Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
In my opinion, every writer should ask themselves a simple question before putting together their thoughts: what would I want to consume? If you’re not asking yourself this question before writing anything, will your thoughts be interesting at all? It’s easy to digress and go off on tangents in any sort of cogent way in an article, blog, essay, or anything really, but as we go astray as writers, we should always try to come back to this central question.
So as I sat back and thought through what to write for Week 18, I realized one thing: enough about the incentives and motivations of these players and teams. I had COVID this week so I wasn’t tracking much information, but it seemed everywhere we turned we were bombarded with information regarding who will do this, and why they will do that, when in reality we just don’t know. We want to predict the present at all times, essentially saying we want to focus on the “knowns.” When we think logically and we trust what we see, we can try to better control the next outcome. We don’t know what the stock market will do tomorrow, but we do know it will show volatility. We don’t know exactly what the weather will bring tomorrow, but we do have forecasts to draw from that give us a level of confidence in what that weather will likely be. It’s easier to lean into knowns than unknowns. But the problem is the Week 18 slate as a whole, has very few “knowns.”
In what follows here, these are just my own interpretations of some Week 18 knowns. The way I will build and the strategies behind those builds are why I write this article. After 18 weeks of Willing to Lose, I hope you all can understand how to interpret my writing. Never go all in or all out based on words I put on this page. Instead, my hope is you are able to read through my POV of different weeks and continue to hone in on your processes to make your lineups sharper each week. I include an introduction here to help establish principles and a framework to come back to. These principles, while important, don’t even lead to my own lineups winning every week (obviously). But what they should do (Level 3 Thinkers, Goldilocks Principle, Confidence + When to Be Greedy, etc.) is help guide you in any sport, in building any roster, and in winning tournaments through your own unique thinking.
A HUGE thank you from me to you for coming to this space and supporting my writing this season. I am indebted to any of you who take the time to read and engage with my content here every week. I hope Week 18 is your best week yet!
If there were ever a week for Fields to back it up and play the best game of his career, this is the one. The much-debated “franchise” QB of the Bears has never beaten the Green Bay Packers. The same Packers, who he lines up against this week, come into the same scenario they did last year in Week 18, needing a win for the playoffs. Last year, it was the Lions who played the role of spoiler, keeping Green Bay from postseason football. This season, it could be the Bears.
The Packers defense looked great last week against the QB carousel of the Minnesota Vikings but this is still a unit that has been ripped on all season (27th DVOA vs. pass // 26th DVOA vs. run). A loss here and the signs point to a justified Joe Barry firing next week. The Bears have been playing their best football lately and while the public knows you can run on the Packers defense, it’s their passing game that Fields knows he wants to showcase to keep his employer from drafting his replacement a few months from now. Since Week 10, DJ Moore and Cole Kmet have received a combined 52% of Fields’ targets, with Moore up to 34% during that stretch. DJM is undeniably in a tremendous spot here. As for Kmet, you know I have a penchant to play guys after they put up 0/0/0 with strong utilization, so that’s the case with Cole. His role is unchanged, so despite the lack of success last week, we should look for a bounce back from him in Week 18.
On the Packers side of the ball, give a read to the NFL Edge and DFS+ Interpretations here. The passing game can find success, as Love has been fairly hot lately, and assuming Jayden Reed plays (it’s also possible Christian Watson returns), Green Bay can be capable of producing some strong performances among its pass catchers. The problem is selecting which ones, as we saw an artist by the name of Bo Melton go over 100 yards receiving last week. Either way, the distribution should be widespread in the passing game, which is the opposite of what we should get with Aaron Jones. His 21 touches last week led the team, as AJ Dillon is still hampered by his injuries (update: Dillon has been ruled out) and now the Packers are working in Patrick Taylor. TLDR; play Jones. He’s the one lock for volume and touches, has a great matchup in the receiving game against the Bears defense which leads the NFL by a wide margin in receiving yards given up to RBs, and has the best TD equity among Packers skill guys.
