Hello fellow fantasy football fanatics - welcome to the fifth installment of Old Dog Learns New Tricks.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
During Week 4, I was reminded to be humble. Though I thought I was through the woods in the Daily Fantasy space (and, indeed, two of my lineups were among the best I have assembled this season), I wasn't as good as the rest of the field out there in Week 4. Let me put it this way - I am glad the first quarter of the season is now past.
Yes, you guessed it - back to 0-fer land for team Wimer in Week 4. At this time, I'd like to personally (sarcastically) thank Jim Caldwell for misleading us all on the actual state of Calvin Johnson's ankle - yes, I know he does this routinely, but the 2/12/0 from Calvin at his salary really hurt 1/3 of my entries.
Also, a special shout-out to Marques "suddenly I can't catch" Colston, who turned 11 targets into a mere 5/50/0 stat line. What is really frustrating to me about this past week is that I accurately honed in on the correct NFL teams to invest my lineup in, but failed to pick the correct pairings - for example, Philip Rivers did great for me in one of the lineups, but Antonio Gates? Not so much. Against the league's 32nd-ranked rush defense (Jacksonville averaged 160.0 yards rushing allowed entering last week, with four rushing scores surrendered up until Week 4), Donald Brown somehow can't find room to run for more than 10/19/0 rushing (with 4/35/0 receiving)? REALLY? Against Jacksonville?
And so it went.
Personally, I'm viewing Week 4 as a test of my perserverance - I won't let this mini-disaster sour me on the DFS space! I am going to learn to do as well here as I am in my year-long leagues as I do in my redraft leagues! It'll just take some more time...
One useful set of resources at Footballguys.com I'd like to highlight this week for everyone is Mike Herman's Kickermania and his Second Opinion - Kicker projections. Herman knows more about kickers than anyone else on Planet Earth, in my opinion. Don't believe me? Go read Kickology. Just make sure you have spare time because Kickology is 92 pages long!
As I have mentioned previously, I write the weekly rushing and passing matchups around here - so one of my guideposts for DFS at Fanduel is to only consider players that do not have tough or bad matchups heading into Week 5. Looking at the matchups this week, the two most favorable pairings I see are:
1. IND Passing Attack vs. BAL - Andrew Luck is at home against the Ravens, and his running backs have a tough matchup with the BAL defensive front in the other phase of the game. Luck should be throwing early and very often in this one. Luck is going to be in one of my lineups this week, without doubt. I also like T.Y. Hilton to go off.
2. NYG Rushing Attack vs. ATL - Rashad Jennings is at home and should have ample opportunity to pile up rushing yards/TDs against the bottom-of-the-barrel Falcons' defense (currently dead last in the NFL allowing nine rushing scores to date, and 28th in the NFL averaging 153.5 rushing yards allowed per contest). I think Matt Ryan will keep Atlanta closer to New York this week than Washington did last week, so hopefully Jennings will stay on the field deep into the game. There may be enough work for both him and Andre Williams to have a nice week, but I'm going with Jennings in one of my lineups.
As I will be taking breaking news and updated injury reports into consideration while crafting my Week 5 DFS squads right up until kickoff on Sunday (I am putting my own money on the line here, after all), I will post my Week 5 results and lineups in next week's edition of Old Dog Learns New Tricks. I hope that you, the reader, will check back in to see how a fellow DFS beginner fared in the fifth week of the 2014 season, along with sharing some thoughts about DFS in Week 6.
Good Luck everyone, I hope you win ALL your leagues this year!
Roster 1
| Position | Player Name | Salary | % Owned | Points |
| QB | Colin Kaepernick | $8,100 | 13 | 21.52 |
| RB | Khiry Robinson | $4,900 | 14 | 11.5 |
| RB | LeVeon Bell | $8,800 | 30 | 13.9 |
| WR | Sammy Watkins | $6,400 | 1 | 11 |
| WR | Julio Jones | $9,100 | 22 | 11.2 |
| WR | Antonio Brown | $8,400 | 35 | 29.28 |
| TE | Garrett Graham | $4,900 | 1 | 4.3 |
| K | Shayne Graham | $4,500 | 24 | 5 |
| D | Pittsburgh Steelers | $4,900 | 25 | 3 |
Roster 2
| Position | Player Name | Salary | % Owned | Points |
| QB | Drew Brees | $9,200 | 24 | 21.2 |
| RB | Eddie Lacy | $8,000 | 6 | 12.4 |
| RB | Matt Forte | $8,600 | 15 | 19.6 |
| WR | Markus Wheaton | $5,100 | 8 | 7 |
| WR | Golden Tate | $5,500 | 13 | 15.6 |
| WR | Greg Jennings | $5,400 | 3 | 8.7 |
| TE | Jimmy Graham | $8,200 | 32 | 16.6 |
| K | Graham Gano | $5,300 | 2 | 4 |
| D | Detroit Lions | $4,700 | 20 | 7 |
Roster 3
| Position | Player Name | Salary | % Owned | Points |
| QB | Philip Rivers | $8,400 | 15 | 27.08 |
| RB | Lamar Miller | $6,900 | 22 | 17.7 |
| RB | Donald Brown | $6,300 | 42 | 7.4 |
| WR | T.Y. Hilton | $6,600 | 5 | 14 |
| WR | Calvin Johnson | $9,300 | 9 | 2.2 |
| WR | Marques Colston | $5,500 | 5 | 7.5 |
| TE | Antonio Gates | $5,800 | 23 | 4.5 |
| K | Dan Bailey | $5,500 | 2 | 10 |
| D | San Diego Chargers | $5,300 | 25 | 10 |
