Jeff’s Hardcore Core- NFL Week 13

Not very often in DFS football is there one guy that you can say- if you did not own him, it was impossible to win a GPP. In DFS golf that happens all the time, almost always with whoever wins the tournament. If a guy is owned by a quarter of the field and ends up winning the tournament and you did not own him, regardless of the price you can’t win. Football however, with as many roster spots as we have to work with, even if a guy has a big 30+ point day and you do not own him, it far from kills you, especially if he is one of the higher priced guys. Well last week was one of those rare weeks and if you did not own Christian McCaffrey and his 52.7 DK points, you did not win a large field GPP. This is why I normally like to have exposure to every guy each week that I believe is capable of having this type of day. Usually it includes guys like Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and Todd Gurley who have done it several times before. Christian McCaffrey has not shown this monster breakout ability in his young career, but now we need to know that he is capable of it. The most frustrating part about not having him in my core last week is how high I have been on him since day 1. Coming into the season I featured him in my Crystal Ball Article: NFL Edition and have had him in my core for much of this season. My problem is that I overestimated the Seahawks run stopping ability and felt it would be tough for CMAC to put up 32 DK points to get to 4X. Clearly a costly mistake for myself and I hope that you folks were sharp enough to include him in your lineups last week. Outside of CMAC, I was able to identify some solid plays and also missed a couple as well.

What went right? Three out of the four quarterbacks I had large exposure to (Cousins, Winston, and Rivers) had great weeks and produced right around 4X production. The Vikings offense as a whole was great and I used a ton of Cousins stacks with Diggs and Thielen in the slates that involved the Sunday night game. Tyler Boyd, Emmanuel Sanders, DJ Moore, Matt Breida, David Njoku, Zach Ertz, and the Ravens D all had very positive output as well. Once it became apparent that Melvin Gordon’s injury was to be taken seriously I pivoted off him with most of my exposure. With the Chargers playing the 4:00 eastern game, it was some late swapping and I ended up exchanging him for Austin Ekeler and then upgrading at wide receiver, mostly to Antonio Brown on the main slate and Hopkins on my Monday-Thursday lineups. It is always challenging when you are not quite sure about a guy’s status and they are the late afternoon game. Gordon was active and was able to score twice and finish with 20 DK points (which didn’t produce great GPP value), but I was too scared to have near the exposure I had to him to start with.

What went wrong? I already talked about missing CMAC, well I missed on Saquon Barkley as well, again just as frustrating because I have been on him so much this season. I had a ton of exposure to Zach Ertz and George Kittle as I decided to own 40% each and then Njoku 20%. While Ertz produced (22.1 DK points), George Kittle was a complete bust (11.8 DK pts). Hopkins fell way short of what we needed for his price as well, but really we did not have any other real grenades. Solid core, but without CMAC and Barkley, we could get to where we wanted to be, which is disappointing. What I will take away most is that we need to put even more importance than I already do on pass catching backs. I go far in-depth into this concept in my 10 Essential Stategies to Make You a Winning Fantasy Football Player column, and am very aware of the idea every week, but I need to do even more.

We have a few weeks left in the regular season, so let’s continue to grind and try to hit a big payday before the season comes to an end. Good luck this week Team FGI!

Jeff’s Strategy & Core- NFL Week 13
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