The Importance of Twitter, Footballguys, and Gameday Flexibility
Last Thursday evening had a string of events unraveling as the game Thursday night game was about to kick off. Shortly before the game between the Falcons and Buccaneers had two significant inactives were announced. Both, while not shocks, were slightly surprising as it was announced Roddy White and Doug Martin wouldn’t be playing. We also found out that there was now a chance that Jamaal Charles would play. This significantly changed the values of Julio Jones, Harry Douglas, Bobby Rainey, and Knile Davis. Due to these changes I quickly reshuffled my gametime projections which in turn changed my value ranks.
However, if we back up slightly there was talk of both of these inactives brewing on Twitter which allowed the astute players to start to plan for these changes. We still weren’t sure what was going to happen but it gave us more time to start thinking about what we wanted to do with this new information. Many of the Footballguys staff were on Twitter hypothesizing what would happen in each of these situations to help your formulate your lineups. After the news was official Footballguys had brand new rankings of the players affected available within minutes and had an email announcement with excellent action plans to take.
It’s these last minute decisions that really separate the good players from the great players and arming yourself with the proper information in a timely manner is really important.
To illustrate this let’s dig a little deeper. In cash games I was in some very large double ups that had opened up early in the week and some that had opened up just hours before game time. Let’s look at the difference in player selection for some of the key players.
Player | Early Week Ownership | Thursday Ownership |
Bobby Rainey | 5% | 45% |
Julio Jones | 10% | 32% |
Harry Douglas | 1% | 9% |
Knile Davis | 11% | 1% |
Calvin Johnson | 32% | 45% |
What we see is that a lot of people that set their lineups early in the week didn’t go back and update their lineups when new information presented itself. If we assume the lineups being set closer to kick off represent closer to the true value of each player at that time than those that set their lineups early and left them are missing a lot of value. Note that Calvin Johnson’s increase is due to the money savings by moving to Rainey and Douglas
In some of the cases the players that owners were updating their lineups to didn’t work out. Douglas got injured early in the game, Rainey made a habit of fumbling instead of scoring touchdowns, and Charles ended up not playing. But if we play the right odds over and over again we will come out ahead in the long run. My primary cash game lineup which included Julio Jones won almost all of its games as it played against high risk lineups with players like Knile Davis. The rest of the lineup wasn't that great as it only 129.5 points. But the switch to Julio Jones made all of the difference and moved it from an average lineup to a top end lineup. Grabbing Jones was also a keep factor in helping me finish third in the Thursday mini Bomb.
In order to take advantage of this game changing information I highly recommend you sign up for Twitter. Then add as many members of the Footballguys staff as possible. Sigmund Bloom has a list that you can follow to easily add team members. You don’t even need to tweet to anyone you just instantly get additional timely information to help make the best decisions possible. Secondly, pay close attention to last minute rank updates in our official rankings and emails explaining last minute changes. Finally, have a list of guys that you can easily switch to at different price points in case an opportunity presents itself. DFS players are getting better every week and taking advantages of these last minute changes are one way where you can really set yourself up for success.
Fanduel GPP plays
Below are my weekly GPP plays at Fanduel. Throughout the season I will be employing strategies mentioned in Week 1 about contrarian plays as well my preseason article about the best approach to allocating money in my lineups. In this article, I showed that in general it was best to spend on studs at wide receiver and to a lesser extent quarterback and save your money at running back and tight end.
Matthew Stafford $8,600 3% owned - Stafford is coming off of an awful week where he was fairly heavily owned against the Packers. This is making owners a little gun shy on Stafford this week. However, you shouldn’t be. The Jets run defense is so good that teams are hesitant to run on them, especially in the red zone. This has resulted in 7 passing TDs allowed to no rushing TD’s. While those results will regress through the season I will take my chances with them lasting one more week.
However, the best reason to use Stafford is because you can stack him with Calvin Johnson at one of his lowest usage rates I have seen (10%) and/or the weekly value play of Golden Tate who is only being owned by 6% of all users. This stack gives you a unique and potentially lethal lineup right out of the gate. This uniqueness will let you roster a few of the heavier owned players I mention below.
Teddy Bridgewater $5,900 4% - If you want to go a cheaper route Bridgewater is a prime candidate. The Vikings take on the Atlanta Falcons who have already given up over 300 yards twice and are 5th in NY/A at 7.5. The Falcons defense is coming off of an outstanding effort on Thursday night against the Buccaneers where they only allowed 165 passing yards but that game was the exception to the norm. Vegas expects this game to be close with the Vikings scoring a very reasonable 22 points. At his price point if Bridgewater can simply pass for 225 yards 2 TDs and 30 rushing yards he will exceed his goal and he has the upside to do much better.
Khiry Robinson 4,900 7% Robinson didn’t come through for me in this space last week but I am going back to the well again. Last week Robinson played 41% of all snaps which was double is playing time in week 2. This accounted for about two thirds of all of Mark Ingram’s work. The problem was that Pierre Thomas vultured the goal line score that we expected Robinson to get. However, don’t go thinking that Robinson is going to lose goal line carries going forward. The play was a quick snap when Thomas was in the previous play. As such I would still expect Robinson to get the majority of the goal line attempts this week. The Saints are playing the Cowboys this week and have the second highest projected point total this week at 28 points. In a close game with such a highly projected score Robinson has a solid upside of 80 yards and 2 TDs.
Donald Brown 6,300 33% I will give you a second running back this week as well. Donald Brown is being owned by 33% of all users so he isn’t going to fly under the radar but I still think even at that high ownership rate he is worth considering. Remember, ownership percentage is only half of the equation on finding a winning GPP tournament. We want to compare that ownership percentage with odds that he will reach value. In this case I think Brown is in such a special situation that I think he has better odds than that to reach value.
First of all, Brown is the last man standing in the Chargers backfield that has seen Ryan Mathews and Danny Woodhead go down to injury in successive weeks. This resulted in Brown getting 31 rush attempts last week. Secondly, Brown is a capable receiver as shown by his 6-1 career rush to reception ratio. With Woodhead out of the lineup if Brown can get 20-25 carries its fair to expect another 5 catches like last week. Finally, and most importantly Brown gets to play the Jaguars where the Chargers are favored 13 points and are expected to score more points than any other team this week. Assuming the Chargers do indeed build up that large lead they should give some carries to Branden Oliver to keep Brown fresh for next week. But in building up that lead Brown will have as good of a chance to score points as anyone.
Steve Smith $6,100 18% The Ravens lost Dennis Pitta for the season last week. I think this will be a big boost to Steve Smith’s already large target base as Pitta was a security blanket to Joe Flacco at times and Smith can offer that same level of comfort. This game offers the lowest total on the board but with the Ravens as 3.5 point favorites their total of 22, while not remarkable, isn’t horrible. The Panthers allowed Antonio Brown to rack up catches to the tune of a 10-90-2 stat line last week. I can see Smith putting up something similar. While I am not normally a fan of playing players that are especially hyped for a single game I think Smith has had this one circled on his calendar all offseason and Flacco knows it.
Antonio Gates $5,800 14% I am going to pick on the Jaguars again and remind you that the Chargers are projected to score 29 points this week. But more importantly the Jaguars have been awful at covering the tight end. In the first three weeks they have allowed the following stat lines; Zach Ertz 3-77-1, Niles Paul 8-99-1, Dwayne Allen and Coby Fleener combined 8-92-2. Even though Gates only finished last week with only 1 catch for 8 yards he still on the field for 64% of the snaps and Ladarius Green was on the field for 32% of the teams snaps. Both of these are right in line with year to date numbers. If you really want to take a gamble Ladarius Green is an even sneakier play.
Travis Kelce $5,200 3% - If you want to take a more contrarian pick I would go with Kelce. Kelce’s snaps have been increasing each week. Last week he played 65% of all snaps which is nearly double his 35% average for the first two weeks. The Patriots aren’t an ideal opponent but Kelce’s big play ability combined with his increases in playing time, low price and low ownership makes for an intriguing buy for me.