Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 3 DFS Recap Podcast

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Jordan Tohline (@JMToWin) of One Week Season (@oneweekseason) recap lineups and Week 3 DFS action. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top-level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. What's going on, one-week season fam, Fantasy Points fam, J.M to win here from One Weekseason.com, hanging out with the great Scott Barrett from FantasyPoint.com. week three DFS recap pod heading into week four Scott how are you doing man I'm doing good I'm doing good I just told you I was having a very J.M day today where you're just hanging out with hippies and then I did some some hot yoga and just just feeling just living the J.M life a little bit

what was great about so we talked about this before we came on air and Scott was telling me about his morning but Scott doesn't wake up until afternoon so It sounded like a very full morning, but you got up at what? It's central time at six o'clock. You got up at like noon central time, one central time. Yeah, probably one. Yeah, there you go. That's also the old JM plan.

I feel like the old hippie reputation, which came from, I think primarily from the long hair and the beard. But it's been an interesting carryover because I didn't really realize how different I was from a lot of people in like the industry side of DFS. until I got deeper into the industry side of DFS. But I guess I am kind of a hippie in the DFS realm. So I'm glad to see you kind of carrying the hippie flag today. Yeah, I'm definitely not a hippie, but there's a lot of aspects of hippie culture that I'm just like, oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, I love that. You're also not super mainstream. Like last year, you put me onto that neutral milk hotel album. That's not standard. standard DFS. That's like a super hit star. Yeah. So you've got enough hippie.

Yeah, you were saying so you're not a lot like the DFS community. But I feel like what happens every time is, you know, someone wins. Like they're sitting on like five million dollars of winnings. And then they're just like not happy and they're not fulfilled. And so then they go into J.N. life. I feel like this is happening like five different guys where they like shun material possessions. This has not brought me happiness. So now I meditate six hours a day.

My material possessions are everything that my wife and kids own. That is definitely the truth. There was something else I was going to say on that, but I don't recall what it was. Oh, that's what it was. There was somebody in the DFS industry side who crashed me. My ex-girlfriend owns all of my material possessions. Yeah. I was like the same before the show.

There was someone who crashed at my place a couple years ago when he was in town and he was like, man, you're so laid back and like not stressed. And I was like, what is there to be stressed about? You give off like excellent, like even keeled, like everything's groovy vibes. Not the obnoxious hippie way, but just in like the... We're invisible life forms on an invisible speck in the universe. And we're invisible in the scope of time. so why not, why not relax a little bit?

Right. And why not go make some money in DFS? Why not have some fun? Speaking of DFS, by the way, for anybody who can't see, which is everybody except Scott, I'm representing, I'm wearing my fantasy points shirt today. So Scott can see that. You guys can't, but you'll just have to trust me on that. He looks great, by the way.

Let me just say, you will look great if you've heard of some of our apparel. How is your week? three weekend, DFS and otherwise. All right. So DFS. J.M. just disappeared, which he always gives me grief about, but he's done it twice so far on this show. So my, I, we're in this house with sound travels.

Like we moved this year for a better house with the kids with a yard and whatnot. But in the old place, my office was on the first floor and the living space was on the third floor. So it was just really quiet when I was recording. So now I have to be. conscious of my door being closed, my door to my office, but the cats have come in and out like five times. So I keep leaving to like open or close the door so it's not to have big hero six playing in the background of our podcast. But maybe that's just going to be the background noise, the rest of the pod. We'll see. Yeah. So I tried to quit caffeine this weekend and I do this all the

time where like, oh, I need caffeine to write my articles. I'm a mess about it. And then it's like, all right, I feel crazy. I need to get off of it. And so Sunday morning, I was just, like, my brain was not working. And I was like, oh, screw it. I'm going to pull out of a bunch of lineups, just not feeling it right now. And every time that happens, every time I play, you know, 10%, 5% of the bankroll I played the night before, I absolutely smash. And that's exactly what happened this time, played four GPP lineups, three of four cashed, high score of 185.177.4. And of course, without fail, every single time I go light, I smash. And every single time. But let's actually linger on that for a moment, because there's actually something here that's pretty interesting.

So when you have that compulsion, not just you, but generally speaking, because I experience this as well, I think most DFS players do. When you have that compulsion of like, I've got to, whatever, I just got to pull out some of these lineups this week. A lot of times that's because you're feeling some level of discomfort with some of the plays you're taking on. And you're like, I just, whatever, like, I don't have it this week. I'm just going to take these out. a lot of times that those discomfort plays are the, like it's the plays that maybe, maybe they're going to be 10% owned, right, but they should be like 20% owned, but people can't get comfortable with them.

Or maybe they're going to be 2% owned, but they should be 8% owned because people just can't get comfortable with them. It's like you're playing sharply that week from a standpoint of the risk you're taking, or like, not even the risk, but just the discomfort, especially early season, right? We've had two-week sample size. So every, like, how many times we heard the narrative about Tom, Brady being completely washed. And then he has two soft matchups to begin the year.

Goes to play in L.A. against that incredible Rams defense without Antonio Brown. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, load up on Tom Brady and the bucks, right? Like, there's this recency bias from early in the season where a couple of bad games, a couple of big games. We only have a two game sample size this year, so everybody jumps on it. But I feel like there is some level of like when you feel that discomfort, like, it's almost a good thing, right?

I've had a couple times where I was going to pull out my lineups and I was like, you know what, let me just leave them in and did well. And I remember one time, this was maybe four or five years ago, I was driving Abby to the airport for something. And on the way to the airport, it was an MLB day, but on the way to the airport, I was like, I can't play these lineups I have. And like, I dropped her off. And in the like drop off area at the airport, I sat there and withdrew my lineups.

And then I put them back in and changed them and lost everything that day. but would have taken down first place with the lineups that I'd had. I feel like that discomfort sometimes is an indicator that you're on the right track. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, so I don't know. I really struggled this weekend because I initially wrote that this week is a really tough, I get a pull-up. I'm feeling kind of gross about this slate from a tournament perspective.

But then I also said, like right after that, I said, Mike Williams' ownership makes absolutely no sense. DeAndre Swift's ownership makes absolutely no sense. Jamar Chase's ownership makes absolutely no sense. And like a few other guys. So like, I don't know why I felt gross. Maybe it's just maybe the caffeine withdrawal. But in hindsight, yeah, I think this is a great slate.

My best lineup was a her. Herbert double stack. My second best lineup was a Stafford double stack. So yeah. Do you want to ask me how my weekend went? Of course, J.M., because I'm guessing it was a pretty good weekend. It was not. No. Oh. And actually, one of my buddies, Josh Marano, who does the NFL Edge Audio, is one of the guys who does the NFL Edge Audio. He texted me on Sunday, and he was like, hey, I follow your player pool pretty closely. I'm guessing you had a really good weekend. And I didn't. I had, I didn't have Mike Williams, but kind of everybody else who hit, I had. I had Najee Harris, and I had Austin Eccler, and I had Justin Jefferson and D.K. Metcalf was the main place that I was

wanting to make sure I got exposure on as many rosters as I could this week. But I had this, I had this idea that one of these cheaper quarterbacks was going to have a big game and that it made a lot of sense to free up the dollar, especially because I wanted to get D. Can you play Zach Wilson? I did not play Zach Wilson. No, I was not on the Jets quarterback train as I was two or three times last year, but I was on Jared Gough. I was on Trevor Lawrence. I was on, and I'll explain this one, but I was on Justin Fields. In tournaments? Yeah, in tournament.

I mean, that's the place to do it is in tournament. So I'm going to do it in cash games. Yeah, because Justin Fields was like coming in at 2% ownership. Yeah, I just don't think he has tournament, tournament upside. I thought he was a great play. With his legs? No, with his legs, tournament winning upside, you play guys with rushing upside for tournament winning upside. That's all. I saw it as like poor man's Jalen Hertz where he's like even worse supporting cast or similar

supporting cast, worse as a pass catcher. He might be bad for real NFL, but like he might be good for fantasy, which is to say like 60 rushing yards and a score is 12 points, but not much beyond that. Yeah. I mean, I figured he could get up to 200, 225, 250 passing yards. You know, that's 8 to 10 points. You toss in another touchdown. You're talking about maybe 14 points plus those 12.

points you just laid out. You know, so that's like 26 points. And I actually, so my original plan going into the weekend was, uh, no golf, obviously and, and no Justin Fields, but I thought Justin Field was going to be like seven or eight percent owned. Why not God? Sorry, why Gough? Why not Gough? Because I thought Fields would be higher own. And Baltimore was down like six starters on defense with like, right. So I don't, I don't like Jared Gough. I just don't think he's good. And so I'm just thinking in like the, the, I'm just thinking in like the, The jam mindset of playing cheap bad quarterbacks on tournament. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I really liked this week was that there were good game

environments where it wasn't just the quarterback, but like the quarterback plus one pass catcher or plus two pass catchers was a really cheap bundle. So take Trevor Lawrence and Marvin Jones and Lovisa Chenault, the combined price on them when you know they're going to be behind and they've been throw, they've been a pass based offense. I think they were like second in situation neutral pass rate going in. of the week and they're going to be behind against the Cardinals. So you know that the floor is low, but you know that the ceiling is relatively high, especially for playing those three guys together. Justin Fields and Darnell Mooney was, you know, 9,400 combined. And, you know, if Mooney gets you

18 points or 20 points and Justin Fields gets you those 26, you know, you're in great shape. And so, yeah, I wasn't going to play Fields because I thought everybody gets so obsessed with the the collegiate star with rushing upside making his first start. I was certain that he was going to be super highly owned. And then even Wednesday, Thursday, ownership projections had him at like 2%. I was like,

there's no way this is right. And deeper end of the week, he was still projected at 2 to 3%. So it was like, okay, I'll take one out of eight, Justin Fields, because I felt like he had a better than 2% chance of 25 to 30 point score.

But yeah, and the golf one, it was, I was going to do one, actually I was going to do Lamar Jackson. and then I switched it over to golf once there were all the absences on the Ravens defense. And then I switched it over to two golf as I got to like late Saturday night. Daniel Jones and Matt Ryan opposite each other trying to find some of that high,

that low owned upside in these like cheaper potential shootouts, which allowed me to basically it was like if I can get these three guys who can combine for 65 to 70 points on these teams and nobody's on and that allows me to fit in Justin Jefferson and D.K. Metcalf as a pairing. And I can go Najee Harris and Austin Echler on these rosters and get up to Denver defense or Patriots defense that has a lot of upside. So that was kind of the thought process was let me pay up in these, you know, I didn't pay up for Kelsey, but I had Pitts and Hawkinson. And that's obviously, if we play at the slate 100 times, there's upside there that you're targeting. And then obviously some Higbee with my one, my one good quarterback roster, my Matt Stafford. Stafford Higbee Cup stack.

And so, yeah, I had a, like, every roster had good plays on it because of my heavy Seattle, Minnesota exposure, because of, you know, hitting on, I had, DeAndre Swift was on three of my rosters. Naji Harris was on two or three. Echler was on two or three out of eight rosters. And then those, you know, Seattle and Minnesota wide receivers was a big focus of mine, primarily Metcalfe and Jefferson. And so the thought was, if this allows me to pay up for all these guys and one of these

cheaper quarterback stacks hits, then I'm in tremendous shape. And unfortunately, all of them completely bombed. Like, Goff plus Hawkinson plus Swift was one of the ways I went. Trevor Lawrence plus Leviska plus Marvin Jones, Daniel Jones, plus Darius Slayton. Because if you're taking a guy with rushing upside, you don't want to take two of his quarterbacks, two of his wide receivers because he's optimally getting a lot of the points with his legs. So I took Slayton.

He got hurt. and the way my weekend went, probably wouldn't have had a big game anyway. Fields and Mooney. So I held all these combos of like two to three players that put up 10 points or 12 points or 15 points and kind of sunk all of the high price guys I paid up for. So I think from a standpoint of the way I approached the week I really liked it. But the main thing I was disappointed about was just I spread things out too much. And then I think like Stafford was 6,300, you know, and obviously pairing him with his

wide receivers, it gets more expensive, with his pass catchers, it gets more expensive. but who's going to score more points, you know, 90 times out of 100. Stafford in a game where the Rams have to pass because nobody can run against the bucks or Trevor Lawrence. You know, and so I wish I would have had a little bit more Stafford, like three out of eight Stafford rosters and maybe bet more heavily on that. Where did you roll at quarterback this last week? Yeah, my two best lineups.

One was a Stafford double stack. The other was a Herbert double stack. really like those. I talked about it last week on the podcast where it's like you can't ever go all in on a tight end just because tight ends flop so often. And like maybe that's smart. Just like always fade the highest on tight end. And then what did I do? I played Hawkinson on every single lineup, of course, like an absolute dummy. Yeah. So your results weren't great. But how was the process? Do you think you're making a mistake just chasing these sort of gross cheap quarterbacks? because like it is the age of the Konami code.

Stafford and Herbert were cheap, you know, Kyler Lamar. I don't know. It's just like a different day and age. Like back in the day, you can just play Blake Bortles in your cash lineup every single week and, you know, it'd be gross for the first half, but by the end of the fourth quarter, you know, he'd hit 4X.

But these days, you know, just, you know, these Konami code quarterbacks, and, you know, the Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady's of the world. What are you thinking? Yeah, I don't usually, so we had, and let me say it like this, I think that they're the Sam Darnold thing, right? Like that's stuck in your head and probably stuck in some other people's heads. That's not something I typically do, right? Like I'm always looking for, so like what I've tried to do is every year lately,

I change up my tournament that I'm attacking because that allows me to kind of think through different tournament styles and approaches for subscribers. So a couple years ago, I started attacking the Wildcat, which is like 5,000 to 7,000 entries, but it's 150 max, and I was putting in 14 to 19 rosters. So that allowed me to think through, okay, how would I win 150 max entry tournament where I'm only entering 15 to 20? and I was able to work through throughout the season, like, okay, what's the process for this? So this year I'm focusing on single entry, three entry max and putting in seven or eight rosters per week in there.

But last year I was putting in 14 rosters a week. So if I'm putting in 14 rosters, I'm going to dedicate one or two or three to some super low-owned stack. So that was darn old, you know, a couple times last year. I think that, yeah, so typically with seven or eight rosters, I have not been focused on getting to these cheap quarterbacks, right? Like, I'm just trying to get whatever is going to give me the most total points, especially because I'm betting on game environments.

What's the best game environment? So this last week was, it was unique to me because we knew that the lions were going to be chasing points against, well, we didn't know, apparently. But it was highly likely that the lions would be chasing points against the Ravens, highly likely that the jaggs would be chasing points against Arizona. And, you know, we'd only seen this horrible, no-good Arthur Smith, Matt Ryan, Falcons offense in tougher matchups.

The Giants are pretty mediocre. And Daniel Jones has been playing well and we know about the Falcons defenses. So the chances of that game shooting out were a little bit higher. So my regret was that I went so heavy on it, right? And like spread it out to so many spots. because I'm my my background is as a single entry player it's not hard for me to say all right I'm all in on this guy or that guy so if I'd gone all in on Trevor Lawrence or Daniel Jones or something like that like six rosters then gone Stafford with the other two I would have been happier

with my process than spreading it out to like five different spots you know it was kind of like it was like yeah it was it was the worst way to play it I did I did not have balls of steel this last week. It was like, all right, I'll put, you know, one roster on this quarterback, two roster on this quarterback, one roster on this quarterback, whereas I should have done, all right, I'm going to pick this spot that I think has the best chance among these cheap stacks of hitting. I'll go heavy on that and then I'll go Stafford on the other ones. And so, yeah, if I could go back and do it again, this last week was just unique in that there were so many cheap quarterback-led three-man stacking or two-man stacking options with a lot of paths to hitting. But I didn't

settle down on one and attack it. I kind of spread things out. So yeah, that was, that was just pointing. And again, that Tampa situation is so unique in that the, and I don't know, do we talk about this? I said a few weeks ago, hey, you live in Houston. Okay, how about this? So in 2018, 2017, I made a case when I was still doing MLBDFS. I made a case that you could stack the Astros against any pitcher, any day of any slate, and it would be plus EV. because they were going to beat up on good pitchers more often than people would expect, or they'd get the good pitcher out of there in the fifth or sixth inning and beat up on the bullpen. Turns out that the Astros were cheating, which is why they were able to do that.

But that would have been profitable that season or just like play the Astros, stack the Astros at least once in any matchup. And I made that case after week one with the Rams. I said you could literally stack the Rams every week this season in any matchup, and it would be plus EV. And then they're going against the Bucks, whose secondary is. average to slightly above average, but no teams can run against them. And so you know that McVeigh's going to be smart enough to just pass, pass, pass, you know how good this passing attack is.

So yeah, that was my biggest regret was that I didn't just say, look, I will figure out how to fit Jefferson and Metcalf and these running backs I like around the Rams. I'll figure out a way to do it. And that's what I should have done, you know, go down to the Bengals defense playing against dead armed Rathusberger. And so that was my biggest regret was I already, I've already, I've already been saying you could just stack the Rams in any matchup and this is like the perfect matchup to take them and I had one out of eight rosters with with Stafford. So yeah, that was my biggest regret. But yeah, it was also a strange week. So, you know, hopefully I'll get my feet under me this week and kind of have a better process this week. Yeah. So part of my justification, or at least the story I told

myself, I was dealing with a caffeine withdrawal migraine, was that like I said on the show, you know, I tend to start slow and then get better every week. Typically about like week five, I think is is when like the edge really tips back towards my favor. I'm running like the schedule adjusted fantasy points per game stuff. I'm including more models because we have finally like a decent sample size to work with. So that was part of it. The other part of it is I'm actually like kind of broke this year.

I was trying to like tell you before the. or I hinted at it before the show, but like I'm paying rent on two apartments. So like I didn't foresee that coming. So anyway, I'm just kind of broke. So I just don't have the bankroll I had last year, which is, which is unfortunate. But yeah, so part of it was like I said, I'm usually not great weeks. One, two, three. This was a good week for me in the article, but typically start slower. And I think we're really seeing that. So I just tweeted this out like an hour ago. the August Super Bowl odds versus current win-loss percentage. So of the top 17 teams in Super Bowl odds, there's only one undefeated team.

And then of the bottom 15, there's four undefeated teams. So it seems like this year specifically, there's a lot of things we didn't expect that are happening or maybe even the opposite of what we expected are happening. And I'm friends with a DFS whale, a DFS pro who plays predominantly fan dual cash. And we talk every single week. And for three straight weeks now, he sends me a text in the morning, okay, here's my core. The 2B2 is these two players versus these two players. And every single time I told him the same thing.

I'm like, it feels like a coin flip. He's like, I know, but if you have to pick one side, what would you? you pick? And I say, okay, I'd take this side. And he was like, okay, I'm glad you said that because that's where I was leaning. And every single time, the 2V2 flopped where like the other, the, the one he didn't play scored like 30 points higher than the 2v2 he actually played. And he's legitimately contemplating quitting DFS now. He hasn't lost money. He's won every single week, but every single week, he would have won like $25,000 more if he played that two v two. He's just like, I don't know what it is. Either I'm running bad or just this year doesn't make any sense. But I mean, I think that's

what we're seeing. I think a lot of sharps are starting slow to start this season. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I think that the scoring has been really low to start this season. And part of that's a function of just, we've seen a lot of touchdowns, like, where does upside come from? Upside comes from big plays, massive volume, and touchdowns. And we've seen a lot of touchdowns being distributed outside of the players that we would be betting on those touchdowns coming from. So more than likely, there will be a regression to the mean there. But also, there is a tendency, obviously, to overrate our knowledge coming into the season.

And I actually had this similar conversation on Sunday with Mike Johnson, who's one of the writers at one week season. He writes up like four or five NFL edge games each week and writes a reflection piece and contributes to some other stuff. Anyhow, Mike Johnson took down 40K with a first place finish on Van Duel this last weekend. And he was saying that he was kind of surprised to win first place that early in the season because he said usually it's more like week five onward that he starts to really hit his groove. Yeah, that's how I feel. El Magico, who is a high-stakes, high-stakes small entry, like smaller field player who also writes for the site. He breaks down, plays from his model, which his model,

he says it starts gaining, like, the highest level of accuracy after week four. And so, and what Mike and I were talking about on Sunday was just that the, there's kind of this window, I think it's like weeks five to nine, 10, 11, 12, right? There's bi-weeks. There's a few fewer games. more injuries so people who kind of have a better sense of how the injuries affect each team. You know, that's like the, I've talked before about one of the big projection systems has talked to me about like, hey, would you mind talking us on Saturdays each week?

Because the main thing we really can't account for is when there's injuries or when there's kind of these changes, how does that change the distribution of things? And so the people like you and me who have our fingers on that pulse and we're able to say, well, this guy's out or there's these injuries or whatever. that's how this affects things. That gives us an edge and we have a better sense of we kind of get ahead of the curve of what projections are able to pick up. So maybe by like week 7, 8, 9 projections are able to start accounting for the things

that you and I are able to start accounting for weeks four, five, six. And so, yeah, I think that the beginning of the season is a little bit tough. The beginning of the season is especially tough if it's more about relying on predicting what's likely to happen. And there's a higher level of embracing the plays that make a little bit less sense, you know, whether it's the Cortland Sutton's in week two or the Chase Claypools in week three. Like, if you break down, if you're the Steelers, how are you going to replace Deontay Johnson? It's not changing Chase Claypool to a short area role.

That doesn't make sense. That's not how you use Chase Claypool and maximize your offense. You start using Najee Harris more on short area passes because, I'll say it like this. And I know you're with me here, but for listeners, right? Like, we can talk about Robert Woods has a very similar slot rate to Cooper Cup. But if you watch, there's this clip from the Patriots last Super Bowl win where I forget who it is, but Julian Edelman puts a cornerback just completely on skates and like gets him

totally turned around and then like breaks to the outside on the third down play. Those like tight area moves that somebody like Julian Edelman Cooper Cup can do, that's a special thing that's different from just running routes out of the the slot. Judgesmith's Schuster plays a lot in the slot, but he's not a prototypical slot receiver. Deonti Johnson has those tight area moves where he can really get open. So who's going to replace that? Naji Harris. Okay, then you keep using Chase Claypool downfield. But no, the sealer's like, oh, we're just going to give Chase Claypool nine catches for 96 yards. Like, who cares that he's one of the best downfield threats in football? This is what we're going to do. And so there's

like these illogical things that we don't know heading into the games. And sometimes you just have to be like, cool, let me just bet on some illogical things. And so. And so there's like, things. And I think that's early in the season, the more you start doing that, the more of an edge you have. And you can obviously go overboard there. But yeah, I think that early in the season, when people are overrating how certain they are about the way things are going to play out or what players are going to do, what it allows us to gain an edge. And there's also an element, you and I talked about this couple weeks ago, but adjusting quickly, right? Like, we can say, oh, well, Kyle Pitts is due to hit because he's so good and because he's being used all over the

formation. But then you watch this offense and you're like, oh, does Arthur Smith literally not know what he's doing? Is Arthur Smith literally turning this into like, oh, an inside out offense? You know, you run and then build the pass off of this. He's not taking his personnel and saying, okay, here's the personnel we have. Here's how we'll build our offense. Instead, he's like, no, no, no. This worked really well with Derek Henry. So it's going to work with Mike Davis and Corderole Patterson. So once you start seeing that, you have to adjust. And I think if that's kind of where, you know, what we're talking about, the week's four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. You start to really gain an edge because we can adjust more quickly.

But, yeah, the start of the season has been a little bit weird kind of across the board. You know, all the hype about, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the name Shane Waldron, right? Like, and I don't, I'm not in like the fantasy bubble, but I have to imagine that every fantasy writer was talking about Shane Waldron coming over to the, to the Seahawks all off season. Am I accurate on that? Because, like, everyone knows Shane Waldron's name. and they're all like, this, Shane Waldron offense, it's still Pete Carroll's team, right? No, it actually wasn't brought up nearly as much as it probably should have. You heard, you know, every once in a while, it's like, oh, they're running at a much faster pace.

The wide receivers love it. And I talked about an anatomy of a league winner how important it is not to underrate offensive play caller changes. But at the same point, yeah, I mean, everyone said what you just said, which is, well, you know, Pete Carroll isn't going to take the training wheels off. We've fallen for this trap time and time again. But I mean, I mean, what does Seattle look like to you? It looks to me like the same hyper-efficient offense,

but like not quite the, you know, Kansas City Chiefs or, you know, whatever high-powered offense you want them to be that I think Russ has the potential to reach. Yeah, I mean, what would, I think he threw 32 passes this last week, and that was a season high. We've been like under 25 the first couple weeks. Yeah, they're going to play the same way. And so that, A, that willingness to not trust off-season narratives too much,

and then B, the willingness to adjust, right? Because you have to look at everything objectively. You can't just say Kyle Pitts is super talented. He's going to hit eventually. Like we were saying that was Waller's. break out two years ago or three years ago. Whenever Waller's breakout was. It took a little while.

Like, you know, there's all the off-season hype. And then everyone was rostering him for a little while and he didn't hit. And then it finally started to click. But you could see his usage and be like, no, but eventually, like, this is just variance that he's not hitting it. Eventually he's going to hit. And then same thing than Logan Thomas last year. One week's season probably lost like a thousand subscribers from how often.

Hilo and I were like, no, just wait. Logan Thomas is going to start hitting. Like, here are all the metrics that back this up. And then finally, second half of the season, it's like, Logan Thomas, big game here, Logan Thomas, big game here, Logan Thomas. Like, Kyle Pitts, I'd love to be able to say the same thing, but like Arthur Smith looks like he's standing in 20 feet of water and can't breathe and has no idea what he's doing with this offense. And so, yeah, just being able to adjust from offseason narratives to reality, of in-season. You know, and you got to understand that a coach can improve and a team can improve, but you also have to take what you're seeing right now and say, okay, well, this is

what we're dealing with right now. Another one is, I actually, I didn't have high hopes, but I had above, above low hopes for Carson Wentz in, you know, reuniting with Frank Reich, and I like Paris Campbell quite a bit. I like Michael Pittman. And so, yeah, that's another place where I'm adjusting my expectations and, you know, you got to be willing to do that as well. So you see any other spots where what we might have been thinking coming into the season, we're seeing something totally different? Well, in one case where the offensive coordinator was completely honest, was Mike Williams, who was being drafted as like the wide receiver 49,

despite an average finish of like wide receiver 39 over the past three seasons. Joe Lombardi was just like, yeah, he's our Michael Thomas and people are like, what? This is just a guy who was only used in the end zone and on deep shots. And that was it. And he's going to be your Michael Thomas. And that's exactly what we're seeing now. But actually what I wanted to do was look up a GPP winner and a random lineup and see how much of this actually made sense versus how much of this was just, hey, you know, he got lucky or, you know, like I said, the season's off to a weird start.

So this is in the pylon single entry. Guy played a Kirk Cousins 5%, Justin Jefferson Stack, 8%. And did not bring it back with a single Seattle player. He had Alvin Kamara, which I guess, you know, 2.5%, he's leverage off of Derek Henry. and I mean it's Alvin freaking Kamara you could say that and if you squinted really hard he is seeing easily the best usage of his career most carries per game let all running backs and target share New Orleans just wasn't throwing a lot I mean I don't know that we could have expected like the 28 to 13 beat down but well let me I'm going to jump in here real quickly too because I think this is one of the things that I had to move away from a little bit when I was writing the NFL edge because I had to get so deep into

the stats. And I've been able to get more back to this. This is kind of how I built my reputation with writing stuff in 2014 and 2015, was actually thinking through not what has happened in the past, but what's the likelyest to happen this week, right? Like, we know how slow the Patriot, the linebackers are in coverage and how much opportunity for upside that opens up for a player like Alvin Camara in that spot. So he was somebody who the research didn't point to it all. the over-under was super low. But I got onto him deeper in the week just because you can say, look, like, how is Sean Payton going to try to win this game?

It's going to be attacking the interior with Alvin Camarrow. I didn't end up playing him just because salary didn't work out. But I think that's a super sharp play because that forward-looking mentality. No. So I said that. And I said that historically, New England's greatest vulnerability is past catching running backs. but he also sell out to stop an opposing offense's best player. And like that's undoubtedly Alvin Kamara.

Christian McCaffrey, Austin Echler had near season low games when they faced off against New England. So so that's why I wasn't on it. I mean like the greatest counter argument I think is 2.6% ownership. So makes sense. Kirk Cousins, Jefferson Stack, Camara, RB2 is Swift. I think that makes a lot of sense. Christian Kirk at 3.9%. You can say, all right, well, Ron Dale Moore is 14% owned, but he's a part-time player. So why don't I just grab the leverage in Kirk? I think that makes some sort of sense.

Cole Beasley, 2.2% owned. He had 13 targets in week one. He saw 13 targets in week three. I didn't like that because Washington was the league's best defense against slot wide receivers last year. and he ranked top three the year before that. But this year, the rank really, really bad. Keenan Allen gashed them in week one. Sterling Shepard gashed them in week two. Man, I don't know. Mike Williams in the flex.

I loved Mike Williams, so okay. That was his highest own player at 10.5%. Tyler Conklin at tight end. And then Arizona at defense. And that was 217.8 points. I don't know. This could go either way. me. What are you thinking?

So I'll say this. There's a number of things on that roster that lower the, over time, that lower the percentage chances of getting a first place finish because he gave himself basically eight different things he had to get right. And, you know, Cole Beasley hit, Cole Beasley isn't a ceiling player. So a lot of weeks, Cole Beasley, that game is going to get passed by the Marquez-Valdes Scantling type player in that price range who catches five passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns. So the Henry Ruggs player in that price range who has that sort of game.

The spreading things out in so many different game environments makes it that much more difficult to get that many things correct. So, like, it was, I'll say two things. I remember when Headchopper won the Millie on FanDuel. This was two years ago, week one, and somebody sent me a DM, and they were like, I don't get this. Like, and there's no correlation on this entire roster, and he won first place in the, in the Millie. And I said, yeah, but also look at every player on this roster. Every player on this roster in every single spot has 30 plus point potential.

He had Deshawn Jackson. I don't remember anyone else, but I remember he had Deshaun. Yeah, Deshaun Jackson was on that roster, and I don't remember who else was on it, but it was just like every player could blow up. And so the Cole Beasley's the only player on that roster who you can't say that about. That roster doesn't have, like, yeah, it mathematically, its probability of getting a first place finish is mathematically lowered by betting on so many different spots. but it also bet on really good plays across the board, most of which we're going overlooked.

So it's easier to get to first place and easier to think through the processes to get to first place by combining, by betting on game environments that are, even if they're not overlooked, right? Like betting on a popular game environment and betting on it in a more comprehensive and correlated manner than the field actually gives you a better shot at first place

than like a bunch of one-off low-owned players. Because a bunch of one-off, low-owned players. because a bunch of a one-off low-owned players doesn't really give you an individual edge. So to get Christian Kirk right, independent of betting on anything where the Jaguars are pushing them to, you know, keep passing. And so you could also say DeAndre Hopkins was banged up, right? Like I had Kirk on one roster and I had Rondell Moore on one roster, but those were my two Trevor Lawrence roster. So in a, in a vacuum, if we just look at week three, that guy got first place and none of my rosters

cashed. But if we played out that week a hundred times, like my roster is mathematically have a higher probability of first place finishes. But I think that you can take that at the same time and say, if you're betting on a bunch of guys who have 30 point potential, you're still putting yourself in much better shape than the field because you're giving yourself a lot of outs. And on that week when that roster hits, you're in great shape. I think the big risk is once you win first place, you become convinced that the exact process you've done. You've followed is the best process to get there. And so when people take approaches that are less, like lower EV, lower expected value than the most optimal way to build, they're going to

keep building that way. But also we say this not knowing what this guy's other rosters look like, because I'll say that too. Like if I build 15 rosters in a tournament, or I guess it was a single entry, right? So never mind. But if I build 15 rosters in a tournament, I might have more one-offs because I'm building like 15 rosters as a block and saying like okay these are the players I'm betting on the offense environment so like I might have been betting on the cardinals on five rosters and they had like three more of six more solo and three more of solo or something like that um different it's a different tree blood yeah I don't know what your thoughts I don't know you just broke up for me you sounded like uh injured cold from the mothman prophecies so you might want to check your microphone or maybe that was just only on my end. But yeah, man, I don't know. Like I said, I had, I had some 1% finishes this week. Didn't have any 0.01% finishes. Also, didn't play my typical bank role. But we haven't done this too much. But do you want to try and look ahead a little bit to week four? Are you too behind at the moment? No, I'm happy to do that. I'd love to do that. Okay. So I'll start off with the, this feels

like a GM play. It feels like a jam, but it might just be like too disgusting. Zach Wilson has zero touchdowns and six interceptions over his last two games. But this is a player I love. Like Tony Romo loves. Tony Romo is like, yeah, man, he's going to be average or below average this year. But next year or the year after, he's going to be a star. I really feel that with Zach Wilson. I'm a big time Elijah Moore-Thruther. I don't like that he's full-time outside. I think he should be playing in the slot, but whatever, I believe in the talent. And so he had back-to-back-to-back, fairly tough matchups against some brutal pass rush. They have the worst offensive line in football, but the Titans might have the worst defensive

line in football, Atlanta might have the worst defensive line in football, giving up a lot of production to quarterbacks and past catchers. And so he gets the Titans this week at home, and then he gets the Falcons week five. Are you into? to a Zach Wilson play this week at zero percent ownership in a great spot. Yes. Yay. Love it. Yeah, I was digging in last night, and that was one of the first things I thought

was, God, don't let me play Zach Wilson this week. Yeah, literally that. Don't make me play him. But you, like you said, so, and this is key, the, like you said, the Jets have one of the worst offensive lines, if not the worst offensive line. And I think it's easy to underrate how difficult that makes life for a quarterback. Right? It's like, I think about it like this.

If you and I go out on the basketball court and we're like, if I shot like 30% from three point range and we're just like standing there shooting hoops, I'd be thrilled. Right. But an NBA player, when they're practicing, they're probably hitting like 70%. Because they're hitting whatever they're hitting 35, 40% in a. game with like they're on the move, they're catch and shoot, they've got bodies on them, they've got hands in their face, you know what I mean? Like, they're so good that if they're just shooting on their own, they're just hitting baskets. So same thing with a quarterback.

If you're throwing against air, if you don't have guys swarming around you, life is so much easier than if you're constantly under duress. And so I think that people are, they're underrating the potential of Zach Wilson. because all they're seeing him is, like, constantly being under duress. So I had Zach Wilson week one because I didn't expect the Panthers to be as scary as they've proven to be as a defensive front. And I've obviously avoided Zach Wilson since then because how can Zach Wilson put up a tournament winning game when he has no time to throw and he's constantly under duress?

But yeah, this week, Zach Wilson and Elijah Moore, Zach Wilson and Corey Davis are two that caught my eyes. Braxton Berrios? I will not play Braxton Berrios. But what do you think about Corey Davis, revenge game against the Titans? Hey, that's a good call. So yeah, I like that looking ahead one because I already thought about that one last night. I don't like it, but I could end up playing it. You know what I mean?

Right. All right. So here's a good one. The Buffalo Bills are favored by 17 points against the 10. exits. So one, is that just four quarters of garbage time for my guy, Brandon Cooks? And then two, do you, do you fade Josh Allen? Is he going to get zero ownership? He looked amazing last week. Actually, from the first dropback of the game, before he attempted a pass, I was just like, crap, I should have played Josh Allen. And then he looked amazing from there. Like,

legitimately back to the Josh Allen of old. And so, okay, is it going to be Zach Moss and cleanup duties, or is it going to be like the bills of 2020 where they were still, regardless of game script, one of the most past heavy offenses in football and Josh Allen soaked up the scores? And so if they're favored by 17 points and you think, okay, they're winning 20 to 3 at half time, what are the probabilities that Josh Allen is the one scoring all of those points? I think they're pretty high. Yeah, Josh Allen is 8K on draft Kings if memory serves.

I didn't look at that, but yeah. And I had to, I was nodded. I had to, I was not at the first. Like, 7200, I think. I was nodding as you were saying that about, like, before the game started, you were like, I should have played Josh Allen. And so sometimes I get locked into what I said early in the week. And so early in the week when I was writing up that, like my DFS interpretations on

that Bill's game, I was just saying, it's unlikely that Washington can push the bills to such an extent that Josh Allen could be a tournament winner at his salary. And what I wasn't thinking about was we know that the bills don't like to run the ball anyway, but you really can't run the ball against Washington. And so if you're the bills and you have a 20 point lead in the third quarter, what are you going to do? Like go three and out running into a brick wall or are you going to just keep passing?

And I should have seen that. And as I was building rosters, I kept noticing Josh Allen and being like, God, I should play Josh Allen this week. And it was like, no, no, I already said that Josh Allen probably can't have a tournament worthy score. So rather than adjusting that and later in the week being like, hey, here's some updated thoughts on Josh Allen. I kept kind of holding on to that.

I would say that this week, because I thought about this one last night, too, I would say that this week it's likelier that if they have a huge lead, they're going to run the ball. because they can run the ball against the Texans. I think it'd be harder for Josh Allen to get, you know, like 45 pass attempts against the Texans because if they're up 17, they can just be like, let's coast, you know, whereas against Washington, you try to coast and just going to be three and out. You keep giving the ball back. So that would be my thought on that one, especially with Josh Allen so expensive.

But my first roster last night that I messed around with, I was like, what would it look like to put Josh Allen and Stefan Diggs on a roster? Can you do it viably with like good pieces around them? And pricing appears to be tight enough that that would be pretty tough. I think it's an interesting spot, but that's my early week take on that spot. I like doing this too. I like doing this kind of early look ahead because, sure, we haven't like been diving deep into everything yet, but we kind of know these teams well enough that we can fire off some thoughts. And so as I say that, if you're a listener of this, let us know if you like us doing this.

Because last year we adjusted a lot of things based on your guys' feedback as far as just kind of keeping it more focused on the week behind and being more conversational about, you know, the DFS focus, like this last DFS slate. But I think it's also cool to kind of use the last, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes to look ahead a little bit just off the top of the head. Well said. Also agree with your Josh Allen take. Very smart. This one's not on the main slate. Buccaneers 6.5 point favorites against New England.

Tom Brady scores eight touchdowns. or Bell Belichick reinstitutes a new bounty gate? Your thoughts? Is the game in New England? Oh, of course it is. Yeah, I got a theory that the Patriots team is not good this year. Okay. I don't think the Patriots are good.

I haven't told my dad that yet. You might recall that I'm a native New Englander. That's right. My dad is a big Patriots fan. I don't think the Patriots are good. good this year. That's a surprising line to me. You said six and a half points? Yeah.

That's a surprising line to me. I would be surprised if the Patriots keep it that close. So I might I might be going camping this next weekend with my brother who goes camping all the time and typically goes where there's no cell service.

And so I might be going camping Friday night. My wife and kids are flying out on Thursday to go see my in-laws. So I'm just here for like eight days. And so I might actually go camping and I might get back after that game starts. So I was planning out my week today. And it was like, okay, if I don't watch games on Sunday, I'm going to get back Sunday night after this game starts and I'm not going to watch it.

And I'm going to just shower, get some food. And then once the game ends, I'll go back and start it from the beginning and not find out anything that happened on the day and then just watch this game to enjoy Brady against the Patriots. but I would expect it to be a Buccaneers smash. I just don't think that the Patriots, the Patriots defense, everyone's like, oh, they got all these pieces back. Yeah, but those pieces are really old. Like Dante High Tower, Patrick Chung, Devin McCordy, Stefan Gilmore's out. Like, J.C. Jackson's a really good corner.

But, and, all right, let me go on a little rant for a second. Do you mind? No. So when I was growing up, my family, we didn't have money. okay. And I kind of got into this because I didn't like make waves, right? Like my little sister would always be like like asking for things. And I was like, we don't have the money for. Like, why are you asking for this? So I would just like never ask for anything. And I used to play like whole football seasons with my Beanie babies. And I keep stats and everything, right? And I would

use an eraser, like a little eraser head of a pencil as the football. And I was thinking on Sunday because I was trying to find Williams football because he was watching football with me. he was throwing like a little baseball around and I was like oh I got to find his football for him and I was thinking I bet if I'd ask my parents to give me like a little two dollar football they would have you know what I mean but in my head it was just like I'll I'll make do with one I have so that mindset has carried over to me in adulthood to where sometimes I just like take the second best thing and then I'm like oh wait I don't have to take the second best thing I say all that to say I feel like Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels think the same way.

Like Jacoby Myers and Mac Jones. And like Mac Jones, he's great. Like we drafted him in the third round. We'd be like, man, this guy is the legit NFL starting quarterback. But like Justin Herbert was available last year. You know what I mean? Justin Fields was available for the Patriots. They could have traded up to get Justin Fields.

Jacobi Meyer, they spent a bunch of money on Kendrick Bourne and Nelson Agalor. Are you kidding me? Like this is where you're spending your money? It's like they think, okay, this is. is what's worked in the past, so we're just going to take these second best players and make do with them. And it's bad right now. I mean, like, I just don't think that, I don't think that they're built to be a winning team. You can't run against the bucks. And what? Mack Jones is going to outgun Tom Brady with Jacobi Myers and Nelson Aguilar. So no, I'll say the Buccaneers

smash in that game. Okay. Well, first of all, that was that was adorable and a little sad. Second of all, yeah, I think that's, I think that's right. He also wasted all the money on Hunter Henry, who looks fully cooked after those ACLs, but I liked him a lot beforehand. Jono Smith, you haven't really used him as much as, you know, the money he gave him seems to apply. James White is out. And I wonder if JJ Taylor is going to be a legitimate thing now.

But let's talk one last game, and then we could wrap it up. Arizona versus the Rams who are favored by 5.5 points at SoFi Stadium. What are your thoughts there? Kyler, to me, I mean, the guy prior to last week hit, like, was averaging 32 fantasy points per game in his last 10 healthy games. Do you just grab the value there? because I think he's really cheap on draftings last time I checked. Or do you just say, hey, this is a really tough matchup?

You know, these slowed down Tom Brady, they go zone heavy, which limits hyper-mobile quarterbacks, or could this be a massive pass-heavy shootout? I have a ton of respect for the Rams defense. Yeah. And so I generally just try to avoid guys. Like, I simplify things because, If Kyler gets me 30 points, I can still probably get 30 points somewhere else with less risk.

You said he's like 7K, 7, 700? Yeah. It's hard to see Kyler putting up like 35 or 38 points against the Rams to where you'd be like, oh, God, I wish I'd had him. I couldn't win a tournament without him. Like, if he gets to 30, somebody else can get to 30 with less risk would be my take. But I'm also just, I try, like, a DFS week is complicated enough that I try to simplify things by being able to say, okay, like, I just don't need to worry about a quarterback against the

Rams defense. So I think if I were in like the Millie or something like that or even the slant where you've got to beat 50,000 entries, then I could see, you know, you take some shots on Kyler's upside, but I prefer to just avoid that Rams defense. And I think people who aren't watching this Rams offense don't realize how perfect of a fit Stafford is for it. That Rams team is just so good all the way around. So, yeah, I would be concerned. about what the Rams defense will do there. Well, do you like the Rams offense then against Arizona? Yeah, I'm not sure yet.

I was trying to think through that one last night because it was like, what are the game environments this week? So what do the, what I'd really love is, and this is why I was thinking through it, because if I go camping this next weekend and don't have cell service all day, Saturday, I need players who are definitely playing. And I might just go like single entry, you know, and put in one roster with guys who are definitely playing. And I was like, are we going to know if it's Henderson or Sony Michelle by then?

Because what I was thinking is, like, one way to gain leverage is just to say bet on the touchdowns coming on the ground from the Rams this next week. And then you could say, you could say like, yeah, you bet on the Rams offense doing well, but also know where the points are coming from if they end up scoring on the ground. But yeah, I'm not sure yet on that game and how that'll play out if the Rams defense does clamp down on the Arizona offense. Do you have any thoughts on it? Not really. That's kind of why I brought it up. But I think that's going to be like a crucial game to get right this week. Yeah, yeah, I think so for sure.

If I don't go camping, then like I said, the wife and kids will be out of town. So you and I should hop on a call on Saturday. If I do go camping, apparently it's a spot that you got to paddleboard out to this island in order to get to the campsite. So I definitely will not have any real life connection service. What a life you live? Jam. What a life I might live this one weekend.

We'll see. Anything else from you? That's balls and a friend season. I'm going to say. It is. It is balls and in front season. We've got all this extra help on the site now. And my wife was like,

well, that's why you got all this extra help is have a little bit more flexibility. So it would be the first NFL weekend I've missed. Definitely since I've launched the site because I used to have to do all the work myself. But we've got like 20 people now. So if I can't go camping on a weekend when I want to, what's the point? If I can't paddleboard out to some island, what's the point? You got anything else before we get out of here?

No, that's it. All right. As always, a tremendous pleasure hanging out with you. As always, listeners, a tremendous pleasure hanging out with you. Check out the one-week season podcast feed on your favorite podcast player. Check out, FantasyPoints.com. Check us out next week. We will see you there, and we will see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend.

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.