Where Do I Begin?
Over the last few weeks, I have been using a smaller and smaller player pool. Recently, I have been making player pools in NBA that I really hadn’t ever done before with any success. That’s changed dramatically with the updates to the DS, the behind the scenes work by Boomer on the projection, the Research Station work by CeeGee and BenJammin, and the team in general that works hard on the tools. I’ve continued to create player pools for NFL as well, but in a different way. My player pool has looked dramatically smaller by following this process, however, it has actually allowed my lineups to have those “runners” where a lineup pulls away from the crowd and rockets up the tournament standings, rather than moving up and down the standings as a herd.
- I uncheck all players
- I add in players I want (i.e. Big Ben and Luck)
- I set the global exposure to 50% because NFL is so volatile
- I run it on three uniques
- Once I have my “pool” of guys I want an abundance of in my lineups, I then have been adding fringe type players or plays that other coaches have labeled as great plays.
- Let’s say Geek has a few running backs on his player picks list that I previously hadn’t added into my player pool. I would add in those players and set their maximum exposure at 3-7%, depending on how I feel about the reasoning. Out of 150 created lineups, the maximum amount of lineups they’d be in would be 5-10 as that is what the percentages work out to be. This allows me to create my player pool that will dominate the lineups but also allow other plays to mix in a little bit that doesn’t carry my personal bias.
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Week 12 Player Pool Results
Week 13 Playbook
QUARTERBACK
Patrick Mahomes is way too cheap on FanDuel at just $9,500. He has scored over 27.00 FanDuel points in five of the last six games. He’s also had two GPP type winning performances of 33.82 and 38.92 points during that game span. Some will point to the spread and inferior opponent of the Raiders and go with the narrative that he won’t have enough opportunity to pay off his price tag if the game is a blowout. I would argue that if the score gets out of hand it’s because Mahomes and friends went ballistic and scored at will.
In Week 7 against the Bengals, the Chiefs won 45-10 and Mahomes scored 33.83 FanDuel points. He finished with 352 yards passing and 4 touchdowns on 22-of-36 through the air. While he might not throw as many passes as some of the other top quarterbacks he is incredibly efficient and the potential for a long touchdown or two is high.
Jared Goff is a nice value on DraftKings in Week 13. Not only are the Rams implied to score 32.25 points and are currently 10 point favorites, but Goff is in prime position to deliver his fifth straight elite performance.
Over the last four games, Goff has scored 26.50, 33.34, 24.02, and 40.12 DraftKings points. He has eclipsed the 295-yard mark in all four games and tosses multiple touchdowns in each. He even tacked on a rushing touchdown inside the 10-yard line a few weeks ago.
Goff has been aggressive over the last four weeks as well, finishing with yards per attempt rate over 8.20 in each of the four games. While they do have the benefit of playing at home, the Lions are in trouble against a superior team in all phases of the game. Goff is a viable option on all sites and in all formats.
Cam Newton is likely going to be the highest owned quarterback in Week 13. While I don’t necessarily ever worry about ownership at the quarterback position, due to the exposure normally being quite flat and spread out, I do think that both Goff and Mahomes are better options.
When looking specifically at the matchup, Cam has the best one on the entire slate. The Bucs are wretched on defense and Cam is having one of the best seasons of his entire career. He’s completed over 64.1% of his passes in six straight games, over 72.4% of his passes in four of the last six, and even had an 83.3% completion rate in his last game. Cam has thrown multiple touchdown passes in every single game this season except for the season-opener. He has a delicious 22:7 touchdown to interception ratio and has tacked on another 4 rushing touchdowns. He’s elite, his matchup is superb, his price isn’t abominable, and I’ll be adding him to my player pool without hesitation.
RUNNING BACK
Saquon Barkley is a strong value on both FanDuel and DraftKings this week due to his price tag. I think the field goes with Kareem Hunt, another strong option, or just pay up due to the implied team total of the Giants just sitting at 20.50 points as of Thursday morning. If not rolling out Hunt in GPP’s, the game log watchers are going to target Christian McCaffrey with confidence. Barkley is a supreme price tag pivot away from McCaffrey due to his talent and price.
Over the last two weeks, Barkley has scored 38.20 and 36.20 DraftKings points and finished with 5 total touchdowns and nearly 300 total yards. The Giants have scored 29.0 points per game over the last three contests and I think this game will be competitive with Mitchell Trubisky looking as if he’ll miss this game. If I were a gambling man I would invest in the Giants covering this spread (take that with a grain of salt, I don’t know how to gamble!).
Christian McCaffrey is going to be mega-chalk after his massive Week 12 performance. He managed to rack up 227 total yards on 28 touches (including 11 receptions) and scored 2 touchdowns (1 rushing and 1 receiving). He has scored 21.60 or more DraftKings points in four out of the last five games and has even cleared 32.00 DK points in 3-of-5. The Panthers have a healthy 29.00 implied total and are going to feast on the Bucs in Tampa. Christian needs to be included in your player pool. Due to the potential for Cam to hookup with Christian in the red zone for a touchdown, the two can be combined in a nice stack that should be low owned and unique.
Kareem Hunt is my “JuJu Smith-Schuster” pick from Week 12. I think he can break the slate with a massive performance and potentially the lowest ownership out of the elite stable of running backs. Hunt had scored 29.50, 32.50, 37.10, and 33.10 DraftKings points in four games during a six-game stretch prior to his 11.60 and 20.10 point performances the last two games. During that time other running backs have exploded and the game log watchers are going to forget about Hunt and load up on some of the sexier names and game logs that some of these other running backs have. If they top off at 24-26 points and Hunt goes nuts and scores 35, you’ll have a huge 10 point swing on 90% of the field. That projection is my own because I think that Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, and Todd Gurley are going to total that high of an ownership. I think Hunt will be closer to 10-12%.
Theo Riddick is a player I want to target in a few shares of my Jared Goff lineups. While Riddick is not a stand-alone option, he’s a premier stacking piece and a pivot off of Kenny Golladay for anybody who plans on running out Kenny + Goff and Cooks/Woods/Gurley stacks. Riddick would play a healthy amount of snaps if the Rams go up by a couple scores and likely would have the opportunity to rack up plenty of receptions out of the backfield. His ceiling isn’t as high as others but in a tournament, his floor is solid (as long as the spread for this game comes to fruition) and if he does manage to score then you’re cooking.
Lamar Miller is too cheap on DraftKings and although he exploded for 162 yards on 12 carries, that was largely due to the 97-yard touchdown run. Regardless, Miller had been doing quite well prior to the explosive output and the fact that he’s still so cheap just makes him a great cash game option. I’ll have him in my player pool as well.
Carlos Hyde is going to be uber chalk on Sunday due to his $3,300 price tag on DraftKings. It’s going to be hard to pivot off of that due to the salary relief he provides you and I think your day can be made or broken based on what you do with Hyde. While I personally wonder if he’ll have lead back opportunity with T.J. Yeldon still present, I do think that a running back that will get 12-15 touches at near minimum-price and potential red zone work is going to be hard to fade. I’ll have him in my player pool and likely cap his exposure around 25-35% because I think he will be so highly owned that I want to have some exposure but less than the field and hope he busts.
Aaron Jones has scored 16.60, 9.50, 35.20, 27.30, and 18.30 DraftKings points in the last five games. He’s had mid to upper-teens in total touches each of those five games and has scored six total touchdowns. He has played over 40 snaps in each of the last four games and clearly has the lead back role on lock down. Jones is a nice play on FanDuel only due to his touchdown equity.
Phillip Lindsay is a nice value on FanDuel but an elite value on DraftKings. He’s producing well and getting plenty of touches. Over the last five games, Lindsay has played a little over 60% of the snaps but touches the ball on nearly 50% of his snaps. He’s had 15, 21, 19, 15, and 14 touches in those five games and has 5 total touchdowns. In the last four contests, Phillip has scored 20 plus DK points in three of them!
Nick Chubb is my preferred running back when comparing him to Aaron Jones on FanDuel. While I don’t necessarily like either one’s pricing, I will have Chubb in my FanDuel player pool due to his upside. They both have equal touchdown equity, has Jones has scored 5 times in the last 5 games, but Chubb has a ceiling that Jones doesn’t due to his volume. Chubb has 20 plus touches in four straight games and has over 100 total yards in back to back games. I think he’ll be half the ownership of Aaron Jones and I expect him to outscore AJ as well.
WIDE RECEIVER
Brandin Cooks is one of my favorite wide receivers in Week 13 and I love the idea of stacking him with Jared Goff. You can increase your scoring ceiling (but lower your scoring floor) by creating a “run it back” stack with Goff + Cooks + Kenny Golladay, with the theory that Goff and Cooks hook up for a score or two and Kenny gets a plethora of targets with the Lions playing from behind.
Cooks has the 10th most targets inside the red zone out of all Week 13 wide receivers. He has the seventh highest points per snap rate (0.39) and has scored 25.2 DraftKings points per game over the last month. If you were wondering, only Tyreek Hill (35.3) and Julio Jones (27.4) have higher averages in their last four games.
Cooks is healthy and has received 40 targets in the last four games, turning that into three straight games over 100 yards receiving and has a couple of touchdowns as well.
Tyler Lockett has been great in 2018. He was in this article last week and came through in a big way at a sub-5% ownership rate. It’s quite baffling to see that he’s scored one touchdown in 9-of-12 games this season and I think he’ll continue to find his way across the goal-line. Whether or not Baldwin is healthy or active, Lockett is this team’s playmaker.
Dante Pettis once again is in this article after being a 2% owned play in GPPs in Week 12 and winning me lots of money. Thanks, Dante! While he won’t fly under the radar this week, he still remains a solid value. He’s just $5,300 on FanDuel and $3,800 on DraftKings. The second round draft pick careers pedigree and will get an opportunity against the Seahawks.
Curtis Samuel is in the article again, yay! Samuel practiced on Thursday and looks like he’ll be ready to play by Sunday. He’s in play on Draftkings at his sub-4k price tag but he’s the type of player I want to put an exposure cap on around 5-7% just due to his low-floor. He is an elite leverage option away from D.J. Moore ownership for any Cam Newton led stacks.
D.J. Moore has had a price hike but belongs in our pool. While I normally fade these types of plays when their prices start to increase I actually don’t think we’ve seen his price peak so I believe he remains a value. Cam is going to feast against the Bucs and D.J. has 17 targets over the last two weeks and has managed to turn that into 15 receptions for 148 yards receiving and 1 touchdown. I don’t want him as a one-off this week due to his increased ownership and I’ll largely just want him included in Cam lineups.
Adam Humphries has outscored Mike Evans over the last seven games. Yes, you read that correctly. There are several thousand dollars in between their relative price tags and Humphries is a fantastic “run it back” stacking option with Cam Newton and one of his besties like Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel, or D.J. Moore.
Adam Thielen is my favorite high-end wide receiver this week. He has just two games where he hasn’t scored 19 plus DraftKings points and has 8 where he’s scored more than 27.60 points. That’s mind-boggling. I think the Vikings will have to throw to come from behind in the game against the Patriots which makes Thielen an excellent cash game/ladder system/GPP option due to his high floor and ceiling combination.
Tyreek Hill continues to be a player that can win you a GPP. I don’t worry about the price of Hill and won’t for the rest of the season. He has scored over 29 fantasy points on four occasions this season and any time that he does that you have a chance to win a GPP. He doesn’t need high volume to be a game breaker, he doesn’t need red zone work to score touchdowns, he doesn’t need volume to rack up yards. He’s my favorite NFL player to watch and I am slightly biased, ha! That said, Hill is not a player you worry about the game staying close or not due to his ability to take it the distance on very few touches and on any given play. Oh, yeah – and there is the fact that he’s received 14, 10, 10, 12, and 13 targets in five of the last eight games. Don’t overthink this one and pay down for value.
TIGHT END
Eric Ebron is going to score another 15 touchdowns this game. Just kidding, kind of…Ebron is going to be the primary option for an offense that is implied to score 25.75 points and are 4.0 point favorites on the road. It doesn’t make too much sense to target road tight ends against a defense like the Jaguars but that’s also what will probably keep his ownership down.
On DraftKings, his price tag is just $4,200 and I am pretty sure he’s going to be chalk and that’s fine – I’ll eat it. On FanDuel, his price tag is kind of awkward because users can pay another $1,000 for Rob Gronkowski or George Kittle. However, Ebron is my favorite tight end across the industry and in all formats and I’ll be using him on FanDuel as well.
Ebron has averaged 16.5 PPG in the last four contests, which would make him a top-10 wide receiver. Now, do you like his price tag? He leads the NFL in points per snap at the tight end position, a full tenth of a point per snap ahead of Travis Kelce, too. Yikes!
With my tight end position, I plan on throwing 50% minimum on Eric Ebron on both sites because I have so much conviction on him doing well this week that I just want to be way overweight against the public’s ownership on him. After that, I have no real strong takes so I’ll be adding a tight end or two from Geek’s list and letting the optimizer fill in the percentages for each guy based on whatever the algorithm selects. Yes, sometimes doing MME is this simple. We tinker and tweak way too much!
DEFENSE
Texans, Browns, Rams, Panthers, Chiefs, and Packers will be my defensive pool. This position is the complete opposite of the tight end position and quarterback position. At those two I feel very confident in what my model is telling me. At the defensive position, I have no confidence in selecting any one defense over the other. I am going to throw a 10% minimum exposure on each and allow the optimizer to plug in the other 40% total defensive team exposure.
EXPOSURES
I plan on having a global max exposure cap at 50%. Everything for MME is still more game theory and correlation than most optimal approach. It’s projecting scenarios and hypothetical situations, ownership, and production. Anything goes and I want to make sure I have a pulse if some of the higher owned guys “dud”. Make sure you lower the cap on guys you don’t want a ton of but know you probably should have some of. If the DS pumps out too high of a percentage on a player, don’t ask the staff if 90% is okay, just lower the individual exposure on him. We really don’t want to do that on anybody ever unless we are having to make an all or nothing decision on mega-chalk.
Two Minute Warning
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