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What to do after the unexpected shootout on Thursday- ? (1 Viewer)

marytechjane

Footballguy
I mostly play the main slate, but also play some of the Thursday - Monday. I almost always fade the Thursday players and many times have zero exposure to the game. This week was no exception as Vegas had this game tied for the second lowest expected over/under of the week. This strategy has worked pretty consistently for me. Unfortunately for those of us that had zero exposure last night it backfired in a big way.

My question is what should the strategy be for those in this situation now that we're so far behind much of the field (this is mostly a tournament question although I'd be interested in people's take on cash also)- Should we A) Stick to our guns and build lineups as we normally would and hope that we can at least place in the contests even though the likelihood is that if we do place we may place low but at least we'll recoup some of our entry fees or B) Build lineups using many more boom/bust and contrarian players than usual knowing that this is probably the only way we'll now have a chance to place highly in the contests, but with the understanding that this is very high risk/reward and the likelihood is we'll probably lose most if not all of our entry fees

Thanks for any input/advice!

 
I mostly play the main slate, but also play some of the Thursday - Monday. I almost always fade the Thursday players and many times have zero exposure to the game. This week was no exception as Vegas had this game tied for the second lowest expected over/under of the week. This strategy has worked pretty consistently for me. Unfortunately for those of us that had zero exposure last night it backfired in a big way.

My question is what should the strategy be for those in this situation now that we're so far behind much of the field (this is mostly a tournament question although I'd be interested in people's take on cash also)- Should we A) Stick to our guns and build lineups as we normally would and hope that we can at least place in the contests even though the likelihood is that if we do place we may place low but at least we'll recoup some of our entry fees or B) Build lineups using many more boom/bust and contrarian players than usual knowing that this is probably the only way we'll now have a chance to place highly in the contests, but with the understanding that this is very high risk/reward and the likelihood is we'll probably lose most if not all of our entry fees

Thanks for any input/advice!
This was talked about a little bit in the FD thread.  IMO it looks intimidating, but I wouldn't change much with my strategy.  The scores I see at the top in the gpp that I am in are in the 130-140 range, but that's with using all but one player in most of the LUs.  Last week the winners were reaching towards the 180pt range, SO unless that last player hits for 35-40pts, chances are a lot of those LUs are left behind a little bit.  Sure they hit on some players, but there are so many more players to go on Sunday that also have that 100yd, 3TD upside, at probably lower ownership (Gurley was almost 30% owned).  All it takes is a 10% owned L.Bell going for 36pts and you are right there with these LUs. 

I think at the most I would put one more boom/bust low owned guy in my LU, but I wouldn't get nuts.  It just looks worse because it's the first game and now we have to sit there and look at those scores for a couple days. 

 
Have to disagree with KarmaPolice on this.  Catching the people who hit big in the Thursday game is going to be extremely difficult.  It doesn't matter that the people at the VERY top of the standings only have one player left to go.  It matters that there are so many people who got the lion's share of those points using fewer players. 

My Thu-Mon tournaments are full of lineups that go Goff/Gurley/Hyde/Watkins, or Goff/Gurley/Hyde/Watkins/Garcon, or (less commonly) even Goff/Gurley/Hyde/Watkins/Woods/Garcon.  These guys don't need to dodge many pitfalls, to guarantee high placings.  All of these lineups have a good amount of money left to spend, you can't catch them by using the same players that they'll fill out the rest of their rosters with, and hope that the players where your lineup differs from theirs will outscore the likes of Gurley/Hyde/Watkins.  It's just incredibly unlikely to pan out that way.  You need differentiation all the way up and down the card, now. 

Winning with lineups that faded Thursday in Week 3 is going to be at least as tough as winning with lineups that faded Thursday in Week 1 (where the top finishing lineups were dominated by entries that included the likes of Tyreek Hill, Mike Gillislee, and especially Kareem Hunt).

 
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Have to disagree with KarmaPolice on this.  Catching the people who hit big in the Thursday game is going to be extremely difficult.  It doesn't matter that the people at the VERY top of the standings only have one player left to go.  It matters that there are so many people who got the lion's share of those points using fewer players. 

My Thu-Mon tournaments are full of lineups that go Goff/Gurley/Hyde/Watkins, or Goff/Gurley/Hyde/Watkins/Garcon, or (less commonly) even Goff/Gurley/Hyde/Watkins/Woods/Garcon.  These guys don't need to dodge many pitfalls, to guarantee high placings.  All of these lineups have a good amount of money left to spend, you can't catch them by using the same players that they'll fill out the rest of their rosters with, and hope that the players where your lineup differs from theirs will outscore the likes of Gurley/Hyde/Watkins.  It's just incredibly unlikely to pan out that way.  You need differentiation all the way up and down the card, now. 

Winning with lineups that faded Thursday in Week 3 is going to be at least as tough as winning with lineups that faded Thursday in Week 1 (where the top finishing lineups were dominated by entries that included the likes of Tyreek Hill, Mike Gillislee, and especially Kareem Hunt).
I think maybe I should expand a little bit, and I think I am more 1/2 way between our two posts in reality.  I think it is a little worrisome that the first game went that high scoring. 

What I should say is that I don't worry about the LUs at the top that blew their point wad on 1 game and have one player left.  I don't think that's a way to take down a tournament.  Most only got 6 pts at TE, or 5-6 at D.  I still think most weeks 180pts are needed to win.  Like you said, the ones that we should worry about are the ones that avoided low point landmines, so IMO the ones that are more worrisome are the ones that played both RBs, Watkins, and Still have an Oak/Wash or Det/Atl game stack still lurking.   Like you said, those 3 will probably be on a lot of the winning LUs, but 0 chance we see those silly 8players in one game LUs in the top 10 on a 16game slate. 

Still, my opinion of not getting crazy with your LUs.  We know you need about 180+ points to take down a tourney, and that hasn't changed.  I could easily see something like a popular core of Henry/McCaffrey/AJGreen at a similar price keeping pace with main scorers from Thurs.  Still a lot of football left. 

 
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Completely agree that the people who went super-crazy-all-out with 7 or 8 roster spots in this game (and who are the current leaders) will not finish at the top. 

I just think that it is more than "a little" worrisome that this game went off, for people who faded it.  It's a lot worrisome, and I don't feel like the people who faded this game should just ignore that it happened, and build their lineups the same as they would if this game had finished 17-10. 

It's worth looking at the salaries of Gurley/Hyde/Watkins (and to a lesser extent, Goff and Garcon) and seeing what kind of money these people will have left, and what the "chalk" plays for them are NOW likely to be.  And then try to avoid THAT chalk.  That doesn't mean avoiding all chalk, just the chalk that these particular contestants will be on.  Because you don't want to share 3 or 4 players with them, and then hope that the players where you differ will be able to outscore the names I just listed.  That's a very low-percentage approach.  You have to hope that some of their chalk plays bust, and that means you need to not be on those players. 

I play GPPs mainly on Yahoo, and I had maybe 8-9% exposure to Gurley and 15% to Hyde.  More like 2-3% on Watkins.  The ownership percentages on those players (most especially Hyde) are way higher than my own exposure to them.  Hyde's ownership was over 40% in a lot of events there.  I have a lot of ground to make up, and I don't think I can do it by landing on the same players that those people will fill out the rest of their rosters with, and then just telling myself that "well, maybe the guys I have that they don't have will score even higher than Gurely/Hyde/Watkins did." 

 
Completely agree that the people who went super-crazy-all-out with 7 or 8 roster spots in this game (and who are the current leaders) will not finish at the top. 

I just think that it is more than "a little" worrisome that this game went off, for people who faded it.  It's a lot worrisome, and I don't feel like the people who faded this game should just ignore that it happened, and build their lineups the same as they would if this game had finished 17-10. 

It's worth looking at the salaries of Gurley/Hyde/Watkins (and to a lesser extent, Goff and Garcon) and seeing what kind of money these people will have left, and what the "chalk" plays for them are NOW likely to be.  And then try to avoid THAT chalk.  That doesn't mean avoiding all chalk, just the chalk that these particular contestants will be on.  Because you don't want to share 3 or 4 players with them, and then hope that the players where you differ will be able to outscore the names I just listed.  That's a very low-percentage approach.  You have to hope that some of their chalk plays bust, and that means you need to not be on those players. 

I play GPPs mainly on Yahoo, and I had maybe 8-9% exposure to Gurley and 15% to Hyde.  More like 2-3% on Watkins.  The ownership percentages on those players (most especially Hyde) are way higher than my own exposure to them.  Hyde's ownership was over 40% in a lot of events there.  I have a lot of ground to make up, and I don't think I can do it by landing on the same players that those people will fill out the rest of their rosters with, and then just telling myself that "well, maybe the guys I have that they don't have will score even higher than Gurely/Hyde/Watkins did." 
Gurley and Hyde are basically the same price as something that could be chalky in the Sunday games (and proabably lower owned than Gurley's 30-40%) like Ajayi and Henry, and yes, I could see a scenario where two rbs keep pace with those scores so that people who faded aren't totally left behind.  It sucks that they went off for 50 points, but it's also at a position that the most stable and high scoring.  IMO it's way worse if something weird like Hoyer - Garcon - Kittle goes off for 90pts.  Then you are stuck trying to find a low owned stack with that type of upside in volatile positions to beat them and take the top spot. 

Long story short, I think it sucks because the cash line will be high b/c a 35% owned player scored 30+, but I don't think it's impossible to beat these teams with this start.  It's ironic that I am looking at the glass half full here. 

If you want to have a different LU from them, spend it different places.  We know what they spent on RB -  14.5K.  Doing something like Bell + Hunt/Ajayi would cost 2500 more.  That would instantly make your LU construction different from theirs.  Maybe they are spending up at QB and WR, but you wouldn't be able to do that.  We see every week where a guy like T.Hill gets more than A.Brown.  :shrug:   

 
Completely agree that the people who went super-crazy-all-out with 7 or 8 roster spots in this game (and who are the current leaders) will not finish at the top. 

I just think that it is more than "a little" worrisome that this game went off, for people who faded it.  It's a lot worrisome, and I don't feel like the people who faded this game should just ignore that it happened, and build their lineups the same as they would if this game had finished 17-10. 

It's worth looking at the salaries of Gurley/Hyde/Watkins (and to a lesser extent, Goff and Garcon) and seeing what kind of money these people will have left, and what the "chalk" plays for them are NOW likely to be.  And then try to avoid THAT chalk.  That doesn't mean avoiding all chalk, just the chalk that these particular contestants will be on.  Because you don't want to share 3 or 4 players with them, and then hope that the players where you differ will be able to outscore the names I just listed.  That's a very low-percentage approach.  You have to hope that some of their chalk plays bust, and that means you need to not be on those players. 

I play GPPs mainly on Yahoo, and I had maybe 8-9% exposure to Gurley and 15% to Hyde.  More like 2-3% on Watkins.  The ownership percentages on those players (most especially Hyde) are way higher than my own exposure to them.  Hyde's ownership was over 40% in a lot of events there.  I have a lot of ground to make up, and I don't think I can do it by landing on the same players that those people will fill out the rest of their rosters with, and then just telling myself that "well, maybe the guys I have that they don't have will score even higher than Gurely/Hyde/Watkins did." 
Gurley and Hyde are basically the same price as something that could be chalky in the Sunday games (and proabably lower owned than Gurley's 30-40%) like Ajayi and Henry, and yes, I could see a scenario where two rbs keep pace with those scores so that people who faded aren't totally left behind.  It sucks that they went off for 50 points, but it's also at a position that the most stable and high scoring.  IMO it's way worse if something weird like Hoyer - Garcon - Kittle goes off for 90pts.  Then you are stuck trying to find a low owned stack with that type of upside in volatile positions to beat them and take the top spot. 

Long story short, I think it sucks because the cash line will be high b/c a 35% owned player scored 30+, but I don't think it's impossible to beat these teams with this start.  It's ironic that I am looking at the glass half full here. 

If you want to have a different LU from them, spend it different places.  We know what they spent on RB -  14.5K.  Doing something like Bell + Hunt/Ajayi would cost 2500 more.  That would instantly make your LU construction different from theirs.  Maybe they are spending up at QB and WR, but you wouldn't be able to do that.  We see every week where a guy like T.Hill gets more than A.Brown.  :shrug:   

 
@Snorkelson-

I looked this morning at the one gpp that I was in, and all in the top 10 had at least one player from Thurs night.  I saw 1 player 2x, 2 players 1x, 3 players 4x, and one LU each with 4, 5, and 6 players from that game.  There were 5 Bradys, 2 Rodgers, 2 Goff, and 1 Bortles LU.   It looks like the 3rd place guy is 10 points behind and has Witten tonight. 

Not surprising that the ones with more players from Thurs all had Brady and the ones with the least players had Diggs and T.Y. 

The one thing that we hate to talk about was evident as well - Ks and Ds.  A lot of the chalk Ds were junk yesterday, and at the top had Ds like Jets and Saints.  Most of the time we also need that PK to get 12+ to get to the top. 

 
This will be another interesting week to think about for the Mon-Thurs, and probably a better slate to fade with GB, NO, Wash and KC playing in the non-main slate games. 

 
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Looking at my main Thu GPP, 27 of the Top 30 have Carlos Hyde.  15 of the Top 30 are Goff stacks, and another one is a Hoyer stack. 

All 30 have at least one player from the Thursday game. 

So yeah, people in this contest who faded the Thursday Night game not only didn't win, but didn't get particularly close, either.  And the Top 30 is dominated by lineups that used multiple players or stacks from the Thursday game. 

Feels like things played out pretty much exactly how I said, in my first post of the thread. 

And unfortunately, the idea of "going for differentiation all the way up and down the card" and avoiding the chalk plays that the Thursday stacks used, didn't pan out for anyone.  It wasn't possible to catch up to the Thursday stacks using that strategy,because there really wasn't enough "chalk" used by the Thursday stacks.  I saw tremendous variation, in the players selected by the Thursday stacks.  They weren't sitting on enough of the same guys, so there was no way to make up enough ground against all of them. 

 
I get what you are saying, but I still can't get behind the absolutes that nobody could have caught them.  Something like a Brady-Hogan- Cooks - T.Y core mixed with Cook and Howard or Freeman couldn't have gotten it done? 

I get that they had a leg up, but I just don't get how you say there was no way to make up the ground.  The Thurs people still had to have Brady and Diggs instead of another combo, and most I saw had odd Ds like Saints and Jets too. 

It's interesting that most of the winners had Hyde, not Gurley too. 

 
I think the reason they all have Hyde, and Gurley wasn't quite as prevalent, is because so many of them were Goff stacks.  And people aren't as prone to use a RB from their QB stack as they are to use the RB opposite their QB stack.  (Generally speaking.) 

In my original post, I didn't say that catching the Thursday game stacks would be "impossible."  What I said was "Catching the people who hit big in the Thursday game is going to be extremely difficult."

And it proved to be extremely difficult.  When I said that there turned out to be no way to make up the ground, it might be better stated as "no one managed to make up the ground."  Yes, I'm sure that the perfect Sunday lineup would have outscored all of the Thursday stacks I was looking at.  But nobody found those perfect Sunday lineups, so nobody made it to the top few slots in these GPPs if they had zero Thursday players.  Anyone who skipped the Thursday game also skipped winning the tournament. 

 

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