The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Focus – Week 11

The best feeling in the world on an NFL Sunday afternoon is when you are watching the Red Zone channel and Andrew Sciciliano immediately takes you to a game where one of your DFS players is a part of a long early TD. You get points on the board, your teams all vault into the lead in every contest you are playing and you see nothing but green everywhere. You can relax a little bit, enjoy the games and you are not worried about at least one player on your team for the day. Contrast that with my experience in Week 10 where right away, Tampa Bay was moving the ball into Washington territory when Ryan Fitzpatrick fired an INT to get things off to a rocky start. When you play Fitz, that is just a part of the deal that you can never get around. He’s going to come out firing all day long and keep chucking it relentlessly no matter how bad he looks on any particular throw. This is both good and bad for fantasy owners. The short memory is key in that he never loses confidence. Even when he throws three INTs in the first half, he is never fearful about his next throw. It’s bad in that a lot of points are left on the field and what is even worse is that you are watching a Tampa Bay game.

Despite a game of historic red zone futility, Fitz actually was not the biggest problem for me last week. He managed to throw for over 400 yards and rush for 30 more, but my real problem was in not being able to find the end zone for most of the afternoon. It’s never fun when the first quarter goes by in games and you do not have a single TD from your team. It is even worse when it is 4pm and after four hours of play, your squad has yet to find the end zone. Finally, mercifully, near the end of the second quarter of the Seahawks/Rams game, Todd Gurley scored to end the drought for me. Unfortunately, he was very heavily owned so at that point, there was no coming back for me, but overall, just a really frustrating week that I will put behind me and move on from.

At RB, everyone played Dion Lewis and the masses were largely disappointed. He did touch the ball 22 times so we got what we needed there, he just couldn’t break anything substantial or get into the end zone as Derek Henry stole two red zone scores. The big disappointment for me was Kareem Hunt last week. He played okay, but never really got the touches he needed and of course, Spencer Ware got the goal line TD. He had been so good, but with the Chiefs, they have so many options that there will be weeks where Hunt is not the primary guy.

At WR, Josh Gordon put up what I would consider to be a dud with four catches for 81 yards, but only one in the second half. The Pats got pounded by the Titans all around last week which I would have thought would open up even more chances for Gordon, but it did not happen and the Pats gave up and decided not to make a push in garbage time. Marquez Valdez Scantling had an okay effort against the Dolphins, but the Packers are turning into an all or nothing team for Devante Adams. I think MVS is talented and will still see work, but Adams is going to be the top guy by a mile so unless MVS can break a huge play, the volume might not be there. I had a feeling Maurice Harris would come back to earth last week. He was not bad against the Bucs in catching five balls for 52 yards which for his price was okay. We just needed more in a weeks where everyone else struggled. The matchup couldn’t have been much better against a terrible Bucs secondary.

At TE, things were ugly for a lot of people last week. I rolled out Trey Burton at home against the Lions. Although he did post 10 points which was not a total bust considering his price, it was again, not the effort we needed with a star like Hunt underperforming. At the flex spot, I used Todd Gurley like many others did and he played great. With his ownership number as high as it was, it was not enough to make a big difference for my squad.

Finally, on defense, once it was announced that Matt Barkley would start for the Bills over Nathan Peterman, I decided not to play the Jets as I had intended to do and tried to save a little salary in going with the Pats on the road. They got lit up by the Titans. There really was not a defense I loved last week, but I do need to be wary of using road teams for defense, especially marginal defenses like the Pats. Although they had played well of late, it was certainly a potential trap game as Statboy, Erik Dantoft tried to point out to me before kickoff.

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