The Daily Spin – NFL Edition Week 14
I’ve had a nice run going this season in cash games, but we are hitting the point in the season where there are enough games to choose from and ownership is spread out just enough among certain players that there is not always much margin for error. One bad judgement call and your week can go sideways in a hurry. That is what happened to me last week as I fell to 9-4-1 on the season for my cash game lineup.
As the season goes on, one of the bonuses that we get is to be able to take advantage of extra games once the bye weeks are finished. This presents a nice opportunity as it makes a lot more guys playable from week to week and raises the importance of really digging in with your research. When the slate is only eight games, beyond just the easy fill in, backup RBs, most of the value plays at QB and TE tend to have extremely high levels of ownership which makes it tough to differentiate your squad much which means that winning or losing is dependent on being right on one or two specific players to be successful. Later on in the season, things tend to open up a little bit more and there are more paths to victory. It’s rare that you have to dodge a Julio ’50 Burger’ so it becomes more of a road map that you build for yourself early on in the week and then work through it in dealing with injuries before finalizing things on Sunday.
By the time lineup lock hit last week, I actually felt great about my team. This sounds ridiculous since don’t we all feel amazing in that moment we hit submit and are filled with so much hope as the early games kick off? As Statboy can attest, I am usually feeling smug with confidence about my team as I bat away any objection he makes about any particular player and last week was no different.
I’m not sure how you typically build out your rosters, but I want to take a moment to share a little of my process today. It may be old news for the more experienced players, but I think it is important to share just in case it is a weak spot for any of you. Obviously, it begins with my normal research in looking at the field in play, the matchups, the injuries and any other pieces of news that pop up during the week. The first thing that I have to determine each week is which players are going to be mandatory for me to own for the week. In other words, did a starting skill player get hurt to where his backup is going to have a huge role the following week for a pittance of a salary? Or maybe a player returned from a long absence (hint hint) and had his role better defined for the coming weeks. Perhaps a player was prematurely priced for the next week on Sunday night and then outplayed that salary and now is getting a much higher number of touches than previously expected.
The next area I want to evaluate is the overall pricing based on each position. It’s really important to consider roster composition from week to week. In looking at the RB position last week, there were too many cheap options with a chance of exceeding value that it just did not look like a week to pay up. When combined with the early pricing that I wrote about above, that put Jamaal Williams into my cross hairs right away. Aaron Jones ended up dressing last week, but my read on that the whole time was that he was there for mostly emergency status and I was pleased that the news helped to keep his ownership in check. We had several other great options at RB to pair with Williams and by Sunday morning, I had narrowed it down to Kenyan Drake, Marshawn Lynch and Theo Riddick (after seeing Abdullah declared out). I wrote about Lynch and Drake and started my RB write up from the lowest salaries so I definitely signaled my preference to go cheap here. I ended up landing on Lynch for the week as the Raiders were down their top two WRs and playing at home against a vulnerable Giants run defense. It worked out great as Lynch ripped off a long, early TD run and just cleared 100 yards on the ground.
The next two spots I wanted to fill were for my TE and DEF. I knew I was going to play the Jags all week so I didn’t want to build a team I really liked where I had to drop down on defense at the end. Against the Colts, the Jags had a shot to put up 20 points so I didn’t want to miss out on the upside they had in such a lopsided matchup. They only put up 12 points, but that was still a solid effort and given the savings at RB, kept things moving in the right direction.
At TE, I had talked myself into playing either Henry of Cook at the beginning of the week. Cook seemed to be in play with the top two WRs for the Raiders out and going up against the Giants who seem to give up a TD a week to the opposing TE, but after much consideration, I decided to back away and I want to discuss the rationale. I think it actually hurt Cook to have Crabtree and Cooper out. With less threats to deal with downfield, I figured the secondary for NY would be able to help with Cook. I also figured the game plan would be more heavily tilted towards the ground game with the Giants ranking poorly against the run. When I considered the salary of Cook at $5,400 and the salary of Lynch at $4,800, it just made sense to go with the player that I knew would get the touches, that being Lynch. Plus, this allowed me to save $700 by dropping down to Hunter Henry who had an equally appealing matchup against the Browns, another team that doesn’t know how to cover the TE and has been consistently beaten up all year. This worked out great as Cook was a total bust and Henry exceeded value. This was the high point in my decision making process for the week.
So the skeleton for my team was pretty strong. Now I needed to find a way to add in the big pieces. Most weeks, there are one or two big name players that I know I am going to have on my roster. Last week, that player was DeAndre Hopkins. I knew from the outset that at $7,300 and going up against a mediocre Titan secondary that he would make my cash roster 10/10 times. There just wasn’t going to be a scenario where I left him off my team with him getting double digit targets every week. He ended up receiving 14 targets on the day and caught eight for 80 yards. Not bad, not elite. He was owned by 70% of the field so it certainly did not hurt me and if one or two more passes end up in his arms, it’s a big day.
The next guy I was pretty certain about playing for the week was Devante Adams. He’s been the one guy who has clicked with Brett Hundley since Aaron Rodgers was injured. Outside of a poor game against a tough New Orleans secondary, Adams has been good for 2.5-3x each week. Going against a bad Tampa secondary, I thought Adams would have one of his better efforts of the season, but somehow, just a week after shredding the Steelers on the road, the Packers were unable to get anything going through the air against the Bucs who have been banged up for much of the season. Considering how easily the Falcons had moved the ball through the air against the Bucs, it as frustrating to watch the Packers grind away all day. This was disappointing, but if I had to make the call again with the info that I had, I would have no problem with the call. Sometimes players just don’t work out even when the matchup and price are right.
This left me with decisions at three key roster spots: QB, WR and Flex. Here is where things went pear shaped for my team and killed my weekend. Try as I might, I just could not get myself to stay away from Mike Evans last week. The Packers are so depleted in their secondary right now that they can barely sign players fast enough off the street to fill in the holes created by so many injuries. With the return of Jameis Winston, it looked like a big day was ahead for Evans, who had received double digit targets in his four previous starts (outside of the Saints game where he was ejected). I could not envision a scenario where he did not get 10-12 targets for the week. The six targets, two catches and 33 yard effort was a surprise and an incredible disappointment in what has been a down year for Evans. Given the injuries in the Tampa backfield, the matchup individually and against a struggling pass defense overall, this performance was baffling. I could have understood a 6/60 line, but 2/33 was brutal. That said, I can’t fault the pick. There were just too many factors that pointed to a big day for Evans. He was terrible, but I am okay with the research that led me to the decision.
The next selection I made was at QB. This is where I probably erred a bit in my judgement in starting Brett Hundley. He played so well in Pittsburgh the previous week against a capable defense in a big game that it looked like he was about to turn the corner overall. Unfortunately, he reverted back to the same Hundley we’ve seen most weeks since taking over the starting QB job. It’s been strange to watch as outside of a bunch of garbage time points against the Lions, he’s been awful at home. Part of it is Hundley, part of it is Mike McCarthy, The mistake was in trusting a player in cash games that is largely unproven. I had the option of paying just slightly more and upgrading to Josh McCown who has been consistent all year and also had a positive matchup at home. This should have been the play all along. We’ve seen single digit efforts from Hundley before, but went for the extra savings rather than the high floor offered by McCown. I’ve written before about not wanting to guess on players in cash games. I let Hundley’s success in one big game sway me way too much and I paid for it…in cash game losses. This one decision ended up being the difference between winning and losing.
The final piece that I used ended up being Demaryius Thomas. By using Hundley, that gave me exactly $5,300 which gave me a shot at using Thomas. This was another strange result as Thomas caught just two passes for 27 yards against Xavien Howard, one of the worst CBs in the league. However, he was targeted 10 times on the day and that’s really all we can hope for at the start of the day. If you told me at the outset that he would get that many looks against a terrible secondary, I would take it every time. Unfortunately, the Broncos are so bad right now and they are such a mess at QB, that we may just end up having to avoid them and their musical chairs QB routine.
| QB | Brett Hundley | 8.96 |
| RB | Marshawn Lynch | 23.1 |
| RB | Jamaal Williams | 23.3 |
| WR | Davante Adams | 8.2 |
| WR | DeAndre Hopkins | 16 |
| WR | Demaryius Thomas | 4.7 |
| TE | Hunter Henry | 15.1 |
| F | Mike Evans | 5.3 |
| DEF | Jags | 12 |
| Total | 116.66 |
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