Waylon Smithers has always been one of those characters you just can’t figure out. Fiercely loyal to the most evil man in Springfield, C. Montgomery Burns, but with a moral compass that shines through when needed. He has defied his boss openly on rare occasion but has worked from the shadows more frequently. For example, when Sideshow Bob cheated to become mayor, he was the operative who tipped off Lisa even though it was not in Burns’ best interest. He has a surface face that he shows the world but when it comes right down to it, he has a center that most people don’t recognize. That was week 4.
The lineup I suggested in Week 4 scored 134.54 points at a salary of 49,800. Thats technically a 2.7x return. But you never count money you left on the table so its actually a 2.6x return. 134 was good enough to cash in the pools I entered this weekend, mainly due to the number of high profile injuries. Cook, Jones, Carr, and Mariotta all left games with injuries this week and as I’m writing this we’ve already learned that Carr will be out for at least a month and Cook’s rookie season is over. Factor in big names that under performed like Brandin Cooks and Antonio Brown and you had the recipe for slightly lower pay lines. So like Smithers, on the outside, my lineup appears to have done very little but on the inside it produced cash and thats what this is about. So here’s how it shook out.
Britt was right: The Andy Dalton (5x) show has returned with a vengeance, his ownership was lower than expected (around 4%) and he produced! But the real stars of my week came from across the pond where value play Alvin Kamara (6.5x) and chalk play Michael Thomas (3.1x) both made value and essentially saved my week. All together these three players accounted for nearly 50% of my points and made my week. While 3x is the line you shoot for, sometimes its one or two really really good hits that get you there and thats what happened this week.
Britt was wrong: I had a couple BIG misses this week. Geronimo Allison (0x) was not targeted but using him allowed me to afford both Green and Thomas, so I’ll take it, I’m sure there was someone cheaper who could have gotten me 1-5 pts, but thats ok, it was worth the risk. Fleener (1.2x) and Hurns (1.7x) both came in well under projection but Fleener only cost me 3400 and was largely a play to generate cash for my chalk plays. I cannot understand Hurns other than to say that Blake Bortles throws him the ball and his consistency is terrible. Using Jax receivers is largely a tournament gamble at this point. And yet, they wont talk to Kapernick…. and people wonder why that seems racist, Bortles has been brutal this year, a change is definitely needed in Jax in the very near future. Of course this is all easy to say when you cash, had I lost this week, I’d probably be calling for Hurns’ head on a platter.
Britt pushes: this tricky 2x-3x range where they did ok but didn’t really help you very much is one i like to avoid usually but this week they were present. AJ Green (2x) and Kareem Hunt (2.2x) are both in this category, but keep in mind while they did not produce the multiplier I wanted, they were both very productive. Hunt scored 19.1 and Green scored 17.3, they didn’t make value because they were expensive, but thats why you use Fleener, Kamara and Allison, so you can roll those dice. The Bengals D (2.2x) was also a push, but thats all you really want out of your defense. So I cant call these three plays failures, but cant really call them successes either. I could have gone with Elliott over Hunt and had a much bigger day, but again, winning eliminates that doubt.
This week sees the start of the bye weeks beginning and with that a whole new set of challenges. Be sure to tune in to the next podcast Friday morning to find out what you need to do to be successful this week in DFS. As always, reach out to us on Twitter: @fignutsdfs, email: fignutsdfs@gmail.com or on The Football Fignuts Facebook page. We love hearing from FigNation and hope we can keep it cashing in Week 5.
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