Driving down to Pensacola for Thanksgiving, we were scanning through radio stations and found a country station that was playing -- Florida Georgia Line, I think. I don’t care for them much, and I found myself thinking how much more I liked country music when I was a kid in the mid-‘90s, and how much I wish they would go back to that.
FanDuel lineup tips and advice, Week 13: Confirm your opinions
It’s fun to use your favorite player every single time you jump into a fantasy game, but sometimes it isn’t smart. And then, like this week, sometimes it is.
Thomas J. Russo-USA TODAY Sports
Then I stopped. And I realized that every single person since music became a thing has thought, “My favorite genre was so much better when I was a kid.” It’s natural to do, but it’s silly. We remember the good songs, and the crap ones fade. I’m sure there was a Florida Georgia Line-esque band in 1996 I thought was dumb, but I don’t remember it now; I remember Joe Diffie, Clint Black, and Mark Chesnutt.
It's cool to like what you like, and dislike what you dislike, but it's even better to think about why you dislike what you dislike. In fantasy sports, I encounter that any time I consider a player who has run into off-the-field problems. As in: Am I recommending you avoid Kenny Britt because he won't be a helpful fantasy option, or am I recommending you avoid Kenny Britt because he seems to be a bad person and a world-class tool?
(Lucky for me, on that one, I can recommend against him for both reasons.)
It works the other way as well. I have to struggle against recommending Kyle Orton in football or Eric Hosmer in baseball too heavily, or at least I have to sit back and make sure I'm recommending them because of "reasons," and not just because they're my bestest pals (in my mind).
So when I started to make this week's FanDuel lineups, and I started to recommend Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton as a strong investment, a smart play, I had to step back and think about it. I love me some Colts; am I just saying they are set up for success, or are they actually set up for success?
I'll save you the suspense: Yeah, I think I was innocent of bias here. The Washington defense let Mike Evans go crazy on them. Jordan Matthews and Jeremy Maclin had big numbers. And Anquan Boldin. Heck, when Kendall Wright is taking you for 68 yards and a score, you know you aren't super-elite. On top of that, Washington has been the third-worst against opposing fantasy quarterbacks this season. And they actually have a competent run defense, rendering the already-suspect duo of Dan Herron and Trent Richardson even moreso. And -- and -- we still don't have any real reason to expect Dwayne Allen back this week.
So we have a great quarterback, a great receiver, a great matchup, and Washington’s other weapons are stifled? Yeah, I think I’m being fair when I recommend Luck and Hilton.
I say that segment not to be super-defensive, but because this is at least the third week in a row where my primary weekend FanDuel roster includes the pairing of Luck and Hilton, and I was wary of doing that without explaining. Which I have now done.
So let's discuss the rest of my weekend strategy. First off, I'm entering only one weekend tournament this week, and only one time, because I entered two for Thanksgiving Day. Those did not go well, and I need to stop the bleeding this week. Anyway, you can't enter a thousand tournaments a week.
Second, and this is reiterating advice I've been giving much of the season, I came in with a plan for the tournament. Through searching around for other purposes, I knew the Giants defense, despite facing Jacksonville, was only $4,900 this week. If you watched Monday night (or, like, any other New Orleans game this season), you knew Le'Veon Bell going against the Saints' run defense would be, uh, unpretty? Does that work?
Anyway, here’s the team I settled on:
On top of the above-mentioned thoughts:
- Charles Clay comes in banged up, so if he ends up scratched from this game, I'll change that slot. But if he plays against Jets, he should be a strong bargain. The problem is the game is Monday, so I'll need to decide for sure if I am rolling with him by Sunday morning, and I might not have all the info yet.
- The Ravens are really good against the run, but much less so against the pass, and Malcom Floyd is the best fantasy receiving option on the Chargers this year.
- No one gives up more fantasy points to receivers than the Texans. I wouldn't want to build a roster around Justin Hunter, but as a fill-out-the-roster type I'm more than happy.
- No deep thought about Chandler Catanzaro or Tre Mason; they're perfectly fine fantasy options, starters for their teams against bad opponents, and relatively cheap, as I was at the end of my budget.
So, to recap: Receivers against Washington and Baltimore, running backs against New Orleans, defenses against Jacksonville, make sure your opinions are based on facts and not desires, and the music you liked as a kid that you love so much more than today’s probably isn’t actually that much better. These are truths.
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