The worst part of looking back at any losing week is when you can find evidence that you were considering another path - one to victory lane - and you didn't explore that further. Your eye wandered but not enough to alter your course. From last's week's preview:
"Wide Receivers:
This is the only spot where I have a hard time paying up for Dalvin Cook, and if there was a legit, cash viable option in the 7K range, I'd surely go there so I can stuff Hill/Diggs/Allen into a lineup."
I was on the right group of wide receivers but my logic as to why I couldn't afford them was flawed. Let's review
my Hottest lineup to find out why and the Shameful decision to go almost all in on Cook and avoid serious Tyreek Hill exposure.
The Hot Lineup of the Week:
I really thought that Chargers/Bills game was going to be more of a shootout (so did Vegas) and I was stuck on putting Herbert in my lineups at a slight discount from Mahomes and Murray. However, once the word was official that Fitzpatrick was getting the nod in Miami, he was my pay down option that would provide me the salary relief for Allen/Hill/Diggs. My thought process is 2 out of the 3 of these guys are probably going off - ultimately Hill went off enough for everybody as that trio provided me 87 points.
News came down Saturday night that Ekeler would play and I decided to throw him into a few lineups - this being one of them where he crushed his $6100 salary to the tune of about 4X at 23.90 points. With Irv Smith out, Rudolph saw quite a few targets so he was a great tight end punt option at $2900. As horrible as a play as the other Hill was, he was Chalk and only $4,000 so it didn't hurt me at all in this instance.
However, this led me to the realization of why it's still risky to play Chalky, elite players once they get to a certain salary... EVEN IF they're in a smash spot! Even if he has averaged 36 points in the past 4 games.
Cook was in a smash spot against Carolina and he should've scored 30 points, easily. But what happens when he eat ups almost a 5th of your salary and doesn't eat? What if he doesn't even eat half of what he should? 3X? 2X? Cook was barely over 1X this week. The fact is if he doesn't eat, you probably don't eat.
That's where the real risk comes in and it's obvious that if you're going to spend that much on any one player, you need to limit your exposure - even when all signs point to them having a floor of 20-25 points. The cash lineups that failed to cash all had one thing in common: They were built around a $9500 player who failed to produce, and thus the rest of my lineup had very little room for error as it was lacking studs to carry an 11 point performance from a $9500 player to the cash line.
This lead me to pick apart my flawed logic that overlooked guys like Robinson at $6300, Henry at $7900, & Chubb at $7100. Guys that weren't "legit cash viable options in the 7K range." Chubb has produced over 20 fantasy points in 2/3 games despite splitting carries with Hunt, Despite not getting receptions in a PPR format, Henry is basically matchup proof and averages 22 PPG. Robinson I actually had some exposure to but not nearly enough. Getting off of Cook + Brian Hill here and pivoting to Henry/Gallman would've saved me $600 in salary and gave me another 42 points to easily surpass the cash line of 134.
Shameful Lineup of the Week:
No matter how many weeks you've cashed this year in DFS, it only takes that one week to humble you. What I learned was if you're focus is really narrow on only a few players at a certain skill position, you need to sniff out a bias as to why you aren't considering other stars that week to limit some of your exposure to a certain player. I was heavy on Hill/Diggs/Allen/Jefferson and ultimately went with a combination of those 4 in most lineups. I had it right on which wideouts to target, overall. However, had I took a broader look at the Running Back group, and just limited my exposure to 33-50% Cook, I would've cashed in the majority of my lineups by going with a cheaper option in the 6k-8k range, and thus fitting Tyreek into more lineups.
A path my gut was telling me to take.
When Looking at Week 13, Cook stands out at $9500. Henry stands out at $9200. Who will I play? Both.
However, guys like Carson, Swift, Ekeler, and Robinson cannot be ignored either. Stay tuned for the Week 13 preview!
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