Jeff’s Hardcore Core- NFL Week 16

For those of you that do not know, I was fortunate enough to qualify for the Draftkings Fantasy Football World Championship (FFWC), which took place last weekend in Miami.  I will talk a little bit about the experience as well as the team I chose to use for the contest, and also about my core overall last week.

This was the second live final I have qualified for, the other being the first and only live final ever for the PGA in 2015 (man I wish they would bring that back).  Each final has been an incredible experience and I would recommend that you take some shots at trying to qualify in the future.  From the minute you walk into the hotel (The Loews Miami Beach), you are treated first class and receive the VIP treatment.  A gorgeous hotel surrounded with waterfalls and fountains, covered with tropical plants, and situated directly on the ocean.  I brought my wife along with me and we had such a great time.  We checked in and immediately went wandering down Oceanfront Blvd curious to check out the surroundings as neither one of us has spent any time in Miami Beach.  Ever other step is an outdoor restaurant that serves enormous alcoholic beverages.  After we each polished off 2 of those, we stumbled back to the hotel for the first of many scheduled Draftkings events, where they hosted a four hour cocktail hour at the hotel lobby where it is pretty much anything you want on Draftkings tab.  It is so cool meeting many of the people that you are playing against everyday on Draftkings, and most you only know by their screename.  Of course I know TommyG1979 from working with him the last couple of years, and a couple others big players in the industry like Draftcheat, PeterGibbons, and Awesomo who I know well from jockeying in the standings in contests on the site.  But also meeting really cool people who don’t play that much and aren’t known within the industry.  Some of the coolest people we met were a couple from Indiana who qualified for the Pick-em final with one, $15 entry.

On Friday, Draftkings hosted a four hour brunch with all the amazing food you can possibly eat and of course more open bar. Saturday it was excursion day where you can choose a spa day, tour of the Miami Dolphins stadium, a cigar tour, or a day of golf, which is of course what we did.  Breakfast, a round of golf, rental clubs, open driving range, lunch, and all the Pro V1s you need was all paid for without a question asked.  For a day it felt like the PGA guys must feel with everything provided to them at no cost.  We came back from golf to find another huge party at the hotel where yet again the bar was open and all the food you could eat kept being replenished.  We watched the Saturday football games while eating and drinking more than we should yet again.  Sunday was of course the big day and one of relief for me since I hadn’t slept very well in quite some time worrying about what lineup I was going to submit in the contest with the biggest prize pool I have ever been an entrant in.  $12 million dollars up for grabs and $2 million to the winner.  A huge ballroom was set up with couches, bars, food, and of course movie screens with every game on them.  It was an insane atmosphere and very tough to describe in writing.  We found a couch and set-up shop for the day with the couple we befriended from Indiana.

The lineup I went with was: Newton, Drake, McCaffery, Adams, Funchess, Jeffery, Graham, Collins, and the 49ers defense.  I was not real sure as to where the ownership from some of brightest minds in DFS Football was going to be.  Would they go chalk?  Would it be more contrarian? Would there be a lot of stacking?  I decided not to go too much based upon ownership since I was not that confident that I knew where it would end up.  I knew Drake would be heavy chalk and he was, but only 50%.  When lineups locked and I saw Adams was only owned by 10% (even with the return of Rodgers) and Jeffery was only 2% against a hideous Giants secondary, I was shocked.  I felt good about where the ownership was with the players I selected.  When the 1:00 pm games started I could not have a better start with McCaffery getting every look and racking up 4 catches on their opening drive and capping it with a touchdown.  At only 7% owned, he was the guy I really thought would be the great contrarian play for me and he turned out to be just that, ending with 25 points (although it could have been more if Rivera would have continued to utilize him).  Within the first hour Adams caught a td, then Jeffery, and of course Cam was going off, Drake was getting the heavy volume I expected, and it had pushed me up to first place and I saw the number that I wanted next to my name when all was said and done, $2,000,000.  Unfortunately it was only about 2:00 pm rather than 7:30 pm when I took that spot.  From that point on everything pretty much went to complete shit.  Funchess dropped an easy catch in the endzone, Collins was stuffed twice from the 1 yard line, Adams took a brutal cheap shot that actually ended up knocking him out of the game and crushed any chances I had.  Jeffery had several passes shot over his head by Nick Foles while he was open in the endzone.  By the tail end of the 1:00 games I was sitting in 9^th place, but I knew I had no chance because I only had Jimmy Graham and my punt 49ers defense in the late game.  I knew when I built this team that I would need a lead going into the 4:00 games because a lot of ownership would involve the Pats vs Steelers game.  As Todd Gurley is running through the Seahawks defense as if they were 8 year olds and the tables behind us are going crazy (obvious Gurley owners), I become more and more disappointed.  The fact that Jimmy Graham and the rest of the Seahawks offense was non-existent did not help either.

With some plays, I look back and beat myself up over them for not making the selection, but with Todd Gurley, I can honestly say I didn’t think it was a great play.  I have watched every play of Todd Gurley’s this year (I own him in several season long leagues) and although he has been really good, heading into Seattle who’s run defense has been decent and their pass defense has been bad, I felt the Rams would take to the air more as they had several times before in the last month.  I could see a 15-20 point day from Gurley but I felt his ceiling was somewhat capped with the match-up.  I clearly was wrong as Gurley racked up nearly 50 points and anyone without him had no chance at a top prize at the live final.

It was very difficult watching my team slip farther and farther back and having the winnings drop with every position in the standings I fell.  I ended up in 95^th place and a cash of $30,000.

The only real move that I strongly considered was swapping Collins out for Mike Davis, allowing me to fit in the Vikings defense, who I really liked vs a quitting Bengals team.  Although the move would have been beneficial, I still would not have been close to the top prize.  You can always second guess decisions and believe me I do, for hours, days, and months afterward, but it was not meant to be for me this time.  I am not giving up on being world champion however and as the lead singer of one of my all-time favorite bands, Joe Elliot of Def Leppard says at the end of every one of their concerts, “until next time, and there will be a next time”.

Overall my core was strong and most everybody produced with the exceptions of Marqise Lee, who got hurt and Cole was the beneficiary.  Theilen was a bust as well, and I contemplated putting him in my live final team, but elected not to because of his high price and I am really glad I did.  Funchess and Graham were the biggest busts of my core last week and unfortuantley they were both part of my final team.

My biggest success came on my Thursday-Monday GPP teams as I had the ultimate closer, with Devonta Freeman on Monday night as he put up a massive 33.4 points to vault me up the standings in GPPs.  The Bucs defense is atrocious and I have been profiting on them for weeks.

I believe these last couple of weeks are a very good time to play DFS Football if you are paying close attention.  If you know what teams have something to play for and what teams have quit, it actually puts you ahead of a large part of the field.  I promise you will see bizarre plays from other people that we would not even consider these next two weeks,  especially in week 17.  We need to be really careful and arm ourselves with the knowledge of who the players are that are playing for their play-off lives and who is more focused on what golf course they will be playing in early January.

Speaking of golf in January, we only have 2 more weeks until we kick off the 2018 PGA season in Hawaii for the Tournament of Champions and I am so excited.  It is going to be an outstanding year for Team FGI!

Jeff’s Strategy & Hardcore Core- NFL Week 16
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