Starting a QB against your opponents WR or with your own (2 Viewers)

[rick6668]

I know that most of the replies will be to start who you think will score the most points, but I'd still like some opinions on the following scenario.

(I hesitate to name the actual players as I don't want to make this a WDIS question, but the choices here are different than I've ever come across before.)

I have my QB and WR still to play while he has a WR. I have both QB's on Monday night.

Is the above scenario a case where if I was up big, I would start the QB that matches my opponents WR, while if I am down big, I should start the QB that matches up with my WR?

Thoughts?

 

[mbuehner]

I know that most of the replies will be to start who you think will score the most points, but I'd still like some opinions on the following scenario.

(I hesitate to name the actual players as I don't want to make this a WDIS question, but the choices here are different than I've ever come across before.)

I have my QB and WR still to play while he has a WR. I have both QB's on Monday night.

Is the above scenario a case where if I was up big, I would start the QB that matches my opponents WR, while if I am down big, I should start the QB that matches up with my WR?

Thoughts?

Sounds reasonable. When you are a favorite you should make borderline decisions that favor consistency. When you are a big underdog your should make borderline decisions that favor a high risk/reward.

However, what constitutes a borderline decision is the real problem. I find gut instinct tends to cloud judgement and what should be a pretty clear cut decision gets overruled by what you really just want to do regardless of what the stats say, and you find ways to justify it to yourself. Minimizing that sort of decision making is probably a major factor in longterm FF success (and any gambling actually).

 

[VikingFrog]

It can always blow up in your face.

I almost started Hilton yesterday with my opponent having luck just knowing that if luck blew up he would have to go through Hilton to do so. That would have been a terrible choice.

I had much better wide receiver options and ended up sitting Hilton due to weather concern.

I lost any ways so it ultimately didn't matter, but qbs can always find other ways to get it in the end zone.

Romo and Mccown could both throw 4 touchdowns tonight with none of them going to Dez or Marshall or Jeffery. Is that likely? No, but if you were to tell me Luck would throw for 300+ yards and 4 touchdowns and Hilton would have 7 yards recieving I would have laughed at you.

 

[rick6668]

here is my specific scenario:

I am down 23 points in a PPR.

I have both QB's to choose from tonight. Romo or McCown.

I am also starting Dez. He is starting Jeffery.

Originally I was projected to outscore my opponent by 20 points and since I think Romo and McCown will likely score about the same amount of points, I started McCown as this would protect me from having Jeffrey going off and killing my season.

Now I am down 23 and am contemplating starting Romo as a big Dez day will likely give me the win.

I will probably not make a decision on this until just before game time. I hate these decisions.

 

[GregR]

Starting a QB and WR from the same team will tend to increase your variance. There may be more upswings and downswings, and larger in magnitude. Starting a different QB and WR will decrease your variance.

Similarly, starting a QB who throws to your opponent's WR will decrease the variance between your scores. If his WR goes off at least in TDs then your QB probably has a good day too. If your QB sucks then his WR probably sucks.

Increasing variance is a good thing if you're the underdog. If your average performance against the opponent tends to be a loss, then you want more swings and want them greater in magnitude. There isn't a lot of difference to you if you lose with an average performance or lose with a wilder downswing. But if the upswing happens more often and greater in scope, that might turn a loss into a win which does matter.

And the opposite for the favorite then. Your average score will win most of the time so you want both teams scoring closer to their average.

That said, I think the likelihood it actually makes a difference is pretty small. If you have two QBs projected about the same, sure you can go with the one that gives you the better variance. If you think one will score several points more than the other, I'd stick with that probably.

 

[rick6668]

Holy cow am I glad I stayed with McCown.

 

[zftcg]

(I hesitate to name the actual players as I don't want to make this a WDIS question, but the choices here are different than I've ever come across before.)

Romo and Mccown could both throw 4 touchdowns tonight with none of them going to Dez or Marshall or Jeffery. Is that likely? No, but if you were to tell me Luck would throw for 300+ yards and 4 touchdowns and Hilton would have 7 yards recieving I would have laughed at you.

I can't believe you cracked his code! How on earth did you figure out he was talking about Romo and McCown? It's like you have ESPN!

 

[Kool-Aid Larry]

Holy cow am I glad I stayed with McCown.

correct answer was to start the guy who scores more points

 

[VikingFrog]

(I hesitate to name the actual players as I don't want to make this a WDIS question, but the choices here are different than I've ever come across before.)

Romo and Mccown could both throw 4 touchdowns tonight with none of them going to Dez or Marshall or Jeffery. Is that likely? No, but if you were to tell me Luck would throw for 300+ yards and 4 touchdowns and Hilton would have 7 yards recieving I would have laughed at you.

I can't believe you cracked his code! How on earth did you figure out he was talking about Romo and McCown? It's like you have ESPN!

The choices were different than he'd ever come across before, so figured I'd answer.

 

[Interseptopus]

This is something I struggle with sometime but I don't read much into it. I figure any WR could do well, but if that QB does well then I will benefit.

In this case, I probably would have went with mccown. He's on fire lately and I would have assumed Dallas would be up and Chicago would have to throw. I never would have guessed the bears would look so good.

If I have romo and mccown, and my opponent has Jeffery and I have Dez, I start whoever I think might do better. In this case, I would have thought the bears would be playing from behind and mccown would be throwing a lot.

My thought means Dallas is up, which means maybe Dez had a great game already. Maybe mccown goes to Marshall or forte for a lot of TDs, it doesn't have to be Jeffery.

I would be more concerned about being down and starting a WR on the same team as my opponents QB. In that case, no matter what you are screwed.

 

[zftcg]

Yeah I was just kidding because in the OP he said "I don't want to name names, but I have both starting QBs on MNF."

 

[TartanLion]

There was a fairly large thread on this about five days ago. Should only be a few pages back

 

[parasaurolophus]

If you are down who he has compared to who you have is irrelevant, you pick the guys that you think will get the most points. If you are up then it matters, but only if you have the QB's. I had a similar situation earlier in the year where I had Romo and RG3 left to play on sunday night and a big lead and neither of us had players left other than in this game. Opponent had only garcon left. The obvious choice was RG3 since he needed garcon to blow up in order to win. RG3 would have canceled out any TD's so Garcon would have had to get like 450 yards receiving.

 

[VikingFrog]

Yeah I was just kidding because in the OP he said "I don't want to name names, but I have both starting QBs on MNF."

As was I.

It was an obvious WDIS thread. But, I did think the Luck/Hilton stats were pretty crazy and glad I didn't follow this line of thinking.

Just goes to show how much Luck is involved in winning fantasy matchups. Pun intended.

 

[rick6668]

Yeah I was just kidding because in the OP he said "I don't want to name names, but I have both starting QBs on MNF."

As was I.

It was an obvious WDIS thread. But, I did think the Luck/Hilton stats were pretty crazy and glad I didn't follow this line of thinking.

Just goes to show how much Luck is involved in winning fantasy matchups. Pun intended.

Yes it was easy to know the QB's. I really didn't want it to be a WDIS, but the example of having 2 QB's on Monday night to choose from plus a top WR from each team on each team's roster was a situation I really hadn't seen before. Most of the time, it's just, "Should I start the QB from the same team as my or his WR."

Yes, I was LUCKy this week. Would have lost by 10 with Romo, won by 18 with McCown.

I agree that with a decent lead, you don't even think about starting Romo.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

If you are down who he has compared to who you have is irrelevant, you pick the guys that you think will get the most points.

This is incorrect. You illustrated as much in the rest of your post:

I had a similar situation earlier in the year where I had Romo and RG3 left to play on sunday night and a big lead and neither of us had players left other than in this game. Opponent had only garcon left. The obvious choice was RG3 since he needed garcon to blow up in order to win. RG3 would have canceled out any TD's so Garcon would have had to get like 450 yards receiving.

Imagine you had just RG3, and your oppoonent had Garcon and, say, Terrance Williams. You think it doesn't matter which WR he chooses? Of course it does. If he starts Garcon, as you've illustrated, he has practically no chance of beating you. If he starts Williams, he does.