FanDuel Optimal Lineups & Stack: Week 12

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and also taking a look at what Colossus spit out this week. No filters were used, and I am in agreement with a lot of the plays here.

Cash Game Projections

Blake Bortles gets the 28th ranked pass defense this week, and has two terrific wideouts to throw to. I love his price, and the ability to pair him with A-Rob. Colossus does not do so, but Hopkins, and Fitz? Yes please. Hopkins gets a prime matchup against the Saints' secondary, while Fitz has a very similar matchup against the 49ers. Houston, Jacksonville, and Arizona are the three prime teams to target with QB/WR.

The running game this week is really one top name, with Devonta Freeman, who is looking good to return, and an abundance of value backs. Thomas Rawls is one of them. His workload should be big again, but does not draw the easy matchup, like last week. Pittsburgh ranks 6th in rush defense, but Rawls works well in the passing game too. I can't knock him this week at his price.

Delanie Walker is Mariota's favorite target, and now he faces Oakland? He is one of my favorite plays this week, and is one of the safer tight end options, if not the safest.

Kicker is a crapshoot....

Colossus has been punting defense with the Browns, and facing a team who is trotting out a near practice squad, I can't see them hurting your lineup.

GPP Projections

Brian Hoyer is now tapped into the lineup, and I do prefer to have Hopkins stacked with him, so pivoting off Brown would be the way to go there. I love the Yeldon play this week, I think his lack of touchdowns have been a result of game-flow, and red zone calls. San Diego has allowed the second most rushing touchdowns to opposing backs this season. I love his price tag, and love him in all formats.

King Crabs might get overlooked this week, just because it seems there are tons of options. Crabtree should be considered a high volume receiver, and for his price, he is an easy squeeze into lineups. San Fran have the 31st ranked passing defense, and Arizona should air this one out easily. Fitz is in that next pricing tier, but I love his upside this week.

Jordan Reed is a nice pivot from other obvious plays, facing the Giants, who rank 22nd against tight ends. This has possibility to turn into an air assault from both sides. Giants have the 21st ranked pass defense, while Redskins have the 26th. Colts defense made some timely turnovers last week, and face Winston, who has limited his turnovers, but still can give team's upside for opposing defenses. A definite GPP play.

Stack

A stack against the New Orleans' secondary, no surprise here. I love the cafe value, especially tossing in Cecil Shorts. There should be enough to go around, and this is one of my favorite stacks of week 12.

Lineup Including Stack

Mixing this lineup into the lineups above, Colossus really has heightened the upside here adding in Antonio Brown as well.

Tools

DFC Stacking Generator: https://www.dailyfantasycafe.com/tools/stackgenerator/nfl

DFC Lineup Optimizer: https://www.dailyfantasycafe.com/tools/lineupoptimizer/nfl

I'm completely in line with the stack, and I actually like both the cash games and GPP rosters sans the stack quite a bit as well. Good stuff from Colossus.

I love both lineups as well.

Things take a turn with Devonta Freeman out, but still loads of value RB to drop down to, and bump up a wideout.

Hey Jason, no disrespect, but has either lineup engine ever created a semi-successful grouping? I know the tool is mostly for guidance, but it seems the optimizer tool is typically unprofitable.

I tend to think so. I am not sure how far back you have been following, but if you have been looking just recently. The last few weeks have either been hit by an injury, or just the chalk plays not paying off. IE DeAngelo Williams versus Cleveland, Aaron Rodgers versus Detroit, etc. Not making an excuse, just saying running the optimizer without any input from the user, has put out cores popular to the buzz-worthy players for that week. The tool is pumping out players our site is highly on, as well as other sites. Curious to how you have come to the conclusion the tool is unprofitable?

I will add that there are third party sites that run our optimizer over other sites and we are the only optimizer that is profitable in cash games.

I will have to keep a look out for the optimizer rankings going around on Twitter, but I know we do fairly well.

To be fair I have only been following for about 5 weeks now. Last week Witten, Ivory, and Crabtree were all big busts for cash lineups. I am not saying it doesn't pull out a few studs here and there (ex. Hopkins and Newton last week)

The gaps that exist in the optimizer are apparent every week, so the questions I am interested in are:

How do you chose studs after the optimizer has created a lineup

- OR -

How do you identify weaknesses in the tool?

You cannot copy and paste the optimizer into FanDuel - that seems to put you in about the 75th percentile every week thus far (that I have been following). Also, please do not take this at criticism or disrespect - you guys have your shit together, but I have always enjoyed looking at how computer models compare to reality once the smoke has cleared.

I agree with you there, they were busts last week, but in good matchups. Crabtree especially, just didn't pan out. Jets favored, mediocre run defense, personally figured Ivory was a lock for 20 carries and a solid fantasy game.

I am running these lineups just with no filters, locks, exclusions. Just to see what the tool spits out each week, and break it down. But hopefully I am understanding your questions correctly, but usually I am going into the week with a list of my personal preferences for players. I am going to lock those studs in before creating lineups, to see what the tool surrounds them with. If I see a player colossus is on, for instance maybe I didn't like Witten, I would exclude him after I ran the first batch of lineups. Do you mean matchup weaknesses?

No disrespect taken here, and copy and paste into FanDuel?

My "copy and paste" comment refers to the fact that you cannot simply run the optimizer and use that exact lineup for your own.

But then you cleared up my confusion by explaining that you use it as a guideline to help you fill in the gaps with players you may have otherwise overlooked. How does one predict that, for example, Markus Wheaton is going to go off? or Doug Baldwin for that matter? I saw Baldwin was in a lot of winner's lineups --- was his matchup really that poor this week?

There is luck is involved, but I can never seem to pick the high scoring WR3 for the week. I had Cousins, OBJ, and AP in a lot of my lineups, but after the "core" guys the rest of my lineup seems to lag

I think the easy answer is make 50 lineups with core guys and sprinkle in some weak matchups, but it has not paid off yet.

@garresk: I love going back and handicapping some of the low-owned players who pushed teams to the top of the GPP standings to see if they could have been identified. In the case of Doug Baldwin, he graded out well using out "Cafe Value" and appeared in the Examining Cafe Value article Obviously he wasn't projected to score three touchdowns and blow past 100 yards receiving, but as the leading receiver for the Seahawks in a matchup with a below average secondary, our projection tool liked him to provide above average production for his cost, namely at DraftKings. I think a number of people expected the game to be higher scoring than the over/under total would have suggested, and I certainly did. I liked Big Ben, Brown and Bryant for GPP purposes. And if others felt the game would be a shootout, getting exposure to guys like Graham and Baldwin made sense. Obviously some of the players I highlighted failed to deliver, but in retrospect, Baldwin wasn't a crazy, flukey and lucky play. Wheaton, given his usage, was quite flukey. Even after seeing his final output, I can't see how I could have ever talked myself into using him. Players going off like he did happen on occasion. Another player who probably should have been higher owned in GPPs with the benefit of hindsight is Sammy Watkins. The Chiefs have allowed the most fantasy points per game to wide receivers this year, and Watkins is the clear cut number-one receiver for the Bills. The more volume you have, the better your odds of hitting on the small pieces around your core. You're correct. I also think volume extends past weekly volume to playing every week. Each week you play and nail your core, you give yourself another shot to hit your glue pieces and cheap plays.

Thanks for the response Josh. Baldwin was not on my radar so I will have to dig a little deeper this week. The correlation between volume and production is definitely important.

That's 100% correct. Volume is paramount for production (unless of course your a huge-play type player, in which case volume isn't quite as important, but that's not the case with Baldwin). While I thought the game could turn into a shootout like it did, I leaned toward the Seahawks keeping it close and leaning heavily on Thomas Rawls. Their tendency to be a run-heavy team had me less inclined to turn Baldwin's way. If I had played more rosters, it's likely I would have used a few shares of Baldwin, but I didn't play a ton of volume this week and played fewer lineups in more contests.