Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
The theme of this week is acceptance.
I’ve been focusing lately on really doubling down on the fact that we are six full weeks into the NFL season, and it’s a great time to reflect that we know a ton about these teams already. We have plenty of the season left to go, but we have sound data now on how offenses will want to attack, how defenses will want to prevent, which players are being featured and hidden, etc. so embracing these facts is the path I want to personally take. For instance, when looking at the initial setup this past week, I noticed the five-five split of game totals above 47 and below 43.5 (of our ten-game slate). Based on this fact, if I am going to have a game stack (overstack), it will be from one of these top-five games. Similarly, we can look into certain elements of each matchup such as how the Vikings and Seahawks are likely to provide pressure on the QB (top-3 ranked in this category) yet again this week vs. Goff and Cousins. How does that alter the trajectory of their matchups?
The Panthers have given up four more rushing touchdowns than any other team on this slate (12 to Cleveland and Miami’s 8). Is it likely that will change with a trip to Washington and Jayden Daniels? Likely not. What about the Packers and Texans propensity to commit to the run, while continually trying to push the ball to a defense’s second and third levels, with Love and Stroud playing the way they like to? The Green Bay // Houston matchup carries all kinds of outcomes, but the expected big-play ability in this game may only be matched by the Lions // Vikings with Justin Jefferson’s dominance against man coverage.
I’m flinging a whole bunch at you right now, but the point is that we have signals on how to build rosters this week. When there is a collective signal, as there will be from here on out, it’s important to remember to not ignore ALL of it. Choose what angles you’ll embrace and decide HOW you will be different. The best lineups won’t go full left or full right of these signals (i.e. embrace or ignore) but will be the right mix of balancing low-owned players with chalk, ripe game environments with bland ones, and sprinkling the variance right on top. Search for the ceiling, think about your chess moves, acknowledge biases, envision your oracle, and be willing to lose to win! (see what I did there?!)
