What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? Save the real answers for more important forums. We’re here to talk daily fantasy football, so what are you thankful for in DFS? Let me give you some of mine.
Stacking works. Overstacking works on some slates. QB-RB-WR stacks work sometimes. QB-WR with two bring-backs works. And so on. If it were as simple as a QB and WR combo always being on optimal lineups, we wouldn’t play this “sport.” It’s complex because that’s correlation. Barbell outcomes are driven by stacks. I am thankful for the fact that we can take these in any direction, any week.
This creates humility and opportunity/hope all in one. Take Week 12, for example, where I lost every dollar I entered. Jahmyr Gibbs was one of my convictions, but of course, his ownership blew up. The Eagles wide receivers (chose DeVonta over AJB); felt confident about Emanuel Wilson; and obviously, Hunter Henry, given the matchup; and the Cardinals defense at home against Trevor Lawrence. Never thought about Jameis Winston for a second, and talked myself in and out of these plays throughout the week. The mix of thinking through these and leaving a few stones unturned is always hope for the next slate.
Without “consensus,” we wouldn’t have our pretend villain of “the field.” That would be boring. “The Field” doesn’t think like us; they are not as sharp. “The Field” is going to overown this player and underown this other player. We need “the field” because we ARE in “the field.” This is called consensus and projections, and it’s what’s driven by optimizers. If I have built any brand over the years for myself, it’s that these thoughts (my first thoughts, too) are what I fight against, and try to build against accordingly.
We can’t predict the future. We can predict the present. I wrote a brief course on this in 2024, which basically lays this out as why we should understand what we know and acknowledge what we don’t. We have a good feel for what will happen over long-term samples (player stats, W-L records) but in one-game, goodness we have no idea and no idea or thought is crazy.
This is a new one for me over most of last season and this one. I am not an MME player, but I love the Bink Machine because it shows me the good plays from a machine instead of my head. I don’t know if I can say it any more plainly than that. You should be giving this tool a chance, because it’s 2025, and it’s no longer man or machine, it’s man + machine.
And finally, I’m thankful for OWS (since 2021!) for letting me express myself and define my own path as a DFS player over the past decade.
