Week 8 Draftkings Review

Welcome back for another DFS review! Let’s talk through where I was write and wrong.

Going into Sunday, I noted that I disagreed with the slates clarity. I certainly wasn’t wrong to think this way and I was able to utilize some of my noted leverage plays for a profitable day. However, I did leave money on the table with one egregious mistake, but such as life in DFS. I noted in the week 8 preview how to approach weather and I think that thought approach worked. I didn’t overthink certain games, but I did get off the CLE/LV passing games because the data told us it wasn’t going to be playable.

Saturday night player pool with success percentages below each position. Crossed off players are kept on the sheet and included in overall success percentage even if I didn’t roster them.

At QB, it’s obvious what happened. Russ cooked, Tannehill didn’t. Burrow is an absolute stud, Carr was unplayable in that weather, and Jimmy G got hurt. I would have liked a little more from burrow, but on a day where no one in that price range exponentially exceeded expectations, he did enough at his salary. I won’t harp on QB’s too much, but can we just take a minute to appreciate the Seahawks for Letting Russ Cook? Ok, on to Running Backs.

Running back was a rollercoaster for me this week. It had my greatest leverage play, worst leverage play and most egregious roster construction mistake of the year. To me, Cook was the obvious leverage play of the week. We know he is capable of an RB1 finish in any given week and the Vikings want to run the ball 35 times a game. While overall rushing stats made the packers appear to be average against the run they do give up 4.7 YPA. The overall numbers were largely a product of fewer games played along with typically playing ahead. Once you factor that in with Cook’s Questionable tag, you have a lower owned player in a perfect spot. He was 11% in most of my contests so while I would have preferred single digits, I’ll take it. Cook made me all my money this week and I have Old school Zimmer to thank for running the ball, but I would like to have a word with his former OC Kevin Stefanski. I would love to know what has happened to Kareem Hunt, and I need to create time this week to figure out why he didn’t go for 30 points against the Raiders. Oh, and this also brings me to my egregious mistake of the week. Instead of leveraging off Hunt and Henry in favor of Cook I only leveraged either/or. Simply put, my cook lines had on or both of Henry and Hunt. The sharper play would have been to go harder on Cook and just fade Hunt who was the highest owned RB in all my contests. Hunt kept me from getting another top 5 tournament finish this week and I only have myself to blame. Seeing the weather and no OBJ for CLE, a defense keying on Hunt was just as obvious as him smashing. Still, if he breaks free just once, this article is quite different, but thanks for tuning in to this episode of woulda, coulda, shoulda.

My other two RB’s I played the most were Henry and Taylor. Henry was just meh and reached what I felt was his floor. The Bengals simply controlled that game from start to finish and the TEN offense never could get rolling so I’ll be happy even getting 20 points from him in that environment. Jonathon Taylor is the source of all my headaches. I have no answers. His utilization plummeted, Hines is an acrobat and apparently Jordan Wilkins is a hall of famer. At some point Taylor will explode, but I might just implode waiting on that to happen.

Let’s dive into the WR’s. Adams got the TD’s, although you could argue we needed a few more points given his price tag. I wrote about how I was going to stack Metcalf/Moore with Russ and just fade Lockett this week so I won’t rehash that except for right now while I gloat for having that double-stack instead of the high priced Lockett/Metcalf stack. I’d keep gloating, but Kareem Hunt and Jonathon Taylor’s combined 15 points just called and told me to shut up. Corey Davis was the Titans WR to target this week because Tennessee forgot how to game plan. Brown and Smith should have really had incredible days, but the game plan for them was atypical.

Being so in love with Cook meant I decided not figure out which Minnesota WR is going off so I rostered neither, which paid off. Kenan Allen was a cheap target hog, Ayiuk was just a must play and someone I liked way more than Kittle this week. I crossed off Green because I am biased against him so I just figured why even bother, right? Higgins had another nice day and should eventually be the WR1 there. Ruggs was unplayable and no longer a deep ball threat in that weather while Jeudy had an ok day at his price. I actually expected more targets for Moore given the injuries, but I will take the TD at 3.1k.

Once again, my TE theory held firm, and I still wasted salary in a couple lineups on them. Kelce was playable, but the opportunity cost is far too great when paying up at TE. I kept Waller in one lineup because I thought his route tree would be least affected by the weather, but glad I only played him in one. Kittle got hurt, but would have been useless and he was in my only Jimmy G lineup so that wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Paying down once again didn’t hurt you. Bryant and Albert O didn’t help me much this week, but they afforded me better opportunity elsewhere. Probably my worst TE week of the year, but really it just reinforced the importance of paying down at the position.

Miami’s defense was a lock for me. The Rams were traveling cross country on a short week and I don’t think Goff is very impressive on the road. The Dolphins had just surpassed the Steelers in pressure rate after week 7 so at 2.4k, they were a lock. Keep in mind, cheap defense is almost always the way to go because of the positional variance. A defense can get a TD at any random moment of the game and that’s exactly what happened with Miami.

Overall, I am happy with what I was able to accomplish in week 8. I am absolutely kicking myself for poor roster construction around Dalvin Cook, but that’s simply part of the game. Folks, it’s on to week 9.