Jeff’s Hardcore Core- NFL week 8

Week 8 is upon us and we continue to do well in GPPs, consistently cashing the majority of the weeks and some of you have hit some big scores.  I have not yet personally hit anything huge, but I am confident it is coming.  Usually, if you have not hit a big pay day in GPPs it means that your bankroll is down.  This year is different in that even though I have not hit anything big, I have still grown my bankroll by consistently cashing the majority of my rosters.  This tells me that the cores we have assembled this season have been really strong, we are just a player or two off and we are not hitting the right combination.  This gives me confidence and optimism that we are close.  Keep plugging away Team FGI and we will keep outworking the competition.  Before we dive into week 8, let’s recap week 7.

What went right?-  A lot of things including nailing all the top priced guys in my core.  When you make the decision to roster a guy who is $8k or more and they far underproduce value, it hurts bad, because not only are you not getting the points you need from them, you have less of a roster around them to make it up because of the cap investment we used on the high priced guy.  Last week the high priced guys were Pat Mahomes, Todd Gurley, Sanquon Barkley, A.J Green, and Adam Theilen.  Green was slightly under my goal for player production in GPPs (4X), but he scored 21 DK points (2X), so it was not terrible.  The others were amazing and gave my rosters a real good chance.  Others in my core that produced value were Cam Newton, Tarik Cohen, Kerryon Johnson, Kenyan Drake, Emmanuel Sanders, Trey Burton, David Njoku, and the Texans defense.  Not a bad crop of guys spread throughout every position.

What went wrong? There were not too many bad parts to my core, but those that were bad, were devastating.  Of course Lesean McCoy left the game real early with an injury, which is bad luck, but nonetheless devastating to any rosters he was on.  We did not need a whole bunch for Willie Snead to outproduce his price in an excellent match-up with a lot of points scored, but he found a way.  Jermaine Kearse was a complete flop.  I love the slot receiver position against the Vikings every week, as it has worked out most of the season, so I am not sour at targeting it. It just came down to a not great player with a not great quarterback, on a not great team overriding the match-up itself.  The final real disappointment for me was the Jags defense.  As you know from reading my column, I am not huge on paying up for defense, unless the match-up is too great to pass up.  Last week I felt like the Jags had a ton of incentive coming off an embarrassment in Dallas, a return home, against a dreadful offensive line, with a quarterback who is so beat up he can’t move, and they were even down at $3,600, instead of $4k where the top defense normally is priced.  Well I was wrong, they were flat, uninspired, and it looks as though Jacksonville is just going to mail it in completely this season.

Overall a very good week and I look forward to keeping the momentum going into the second half of the season.

Best of luck this week Team FGI!

Jeff’s Strategy & Core- NFL Week 8

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