. This is a fine stance depending on the risk you’re willing to take on. But you’ll have a shot to get him at much lower ownership and that leverage can be just what you need in weeks like this.**

When it comes to making lineups that have the highest upside, we need to stack our pass catchers with the guy we have throwing the ball. I breakdown the WR stacks, rank them in order that I’d look at them, and then add some commentary.

Before I get into that, my favorite plays on the week are below. There are a bunch of viable WRs this week. I’ll take some more firm stands on First Sip tomorrow as I weed through all this.

DeVante Adams / Allen Robinson/ Diontae Johnson / Desean Jackson/ All Falcons and Cowboys / TY-Paris Campbell / Hopkins / Diggs / Fuller / Mike Williams

Stafford- Jones Jr

Rodgers- Adams/MVS/Lazard – I like MVS’s big-play ability more than Lazard. He’s a boom or bust guy but boasts one of the highest Depth of Target numbers in the league so far this year and last. Adam’s is the obvious first in this offense and possibly the league.

Jimmy Grapes- Bourne/Aiyuk – The jets secondary is bad, these WR’s aren’t exactly great. But price-wise they give you the ability to spend up that’s for sure.

Darnold- Perriman/Hogan – I’m not on Hogan at all, he’s not a great WR, had some moments in NE but that was then and this is now. Perriman had a fantastic stretch at the end of last season. If he can avoid Sherman I think he has some massive upside at 3,800.

Daniel Jones-Slayton/Tate/Shepard – Slayton is good, the price is good, and he has the talent to blow his price out of the water. As mentioned in the RB write up this is the first time the offense is together and thus it favors Slayton/Tate as they can turn small passes into big chunks. Volume dependent guys like Shepard take a bit of a step back. He has downfield speed and can make a big play, but I’d prefer to take the discount.

Trubisky-Allen/Miller – After what the Steelers did to these same Giants and the Market Share on targets that Robinson has I’m going to be super heavy on him. Love him more as a play separate from Mitchell than in a stack.

Goff-Woods/Kupp – They’re almost identical to me. I won’t have much exposure to this spot though. Not because I don’t like the wideouts, it’s more a problem with Goff on the road and in the face of pressure. He’s been fantastic when he has time to make reads and see the field. He won’t have time this Sunday and, as such, I expect him to be pretty awful.

Wentz-Jackson/Reagor- Jackson failed for a lot of people last week. He got chalky and we got away from him at the end of our build process. This week we’re going back. He has that ability to turn any play into a deep touchdown and with reduced ownership, his leverage is something I’m interested in. What’s more intriguing is he’s priced up, which I think lends to even less ownership. He still had 7 targets, go right back to Jackson if he burned you.

Minshew-Chark/Shenault/Cole- Probably won’t have more than a milly maker dart throw with this combo or any part of it. Chark is playable any week, but that price point has some better plays.

Tannehill-Davis/Humphries – AJ Brown is out; if you’re not playing Derrick Henry I love this 3-man stack. Super cheap and lets you fit in some major studs around it. Not a cash-game play, but I love it in tournaments.

Bridgewater-Anderson/Samuel/Moore- This is a tough situation to figure out. Their market share was identical. Anderson has the over-the-top speed and big-play ability, Moore is super talented, and Samuel will get safe short passes. Comes down to price and who you can fit here.

Brady-Evans/Miller – No Godwin makes this a very attractive spot for a cheap Scotty Miller or Mike Evans coming off a disappointing week 1 where he was limited by injury.

Lock- No Thanks.

Big Ben- Johnson/JuJu/Washington – Johnson had 10 targets and JuJu had 6. Even if they end up having an equal market share for targets moving forward, we get a 2k discount on Johnson which is why I have him above JuJu.

Ryan-Julio/Ridley/Gage- Play all the guys

Dak- Gallup/Cooper/Lamb- I’m a Gallup truther. I was banging that drum before almost anyone. I rank him above Cooper for this reason and that reason only.

Cousins-Thielen- no interest in the other parts of this passing attack.

Rivers- Hilton/Campbell- This seems like what you’d expect. I have this feeling that Campbell is going to draw a larger share of ownership because of his price. Also, most of the highlights they showed on RedZone in the passing game was of Campbell catching balls, not Hilton. They both had 9 targets and they’re going against a Vikings secondary that is young and got demolished last week.

Allen- Diggs/Brown/Beasley- Diggs didn’t really live up to the hype last week. I mean, he sort of did, 8 catches on 9 targets is fantastic, but what he didn’t do was break 100 yards or get a touchdown. If he does either of those things last week his final scoreline looks fantastic. Brown, on the other hand, did find the endzone, and as such his stat line looks enticing. I think it’s reversed this week and I’m leaning Diggs over Brown

Fitz- If Parker was healthy I’d be interested. Even if he plays, I think he’s going to be limited and as such I’m going to stay away from this side of the game. If you need a guy to run it back Preston Williams would be where I’d look. If Parker is out it obviously makes that decision easier.

Haskins-McLaurin/Sims/Inman- As someone that has a ton of Terry in season-long it’s just tough to roster him or play him on a weekly basis with Haskins as the QB. He’s my run-back guy though in any full Cardinal stacks.

Murray-Hopkins/Kirk- I really like Kirk this week. I’ll never put someone above Hopkins because even in the worst matchups against the best corners he can blow up. This week Kirk won’t be covered by Sherman and he should get more looks as a result.

Mahomes-Hill/Watkins/Hardman- Nothing groundbreaking here.

Tyrod- Mike Williams/Allen- Big Mike saw 9 targets and they were deep throws. I’m not a fan of Taylor, but if he’s going to look to Williams this much, at $4200, I love the play.

Jackson- Brown- This receiving core isn’t one that I’m going to target quite a bit. Jackson has huge upside on his own and my favorite stacking target is actually going to be Mark Andrews at the Tight End spot. Hollywood’s big-play ability makes him viable every week but as that price creeps up, it’s more difficult to justify someone that I’m not totally sure where his floor is yet.

Watson-Fuller/Cooks – I love Fuller as a play, not this week though. I make a point of avoiding everyone playing the Ravens defense. This won’t always be the right play, but it will be far more than it will be incorrect.

Tight Ends – I wanted to narrow this down a bit more than I did with the WR’s. There are quite a few plays that are fine in the TE position this week. I just like these guys better for 3 main reasons. Position within one of the best offenses in the league, super cheap pricing, and market share on a depleted offense.

Mark Andrews-$6300 Last year Andrews was part of a committee in Baltimore when it came to the TE position. With Hayden Hurst’s departure in the offseason, we saw an enormous uptick in Andrews’ snap count last week. He’s no longer a TD dependent play with this type of snap volume. It’s still worth monitoring as there were several games where he had a similar workload last year, but there were more overall plays in many of those games. He played 42/58 in week one. The only times last year that he played more than 40 snaps…. 97,81,83,79 total snaps.

Jordan Reed $2600- You don’t need much from Jordan here at this price. With a depleted arsenal of pass-catchers and Kittle hurt I expect a lot of people to look in this direction to save some money. It’s an alright play for those reasons.

Chris Herndon $3400- Crowder out, this has to be the week for Herndon right? He saw 7 targets, played 40/53 snaps and should gain additional market share that would have gone to Crowder if he was playing.

Defense

Last week we pivoted off the article and ended up locking in the cheapest possible defense in Washington and had some great success. This week I’m on the completely opposite side.

SF- $4000 Going against the Jets offense missing Crowder and Bell- If you can afford the 4k I’m good with it.

Buffalo-$3900 Another situation where a good defense is going against a bad offense, and it’s a bad offense possibly missing it’s best player.

Pittsburgh-$3800 They looked great on Monday limiting a lot of what the Giants wanted to do on the ground. I expect them to do the same at home against a West Coast team that possibly will be missing its best player – notice a theme here?

La Rams-$2800 Philly looked like it had some problems upfront. I doubt that will be much improved this week. The expectation is that the Rams look to pressure Wentz and force him into some quick decisions. They have the highest projected sack total on the week – sacks stall drives, and force turnovers.

Thursday 9/17 Showdown Slate

In my early years of playing Daily Fantasy Sports, I oftentimes found myself looking ahead at the slates for the next day, or in the case of football, the next week. This would happen for many different reasons – sometimes I was simply trying to see what was ahead, other times my lineups were dead for that given slate and I wanted to get a head start thinking about the next slate. I’m not really sure when that changed. At some point between then and now I stopped looking ahead and, as such, when I’d look at what we have on tap I’d get surprises like this one – an epic Thursday-night, prime-time marquee matchup of Ohio’s finest football squads. The perennial disappointments from Cleveland and a Bengals squad at the beginning of a rebuild. Man, what a way to come off that week one high? They offset this of course at Draftkings by giving us a 300k to first place showdown which means even if you do split, it should be a pretty hefty purse you get to cash at the window. However, we have some wrinkles that didn’t exist in week 1, we have some injuries to different parts of these teams that open up some cheap salary options which can make or break lineups. Let’s explore both teams, their production in week 1, and some thoughts I have going into this.

First, before we get into the breakdown you really need to figure out what type of contests you’re going to be playing. This is something that I’m going to say over and over again because it’s really that important. If you’re playing this mega large GPP with 176k entries just know that if one of these weird super cheap guys scores, he’s likely going to be owned to some degree and will change the leader board with him. If you don’t want to play in a contest where that type of volatility exists, then you need to find fields with far fewer players like the 8-Dollar 5-Entry Max 7.5 Engage Eight. It has a much flatter payout (more spread out instead of top-heavy). A better min-cash, 1.88 versus 1.50 (the amount you get back off your initial entry). And it pays out 23% of its 1,100 entry pool versus 21% for the Thursday Night Special. First place is certainly much less, $1,000 vs $300k, but you’re more likely to win with a lineup that doesn’t consist of these fringe plays that we’ll talk about.

Onto the Breakdown

Cleveland looked pretty bad in week 1 and there are already rumors of them trading OBJ. He just hasn’t delivered on the expectations from his performance in the first few years in the league. David Njoku saw some action as the Browns employed more double TE sets, something that was a staple their new head coach ran in Minnesota. Sadly, he’s been placed on IR, but that opens up some options at tight end.

Stephen Carlson at $300 and Harrison Bryant at $300 figure to get some opportunities opposite Austin Hooper. If they catch a touchdown, or have any contributions, they offer extreme salary flexibility for a roster, which in turn allows to you to try to jam in 5 studs around them. The only problem is that as you can see below there weren’t many targets that went to the TE’s last week, and there weren’t many that went to them in Minnesota last year. These are fine fliers if you’re looking to make a bunch of lineups and hope and pray one of these two guys is on the other end of a Baker Mayfield touchdown. I’m just not sure this is where I’m looking for value.

Hunt / Chubb split snaps almost right down the center. Chubb was the more effective runner, but Hunt saw more targets out of the backfield. This was somewhat the expectation coming into the year but it’s worth monitoring. Their pricing is similar so it’s a pick your poison type of night. I don’t even hate the strategy of putting both in your line up. You need some wacky things to happen if you want to win 300k, both these guys scoring or combining to score multiple touchdowns certainly falls into that category.

If I’m picking between Landry and Beckham right now, given the injury Landry is dealing with I’m leaning OBJ. Yes, I know he had a terrible game and I already talked about the rumors of his time in Cleveland being towards its end. All those things considered he still had 10 targets. The context that needs to be considered is that last week they played a fantastic secondary in Baltimore. Cincinnati on the other hand was a middle of the pack secondary last year, and we just don’t know what they’ going to be this year. Tyrod Taylor didn’t, and wasn’t ever going to, provide a test that would give us any clue as to what the rest of the year will hold with this group

2019’s Week 17 Box Score Stat Line.

On the other side, we have a Bengals team with a Rookie QB that just saw his first live-action on an NFL field. It wasn’t fantastic, but that’s to be expected without any preseason to get some jitters out. What he did show was an ability to pick up yards on his feet and that’s huge for fantasy purposes. Don’t underestimate what those extra couple points can mean especially if they help him find his way into the end zone. Most normal weeks this will be something we look at a bit more than we will on a showdown slate where he’s priced as the highest player.

The weapons he has are where it gets interesting.

In the backfield you have almost all the carries going to Mixon. He trailed Bernard in targets 5 to 2, despite running 17 routes to Gio’s 11. Mixon has two-touchdown upside and is a fantastic candidate for the CPT slot.

AJ Green was significantly under drafted in season long. Part of it was the offense and part of it was coming off a year where he didn’t play a snap. While he wasn’t on the field for every snap, or even every drop back, he did lead the team in air yards and had the 8th most of any player in the league. His price reflects these numbers and he’s going to be popular. I’ll likely look to have a healthy amount of Green and have him in a few CPT spots as well. He, just like Mixon, has that two-TD upside.

Moving into the role players, you have a Uzomah with 5 targets; that makes him worthy of consideration for a roster spot in all types of roster construction. You’ve got extreme value in the other Mike Thomas and Drew Sample (not going to lie, I thought this name was a data scrape error, a placeholder for someone else.) Thomas had 3 targets and 2 catches. He’s $200 tomorrow which means if he matches this production or finds the end zone he pays off in a major way. These guys have better paths than the similarly priced Cleveland guys.

Tyler Boyd is cheap relative to the other players that see the playing time he does. A poor showing in Week 1 shouldn’t scare you away from Boyd. He ran more routes than anyone else on the team. At 7k you’re getting a discount versus the other big-time guys on the outside.

John Ross is a guy that you can play every week, just so long as you understand he won’t do much most of the time. He’s there to take attention away from the other guys but has the top-end speed that can give you some monster stat lines as we saw from him last year. He ran routes on 85% of drop backs in Week 1 and given he didn’t have a huge stat line he’ll be lower-owned so I like playing a bunch of him.

Now that you have the plays you have to decide how you see this game playing out and build your lineup around it. Is it a shootout? Who do you see scoring? If you see OBJ having a big game, you probably want Baker too. If you think either team gets out to a massive lead, the other team will probably throw a bunch as well.

If you see more of a grind it out game, guys like Chubb/Hunt/Mixon are going to provide you more safety.

Cash Plays (200-entry or fewer Tournaments or Double Up/Head-to-Head Contests)

Baker Mayfield / Joe Burrow – QB’s are important in showdowns. They provide a safe floor that you want in Cash games.

Cody Parkey / Randy Bullock – Kickers have safe floors. I don’t think you need 2 but pick one.

Austin Seibert – Seibert was signed off waivers and could play if Bullock’s injury is more than minor.

The below guys have the safest floors – a combo of them should be in every lineup.

Joe Mixon

OBJ

Landry

Green

Uzomah

Tyler Boyd

GPP Plays (Big Prize Pools, High Number of Entrants)

John Ross

Gio Bernard

Nick Chubb/Kareem Hunt

Austin Hooper

Cleveland or Cincinnati Defense.

Extreme GPP – No more than 1 per line up.

Mike Thomas

Richard Higgins

Stephen Carlson

Harrison Bryant

Week 1 Recap

Wow, what a weekend. By now I’m sure you’ve seen the screenshot and understand that I had one of the best weekends you could realistically hope for. It’s one that I’ve worked for 6 years to accomplish and it’s still surreal. To be fair, 200k doesn’t go that far after you pay taxes, buy 6 TVs, 4 computer monitors, a new rig, some clothes, an entire bar, and a pack of Kirkland white tees. I kid, I kid… I only bought 5 TVs.

It’s important to take a step back after major wins. In the past, after winning I would go way above my normal play and get involved in larger buy-ins than I was comfortable with. And it wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with the cost, it was because I didn’t adjust my strategy for the larger buy-ins. This often resulted in losing days and since then I’ve learned to take it easy, enjoy the win, and then adjust strategies if moving up stakes.

Instead of talking about the lineup, let’s talk about the theory of how to build on short slates. I’ve won over 20 GPP’s (guaranteed prize pools, or, the tournaments with thousands of entries) this year of various sizes and many of those have come on short slates. I approach them almost the same in E-Sports as I do in the NFL. The strong correlations between players on winning teams is the key. First thing, I map out several different scenarios that can happen in the game. How does this game go if Team A wins? What about Team B? In-game two I do the same thing. Now comes the least intuitive part of the process – I understand that I’m going to be wrong. It’s my “if you ain’t first, you’re last” strategy.

Usually we’re trying to be right, we’re trying to pick the players we think will do best. But so is everyone else. So what’s the result? We lose; most people lose. In fact, on a given month only about 15% of players are profitable. The thing that binds most of those people together is they are all trying to be right. We have to ask ourselves “How do I win if everyone else is wrong? How do I build my lineup to go against the crowd?” Don’t get me wrong, if you’re playing a cash game or small-entry tournament you can go with the more “correct” players – the fewer people in the contest the less you have to differentiate your lineup. But when you’re in these large GPP’s you need to be wrong to be right. So what do I mean by that? I mean I’m taking stands that don’t feel good. I’m going underweight on Michael Thomas at home, even though I expect him to do well. The field thinks he’ll do well, and they’ll be on his side. So if he has a bad game or gets hurt my lineup will look different and have an edge.

Finally, don’t get me wrong, you lose a lot with this strategy so you need to have a bankroll that reflects the contests you’re playing in. And the fewer entries in these massive GPPs you play, the more off the beaten path you need to be, and the more often you’ll lose, so I’d recommend playing smaller ones to build your bankroll to start.

Looking back and looking ahead.

Chris Carson – I got lucky rostering him, his involvement in the offense wasn’t spectacular and this Seahawks team passed the pall so much more than they ran it. I’ll be taking a wait and see approach with him for a bit.

Will Fuller – Looked great Thursday, but draws a tough matchup against Baltimore this week. Need to monitor ownership.

Paris Campbell – 9 targets last week, against a Vikings team this week that doesn’t look like they can cover anyone.

Jamison Crowder -13 targets, started slow but will be going against the 49ers in a matchup that I believe he avoids much of Richard Sherman. As long as he and Darnold are playing together and his price stays round this $5200 number he’s super viable.

DeAndre Hopkins – $7700? LoL, okay… Gimmie Gimmie.

Seahawks WRs – Double stacking the Seahawks with this pass-heavy approach could be very profitable.

Some of these thoughts are more obvious than others. Expanded thoughts to come with the Building Blocks later this week.