Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
We made it. The final week of the regular season. The playoffs will be even better, but this has been a fun one, an atypical year overall with surprising playoff teams and seeding shaping up throughout both conferences. An atypical season can only wrap up with an atypical week, which can be said for just about every Week 18 that we’ve enjoyed over the years. As the NFL let the season go on one week longer, there seems to be less and less at stake across the board, and this week (especially on the non-primetime Sunday main slate) is no exception. If you’re late to the party, I’d direct you to The Scroll to get the best macro layout of the week. It’s likely we are all in sync on who is playing for what, so I’d like to stay on brand and keep this ultimate piece short and to the point.
Many DFS players will omit themselves from playing this Week 18 slate, as there is a limit to how many cheap, backup players we can be offered before the playing field just feels saturated. I actually think this slate, along with Weeks 1 and 17 offer some of the most fun of any during the season because they are easily the most variant of the bunch. In many ways, as mentioned in the Angles email, this slate really is the runt of the litter. Smaller, weaker, and less defined than its siblings. But the only cause and effect that I see here is to be wary of how much you put at stake due to the variance. In other words, you should feel empowered to attack this slate just as the others, just try to control for more variance, and as always, do so responsibly, knowing that in most games we can have coaches and players doing phantom benching, etc. Just like its brothers and sisters, Week 18 presents us with a picture, and so, as always, we’re going to tilt it a bit right or left and see if we can’t find some unique angles to draw up and vault up those leaderboards. Let’s go…
