Looking back at Week 5
Can we not?
The highest scoring game last week was the game with the lowest total. And even if you played that game (thanks for nothing, again, Diontae Johnson!), you still didn't get it right, because I'm willing to bet you weren't the one person out of 200,000 who played Chase Claypool and Travis Fulgham together in a lineup.
The Raiders and Chiefs game went over! I knew it would! Except the Chiefs were double digit favorites at home and lost by 8 points.
The Ravens covered and dominated against the Bengals! And Lamar had two total rushes for three yards and only threw for 180 yards despite the team putting up 27 points.
The Dolphins flew west to San Francisco and kicked the crap out of the 49ers as nearly double digit underdogs. Seriously, they beat their spread by like 30.
I was clearly negative on the week, but this is the week that I chalk it up to variance and not the process. I did make a few mistakes (see: Diontae "Never Again" Johnson), but those mistakes shouldn't, in a normal week, cost me like this.
My GPP lineups
20 entries in a 20 entry max contest again, with only one cashing. For the sake of bringing a bit of joy to this column, I'll share that one. As always, stack is labeled in red.
QB: Patrick Mahomes ($7700 - 13.69% owned - 33.7 points)
RB: Ezekiel Elliott ($7800 - 32.1% owned - 23.5 points)
RB: Mike Davis ($6400 - 34.43% owned - 29.9 points)
WR: Henry Ruggs III ($4700 - 1.16% owned - 22.8 points)
WR: Sammy Watkins ($4500 - 9.43% owned - 10.4 points)
WR: Olamide Zaccheaus ($3000 - 19.56% owned - 2.3 points)
WR - Flex: Will Fuller V ($6600 - 11.48% owned - 15.8 points)
TE: Travis Kelce ($6400 - 11.75% owned - 27.8 points)
DEF: Washington ($2600 - 3.18% owned - 2 points)
This lineup is a bit too chalky for my taste, now that I look back on it, but I was hoping at the time that Watkins would be closer to 6 or 7% owned. I actually thought Henry Ruggs would be closer to 4%, so that number was nice. In hindsight, I would've probably gotten off both Zaccheaus and Fuller to find some ownership leverage split between their prices, but I don't think there was really much in my pool that I was going for there.
My Cash lineup
(played in various double ups - ownership and cash line based on GIANT $5 Double Up as largest cash contest entered.)
QB: Lamar Jackson ($7900 - 9.41% owned - 14.5 points)
RB: Clyde Edwards-Helaire ($6800 - 61.52% owned - 11 points)
RB: Mike Davis (62.3% owned)
RB - Flex: Devonta Freeman ($4600 - 1.55% owned - 16.7 points)
WR: Odell Beckham Jr. ($6400 - 1.83% owned - 11.42 points)
WR: Diontae Johnson ($5600 - 8.92% owned - 0.8 points)
WR: Olamide Zaccheaus (50.8% owned)
TE: George Kittle ($6600 - 16.91% owned - 8.4 points)
DEF: Washington (3.94% owned)
I marked three players in red here. Those three players were not part of my cash lineup to begin with. However, I had to make an analysis based on the early games, where Diontae got hurt again, Lamar did absolutely nothing and CEH did absolutely nothing, and needed to pivot off of the other chalk players I had in the late games. Again, as a rule of thumb: You cannot pass people if you have the same people as them. I ended up with fewer points with those three than I would have with the three previous players (Zeke, Darius Slayton and Evan Engram), but the result would've been the exact same - a loss. So I'll chalk up a win for that process of getting Freeman and Odell at sub 2% to try and make up ground, but a loss on the rest.
Players from last week's picks that didn't end up in my lineups
Kyle Allen: Just didn't feel a need to go down that low in cash in the end. Clearly I should have done something different than Lamar though!
The 49ers RBs: Once we got an idea that Mostert was going to play but it was not clear what his workload would be, I viewed it as a split carry situation that I could avoid by going down to more Gurley.
Brandon Aiyuk: I didn't end up on any 49ers stacks, so he didn't make my player pool. Boy did I dodge that bullet. Not that it mattered.
Welp, pour me a pick me up
I've never had the Variance VI IPA from New England Brewing Company, and I still haven't - I assume it's not distributed anywhere remotely close to Wisconsin - but I wanted to make sure there was a beer with Variance in the name and there was. So there.
What I'm actually drinking is a Terrapin High and Hazy IPA, because I'm absolutely on a run of hazy beers and Oktoberfests. Although the hazies never really leave my rotation...so expect more of those in future columns.
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