Nimble w/Numbers

Nimble w/Numbers

Vol.1 Issue 6 

11/23/2019

I’m not sure if “legally” I should be saying this, but hell here goes. I mean, it’s just the Internet. No one really gets in trouble for anything that happens here. It’s all fantasy. Don’t tell me you have no idea what the “F” in “DFS” stands for. Well, this weekend (checks to make sure the wife isn’t coming down the basement stairs) sh*ts getting real. I’m Mr. Green and I am going to commit a robbery. The boys and I’ve been planning this job all week. The team has been assembled, we’ve cased the joint and gone over the plan a million times. Everyone knows their role. In and out. Real quick. No mistakes and if we pull it off, we all walk away with piles of cash and then fade into obscurity like Kesyer Soze. Without a trace. It’s full proof.

My best friend turns 40 today and tomorrow we are celebrating by invading our local casino and sportsbook for a day of teasers, fat stacks, river cards, steaks, parlays, winners, losers and robberies! Here’s the plan. It’s pretty simple. The Lions are a measly -3.5. against the expansion Washington football team and they are by far the worst franchise and team in the NFL. The whole crew is betting the Lions and legally steal money from the sportsbook. Sorry to disappoint those thinking that I was breaking bad so early in my DFS writing career. Make sure to follow along at @NimblewNumbers on Twitter for all the action!

Winners!

Speaking of a robbery, let’s take a look at some of the DFS winners who took home all our cash last week. Analyzing this winning line-up, we will deconstruct the roster build and use the lessons learned to build our own optimal line-up for week 12.

Winning lineup for Week 11 Fanduel $130K Sun NFL Dive ($1 to enter) contest.

Winning lineup for Week 11 Fanduel $60K Sun NFL Hail Mary ($0.25 to enter) contest.

Analyzing the Weekly Winners

• In an upset, there no QB/WR stack for the winners. I did notice the the winners featured a QB/RB stack and a QB/RB/TE stack, but I’m not sure this correlates with their victories. If you stacked Josh Allen and John Brown, you did it right in week 11.
• If I have to tell you to pay up front for CMC, you are doing DFS wrong. (I’m just going to keep leaving this bullet in, until he doesn’t score 20+ a week.)
• John Brown and Michael Thomas are the only 2 WRs to have over 50 receiving yards in every game this season. John Brown and Michael Thomas.
• Calvin Ridley was featured in both winning lineups and also in my Low cost/high value plays for week 10.
• The best low cost, high value plays of week 11 includes the aforementioned, John Brown ($5,900), who returned a value of 5.1x . Josh Allen ($7,800) returned 4.3x the value. Ryan Griffin ($6,300) led the way for for TEs with 19.4 fantasy points and a value 4.0x.

NFL Week 12 Primer

Mike Tagliere and Bobby Sylvester create some of the best fantasy football content available in the FF community. If you don’t have the FantasyPros Chrome plug-in installed on your browser, are you even really playing fantasy football? Today I want to highlight the incredible FantasyPros Week 12 Primer. It is an indispensable tool that I use each week to help construct my DFS player pool and build my lineups. Read it each week and your fantasy football team will thank me later (but mostly Mike and Bobby).

QB/WR Stacks with favorable match-ups 

QB	Russell Wilson $8,200	Matt Ryan $7,900	Jameis Winston $7,600	Baker Mayfield $7,500
WR	Tyler Lockett $7,400 DK Metcalf $6,700	Julio Jones $8,400 Calvin Ridley $6,700	Mike Evans $8,000 Chris Godwin $7,800	Odel Beckham $7,000  Jarvis Landry $6,900

High Cost players value plays based on match-up, opportunity and breakout potential. 

RB	Christian McCaffery $10,500	Derrick Henry $8,400	Alvin Kamara $8,300	Nick Chubb $8,200
WR	Michael Thomas $9,200	Julio Jones $8,400	Mike Evans $8,000	Julian Edelman  $7,500
TE	Darren Waller $6,200	Zach Ertz $6,100
DST	Detroit Lions $5,000	Pittsburg Steelers $5,000

Low cost/high value plays based on match-up, opportunity and breakout potential. 

QB	Sam Darnold $7,400	Derek Carr $7,400	Ryan Fitzpatrick $7,200
RB	Bo Scarbrough $6,700	Phillip Lindsay $6,300	Patrick Laird $4,900
WR	Jamison Crowder $6,500	D.J. Moore $6,400	James Washington $6,100
WR	Taylor Gabriel $5,600	Russell Gage $5,300	Cole Beasley $5,300
TE	Ryan Griffin $5,400	Ben Watson $5,300	Dallas Goedert $5,200
DST	Dallas $3,200

Weekly Best Lineup

POS	Player Name	Price
QB	Matt Ryan	$7,900
RB	Christian McCaffery	$10,500
RB	Alvin Kamara	$8,300
WR	Calvin Ridley	$6,700
WR	Jarvis Landry	$7,800
WR	Taylor Gabriel	$5,600
TE	Ben Watson	$5,600
FLX	Miles Sanders	$5,600
DST	Dallas Cowboys	$3,200

I wish you all the best in week 12!

May the fantasy gods be with us all! 

Nimble w/Numbers

Each week I will be highlighting my favorite fantasy football analysts. Make sure to check out the outstanding work that Mike Tagliere and Bobby Sylvester do at FantasyPros.

Mike Tagliere @MikeTagliereNFL Lead NFL Writer/Analyst for @FantasyPros Co-host on the FantasyPros football podcast. Top-6 ranker twice in @Fantasypros accuracy contest. Aspiring novelist. fantasypros.com/author/mike-ta…

Bobby Sylvester @bobbyfantasypro Podcast Host & Fantasy Analyst for FantasyPros St. Louis (Metro East) podcast.fantasypros.com

Posted byJesse SimpsonNovember 9, 2019Posted inUncategorizedLeave a commenton Establish the StackEditEstablish the StackPosted byJesse SimpsonNovember 16, 2019Posted inUncategorizedTags:DFS, Fantasy Football, FF, Football, NFL, WinnersLeave a commenton OMG! Look at that Ratio!EditOMG! Look at that Ratio!

Nimble w/Numbers

Vol.1 Issue 4 

11/9/2019

Work. It gets in the way of pretty much everything I enjoy doing. I had originally planned on writing a stand alone article reflecting on my winning picks from last week, but, yep you guessed it, work totally got in the way. They say do what you love, so that’s why I’ve worked my mid-week reflections into my weekly winners article.

My Best Plays of Week 9

Position	Player	Points	Value
QB	Russell Wilson	39.22	4.6x
RB	Christian McCaffery	36.1	3.7x
WR	Tyler Lockett	33.7	4.5x
TE	Zach Ertz	20.8	3.5x
DST	Pittsburgh	19	4.9x

The double QB/WR/WR stack of Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett and MK Metcalf was a must start against the Bucs pass funnel defense. McCaffery is a must start every week in DFS. Full Stop. Zach Ertz got rolling with 11 targets for 9 receptions and his first TD in a month. Pittsburgh was a sneaky play coming in at $3,900 last week. You are welcome!

My Worst Plays of Week 9

Position	Player	Points	Value
QB	Aaron Rodger	12.94	1.6x
RB	Aaron Jones	3.4	0.4x
WR	Robby Anderson	4.3	0.7x
TE	Darren Waller	6.2	0.9x
DST	Seahawks	3	0.6x

A good leader takes responsibilities for their actions and owns their mistakes. As a good leader, I obviously blame Aaron Rodgers for throwing 35 times and averaging a whopping 5.17 Air Yards per throw. Keep throwing 4 yard dig routes to DeVante Adams if you want to pass for under 170 yards each week Aaron. The emergence of Hunter Renfrow in Oakland has capped Darren Waller’s weekly upside for the time being. Hopefully he breaks out towards the tail end of the season, as he faces one of the easiest schedule for TE the rest of the way. Has any defense successfully managed to corral both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin this season? I should have known better. Adjustments to the algorithm have already been made.

Winners, Yes Please

Onto the winners! I am only featuring one winning line-up this week because it was good enough to win multiple Fanduel GPP tournaments. Analyzing his winning line-up, we will deconstruct his roster build and use the lessons learned to build our own optimal line-up for week 10.

Winning lineup for Week 9 Fanduel $60K Sun NFL Hail Mary ($0.25 to enter) contest.

Analyzing the Weekly Winners

• Russell Wilson and company were my top stack of the week for a reason last week and they did not disappoint. They over-matched a Buc’s defense that ranks 29th in YPG at 300.9 and has now given up 16 TD passes.
• If I have to tell you to pay up front for CMC, you are doing DFS wrong.
• Melvin Gordon is back! 20 carries that led to 2 TDs. His price will be adjusted accordingly moving forward, so you will pay to play in the weeks to come.
• Establish the Pass! Lockett, Metcalf and Marvin Jones Jr. all played in game that feature high implied team totals (Rotocurve) and bad pass defenses. It’s basically like printing money.
• The best low cost, high value plays of week 9 included TE Noah Fant ($4,600) returned 4.1x the value. Preston Williams ($5,500) returned 3.9x the value. Melvin Gordon was the best RB value 3.9x at a cost ($6,300) with a value of 5.7x.

NFL Week 10 Implied Team Totals (Rotocurve)

This week, I will be highlighting another step in my process of building the core of my DFS line-ups. One of the tools that I couldn’t live without each week, is the NFL implied team total by Rotocurve. I use this tool to identify which teams are expected (by Vegas) to score the most points, and then I identify players who are expected to be featured prominently by their teams offense and work them into my lineups.

QB/WR Stacks with favorable match-ups 

QB	Drew Brees $8,300	Aaron Rodgers $8,000	Jameis Winston $8,000	Kyler Murray $7,700	Matt Ryan $7,500
WR	Michael Thomas $8,700 Ted Ginn Jr. $5,300	DeVante Adams $7,800 *Aaron Jones $7,600	Mike Evans $8,600 Chris Godwin $8,200	Christian Kirk $5,700  Larry Fitzgerald $5,400	Julio Jones $7,900 Calvin Ridley $5,300

*QB/RB stack

High Cost players value plays based on match-up, opportunity and breakout potential. 

QB	Lamar Jackson $8,600	Patrick Mahomes $8,400	Drew Brees $8,000	Aaron Rodgers $8,000	Jameis Winston $7,900
RB	Christian McCaffery $10,500	Mark Ingram II $8,000	Aaron Jones $7,600	Todd  Gurley $7,200	Derrick Henry $7,000
WR	Michael Thomas $8,700	Mike Evans  $8,600	Cooper  Kupp $8,100	Tyreek Hill $8,000	Julio Jones $7,900
TE	Travis Kelce $6,700	Austin  Hooper $6,600	Jared Cook $5,800
DST	Baltimore Ravens  $5,000	LA Rams $4,600

Low cost/high value plays based on match-up, opportunity and breakout potential. 

QB	Ryan Tannehill $7,500	Ryan Fitzpatrick $7,100	Brian Hoyer $7,100
RB	Devin Singletary $6,700	David Montgomery $6,400	Damien  Williams $5,300
WR	Robert Woods $6,900	Zach Pascal $6,400	Golden Tate $6,300
WR	John  Brown $5,800	DeVante Parker $5,800	Christian Kirk  $5,700
TE	Gerald Everett  $5,700	Vance McDonald $5,600	Mike Gesicki $5,100
DST	Kansas City Chiefs $3,700

New Feature: This week I introduce my weekly best line-up. This is the line-up that I will be playing in single entry tournaments and all of the smaller GPP tournaments as well.

Weekly Best Lineup

POS	Player Name	Price
QB	Drew Brees	$8,300
RB	Todd Gurley	$7,200
RB	Mark Ingram II	$8,000
WR	Michael Thomas	$8,700
WR	Zach Pascal	$6,400
WR	Ted Ginn	$5,300
TE	Austin Hooper	$6,600
FLX	Christian Kirk	$5,700
DST	KC Chiefs	$3,700

I wish you all the best in week 10!

May the fantasy gods be with us all! 

Nimble w/Numbers

Each week I will be highlighting my favorite fantasy football analysts. Make sure to check out the work of Adam Pfeifer and the great team at Rotocurce.

Adam Pfeifer@APfeifer24I write about fantasy sports more than anyone should. Marvin Jones and Tre White. Forever. DFS writer @RotoCurve. Also dabble @4for4football & @Awesemo_ComRotoCurverotocurve.com

Nimble w/Numbers

Vol. 1 Issue 3

November is upon us and that means, incredibly, half of the NFL regular season is already in the books. When it kicked off nine weeks ago, who predicted the NFL szn would be swept up in Minshew Mania, that Darren Waller would be the TE1 or we would be looking at Cooper Kupp and Chris Godwin at WR2 and WR3 overall? I am sure everyone in New England could have told us that their DST would be the ranked 6th most fantasy points in PPR (Fantasy Pros). What a great time to be alive and paying DFS! Today I am examining three winning Fanduel tournament lineups from week 8. I will analyze what the winners did well and use those insights to help construct a winning lineup for week 9. I’m not doing it along. Each week I will introduce you to part of my process and highlight what I have learned from fantasy footballs’ best and brightest analytical minds along the way. A must read for me each week are the Rotoworld NFL WEEK 9 INJURY DASHBOARD and the Rotoworld NFL WEEK 9 WR/CB MATCHUPS AND TE ANALYSIS, both written by the incomparable Ian Hartitz. These tools help me to determine who is playing and who they will be matched up with in coverage each week. So lets begin with what we can learn from the winners.

Winning lineup for Week 8 Fanduel $17K Sun NFL Pooch Punt ($0.5 to enter) contest.

Winning lineup for Week 8 Fanduel $75K Sun NFL Pooch Punt ($0.25 to enter) contest.

Winning lineup for Week 8 Fanduel $2.5M Sun NFL Pooch Punt ($9 to enter) contest.

Analyzing the Weekly Winners

• The entry $17K scored the most points (235.02) out the three winner and featured a quarterback/running back/wide receiver stack of Brees/Murray/Thomas. The target share for Michael Thomas is a league leading 32.5%. Combine that with Latavius Murray’s 9 receptions for 55 yards and a touchdown on 12 targets and you get 20 out of 34 (59%) receptions being funneled Thomas and Murray’s way.
• All three winners featured Murray ( week 8 NwN play), Mike Evans and week 8 super stud Tevin Coleman. If you didn’t have this combination you didn’t win. Coleman was lighting in a bottle, but both Murray and Evans were heavily featured in games that were predicted to be high scoring.
• You had to pay up front to grab New England’s DST, but the return on investment yielded a weekly winner with a return of 4.2x the value.
• All three lineups included players who featured prominently in a high scoring shout outs or one-sided beat downs with high implied team totals (Rotocurve). The Saints (30.5) and the Rams (30.25) had the two highest implied team totals of week 8. Cooper Kupp accounted for 59% of the receiving yards in the game and added a touchdown. Looking at the implied team total isn’t a perfect predictor of who will score the points, but it can point you in the direction of players who might be featured prominently and have week winning potential.
• The best low cost, high value plays of week 8 included Tevin Coleman ($6,200) returned 5.9x the value. Mike Evans ($7,400) returned 5.0x the value. Ryan Griffin ($4,000) led all TE with a value of 5.7x.

From what I learned in week 8, here are the factors that I am taking into consideration when targeting my players for inclusion in my lineups (all prices are from Fanduel).

QB/WR Stacks with favorable match-ups

QB	Russell Wilson $8,600	Matthew Stafford $7,900	Dak Prescott $7,800	Derek Carr $7,300
WR	Tyler Lockett $7,500 DK Metcalf $6,700	Kenny Golladay $7,600 Danny Amendola $6,000 Marvin Jones $5,700	Amari Cooper $8,000 Michael Gallup $6,600	Tyrell Williams $6,300 Hunter Renfrow $5,400

QB/RB stacks with favorable match-ups.

QB	Aaron Rodgers $8,100	Kirk Cousins $7,800	Sam Darnold $7,300	Phillip Rivers $7,200
RB	Aaron Jones $7,700	Dalvin Cook $9,000	Le’veon Bell $7,000	Austin Ekeler $6,500

Injury/Opportunity Bump   

RB	Mark Walton $5,700	Adrian Peterson $5,700	Alexander Mattison $5,400	Jaylen Samuels $5,000	*Rex Burkhead $5,000
WR	Alshon Jeffery $6,600	Mike  Williams $5,700	Kenny  Stills  $5,500	DJ Moore $5,400	Daesean Hamilton $4,800

*Monitor Sunday to determine if James White is active.

High Cost players value plays based on match-up, opportunity and breakout potential. 

QB	Russell Wilson $8,600	*Patrick Mahomes $8,500	Aaron Rodgers $8,000	Lamar Jackson $8,000	Matt Stafford $7,900
RB	Christian McCaffery $9,700	Dalvin Cook $9,000	Aaron Jones $7,700	Josh Jacobs $7,200	Le’veon Bell $7,000
WR	Chris  Godwin $8,100	Amari Cooper $8,000	Tyreek Hill $7,700	Kenny Golladay $7,700	Tyler Lockett $7,500
TE	Darren Waller $6,800	Hunter Henry $6,400	Evan Engram $6,300	Zach Ertz $6,000
DST	Buffalo Bills $5,000	Seattle Seahawks $4,900

Mid to Low cost/high value plays based on match-up, opportunity and breakout potential. 

QB	Sam Darnold $7,300	Derek Carr $7,300	Ryan Fitzpatrick $8,000	Matt Moore  $6,500	Mitch Trubisky $6,500
RB	Derrick Henry $6,800	David Montgomery $6,600	Austin Ekeler $6,500	Jordan Howard $6,300	Frank Gore $6,200
WR	DK Metcalf $6,700	Michael Gallup $6,600	Tyrell Williams $6,300	Robby Anderson $6,200	Corey Davis $5,300
TE	Jonnu Smith $5,500	Vance McDonald $5,300	Eric Ebron $5,200	TJ Hockenson $5,000	Ryan Griffin $5,000
DST	Cleveland Browns  $4,300	Pittsburgh Steelers $3,900

I wish you all the best in week 9!

May the fantasy gods be with us all! 

Nimble w/Numbers

Each week I will be highlighting my favorite fantasy football analysts. Most of the heavy lifting this week came from Ian Hartitz from Rotoworld.

Ian Hartitz @Ihartitz NFL | @Rotoworld_FB | President of the Cordarrelle Patterson fan club | The most important play is the next one

(And Inspect the Receipts)

Nimble w/Numbers

Vol. 1 Issue 2

10/29/19

As one of my many unacknowledged mentors, (fingers crossed one day he’ll be my fantasy football friend), C.D. Carter always say, “TRUST THE PROCESS!” Since my process is just in its infancy, I find it more helpful to look at the receipts. Acknowledging and reflecting on your successes and failures is important in DFS because “the data” is all right there for you to collect and analyze. The ultimate goal being, the refinement and improvement of your process each week. Here are some of the featured players that hit last week and some that look like they came straight from Min Cash Pete’s x-rated DFS “First Look” whiteboard. (If you love DFS and fantasy football, do yourself a favor and subscribe to all of his content. You will thank me later.) So here is the good, the bad and the obvious.

Best Plays of Week 8

Position	Player	Points	Value
QB	DeShaun Watson	27.76	3.3x
RB	Latavius Murray	32.2	5.2x
WR	Cooper Kupp	31.5	4.1x
TE	Darren Fells	20.8	4.1x
DST	Patriots	21	4.2x

Stacking Watson and Fells was a strong play and one that I sadly only featured on a handful of my DFS entries. Like most lineups on Fanduel, the majority of my stacks had Kenny Stills (68% owned of course) and DeAndre Hopkins (9.24% owned) so there’s that. Everyone owned Latavius Murray. Liken him to the bouncer at the club. He got you in the door, but he let everyone else in as well. You still needed a super Cooper Kupp who was otherworldly and caught 220 out of the 372 passing yards that Jared Goff threw for on the afternoon. Graham Barfield from YardsCreated.com tweeted out on Monday, only Christian McCaffery, Dalvin Cook, DeShaun Watson, Michael Thomas, Lamar Jackson, Austin Ekeler and Arron Jones have out scored the Patriots DST this season. They have 169.0 points through 8 games. Pick against them at your own peril.

Worst Plays of Week 8

Position	Player	Points	Value
QB	Russell Wilson	15.68	1.8x
RB	Ty Johnson	4.3	0.8x
WR	Kenny Stills	3.7	0.6x
TE	Hunter Henry	6.7	1.0x
DST	Carolina	3	0.9x

And now the underperformers of the week that sunk any chances we had of grasping DFS glory. This will not be the first time you hear an DFS analyst criticize an NFL head coach (Note to self: That gives me an idea for a new weekly feature. Critical Coaching Collapses with Pete Carroll. Wait, that’s too much alliteration for fantasy football, I’ll table it.). Russell Wilson threw the ball 20 times. In the WHOLE GAME! I mean, it wasn’t the Super Bowl or anything Pete. Moving on, Ty Johnson didn’t even start the game, thanks for playing. Kenny Stills is not Will Fuller. It’s about reps and chemistry for Stills. His day will come later in the season. Don’t sleep on him like he put your cash lineup to sleep. Huntery (Hunter + Henry) had the Bears Linebackers to deal with and Keenan Allen’s presence made him a non-factor. Speaking of Carolina’s DST, I think that Tevin Coleman just scored another touchdown. The 49ers are legit. Establish the Run is real!

Top performers at each position for week 8 (w/value) on Fanduel.

Quarterbacks

Running Backs

Wide Receivers

Tight Ends

Flex

Defense and Special Teams

Perfect Lineup

One of my big takeaways is that, if you have the chalk, you better have the nuts too or your not going to win big. When Cooper Kupp and Latavius Murray are on all the winning teams, you have to back it up with a breakouts like Tevin Coleman. Shout out to Ian Hartitz (Rotoworld) who accurately predicted at least two of those touchdowns. I still believe in the importance of stacking, but it is all about the right match-up. Some of the best stacks this week were QB/RB and QB/TE. So excited to have, what all DFS players should refer to moving forward as, the “Aaron Stack” back in the Sunday main card mix. It is good to see Mike Evans is still alive. He was on all of my winning teams. Thanks for the $7.46 my man!

I’ll be back later in the week to breakdown winning Fanduel lineups from week 8 in order to help us determine what we can learn and apply to our roster construction for week 9 of DFS.

Until then, may the fantasy gods be with us all! 

Nimble w/Numbers

Each week I will be highlighting my favorite fantasy football analysts. This week’s spotlight is on Pete Overzet (Rotogrinders) and Evan Silva (Establish the Run). Give them a follow on Twitter and checkout all of their quality fantasy football content.

Bubble Boy Pete @peteroverzet vids/swolecast @rotogrinders • fantasy mensa & ‘ship chasing @4for4football • paperweight salesman @petemanzinelli • http://greatfitpatriots.com • consheepsus member Boston, MAyoutube.com/PeterOverzet

Evan Silva @evansilva dad to the cutest little girl co-founder, http://EstablishTheRun.com @EstablishTheRun Chicago, IL establishtherun.com