Given the title of this article series, allow me to share with you what I learned this week. Unless we’re looking at a bye week situation, none of your cash game lineups should be without Devonta Freeman or DeAndre Hopkins. None of them. Sure, you can make some different plays and hope to keep pace with the rest of the field, but until these guys stop racking up 25-to-35 points a week on FanDuel, you better be using them because, well, everyone else is. OK, maybe not everyone, but at least 70 percent are using Freeman and somewhere between 30 and 40 percent are using Hopkins, depending on the game you enter.

As you have likely surmised, there was no “three in a row” for me this week and I can wholeheartedly blame the fact that neither Freeman nor Hopkins was in my lineup for this week’s double-up. I’d probably really feel bad about myself if one of them were and I still didn’t cash in, but that’s not really much of a silver lining, is it? You can’t deposit self-esteem in the bank and pay bills with it.

That’s not to say that you can’t cash with other players, but with the way these guys are playing right now, you’re not really helping your cause by trying to avoid them. Perhaps now that they are being priced as top-tier players, things might be different, but we’ll cross that bridge when we start to assemble the Week 7 lineup. In the meantime, allow me to share with you my Week 6 swing-and-miss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Ryan, QB – Again, it’s all about learning and the lesson here is for me to stop loving Matty Ice so damn much. I’m happy to continue investing in him for season-long leagues, but I went against my earlier findings and paid up a little for him here because of the matchup against the Saints who had the lowest-ranked defense coming in. Not sure why I didn’t say to myself, “It’s a divisional game and both Sean Payton and Rob Ryan are all too familiar with the Falcons quarterback.” After a Week 5 bomb in fantasy, I should have had the good sense to stay away. It’s not easy to shake the season-long mentality sometimes and when I raved on the my Sirius show about the prospects of Brian Hoyer and Matthew Stafford this week, I should have simply heeded my own advice.

Le’Veon Bell, RB – Ugh. I’ve been paying up for him the last couple of weeks and it’s worked out just fine. He wasn’t awful, rushing for 88 yards, but without any receptions and no trip to the end zone, he wasn’t coming close to returning the proper value for what I paid. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes…it rains.

C.J. Spiller, RB – What the heck was I thinking? Oh yeah, that the Falcons ranked near the bottom in defending against running back pass plays. I also thought that with an Over/Under of 51, this game was going to see a lot more scoring. Spiller should be nothing more than a low-end flier in a GPP. Horrible call on my part here. Just horrible.

Julian Edelman, WR – So rather than pay up for Hopkins like a smart fella, I tried to get a little more creative with my wide receiver selection. I don’t normally go for Edelman, but I thought that based on the matchup with the Colts and the way Tom Brady’s been slinging the rock this was a solid play. It started off well for me, but a broken finger for Edelman in the first quarter put a major damper on his overall totals.

Larry Fitzgerald, WR – He was another sub-$8,000 guy who has performed game in and game out who had a tasty matchup against a struggling Steelers secondary. Using him rather than paying up for Hopkins allowed me to stupidly use Ryan as my quarterback. It must have been the NFL DFS gods punishing me as Carson Palmer continued to look the way of John Brown and that fantasy turd Michael Floyd. Fitz didn’t have a terrible game but for the sake of the daily performance, it was the wrong call. In truth, so far, I’m still not disgusted by my receiver selections. Poor timing and injuries, really. Of course, if I didn’t pay up for Ryan, other, more fruitful options could have been used.

Allen Robinson, JAC – You know what…? Not bad for a third receiver. His price was right at $6,700 and he performed well. No complaints here. The other guys have been sitting here with 20/20 hindsight, but Robinson was a good call in my mind and on paper.

Antonio Gates, TE – The only other tight end I was eyeballing this week was Greg Olsen. Granted, he had a better game than Gates, but he was significantly more costly and 14 points here from my tight end was just fine. Another fine call.

Justin Tucker, K – Wouldn’t you know it…the day I pay up for Tucker is the day he puts out a mediocre performance. Not awful, but I could have saved a few bucks and gone with a less expensive option and received the same, if not better, total.

Denver Broncos, DEF – It was the right call to pay up here. The Broncos have been scoring mad points on Fan Duel and the Browns are a terrible team. This was a win.

So overall, we’re looking at a few regrets. Had I just gone with what I learned and trusted my knowledge that Stafford or Hoyer was the way to go, I could have used Hopkins and Brandon Marshall instead of Edelman and Fitzgerald. That move would have seen me cashing in this week. No question. It’s not easy to shed my season-long skin and I also need to trust my gut and stop over-thinking some of my moves. When it comes to cash games, it’s time for me to go back to the drawing board and REALLY implement what I’ve learned. This has been a tough nut to crack, but this is called learning the hard way. Next week, I get it done, dammit!

So how about my tournament play? We all dream of the big-check photo-op and while I’ve struggled to find my footing, I’ve seen steady and continued growth in my GPP lineups. I still haven’t finished in the money (though I’ve only played in what…three or four tournaments?) but my scores are steadily improving and I’m starting to make better calls as far as low-ownership percentages with solid  results. Here’s a look at the entry in my quest for the million bucks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes on this lineup:

1. Brian Hoyer – still shaking my head as to why he wasn’t my go-to guy everywhere

2. Nothing you can do about a down game for Bell but while Giovani Bernard found his way into the end zone, he just doesn’t touch the ball enough to rack up the yardage you need to succeed. My game flow prediction for the Bengals game was off.

3. Marshall was the right call, Fitz didn’t pan out and Kendall Wright was a low-cost option I never should have used. I figured his ownership percentage would be low, but I underestimated the Miami defense coming off the bye. Again, here’s a season-long mentality where I have this inane belief that Wright is better than he really is and I overestimated his potential targets from Marcus Mariota. He was my last choice for the lineup and I’m thinking I should have just upgraded my receivers a bit while downgrading from Travis Kelce…maybe even from Bell too.

Everything else seemed pretty reasonable at the time. Sigh.

As for looking towards this week, it’s like the title of this week’s edition states – back to the drawing board. I am going to shed every single season-long thought in my head, stick with my research and gut-instincts and stop paying up in places I know I shouldn’t pay up in. Oh yeah…and make sure either Hopkins or Freeman are there. Maybe even both!