This will be a weekly blog entry on how the previous week went for me in NFL DFS.
If you missed my previous recaps:
Week 1
Week 2
Not Enough Christine Michael
I was due for a loss eventually, but I feel like this one could have been avoided. I wasn’t able to work in Christine Michael on Draftkings and it singlehandedly made me lose as I basically broke even on the other sites.
Christine Michael wasn’t in consideration on Fanduel due to excessive pricing, but he was very much in play on Draftkings. I felt strongly I had by far the best possible lineup on the main Draftkings slate, and he wasn’t in it so I didn’t bother forcing him in there, but I tried hard to work him in on both the Thursday-Monday and Sunday-Monday slates. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a configuration that I liked as much as ones without him; the others were all projected much higher. My gut told me that he was a must play, but in the frenzy of setting lineups for 3 slates on 5 different sites I gave up too easily and made lineups without him. I had him on Yahoo, FantasyAces, and FantasyDraft, but so did most other players and the buyins on those sites were much smaller than Draftkings so my overall share on him was still lower than the field.
Not that the Draftkings lineups I set were bad, in fact they were optimal for me, but I didn’t properly account for how good of a play Christine Michael was quantitatively, so he never popped up for me. The lineups I found after lock with him all would have won a lot of money.
My main slate lineup broke even despite not having him, but my two other large lineups failed: on top of not having Christine Michael, due to paying up for Drew Brees in the Monday Night Football game from Ryan Tannehill on the main slate, I gave up highly owned Jarvis Landry who had a monster game. There was still some bad luck, for instance DeAngelo WIlliams had a terrible game despite being a top 5 overall play on the weekend for a significant discount compared to the top WRs, but I still feel I made mistakes and could have set better.
Draftkings: -$14865.26
As said above, not enough Christine Michael. Can also add not enough Jarvis Landry to that list. Hard to classify them as blunders as I worked very hard on my projections and ran the optimal lineups, but I think the real mistake was no exposure to a highly owned player that could have been under-projected.
Fanduel: -$183.30
Too many lineups to list, but I do think I made one mistake: I didn’t play Drew Brees on the Sunday-Monday slate. I really believe he was the best quarterback play, and since he was in the Monday night game and wasn’t available on the Sunday slates I really wanted to work him into every lineup I could that included those games, but didn't. If I had entered the lineup I wanted to with him I would have made about 10k on Fanduel this weekend, instead I broke even. I had him on the Thursday-Monday slates, but it wasn't enough: I needed him on every slate with the Monday game available, he was just that good of a play. The other slates finished up slightly overall and I love how I set on all of them, but a little remorse about the lack of Brees on that one slate.
Yahoo: +$144.80
I found 4 great lineups on Yahoo which were all similar. They basically involved playing either Melvin Gordon or Demarco Murray in one spot, and then a 2v2 in another: Andrew Luck and Marvin Jones vs Cam Newton and Tajae Sharpe. I was firmly in the Andrew Luck and Marvin Jones camp originally, but once Delanie Walker was ruled out, I gravitated towards Tajae Sharpe due to an expected increase in targets. I decided to play 3 of the lineups, spreading them between slates and I basically broke even, but I think they were all roughly equal and I set fine, just some bad luck that Stefon Diggs, Tajae Sharpe, and Seahawks Defense did so poorly, so people who wrongly chose lineups without them were rewarded.
Despite what I said above about Drew Brees and slates including games on Monday, the lineups with him didn’t work out on Yahoo. He was just a touch too expensive and Cam Newton and Andrew Luck fit better.
FantasyAces: -$5894.02
I don’t know what I was thinking with my FantasyAces lineup on Sunday. I played Marcus Mariota who I should have downticked more after the Delanie Walker news. Without Walker, Mariota lost his best red zone target, so his touchdown expectation dropped a bit and was gained by Demarco Murray, but I played Mariota anyway due to price. Ryan Tannehill was only a few hundred more and I'm sure I could have adjusted the lineup to force him in (I loved him while I didn't really like Mariota conceptually).
I also forced in Shane Vereen, who was a must play on other sites, but not really in play on Aces. It shouldn’t have hurt me as he was doing very well in the first half, but he fumbled and suffered an injury, forcing him out of the game. The rest of my lineup mostly underperformed and I got buried, but I feel I deserve it, hate how I set there this weekend.
FantasyDraft: +$4756.34 (roughly 6k in buyins)
I found the absolute perfect lineup on Sunday: it finished top 10% and won everything. I almost wish I sat every other regular with it, but I can’t complain about a winning week here.
Overall Results: -$16041.44
Will go over everything in detail and write down my mistakes in my personal journal, but I suppose this wasn’t too bad for a losing week. I’m beating myself up for three possible mistakes: one probably wasn’t much of an error but cost me the most (draftkings), the other two were clear mistakes (fanduel and aces). Just need to study harder and be more prepared coming into Sunday Morning so that I don’t run into time management problems and can spend a sufficient amount of time making the lineups I want.
Season NFL Results (3 weeks): +$77062.57
Season ROI drops to roughly 20%, which I’m guessing is at least in the range of where it should be, but it could be so much higher without the minor mistakes. Live and learn, and still very happy with my results on the season so far. Looking forward to week 4!
My name is Ryan Daut and I'd love to have you as a follower. Click here to go to my page, then click 
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I am a professional gambler, and my interests include poker, fantasy sports, football, basketball, MMA, health and fitness, rock climbing, mathematics, astrophysics, cryptocurrency, and computer gaming.
Tough loss! I was in the same boat as you were this weekend but with a far less of a loss at -$600... but guess what I wagered? Yup $600! This was by far my worse week yet results wise with 0 contest wins! 14 Contests 51 Entries...
One of my lineups
I assume you played mostly GPPs?
Not all actually I missed it up, some head to head and double ups ... had 10 lineups total, all right around the 120-140 point range , just sucked
That Denver game was brutal on the AJ/Dalton stack. Was watching that Sunday afternoon and just like Julio Jones Monday night, AJ was the sacrifice of a competent running game. Well, that and and a top notch secondary. I'm sure next week will go better for ya @blueorgy!
As a Colts fan, I completely blew off TY, because of my extreme pessimism of how they could perform and how woefully coached they are. Like you I went all in on Sharpe. He was in about 45% of my lineups, and almost saved it with a late TD, but it just wasn't meant to be. Watch him get 55 points next week ;)
I had a tough week too since I didn't play Marvin Jones Jr. and had line ups with Mariota and Deangelo.
Lets learnand be ready for week 4 !
@daut44 Do you think Pryor Sr. still get all the touches in this stinky CLE offense in week 4?