Sunday, Feb 11th — Late
Bye Week:
Bears
Bengals
Bills
Broncos
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Commanders
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Above The Field. 18.21.

Of Bugs and Barbells

Some weeks you are the windshield, and other weeks you are the bug. In Week 17 of the NFL season, you either played a bunch of Ja’Marr Chase lineups, or your splatterings were swept up by a truck driver’s wiper blades somewhere along Route 95. 

This week was especially tough for me because I had one lineup in the final round in each of DraftKings’ and Underdog’s Best Ball millionaire contests. As soon as Chase caught that 2nd touchdown of the first half and I realized that “guarding Bengals best weapon” was not in Kansas City’s game plan, my laptop found its way to the upright and locked position as it prepared for flight. 

Turns out a laptop doesn’t fly as well as a Frisbee, but they do follow similar trajectories. 

Among those whose computer likely survived the day was RussianMOBB, who astutely identified a potential mistake by the field and exploited it by overweighting Chase, Joe Burrow, Russell Wilson, and DK Metcalf. 

Chase was only 4.5% owned, and while the matchup vs. the Chiefs secondary wasn’t pristine on paper, the game environment had shootout potential. We are also learning that Chase is among the ignore-matchup, elite-talent wideouts that we can never fade unless he’s projected to be ridiculous chalk. DK Metcalf was only 2.4% owned, and he’s been in that category for well over a year now. 

RussianMOBB managed to cash 52 of his 150 lineups, including finishes of 5th, 29th, 31st, and 92nd. They had 14 in the coveted top 2,000 for a total profit of over $24k. 

RussianMOBB is similar to industry luminaries like ShipMyMoney and AL_Smizzle in that he uses 4-stacks almost exclusively. Double stack with a bring-back every time. When they hit, they hit. 

They used a player pool 112-deep, which would be on the larger side most weeks, but with this 14-gamer, it was much closer to average. 

By the way, shout out to the 1st place winner, Hydog1987, who ran only 33 lineups yet managed to use a player pool of…ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE! A man after my own heart! Just stack damn near each game once or twice. You never know which one might go nuclear…you may even win a million dollars!

Another thing worth illustrating about RussianMOBB’s approach this week is the flat nature of his allocations. Many of the success stories we study here involve an uber-aggressive stance on one or several players. MOBB managed to get overweight on several key players while still managing to be risk-averse, with not a single player owned over 30%.

Just another example of Sonic’s old adage…say it with me…

There are multiple ways to win. Be YOU. 

RussianMOBB’s top lineup featured a Seahawks stack with scorching Lions rookie Amon-Ra St. Brown coming back and two members of the Cincinnati Bengals. I normally don’t stack two position players from a team outside of the quarterback’s game, but I do make exceptions in some cases if one of them is a running back. This usage seems perfectly acceptable in my less-than-humble opinion. 

Too bad Gerald Everett didn’t get into the “demolish the talentless Lions” fun. An extra 4.3 points would have resulted in a million dollars. I hope RussianMOBB doesn’t read this and see that I’m pointing out the $400 he left on the table and the fact that Noah Fant was only $300 more and put up 21.2 fantasy points. If you know him…just leave that part out of your next conversation…or bring vodka…or both!

As you all know by now, I tend to use this space to highlight a player that played well and managed to land multiple lineups in the “had a sweat” category. But let’s flip the script a little here and focus on someone that studied hard all week, put their best possible plan together, and died a miserable, embarrassing death. Fun, right?

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the awe-inspiring Week 17 performance of jerdresch. This poor bastard ran 150 different lineups in the milly and cashed…one. Yep. One lineup snuck into 38,804th place. Whew. Dodged the shutout! 

But here’s the thing. Ol’ jerdresch didn’t play particularly poorly. He played with conviction. He played without fear. If we play this slate out 100 times, there may be one instance where he is the champ and not a member of Team Flying Laptop. 

Check out these ballsy allocations:

Jonathan Taylor is capable of slate-breaking performances on any given week. JM recognized Deonte Harris as a potentially low-owned salary saver and put him in this week’s Bottom Up Build. The Patriots DST was up against the Jaguars, who are among the most turnover-prone, touchdown-starved offenses in recent memory. Courtland Sutton is an alpha receiver who was way underpriced given the absence of Jerry Jeudy and Tim Patrick. Trey Lance was priced silly low for a starting QB that can do damage with his legs. I love the stance on Alvin Kamara, whose ownership actually fell into that Ja’Marr Chase – “he can break a slate on talent, play him any time he’s low owned” category.  

These are not bad plays. It just didn’t work out. 

And when I say it didn’t work out…

Holy shit 

I haven’t yet heard of Mr. (or Ms.) jerdresch yet. Perhaps he plays this style every week and has just been running horribly for the last 40 or so slates. He certainly wouldn’t be alone in that category. I firmly believe, however, that if he keeps playing with this type of aggression, the planets will align, and jerdresch will see his (awkward) name in the headlines someday. Let’s just hope his bankroll is deep enough to realize this expectation.  

So, it was a great week for RussianMOBB, but let’s pour one out for our fallen comrade, jerdresch, who came, saw, and was defeated. 

We preach a barbell approach to DFS tournaments here at One Week Season. We play for first place. Jerdresch did just that but ended up paying the rake for us. 

Just think, if you play well enough, you’ll end up there too.