I never go into text messages thinking that I’ll post them on my blog but Adam pushed my button with “just embrace it”, and it sent me off on a wild, frenzy fueled tailspin.

I took a slight jab at Adam in my last line which I’m sure he appreciates. Before I wrote this post I got Adam’s permission to divulge this confidential information which I find to be softer than Charmin.

As a 16 point projected favorite, in a SEMI final game, Adam hedged his financial position by agreeing to give $100 to the loser of the match. The prize pool is $1,200, and the winner receives $700 and 2nd gets $300. Who do you think benefited from this deal? HMMMMMMMMM. Not Adam.

The only time I want to make a deal is if I know I’m going to lose or there’s enough money that I would care about losing. Example, Evan and I are squaring off in a final where the entry to the league was only $25 (spare me on why are adult males playing in a league for a $25 entry fee but I could also dedicate an entire post to why this is also unbelievable) and I assume it would be $200 to first and $50 to second. Evan and I have a few options:
1) Chop the money 50/50
2) Leave the structure as decided by the commissioner
3) Play for the money

If I thought I was going to lose, I’d chose 1. However, my team just had the RB 1,3,and 5 from last week and I have A-Pete waiting in the wings. I proposed that we do a winner take all. Evan, obviously not one to be called out, accepted the offer because it’s not about the money, it’s about the pride. Now if Justin (the deal maker who took $100 from Adam) needs a new crib for his upcoming baby, then fine, whatever. Fantasy football is not about the money. The money is a nice bonus to saying you triumphed. You won’t remember what you spent that 100 dollars on, but you’ll remember when you won the league in ’16.

How soft was chopping in the semi final game?

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Coming up big in prime time is the mark of a champion.

Yes I only made 2 of 3 finals in my leagues. It’s not 3 of 3 like it probably should have been as the Turkeys continue to dominate. Nevertheless, I’ll be playing for about a grand next week which is a fun chunk of change. I know no one cares.

I was listening to Jody Mac on WIP last night and he believed that Ezekiel Elliot is the #1 RB in the league, followed closely by Le’veon Bell, and then David Johnson #3. This is incorrect by my measure and here is why.

ProFootballFocus has a rating system that, well, rates RB’s based off of missed tackles, blocking, receiving, and essentially all attributes that go into being an RB. Here is there top 6 list.

The pass block skill set is the only reason DJ is being held back. I’d argue that although pass blocking is important, it should not bring down the DJ to levels below the likes of Jay Ajayi (55% of his yards came in 3 games out of 12) and Melvin Gordon (who has somehow slipped into a position of getting TD’s).

An offensive line is a must to be a good RB. I’d argue that the offensive lines of Zeke and Leveon are far superior to DJ. Here’s the proof.

Dallas O-Line

Pittsburgh O-Line

Arizona O-Line

Can we talk Demarco Murray for one second. He was the NFL’s leading rusher in 2014 when he ran for 1,845 yards. The next closest was LeSean McCoy who ran for 1,319. The subsequent season, DeMarco was traded to the Eagles and under Chip Kelly’s scheme finished 19th in rushing yards with 702. HMMMM. In 2016, DeMarco already has 1,135 yards and has the 2nd most total yards. What changed? Do you think this helps at all?

Now that I’ve proven that a good O-line is essential to being a superior RB, let’s delve into what David Johnson is doing this year that none of the other back are.

Here are the rushing yard leaders:

Behind better O-Lines you’ll see that DJ is near, but not quite better than these 3 backs. Here is what separates DJ from the pack:

His receiving yards lead the league among RB’s and is leading in all-purpose yards. Doing that with an inferior O-Line should be enough to say that this guy is the best back in the NFL. If you wanted to argue with me that LeVeon Bell is better, I wouldn’t even start because I’d also agree. He’s a freak who has the patience of a saint. It bothers though that a guy out of Northern Iowa doesn’t seem to be getting the respect he deserves.

This is called eeking out a win.

Gotta give it up to the #1 PI caller in the game.

My “holy shit” came after Justin Tucker slipped one inside the left crossbar with 2 minutes left in the game. It was 4th and 1 and I think Harbaugh made a huge mistake not going for it. I’m happy he did, but you don’t get that many shots against the Patriots to score TD’s. I understand you would need to get the onside kick anyway, but 4th and 1 seems too good to pass up.

I won my other fantasy playoff game in another ugly scoring week. Weird point totals all around.

I’m your casual DFS player. I have a full time job which prevents me from spending every waking hour thinking fantasy. I subscribe to a Fantasy site for what I’d like to deem as above average intelligence. I read Evan Silva’s match ups every week which is solid advice from someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps fantasy. Yet at the end of the day, from a financial perspective, there is no point for me to play daily fantasy sports and I’m not alone.

The Demise of DFS

DraftKings Season Spreadsheet

My stats since the ’16 football season started. To date I’ve entered 49 tournaments and have lost $102. Placing 91st out of 65,687 entries in the NFL $9 Slant has been the highlight which netted $41. I tend to dabble in the $10-$20 range and these tournaments are not nearly as soft as you may think.

If I wanted to join a $20, 3 man league right now, I’d see 3 players sitting in 11 leagues of the same offering. AEJones. Condia. MakeitRain84. To someone who has never played before, they may enter one of these contests. To the people who pay even a little bit of attention, they’d wonder why on Earth are these guys playing $20 stakes and why don’t they play each other?

Some Player Background:

Just a 5 million dollar payday and he enters a $20 contest.

AeJones – Ranked #10 out of all players on Rotogrinders.com
Here’s a Reddit AMA titled “I’m Aaron Jones, 48 hours ago I made 5,000,000 playing Daily Fantasy Sports”
Condia – Ranked #56 – Condia Interview with RotoGrinders
MakeitRain84 – Ranked #53
Rnningfool – Ranked 5,300,000, maintains a killer blog.

This is like asking the 6th man of your high school basketball team to play Kevin Durant 1 v 1.

What To Do?

Draftkings has created leagues titled “Casual” leagues where players with experience badges cannot play. This is smart.  However this was only implemented 3 weeks ago. I’ve played 156 total DK games which would qualify me for this. These leagues would solve my concerns not having to play against upper echelon competition. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know this existed and I’m sure others do either. Obviously Draftkings identified this as an issue. Casual leagues will not solve this problem of declining interest though.

The first week this season, the $20 entry Sunday Million had 1.4 million entrants. Last week only had 231k entrants. The game’s interest is slipping away from casual players for a key reason:

• Players losing money

My Take

“The entire DFS economy depends on about 5 percent of the players,” Singer said. “Those sharks will go away if they can’t make a profit.” – Washington Post

I do more research on football than 95% of my friends. If I can’t win, I wouldn’t expect them to either. This isn’t an egotistical claim. It’s fact of the matter that you are putting your money up against people where DFS is their livelihood. They have more money than you. More lineups. Better tools. Better networks. Better intelligence on how coaches game plan. It’s an uphill battle that makes 0 sense to play.

I look at it as an entertainment expense. People pay $15 for a movie and DFS is in the same exact grouping for casual players. I don’t doubt people will continue to play but it will be less and less each year as the realization that you won’t win gets clearer. This won’t prevent people from playing of course. Look at sports betting and poker. Millions of people gamble their pay checks away to casinos and sports books. The smart ones know there is no such thing as easy money. Hopefully this post clears up the idea that winning at DFS is not impossible, but you most likely aren’t going to do it.

This was not my most profitable weekend and I blame myself.

I sent a text to Adam that said I was done pussy footing around with my gambling account and put 7.5 units on MSU which won. I then won an Oregon bet for 5 units and lost 5 on a random late night Saturday bet. Fine day.

I started Sunday betting 7.5 on the Bucs which failed. In half drunken stupor fashion, I put 15 on the Eagles which was a heart breaker. This left my account at 5 units. I put a hail Mary bet on the Bears and am now back to 9 in the account and down 11 for the season. Current records:  NFL 19-16, +5.5 units, CFB 6-7, +5 units

I’ve made bets on Soccer, Basketball, E-League, so it’s tough to tell exactly where the units go considering I’m up on both football but this doesn’t count the juice and as you can tell, over time, you don’t beat the juice. I also managed to lose all my Draftkings entries for -$49. I’m exactly even after 8 weeks of the season.

The bottom line is that I’m not a winner gambling. I’m down $110 dollars after 8 weeks in Bovada and 0 in Draftkings. If you told me it would cost me $15 dollars each week to watch the games and enjoy the action, I’d say I think I’d take it. Even with all the time spent though, I can’t win.

My fantasy teams are sitting in 1st, 2nd, and 8th.

Bets

Ultimate highs to ultimate lows. After nailing the Giants (7.5 units), the under of the KC/NO (4 units), and the Eagles (7.5 units), I was up a slick 19 units going into the 4 o’clock games. In a swift kick to the nuts I lost 5 units on both the Steelers and the Falcons, and then 10 units on the Cardinals to end the day down a unit. My account is +5 units for the season and an 18-14 record, +21.5 units on the NFL. I’ll probably be bringing in the reins a little bit moving forward to see if I’m heading towards a cooler.

DraftKings

6 lineups entered with only 1 cashing for $15. This puts me at a $60 loss for the week and only up about $40 for the season. In the 2 $20 3man tournaments I entered, I got punched in the face by a guy getting 190+. My highest lineup was 173.06. I didn’t have horrible lineups this week but the chalk paid out and I’m usually a fader

Fantasy Football

Wild Turkeys – The LeSean news basically screwed up my team from the beginning but so it goes. I wasn’t going to win any way with my opponent putting up 127. Poor Hunter Henry stream to boot. Dropping to 3-4.
Big Johnson’s – Missing Jordan Reed lead to a poor Charles Clay start which in turn lead to a 4 point loss. Moving to 4-3.
Jameis Has Crabs – I put up 91 points with 3 players going for less than 2 which I suppose is a moral victory. Unfortunately I got toasted by a guy putting up 120. McCoy killed this squad as I should have played Forte to at least make this a game. That’s on me. 4-3.

PigSkin Pick em

THE TRAIN IS DERAILING! A 5 point week leaves me 6 behind 1st with hardly any momentum. One interesting tidbit to note was if you picked the side the public was not on ATS, you would have won 8.

I’m in 2nd place in the Softerware pool 3 behind the leader. Still in it.