Updated Lineup- The Dilemma at Running Back

Malcolm Brown-
One player who has intrigued me from the start of this week is Malcolm Brown. I went back and watched the film on the Rams this morning and I am in on this guy. He runs hard, and will get a majority of the carries in this game.

Derrick Henry-
The more I look into it, the more I like Derrick Henry as well, I went back this morning and watched week 3 of the preseason when Henry was the lead back with Murray out, they did not take Henry out on third down which is highly encouraging.

The problem and dilemma I am facing is that can I start both Brown and Henry is it too much risk?

Dion Lewis-
Dion Lewis looks like he's the only healthy back in their backfield, as Rex Burkhead, James White and Mike Gillislee are all out this week and the Patriots are 15 point favorites. Brandon Bolden could factor in a little bit here, but I expect it will be a lot of Lewis.

Here is where I'm currently at with a roster. I am fairly certain this is where I will end up but will check the inactives over the next 30 minutes and post if anything breaks that is unexpected.

Week 17 and Current Lineup

This week has been brutal with all the injuries that are currently out there as well as all the resting situations. 

Going a little bit lighter this week than normal. Going about 14% of my bankroll instead of the typical 18-20% just because there is so much unknown this week. Also, I will be playing primarily 50/50 contests instead of head to heads for the reasons I posted in the previous blog but mostly because someone will make a mistake in a 50/50 and take players that are not active. 

Current Bankroll: $12,804

Amount Invested: $1,800 (14.1%)

Current Lineup

Here is my list for cash games of players that I'm considering at the moment. 

QB- 

Russell Wilson

Tom Brady

Jameis Winston

Cam Newton

Kirk Cousins 

RB- 

Kenyan Drake

Bilal Powell

Malcolm Brown

Dion Lewis

Mark Ingram

WR- 

Julio Jones 

Mike Evans

Keenan Allen

Michael Thomas

Marquise Goodwin

T.Y. Hilton

TE-

Rob Gronkowski

K- 

Stephen Gostkowski

Wil Lutz
Nick Rose

D

Cleveland (Simply too cheap)

Week 17 Strategy and Bankroll Management

This is it. First of all, I want to give you a big thank you for following along this week. Let's end the season on a high note. While we will still be having this blog for the playoffs, it isn't the same as having a full slate of an NFL normal week.

Bankroll Management Advice

This week is different than any other week on the year. I am advising you to NOT do head to heads and instead do 50/50's which is completely different than what I have been trying to tell you guys to do all season. Why? The reason for this relatively simple. In a 50/50, there will be people who will start lineups that are essentially dead. Someone will make a mistake and take players from teams that are not playing or will not play the full game. In a head-to-head this could happen, and I don't have a ton of data to support this, but it seems there is always a few who do this in 50/50's.

I'm still entering the same amount as I normally do as I feel that in 50/50's there is a decent size edge this upcoming week. I will have around 18% of my bankroll in contests which I will post a subsequent post with my cash lineup strategy.

Strategy-

There are four groups of team's that I try to identify this week.

Target Starters
Team's with everything to play for- These are team's that have their playoffs on the line

Teams that have been out of contention for a while- These teams are in evaluation mode and will continue to target their starters.

Avoid Starters-
Teams that have nothing to play for- With the exception of New England, I am avoiding teams that have absolutely nothing to play for as there is no history of these players playing.

Teams that have recently been eliminated- These teams often don't show up after being recently eliminated as they put so much into every week and become de-motivated week 17.

Updated Roster

Heading into Week 16 Lineup

Week 16 is already here? It is always amazing how fast the season goes each year. Back to back weeks have really helped out

Current Bankroll is up to 12,524
Going to keep the bankroll amount the same at 18%- $2,250 invested

One big thing here is to make sure to check back tomorrow morning if possible. Week 16 is notorious for value plays opening up value. 

For example, Michael Thomas is a late-week add to the injury report. If he is unable to go, the Saints running backs get a big upgrade and Ted Ginn possibly gets an upgrade (need to look into this one).

Super Flex Lineup

Going light on Saturday 2 game lineup

Will be posting my Sunday breakdown later today. Holidays have got my schedule all messed up.

This is updated. The first one was an invalid lineup.

Regarding bankroll strategy, I would play this slate just for fun if you're watching the games. I'm likely only going to have about 1% of my bankroll on this slate.

Updated Week 15 Lineup

Week 15 Lineup

Will post any updates as they come through.

Fire away with questions.

Week 15 Breakdown

I can't believe it is already week 15. Coming off of a great week last week, I am going to learn from the mistake earlier in the season and not go too big after a good week. We are going to have the normal amount in cash games which is around 17% of my bankroll. 

Quarterback-

This week is filled with a lot of options at the quarterback position. My favorite guy this week is Nick Foles at just $6k. I am a firm believer that the Eagles will not be looking to slow him into this offense as they essentially have three games to get him ready for the playoffs. You could realistically make a case that Nick Foles is one of the more talented backups in the league and with Alshon Jeffery, Zach Ertz, and Nelson Agholor this offense has a ton of talent for Foles.

Their are other quarterbacks that I like more, but ultimately the savings that I get with Foles at least at the moment have me loving the lineup builds with him this week. 

Other quarterbacks I am considering-

Ben Roethlisberger-

Cam Newton

Tom Brady

Running Back-

Kenyan Drake at $6,500 is almost an automatic play at this point as his price did not adjust due to being a Monday night game. This is a tremendous spot for Drake going up against one of the worst run defenses in football in Buffalo. 

Alex Collins is also very intriguing as this Browns run defense is not as good as it was earlier on in this season. This Browns team which was holding run defenses to just 2.9 yards per carry over the first eight games, are now giving up the ninth-most fantasy points to opposing running backs over their last five games. This is a spot where Alex Collins has become a major factor in the Ravens offense as he has four touchdowns in his last three games. Danny Shelton is not 100% healthy which also hurts the Browns run defense and should lead to a great spot for Collins in this game. 

Other Running Backs I am considering

LeVeon Bell

Todd Gurley 

Wide Receiver-

How can we not play Antonio Brown at this point? Brown is averaging 157 yards per game over his last four games and is going up against a Patriots defense that has not been great against the pass this season. This is a spot where the Steelers will look to Brown to keep them in this game in what should be the highest scoring game of the week. There have been concerns floated around that Belichick will try to take Brown out of this game, but looking at his last few games against New England he has gone for over 100 yards in each of his last two games. This is a spot where you just pay up for Brown and move on.

Dede Westbrook is a cheap receiver that I am looking at as the rookie appears to be gaining a larger role within this offense as the Jaguars prepare for the playoffs and Westbrook returns from injury. He is going up against a Houston Texans defense that have one of the worst secondaries in football and Westbrook has five or more receptions in each of his last three games. At just $5,700 he's my favorite cheap receiver this week. 

Other Wide Receivers I am considering

Josh Gordon- Expensive but in a great spot

Devin Funchess

Larry Fitzgerald

Mike Wallace- If he plays

Corey Coleman

Tight End

I love Delanie Walker this week. Walker is playing in San Francisco for his first time since leaving the team back in 2011. San Francisco has struggled against the tight end over the past six weeks as they have allowed six touchdowns in their last six games and while they have not allowed one over the last two weeks, they have faced two of the worst tight end passing teams in Detroit and Houston. 

Other Tight Ends I am considering: 

Rob Gronkowski if you can afford him. 

Team Defense

I am trying to find a way to pay up for Jacksonville at $5,900, but not sure I will be able to. This is a defense that had ten sacks the first time these two teams played, and the offensive line for Houston has gotten worse since they met the first time as the team traded Duane Brown. This offense for Houston is also going to be starting T.J. Yates who has played only two games since 2011. This is a spot that is tremendous for 

Other Defenses:

Minnesota

Miami- If Nathan Peterman starts

Breaking Down the Super Flex

FanDuel has introduced a new "Super" contest. This contest eliminates the team defense and kickers and adds a

How should you play this game? 
Double stacking is going to be a popular strategy in this game especially in GPP's. For cash games, you probably don't have to double stack, but I would at minimum stack one quarterback and receiver.

For the super flex positions, always take a quarterback, so really treat this as a two quarterback contest. For me, this week, everyone is going to be getting as much action of the Patriots vs Steelers games, so if you're playing cash games for these contests you can very easily go with a game stack, but if you are playing GPP's I recommend potentially fading this game.


Lineup Optimizer- Footballguys
Huge thanks to our Maurile Tremblay for quickly being able to put together a lineup optimizer on our site to adapt to this contest.

http://subscribers.footballguys.com/apps/article.php?article=tremblay_v17FDSuper15

Cash Game

We're Back: Week 14 Recap

Much needed after the last few weeks, and if Keenan Allen could have rolled over into the end zone this would have been an even better day.

Overall I put up 130.72, and it's looking like I'm going to win about 81% of my h2h games this week which means it will be a 44% return on investment this week or a net profit

Starting Bankroll: $10,922
Total invested: $1,900
Total Return: $2,772
Total Profit: $872

New Bankroll: $11,794

Couple of things:

I was surprised how low owned Trey Burton was. I would guess since it was a 4PM game a lot of people were scared off of him.

I should not have trusted Mike Evans against Darius Slay. I knew it was a risk going into the week and it really was one that I should not have taken. Something doesn't look right with Evans as the past two weeks he just not has been that involved in the offense.

Greg Zuerlein was a tough break that he kicked five extra points and no field goals.

Week 14 Lineup

This lineup is pending Zach Ertz being inactive which I believe is almost a certainty at this point.

Heading into Week 14

Heading down the backstretch. Coming off of back to back losing weeks and three out of the last four have been down weeks. It is time to turn things around.

After losing about 20% of my investment, I am down to $10,922. We need a good week this week.

Slate Breakdown:

With two of the best games not on this slate, this week is a little bit tough to build a roster.

Quarterback-

Do we trust Alex Smith? Not 100% sure I do, even though he is likely going to be the most popular guy on this slate this week. It's a great matchup against an awful Oakland secondary that Smith absolutely torched last time out. At that price, I'll probably just take Smith that way if he does go off I am not behind the curve.

Other quarterbacks that I like-
Jameis Winston
DeShone Kizer (Weather dependent)

Running Back:
I might be just paying down for running back after paying up the past few weeks and it not working out.

Giovani Bernard at just $5,100 is in a tremendous spot this week assuming Joe Mixon is out as at $5,100 he does not need much to hit value.

Lamar Miller is also in a tremendous spot this week against the 49ers. The 49ers have allowed the fourth-most rushing yards to opponents on the season and this week

Todd Gurley continues to be the running back with some of the highest yardage upside, but he has only scored one touchdown in the last four weeks and is going up against one of the best run defenses in football.

LeSean McCoy- McCoy is a player who in theory should be in a great spot as the Colts have allowed the fourth most points to opposing running backs but they are playing better as over their last four games they have only allowed the 20th most fantasy points to opposing running backs. The Colts did lose John Simon, which means that Barkevious Mingo will likely be forced to see snaps which is not a good thing for the Colts. McCoy has his up and down games and at $9,000 may be a bit too high but should be in consideration.

Wide Receiver-

Keenan Allen

Wide receiver starts and ends with Keenan Allen who is on an absolute tear as of late as he has four touchdowns over his last three games and has gone for over 100 yards in each of those games. It seems the Chargers emergence is relying on Allen more than they ever have this season.

Marqise Goodwin-

If you have the ability to go and watch last week's game against the Bears go and watch Marqise Goodwin. He was all over the field and was playing a different role than what we are used to where he is traditionally just thought of as a deep threat. Goodwin had eight targets catching all eight of them and is in a tremendous matchup going up against a Houston secondary that is not very good and not very fast.

Larry Fitzgerald-

Fitzgerald is just reliable, there is not much more to say about it. Excluding a horrible matchup against Jacksonville, Fitzgerald has 9 receptions or more and 90 yards or more in his last three games. He is still priced too low for that type of consistency.

Other Wide Receivers I like
DeAndre Hopkins
Michael Crabtree
Davante Adams

Tight End-

At the moment, I am just paying up for Travis Kelce. It is risky, especially since Stephen Anderson will be very popular, but with Will Fuller coming back, I do not believe that Anderson will continue the same deep threat role that he had last week. Teams will also game plan accordingly for the tight end.

Going to need to get lucky

What a disappointing day, Travis Kelce starts the day off strong, but the rest of the team did not do enough to save the day.

Going to need Wilson/Wentz to both be horrible

Quarterback-
Brett Hundley- 13-22 for just 84 yards against this atrocious Tampa Bay secondary. In hindsight, this one had recency bias written all over it. I liked what I saw from Hundley on Sunday night against the Steelers. Hundley did have 60 rushing yards, but it wasn't enough from him this week.

Running Back- 

The key to success this week was to take any one of the four cheap running backs this week in Alex Collins, Kenyan Drake, Jamaal Williams or Marshawn Lynch. In hindsight, I was on Williams, I just thought Jones' role would be larger than it actually was. I really liked Lynch and talked about him on the Power Grid, I just felt Howard was safer which was obviously incorrect.

Todd Gurley- Gurley was fine with 79 rushing yards and 84 receiving yards for a total of 19.3 points, but he only has one touchdown in his last four weeks.

Jordan Howard- Howard was in an ideal matchup going up against the 49ers who had allowed the third most rushing yards this season. Amazingly the Bears had just 34 offensive plays, which I have gone back and looked and I can't find a situation where a team had this few of plays.

I went back and looked to try to see if there were any indicators that this game would be played at this slow of a pace, and San Francisco is actually the fastest team in the NFL when it comes to pace.

What could I have done differently? 
There was no way I was going to start Jamaal Williams, but I should have gone with Marshawn Lynch or dug deeper into Kenyan Drake with no Damien Williams.

Wide Receiver
A lot of debate this week over Brandin Cooks vs Mike Evans. In reality neither was the right call. I ended up going with Evans, but Keenan Allen was the guy at the top that you needed.

Davante Adams- Adams was the top target in Green Bay, but was hindered by Hundley's lack of success.

Cooper Kupp- Kupp was fine at 5/68, would have liked to see a touchdown, but can't complain about

Mike Evans- 2/33 for your highest paid receiver just is not going to cut it. Six targets matched his season-low and the only other game was a bad matchup against Marshon Lattimore. I would play Evans again every single time as this was an ideal matchup this week against the Packers.

Tight End-
Travis Kelce- Best player on the team, can't complain although he did only have one catch after the two long touchdowns which while it was a good game could have been great.

Kicker- 
Josh Lambo- 10 points from a kicker is something I will take every day. Something to keep an eye on here is that the Jaguars went for two on their first two touchdowns.

Defense-
Chargers- Chargers were solid with three sacks, an interception and a fumble.

Good Start

Last Update

Continue to play with the lineup, and wanted to provide my most recent version of my lineup that I will be using.

Week 13 Cash Lineup

This week we actually have some Sunday morning injuries we need to keep an eye on.

The first is Aaron Jones. If Jones is active, I am off of Jamaal Williams completely. If Jones is out, I like Williams quite a bit.

The second is Alex Collins, I like Collins if he is active this week, but if he were to scratch Buck Allen becomes a nice play.

The third is Nick Novak who heading into this game was my favorite kicker. The team has activated Patrick Coon, so it is unlikely Novak will be playing this week.


As of now, below is my lineup, this will likely change between now and lock based on any injury situations that may come up.

Is there an Edge?

Have seen a lot of comments back and forth on the upside and downside of 50/50's vs h2h contests, and ultimately whether there is an edge in this game anymore.

Going to have a two-part series the first addressing some concerns from people about whether there still is an edge. The second piece will address H2H vs 50/50 contests.

Is there still an edge?

What I will say when people ask me is there an edge in fantasy football is yes I firmly believe there still is an edge, but it's not as big as what you think. Yes there is a lot of information out there, but there is also a lot of garbage information out there.

The biggest thing however, is that if it isn't fun and you're only doing it for the money, there are other things that you could be doing that probably will be more profitable. I have long said that the moment that this stops being fun that I will stop doing it.

Addressing Variance

Someone on Twitter sent me a DM saying, I won 200% of my bankroll in 2015 and am only up 20% this year. I also got one that said I have been up about 50% for the last three years and am down about 40% this season so the edge is clearly gone.

From a statistical standpoint, this simply is not true. I have even seen some people go as far to say I have lost three weeks in a row so clearly, there is no longer an edge. 

The NFL is 17 weeks long. If you're playing 50/50 contests, it is a majority of the time an all or nothing proposition. Therefore, the difference between a winning season and a losing season often can come down to one or two weeks. 

60% is largely considered a good winning percentage in cash games. I ran a random win/loss simulation for 7 years worth of contests. Here are the results for 17 weeks. 

What does this mean?

One year of results if you're a winning player should determine long-term success. There are going to be good streaks and some down streaks, I fully believe there is still an edge if you put in the work or trust someone with good information to do the research for you, but ultimately have fun and enjoy it. This should not be treated as a job.