The Daily Spin – NFL Week 4

As I enjoyed my one week offseason last weekend in Wyoming, taking in the beauty of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, the NFL erupted into protests and then a slew of games where the underdogs surprised the general public again and again. As I sat down to view the games to break down the film, I just had to laugh as every time we think that we have this game figured out, it throws an incredible curveball and forces us to remember that we can never get complacent in our research. The margin for error is small, particularly in cash games so the smallest mistake can be enough to ruin our week if we are not careful.

I was a little disappointed with Week 2 as a lot of our value plays really came through and we just did not get enough from our big guns to carry us over to a really big winning week in the Sunday Night game, but with Week 3, I felt like things were looking bad all day and yet, somehow, with the help of a couple of late miracles, my one cash game lineup made it into the green and this time around, it was the lack of action from particular players in the Sunday Night game that saved me and allowed me to double up for the week. Each week, just to avoid confusion, I am going to go with a single cash game team from my selections and will then go through the lineup the following week and let you know if I was a winner or loser for the week. Here is a quick rundown on the team from last week:

 

QB	M. Stafford	16.46
RB	L Bell	21.8
RB	K Hunt	28.3
WR	D Adams	9
WR	D. Funchess	9.8
WR	R Higgins	3
TE	J Cook	14.3
FLEX	T Montgomery	13
DEF	Eagles	4
	Total	119.66

 

Whenever you win or lose in cash games each week, it is very important to evaluate your process. Most people think that winning or losing each week is just a matter of skill when they win and bad luck when they lose. If you want to improve your process and your winning percentage, you really need to nail down what you are doing right and areas where you are making mistakes.

Last week, the goal for building my team was to go heavy at the running back position where I saw a lot of value based on projected volume and then save salary at the wide receiver position where there were backups that were being thrust into bigger rolls who had solid matchups for the week. My biggest dilemma came in sacrificing playing AJ Green in a game where he had a very strong matchup against a bad Packer secondary in a game on the road where he tends to play his best football. By late in the afternoon, I was fairly certain that this one decision was going to cost me for the week. And then Kareem Hunt found daylight.

In looking at our choice for QB, I have no regrets in going with Matthew Stafford. He’s playing well and was just inches away from recording his second touchdown pass of the day on the last play of the game before Golden Tate fell just short of the end zone. He fell just below the 3x mark for value that we set as a goal, but performed pretty much in line with what was expected in hitting his projected floor which was reasonable for the price we paid.

I made the decision early that I was going to spend most of my allotted salary on three running backs. I had made up my mind to focus in on four players, Lev Bell, Kareem Hunt, Ty Montgomery and Jay Ajayi. As I began to work my way through the injury reports near the end of the week, I began to be convinced that Ajayi’s knee was a bigger issue than I had thought early in the week. Observers mentioned he was wearing a sleeve on it and also not moving around at 100%, but was going to play anyway. Obviously, this was something that would take his ownership down for GPP contests which could make him an interesting play over there, but for cash, we need to avoid those types of risks where a low single digit point output is a real possibility. Once I had made the decision to hold off on Ajayi, I was set for three other roster spots.

Lev Bell is still lacking explosiveness this season. Obviously, missing training camp has been a bigger issue than many analysts had thought. While his numbers were a little underwhelming on Sunday, he did enough not to hurt us in putting up over 21 points. He’s due any week for a huge game and as he gets himself back into game shape, I think it is coming soon. We had the matchup we wanted and got plenty of opportunities so I am okay with how it worked out.

Ty Montgomery was involved heavily in the Packer’s offensive game plan against the Bengals last Sunday, but the Bengals did an excellent job of bottling him up out of the backfield and in the passing game holding him to just 15 yards on eight catches which is one of the stranger stat lines you will see all season. For the price and the volume he received, I do not have any issues with the play. All we can do is to project potential opportunities and Montgomery received his touches.

Kareem Hunt continues to be the story of the league so far this season after a late surge shot his performance into the stratosphere. I kept checking his numbers throughout the day and could not believe the lack of touches. By the middle of the 4th quarter, Hunt had carried the ball eight times for 88 yards and had one catch which made absolutely no sense at all other than that Andy Reid is known for inexplicably going away from his best weapons randomly from time to time….ahem, Travis Kelce for much of his first couple of seasons before finally becoming a focal point late last season. However, late in the game, Hunt found a crease and ripped off a long TD run to ice the game which took his fantasy numbers from disappointing to off the charts in an instant and breathed life into my team before the night game. Given that AJ Green was in the same range for points and price, that late run is what saved me from kicking myself all week.

The wideouts did not work at all last week. Rashard Higgins was a mistake for me, I believe. Having looked great in all of one game, I probably could have stayed away as there was certainly no guarantee that the first effort would be something he could replicate. After all, if he was really so talented, wouldn’t the Browns have figured it out during training camp rather than relegating him to the practice squad? He did have a great matchup against the Colts and his price was very low so it felt like we have found the 2016 version of Cam Meredith, when in fact, we had the 2017 version which gained us all of three points. Fortunately, Higgins was the chalk play and owned at around 64% in the cash games I played so this week effort did not sink me.

I think in looking at Packer receivers going forward, in order for DaVante Adams to be really successful, he actually needs the full core of receivers healthy around him. He tends to put up much better numbers when Randall Cobb is healthy so we may need to take this into consideration when he returns from injury. He posted just nine fantasy points for us on DK, a definite letdown in an effort where I though he would be targeted more often. Fortunately, some of you dropped down to Geronimo Allison who caught a long ball late and topped 100 yards receiving. I don’t mind that I played Adams as the Packers are limited in the run which made this a good opportunity for any Packer wideout.

Finally, at receiver, I used Devon Funchess in cash….which just feels terrible to even write. The Panthers are now a team that is in trouble after taking a drubbing at home to the defenseless Saints on Sunday. I thought that with limited weapons available against a terrible defense that Funchess would finally have a chance to shine, but an early injury to Kelvin Benjamin made him the top option at WR which is not really where we wanted him to be as the Panthers are struggling enough when they are completely healthy, let alone without their two top threats in Greg Olson and Benjamin. While Funchess still put up a 2x effort for us to avoid being a total bust, the core of wideouts was largely disappointing as none came close to delivering value.

The tight end position worked out well for my lineup, but I did get a little bit lucky here. All week long I had planned to use Jack Doyle in what felt like an obvious spot against the Browns. He had played well in Week 2 after the Colts had switched to Brissett at QB and given how poorly the Browns have handled the TE position, it felt like and easy plug and play. However, as the games approached, I kept coming up just short of the salary cap constraints and had to drop down from Doyle to Jared Cook in order to make my lineup work. While the Raiders were flat all game against the Redskins, the did manage to take advantage of a turnover and completed a pass to Cook that he took down the sidelines and into the end zone for a TD. Between the Cook score and Hunt’s late score, my team pushed its way into the green by just a couple of points and salvaged the week by pulling victory from the jaws of defeat.

It was the second week this season where the cash line was nowhere near what was expected from week to week. It illustrates what I think are a couple of key ideas with cash games that people may not always concern themselves with. First, when you are with the chalk and it misses, it probably is not something that will hurt you much. With the huge number of Higgins owners out there, even a total flop of an effort really did not hurt us as the average score fell across the board. On the other side, not being on a WR like AJ Green who was more expensive, but also put up a huge day for the 30%+ that owned him was nearly enough to kill our chances to win. As you evaluate ownership trends from week to week, it is important to understand where you are most at risk in building your lineups. While we do not emphasize ownership percentage overall as a function to be concerned about in roster construction, I would also argue that sticking closer to the chalk is beneficial for cash games when it comes to the most heavily owned players. When they come up empty, it won’t break you, but if you fade them and they have a monster game, it could be your undoing. You should be less willing to take these types of risks in cash, but should absolutely be looking to capitalize on these ownership trends in GPP events.

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