You can’t do anything about the cards you are dealt.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
I’ve discussed this before on here, but I usually run just one main lineup every week on DraftKings. It forces me to be decisive and take stances rather than focusing on exposure (I hedge in my other two or three ancillary GPP/double up lineups). So, if my main lineup hits, I have a nice week. If it doesn’t, I could be sunk for the week.
I prefer variance. I welcome it, actually. But last week I was dealt a major slice of randomness pie. My main lineup featured David Johnson, Russell Wilson, Golden Tate, Michael Floyd, and Ben Watson. I generally liked all of those plays (especially Tate) and considered that my “core” for the week. My next three, well, all got hurt. Alshon Jeffery (hamstring), Adrian Peterson (ankle), and Danny Amendola (knee) all went down with injuries that either hampered or ended their day.
I’ve thought a lot about randomness, injuries, and variance (that sounds like an article idea!) and took a few days off this week because of the holidays to reflect on this season and Week 15 in particular. In fantasy football stuff happens. I’m sorry if that sounds plain or this comes off as verbose, but it’s the truth. We can’t control injuries, we can’t control randomness, and we surely can’t control outcomes. So why do we worry so much about those three words (injuries, randomness, and outcomes)? We can only control what goes into our lineups, so what’s the point of being upset when things — like injuries, for example — ruin the week?
Again, you can’t do anything about the cards you are dealt. Do your research, be well informed, listen to your data, and make your highest expected value lineup possible in Week 16. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Here are this week’s trends:
1. Mike Evans, The Target Hog
I’m honestly not sure what it is, but people just don’t want to play Mike Evans. Maybe it’s because he’s attached to a rookie quarterback or because he’s struggled with drops this year, but he was just 6% in FanDuel’s Thursday Snap. He’s coming out of a primetime game in which he saw 17(!) targets and his price somehow fell (by $100) to $7,300 this week.
Anyway, when Vincent Jackson (knee) is out of the lineup, Mike Evans becomes an absolute vacuum for Jameis Winston’s pass attempts. In Jackson’s four missed games this year, Evans has seen 31%, 52.8%, 34.2%, and 34.7% of Bucs’ targets and has scored 23-plus DraftKings points in three of those four games.
This all comes without mentioning that Evans is a due for some major positive regression towards the mean. He is the only receiver or tight end to have 100-plus targets on the season but fewer than four receiving touchdowns (Evans has 3). The average amount of touchdowns scored among the 29 receivers or tight ends to have 100-plus targets this year is 7.24.
2. DeAndre Hopkins Burning the Titans
It’s sort of been a tale of two seasons this year for DeAndre Hopkins. In the first six weeks, he was way, way too cheap and was absolutely smashing his salary-based expectation, posting 27-plus DraftKings points in five of his first six games. Over the past month, Hopkins hasn’t cleared 20-plus DraftKings points once.
I’m betting on that trend reversing itself in Week 16. And no, I do not care whether or not Brandon Weeden or Brian Hoyer is at the controls this week.
Pat Thorman of Pro Football Focus put me onto this, but here are Hopkins’ last three receiving lines against the Titans in reverse chronological order: 5-95, 9-238-2, and 8-94-1 (this year). It also helps Hopkins was restored to his voluminous role last week. He saw 40.7% of the Texans targets in Week 15 after seeing 24.5% of team targets in the three prior weeks.
3. Carson Palmer and Benefiting From Recency Bias
Do you see that points vs. expectation graph? Week 15 marked the first time Palmer didn’t meet or exceed his salary-based expectation this whole season – due in large part to David Johnson’s nuclear 47.9-point explosion. He was 1.2% owned in FanDuel’s Thursday Snap.
Palmer is my favorite quarterback play of the week (on both DraftKings and FanDuel) simply because he’s a pivot off of projected high-owned quarterbacks (Russell Wilson, Blake Bortles, and Ben Roethlisberger) and arguably has a very similar floor/ceiling combination of any of those three this week. Even though he’s only thrown five touchdowns in his last four games, Palmer has still eclipsed 300-plus passing yards and 2-plus passing touchdowns in five of his past seven games.
