Week 2 Recap
Well week 2 was a little better….. but not much. So far in the NFL season, predictability is not very high. But we’ve only got a couple days till week 3 kicks off, so let’s recap week 2 and later this week, take a look at Thursday night. Lisa Simpson has always been the cynical optimist in the family, worried about doom but hopeful for the good outcome, so thats where we are this week.
First off, let me apologize for being late. Craig and I do this as a hobby and once in a while, real life gets in the way and being a two man, amateur, first year operation is sometimes going to make things run a little late. Then, let’s get this out of the way right now, Bengals v. Texans was a total dud. This is why I hate Thursday games. So far its been more interesting watching Big Brother on CBS on Thursday nights than it has been to watch the Thursday night game. So it was a dud as I expected.
Sunday was different. I called the QB pool deep and full of value and it was. Every one of the QBs I recommended in the podcast reached value. Siemien scored 24.6 points (5x value), Brady scored 33.8 (4.2x) and Rivers scored 20.2 (3.4x). That’s pretty good. Siemien turns out to be the best value, I personally rolled with Rivers and I cashed this week.
Running back was a little different. Hyde delivered 20.3 points (4.1x) and his salary continues to rise as a result of his production. In Week 1, he was 4600 on DraftKings; in Week 3, he will cost you 5200…. on a Thursday. I can’t help but think he would be around 5500 if the game were Sunday. LeSean McCoy did not reach value, he managed only 10.3 points (1.19x) and the whole team played badly, consequently his salary is down 1200 dollars for week 3 on DK. I don’t think he’ll be useable this week, Denver’s defense is too good to use, but it was a bad week for chalk RBs. Bell, Elliott and McCoy all failed miserably to make value. I think we are going to be trending away from the chalk at RB for a while. Finally, I pushed C.J. Anderson and he more than doubled my prediction number. He ends up at 33.4 points (7.1x). If you looked at my list and decided to use Hyde and Anderson, you had to cash this week, they were good for over 50 points by themselves.
Wide receiver was a little more varied. My value pick of Marquise Lee paid off with 20.3 points for only 4900 (4.1x), but Julio (2x) and Robert Woods (>1x) both disappointed. In my opinion, to be successful in DFS cash games you need to do two things well: 1) Predict players that are low cost and definitely going to get you 3x value and 2) Identify the highest scoring individuals of the week. There are numerous other factors like ownership and matchups, but essentially, if I can save enough salary on guys who will outperform their salaries in order to get the highest scoring guys regardless of their salary; I’m gonna win more than I lose. Wide receiver made that extremely difficult this week. Lee helped with that, he definitely fell under the first category this week, but guys like Cooks disappointed and that’s a guy you wanted in category 2. Brown, Cooks, Beckham, Green….. all have had shaky starts so the chalk at Wide Receiver (category 2) is both underwhelming and evolving. Crabtree and Evans both have evolving value and may find themselves in that upper echelon before long. So for week 3, I’m going to be very attentive to opportunity and matchups when evaluating this category.
I predicted big things for George Kittl1 this week and I was wrong! He was my lone miss in the category as he only returned 1x value with 3.3 points. Good news is Kelce got you 27.3 (5.3x) and Fleener got you exactly 3x value. Not much to say here, matchups are key in TE but for the most part we are getting what we expected. Got 2 out of 3 right, I’ll take it.
Finally, I only recommended one defense this weekend, the Ravens. They got you 17 points (4.59x) and that’s great. I’m sure they are not the highest scoring defense this week, but they were definitely worth the value. Anytime your defense gets you 4x, you’re gonna be in good shape in cash games.
End result was that if you followed my picks in the cast this week, you started Rivers, Anderson, Woods, Fleener and Ravens and that netted you a total of 84.7 points for 21,700 in salary for a value indicator of 3.9x. Unless the rest of your lineup was complete duds, you probably cashed this week. You only needed to generate 65.3 more points with 28,300 in salary to make it to 150 points, so that’s only a 2.3x value needed to cash. I’m unable to provide full lineups, all the major DFS providers prohibit it, but I can provide a guy at each spot and if you used these guys in week 2, grats!
Week 3 we will do the same thing, a value player, a chalk guy who is most likely to live up to his hype and then the guys I’m including in my lineups. As the season goes on, we will see normalization across salaries and output.
Next up, Thursday night madness! Look for that guy tomorrow night.
Fignuts DFS Podcast and Beer Reviews 