Thursday Night NFL DFS Options
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Thursday Night NFL DFS Options

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Thursday Night NFL DFS Options

Pittsburgh Steelers

Michael Vick (FanDuel 6700, DraftKings 5000)

Le’Veon Bell (FanDuel 8900, DraftKings 7700)

Antonio Brown (FanDuel 8900, DraftKings 9200)

Heath Miller (FanDuel 5500, DraftKings 3700)

Darrius Heyward-Bey (FanDuel 5100, DraftKings 3600)

Markus Wheaton (FanDuel 5000, DraftKings 3500)

Baltimore Ravens

Joe Flacco (FanDuel 8000, DraftKings 6000)

Justin Forsett (FanDuel 6700, DraftKings 6000)

Steve Smith (FanDuel 7300, DraftKings 6200)

Maxx Williams (FanDuel 4700, DraftKings 2500)

I’m a huge believer in getting exposure to the Thursday through Monday slates in NFL DFS. Most of the public is eager to play and usually overplay the stars that happen to be playing on Thursday nights. This week is no different as many lineups will feature Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown, but those aren’t the players that will be in my lineups. I am fading almost everyone in this game, but I will have Steve Smith in some Thursday start cash lineups and Maxx Williams in some GPP lineups with Crockett Gilmore out this week.

Smith has been a beast the last few weeks and his value is best on DraftKings where his volume and 10+ catch games get you the most bang for your DFS bucks. Maxx Williams was targeted quite a bit after Gilmore left the game against the Bengals on Sunday and he looked good doing it. Joe Flacco and Marc Trestman really like using the tight end behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties and Williams is at the minimum price this week on DK. I even through him in some Thursday start GPPs on FanDuel even though I really like some TE match ups for other players this week. If you need to root for someone tonight in DFS, your best bet is Steve Smith in cash games on DraftKings.

Good luck everyone and make sure to check back for my Stacks Post.

FANDUEL QUICK PICKS WEEK 4
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FANDUEL QUICK PICKS WEEK 4

FanDuel Promotions, Fantasy Football, NFL DFS

FANDUEL QUICK PICKS WEEK 4

By Brian Quick

Happy Wednesday fellow FanDuelers. You should already be in the preliminary mode of picking your teams for this week. Remember, it’s a week-long process and you should put more time into it than you do your actual job. Unless of course you’re my kid’s teacher, then you should be prepping cool stuff for class. Here are this week’s Quick Picks for FANDUEL TOURNAMENT LINEUP CONSTRUCTION.

Quick Tip #1 (behavioral) – Separate yourself mentally from your regular fantasy league I’ve got this one friend who picks all of his players from his main fantasy league. These selections for FanDuel are tainted because you are biased and are essentially doubling down on your players. I sometimes find myself not picking a guy in FanDuel because I’m playing him in my main fantasy league. My advice is to make the right choices for FanDuel and let your other fantasy leagues play second fiddle. The lure of FanDuel is that every week is the most important week.

PLAYER PICKS FOR WEEK 4

Go with lots of very common old fashioned last names this week.

Quick Tip #2 (Player Pick) – Marvin Jones – WR – Bengals ($5300)
The Chiefs have allowed the most fantasy points to opposing WRs this year. It’s a semi-short week for the Chiefs having played Monday night and it’s a back to back road game for them. Jones is coming off of a 5 catch 94 yard performance last week in which he was targeted 8 times. He has scored in back to back games and if the Chiefs try to take away A.J. Green then Jones can keep his scoring streak going.

Quick Tip #3 (Player Pick) – James Jones – WR – ($6000)
Not good enough to make the Giants but more than good enough to make your FanDuel lineup this week. The value is great here at $6000 for Aaron Rogers longtime touchdown buddy. Randall Cobb does a great job grabbing defenders attention which frees up Jones as he quietly puts up great numbers. The 49ers will be better at home than they were last week, but being better than atrocious is only an upgrade to terrible. In week 3, Jones was targeted 8 times, had 7 receptions, 139 receiving yards, and a touchdown. If Davante Adams is out Jones looks even better.

Quick Tip #4 (Player Pick) – Julio Jones – WR – ($9400)
Yup. An all Jones WR corps this week. Jones-Jones-Jones
What I’ve learned thus far is that I’m a lot happier with Julio in my lineup than when he’s not in my lineup. With Ben Roethlisberger out, I’m going to pass on Antonio Brown this week and go with Julio. I like to always have that one dominant and consistent WR in my lineup. Julio was targeted an absurd 20 times last week at Dallas, with 12 catches, 164 yards, and two touchdowns. Everyone knows Matt Ryan is trying to get him the ball and nobody can stop it. That’s the kind of beast you want in your FanDuel lineup.

Quick Tip #5 (Player Pick) – Karlos Williams – RB -($6300)
It looks as though LeSean McCoy might not play this week. Keep tabs on this as I would only use him if McCoy is out. Karlos is big, fast, and furious. He has scored a TD in every game this season. He is Rex Ryan’s type of running back and I can see Rex trying to go with his favorite ground and pound strategy vs. the Giants. Last week Karlos only had 12 carries but still managed to break the century mark with 110 yards. He has the ability to break a long one as evidenced by his 41 yard TD run last week against the Dolphins. The Giants run D has been better than I thought, but I’m not a believer in them on a consistent basis. Karlos could have a huge day but I would not use him in Thursday tournament because you may not know for sure about McCoy’s status.

THE LONGSHOTS

Below are 5 longshots that have a chance to hit this week along with a small blurb about each one and their Fanduel price. Adding any one of these guys is like adding a longshot into horse racing exacta or trifecta. If they hit, you look like a genius.

CJ Spiller – RB – $5500 – Hey, remember this guy? Most of us keep trying to forget him. However, he is cheap, and Sean Payton has said he is committed to getting him more touches. The Saints should be trailing all game long so I can see him catching a lot of passes.

Luke McCown – QB – $5800 – If you’re one of those “go cheap on a QB” type of guys then here ya go. He did surprisingly OK last week with a 31-38 for 310 yards slash line. That’s not too shabby. This week, the Saints should be trailing the whole game and he should be throwing and getting lots of garbage time stats.

Brian Quick – WR – $5000 – Finally, the kid’s parties are over and my wife is letting me play this week. He is cheap, but the Cardinals D is real tough. Use only if you want to be the only guy using him in all of FanDuel, in the ultra rare event that he has a great game, which causes them to make a new commercial about you, the guy who played Brian Quick in week 4 and won big money.

Coby Fleener – TE – $5000 – Sneaky play here as it looks like Dwayne Allen will be out again. Fleener showed a little bit of life last week catching 4 of 6 targets for 51 yards. I can see Andrew Luck remembering how he like to throw him touchdown passes this week. Not a bad longshot to use to conserve cash for other spots.

Ty Montgomery – WR – $4700 – He was on the field for 66 of 76 offensive plays in week 3. If Davante Adams is out (likely) then he might be worth a shot at that price. There should be plenty to go around vs. a bad 49ers defense.

Thank you once again for taking the time to read this. Remember, this is early week advice, so make sure you read up as the week goes on and make necessary changes to your lineups before game times. Please follow me on twitter @QuickRotoTips and feel free to offer feedback or to blame me if you take some of my advice and it all goes terribly. Good Luck.

NFL DFS Week 3 DraftKings Podcast with Pat Mayo
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NFL DFS Week 3 DraftKings Podcast with Pat Mayo

DraftKings Promotions, Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football DFS, NFL DFS, Podcast

NFL DFS Week 3 DraftKings Podcast with Pat Mayo

Pat Mayo (@thePME) of The FNTSY Sports Network, RotoeXperts, and DailyRoto stops by The Fantasy Coach Podcast to talk about NFL DFS Week 3 for DraftKings. I promise we talk some strategy after catching up and exchanging the finer points on blogging and tagging posts. (I kid you not!) After talking about this week’s hot-button issues like the NCAA going after college athletes for playing DFS we delve into the week 3 slate.

First we discuss Thursday Night’s game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants and discuss if we want any exposure to the game or if we should play the Thursday start slate but fade the match up. Kirk Cousins, Jordan Reed, Pierre Garcon, Matt Jones and Odell Beckham Jr. are discussed.

We then talk about paying up for Defense this week and how to go about setting your lineup if you are going to take Seattle at home against the Bears.

We discuss paying up for RBs this week versus taking low priced options. Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, and Jamaal Charles are discussed versus the lower priced James Starks, Danny Woodhead, TJ Yeldon and Latavious Murray.

We touch on the big DFS game of the week as the Pittsburgh Steelers are visiting the St. Louis Rams. Players discussed include, Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Le’Veon Bell, Nick Foles and Todd Gurley.

We talk about highly volatile tournament plays such as Torrey Smith and Ted Ginn Jr.

We discuss bankroll management. Differentiating between building a tournament lineup versus a cash game lineup and discuss how hard it can be to stay on course.

FanDuel Quick Picks for NFL Week 3
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FanDuel Quick Picks for NFL Week 3

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FanDuel Quick Picks for NFL Week 3

By the time it takes you to read this article countless numbers of Americans will have already been exposed to millions upon millions of FanDuel and DraftKings commercials today. I told my mother, aged 67, that I won some money playing Fanduel, and she knew what I was talking about! It is a full-fledged revolution, and in this writer’s opinion, second only to the one in 1776. The purpose of my articles are two-fold. One is to provide some philosophical insight into behavioral tendencies of FanDuel players. I will study my own behavior as well as the behaviors of the FanDuel community. Why was I so high on Austin Seferian-Jenkins last week? What is my obsession with David Johnson on the Cardinals? These behaviors are often destructive in FanDuel and I’m sure you exhibit some of them too. My second purpose is to provide you with FanDuel tips early in the week so that you can begin to make your plan. For me, it’s a week long process. It starts Tuesday morning, usually in the one place I can lock the door sit down and have some quiet time (you Dads out there know exactly where I’m talking about). There is always a follow up session later in the day, sometimes three or four depending on what I eat for dinner that day! I will present to you every Wednesday players that have caught my eye based on matchups, price value, and observations made from the prior week. I hope you will react to my “Quick Picks” and challenge me. Doing so, will only make both of our lineups better. Thank-you for taking the time to read.

Quick Tip #1 (behavioral) – When playing in a Thursday FanDuel tournament pick only one Thursday player or none at all. I’ve noticed the impulsivity of FanDuel players. That same impulsivity lies within you as well. Scenario: There is a Thursday night game and you want to watch it but in your other fantasy leagues you don’t have any players. What do you do? You load up a FanDuel lineup with Thursday night players so that you have something to watch and get excited about. Suddenly, Rueben Randle looks like a great bargain. In your head he is finally having his breakout game and you remember seeing an article in the newspaper (online of course, not an actual newspaper) that Eli wants to get him more involved. They just released Preston Parker, more targets for Rueben! Fast forward to later that night, Rueben has 2 catches for 17 yards and you are stuck with him. Let other people load up on Thursday players. You can basically eliminate from contention all those that do.

Quick Tip #2 (Player Pick) – Let TE Jordan Reed ($5300) be your only player chosen from the Thursday night game. This will take extreme discipline as you will want to take Odell Beckham Jr. after he torched the Redskins last year and is coming off of a great week. If he’s your guy, by all means take him. However, you should be aware that the Redskins pass defense has been really good thus far, and they are a much more physical team than the Giants are. Back to Jordan Reed, Kirk Cousins has targeted him a team leading 17 times, weeks one and two combined, and he’s played 85% of snaps. Last week he did well against a formidable Rams Defense to the tune of 6 targets, 6 catches, and 82 yards. He is clearly Kirk Cousins favorite target in the air with Desean Jackson out of action. The Giants defense is terrible at stopping opposing teams’ tight ends as they were torched by both Dallas TE’s and Jacob Tamme last week. At $5300, I think you can get Travis Kelce production at a cheaper price.

Quick Tip #3 (Behavioral) – Stop picking random stud performers from last week thinking they will repeat their performance. Try to think of each week as an entirely new entity all by itself. Isn’t that why we like FanDuel in the first place? Last weeks’ failures are gone but so are the successes. You missed out on Larry Fitzgerald. Pick him this week and you will lose. What you’re really missing though is the key information. The Bears are really bad and will continue to get worse each week. They are on 2-3 year plan and most of that plan does not involve their current terrible players. Try to find a starter or two that play the Bears each week.

Quick Tip #4 (Player Pick) – I’m not afraid to pay for my defense in FanDuel because that separates winning teams from losing teams. I like the Seahawks Defense at $5300. Any time I’ve ever won money in FanDuel I’ve always had a great performing defense. If you’ve been overlooking defenses and just fitting in whatever money you can afford at the end you must stop immediately. The Seahawks are 0-2, Jimmy Graham is running his mouth, and they are going to take out all of their frustration on the Bears at home. Jay Cutler is out, although I almost prefer Mr. Turnover to be playing, Jimmy Clausen is in, and none of that matters anyhow because the Hawks D will score you lots of points this week. The Arizona Cardinals Defense scored 18 FanDuel points against them last week in Chicago. Just imagine what the Seahawks will do to them this week.

Quick Tip #5 (Player Pick) – What can Brown do for you? Ah, the inevitable Antonio Brown pun. It works too well not to use. The first thing I do with my FanDuel lineups is go click on Antonio Brown and insert him into my lineup. I’m going to stick with that until Martavius Bryant comes back because I may want to see if there is any hinderance to Brown’s stats. There probably won’t be. Antonio Brown is the model of consistency. I love having him in all my lineups for that guaranteed 20+ point total. Last week he was used in 26% of FanDuel lineups. I generally like to find guys that are used in less lineups, for example, DeAngelo Williams was used in only 4.3% of lineups last Sunday. Pure Gold. With Antonio Brown I look at it this way. If he’s owned by 26% of the people, 74% are NOT using him. Since FanDuel roughly pays out on the top 25%, I’m using Antonio Brown every week because I feel like I have an advantage over 74% of the people. This is the math they should be teaching in our public schools! Last week Antonio Brown rewarded me with a wonderous 9-195-1 line. Have him in all of your lineups every week.

THE LONGSHOTS
I’d like to end my article each week with a few long shots suggestions. Metaphorically speaking, these are the 50-1 shots in horse racing. Below are 5 longshots that have a chance to hit this week along with a small blurb about each one and their Fanduel price.

Fred Jackson – RB – $6000 – I wish he was cheaper but he’ll fit in nicely if you load up on stud WRs. Everyone is going to get a piece of that Chicago Bears pie and I could see Jackson racking up garbage time points.

David Johnson – RB – $6000 – He’s a man-child. This may be your last week to get him cheap. I know Ellington is coming back but he’s a little guy destined to get hurt over and over again. I wouldn’t hesitate to use him as my RB #2

Nelson Agholor – WR – $5300 – Very cheap and he should be that cheap. The guy has done very little. I’m expecting a little Jets letdown this week combined with some Chip Kelly desperation to get things right. Revis should be on Jordan Matthews so maybe Nelson breaks through. He did have a semi-respectable 6 targets last week.

Tyler Lockett – WR – $5000 – Maybe this longshot breaks a long TD. Who on the Bears can catch him?

Ryan Mallet – QB – $6300 – He had a respectable week last week. He’s cheap and a few touchdowns to DeAndre Hopkins and he can be a nice value play.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this. Please follow me on twitter @QuickRotoTips and feel free to offer feedback or to blame me if you take some of my advice and it all goes terribly.

Breaking Down Winning and Losing Lineups On DraftKings in Week 2
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Breaking Down Winning and Losing Lineups On DraftKings in Week 2

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Breaking Down Winning and Losing Lineups On DraftKings in Week 2

Week 2 turned into a big Monday night sweat for me in most of my cash games on DraftKings. It all came down to Eric Decker against a beat up Colts secondary for me to have a positive weekend in DFS. Luckily the scenario that we had all hoped would play out did as Vontae Davis covered Brandon Marshall early in the game and Decker was running free against linebackers and practice squad level corners. If Decker had not hurt his knee and if Davis hadn’t been injured he actually could have saved some of my weaker tournament lineups that missed the money by a few points.

The big story for me was injuries and the top wide receivers actually paying dividends. I did not have any of Julio Jones or Antonio Brown and it hurt quite a bit. The only positive was more people faded Rob Gronkowski because of their desire to get Julio and Antonio into their lineups, which gave me a big edge at TE. My biggest mistake was having too much exposure to Brandin Cooks at home against Tampa Bay. I was prepared for Cooks to break out this week, but I wasn’t about to pony up for Drew Brees after watching him dump it off again and again the week before. Cooks and the Saints struggles as a team almost cost me big time. Luckily Jordan Matthews caught a garbage time touchdown otherwise I would be writing this a little poorer than usual. (Give a guy a break when he has triplets.)

Tevin Coleman’s injury really hurt my cash lineups. I teamed him up with Marshawn Lynch and obviously Lynch under-performed, but I could have absorbed that a little easier if I didn’t lose Coleman to cracked ribs late int he first half against the Giants. I’m wondering if people will shy away from Lynch in cash during week 3 after his performance against the Packers even though he is facing the lowly Chicago Bears Defense. I was kicking myself a bit for not having any exposure to DeAngelo Williams in the last week before Le’Veon Bell came back from suspension, and also not at least taking Torrey Smith a bit with the 49ers having to keep up with that amazing Steelers O.

My best late swap was getting away from the Titans Defense completely and using the Cardinals and Patriots across the board. Something about Jay Cutler makes me want to start a defense against him almost every week. It’s too bad he won’t be healthy enough to face the Seahawks this week as he has a strained hamstring from chasing a defender this past Sunday. I felt like Decker and Terrance Williams were going to be owned a bunch in cash games and really wanted to stay away from canceling out on defense when there were other good options.

My Strengths this week: Zeroing in on Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger as my QBs and picking the right Defenses.

My Weakness this week: Cash Game Running Backs, and not stacking (for some odd reason) in tournament lineups. (Larry Fitzgerald and Antonio Brown)

Some of the best post week breakdowns have been going up over at DraftKings Playbook. Adam Levitan (formerly of Rotoworld) has written breakdowns of his cash game lineups the past two weeks that I believe they will really help people understand the difference between thinking about tournament lineup construction and cash game lineup construction. This week he broke down some mistakes and you should definitely give it a look.
http://playbook.draftkings.com/nfl/nfl-cash-game-lineup-review-week-2/

Jonathan Bales (Author of Fantasy Sports for Smart People and Co-Founder of Fantasy Labs) broke down his winning DraftKings lineup in the higher stakes single entry DraftKings NFL World Championship Qualifier for week 2 in a video over at FantasyLabs.com. I think it’s extremely important to pay attention to his reasoning for playing Dion Lewis against the Bills, putting Eric Decker in the Flex spot, and also taking the Patriots D. This is god standard breakdown and it’s always fun to hear how a winning lineup was constructed.
http://www.fantasylabs.com/articles/draftkings-lineup-breakdown-week-2-championship-qualifier/

Week 1 DraftKings DFS Preview Podcast

Week one of the NFL season came at a very busy time in the life of the Esser family, so I apologize whole-heartedly for the late and short episode. It is always great to talk to the amazing Renee Miller and I look forward to having our regular show back each and every week for the rest of the season. Please take a quick listen so we can tell you who we are play, fading and sneaking into our week 1 millionaire maker line ups.