The Daily Spin – NFL Edition Week 16

World Championship week proved to be cruel to Team FGI last weekend as Jeff represented us in Miami and started off strong before drops, injuries and a disappearing act from Jimmy Graham slowly moved his team to 95th place out of 200, a respectable finish, but heartbreaking nonetheless. Emotionally, I was all-in on his team, tracking the Green Bay/Carolina game even more closely than my Vikings who were closing out an NFC North Championship against the hapless Bengals. The matchup was right for a high scoring affair and each team did its part, but Devin Funchess dropped a key pass that should have been a TD, while also injuring his shoulder. Davante Adams got off to a great start and was on pace for a 25-30 point game before an errant pass from Aaron Rodgers was picked off and he was rocked with a vicious hit from Thomas Davis that resulted in a concussion that forced him out of the game.

It’s amazing to watch games now to see how much things have changed over the last 20 years. When Hines Ward used to make that type of hit on an unsuspecting defensive player, ESPN would celebrate it all night on the highlight reel. Now, it results in a suspension and a loss of a game check. The play that I really regret not considering more closely was a $4000 Greg Olson at the TE position. He’s been banged up and missed some time and was limping during his return against the Vikings when he did nothing, but I knew it was just a matter of time before he returned to form and against the Packers, who have been poor on pass defense all season, he merited more consideration. Besides the drop in the end zone, Devin Funchess had very little involvement in the offense with just four catches. I think we have to start attributing some of what we are seeing to the notable improvement of Damarious Randall who began the season as one of the poorer rated CBs in the league, but who has shut down Mike Evans, Josh Gordon and now Devin Funchess in his last three starts and was starting to get a bit of a push for the Pro Bowl late in the season. Funchess falling off the radar certainly did not help my own team for cash games either.

Although much of my attention was on Jeff’s team last weekend, I did have my own cash game roster in play. Although the pricing was tricky, by Sunday, I thought I had put together a strong team with a lot of the value plays that were out there. The big decision I had to make in going with just one roster was whether or not I was going to roster LeVeon Bell who was priced up at $9,300, but who also had a prime matchup against the Pats at home. Had I played multiple cash teams, I certainly would have used Bell, but we just did not have the cheap backups available last week that we’ve had in other weeks which made it much more awkward to get him onto a lineup without taking some bigger risks.

I knew that my first two RBs for the week were going to be Kenyan Drake and Alex Collins. We were getting the Sunday night special in terms of early pricing and each had a great script for their respective games. We knew Drake would be heavily owned, but against the Bills, at his price, he was a must start and he delivered. Collins, on the other hand, received plenty of opportunities and did not play badly, but he was stuffed on consecutive plays at the goal line in the 2nd quarter and ended up being a slight disappointment.

At QB, I really like the consistency of Case Keenum. The Vikings had a high point total and Keenum played well. The problem that I did not fully consider was that the Bengals have completely given up on this season and put no effort into the game once the Vikings went up by two scores early on. I thought after the previous week where they were drubbed against the Bears that they’d have enough fire in them to keep the game from getting too out of hand early on, but it was so easy that Keenum was pulled in the 4th quarter after putting up over 19 DK points, a very good, but short of elite effort. Unfortunately, the relative ease of the win made my choice of WR in Adam Thielen less than optimal. I liked both Diggs and Thielen last week, but ended up going with Thielen given the holes in the Bengals defense due to poor play and injuries and the Vikes just did not need him much, which was crushing. This was definitely an error on my part in not analyzing the overall game well enough as the blowout potential was high and the script for the RBs to have solid games.

The other WR spot went to Dede Westbrook who should have been in line for a big day considering how well Bortles was throwing the ball and with Marquise Lee leaving the game early with an injury and yet, he received very little attention after playing a nice role in the offense the last few weeks as Keelan Cole had a monster game and Jaydon Mickens, a WR who entered the game with 1 catch all season and who has literally been living out of his car while playing on the practice squad, grabbed four passes for 61 yards and two TDs. I feel like this was a solid play for the price as Dede had averaged nine targets per week in the three weeks leading up to the game. Unlike the Thielen play, I don’t have a problem with the Westbrook pick.

At the TE position, I went with Jimmy Graham who seemed really affordable for $4,900 in a game that I thought would shootout (for both teams…not just the Rams) and the Rams had been torched by the backup TEs of the Eagles in the previous week. For the second week in a row, Graham was a non factor and managed to have even less yardage than he had against the Jags in a game where he had zero catches (1 catch for -1 yard against the Rams). This game was a surprise across the board as we have not seen anything like this from a Seattle team at home in probably over a decade. I really liked Gronk up top and also thought Watson was a solid play against the Browns, but thought we’d get a lot of points in a back and forth game with the Rams where Graham would see a lot of Red Zone targets. Another whiff…

In the flex spot, I kept my great run going for the week in using Semaje Perine. My rationale was that every RB that the Skins had besides Perine this season was on the IR with Kapri Bibbs being pulled off the street to be the backup, or so I thought. I envisioned 90-95% of the ground game and passing game to the RB going through Perine, but that did not quite happen as Bibbs ended up catching four passes for 47 yards and a TD. Perine did get 14 carries and caught two passes, but I needed 20-25 potential touches against a tough run defense to feel good about this play and it did not happen.

Finally, to round things out, I went with the Saints defense against the Jets who were playing backup Bryce Petty. With the strong Saints secondary, I envisioned some upside potential from turnovers, but we didn’t get enough here while the other teams that I liked with the Jags and Vikings both playing well.

Overall, a frustrating week given the path I chose for my team. There were enough good plays from the column to go with had I opted to go the route of rostering Bell, but any other path made it a struggle. I feel good overall with the process and recognize that while there were a couple of debatable choices, the overall plan of attack was still reasonable. What is important here for me is to remain patient, keep drilling down on the process and continue to employ good bankroll management. These last couple of weeks are nice sized slates with plenty of good matchups so I am confident that we are g

 

QB	Case Keenum	19.44
RB	Kenyan Drake	23.3
RB	Alex Collins	10.2
WR	Devin Funchess	2.9
WR	Adam Thielen	6
WR	Dede Westbrook	4.1
TE	Jimmy Graham	0.9
F	Samaje Perine	8.6
DEF	Saints	6
	Total	81.44

 

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