Lineup Advice, Strategy & Team Tracking – Week Three: Road Trip Edition

PLEASE READ FULL POST EACH WEEK!

EDIT: I'm on the road for the next three weeks with VERY challenging internet access. For that reason, I'll will keep this much shorter. Please get your questions in early to improve my chances of responding. Remember the "TNF" at the top if it applies. 

Week Three

It's great to have the first two weeks behind us. Weeks one and two are always the most difficult as we week one provides many surprises while week two finally allows the development of trends which we need to make better lineup calls in weeks three and beyond. Still lots of mistakes to be made but we can better gauge these trends in snaps and production to improve our success rate.

Looking back on the first two weeks, it was still a minefield out there, and I can't remember a more chaotic start to a season. The injuries are already starting to pile up and we have some concerning player trends which are certain to shape the next few weeks of the season and, potentially, the final standings in fantasy.

We've added a new service! Every Sunday morning, you can join DLF's new Discord server to ask those last minute lineup advice questions, or anything else which may be on your mind. In the very near future, we'll cut off lineup advice on Saturday night and use this Discord channel to ensure your questions aren't missed Sunday AM. This new channel is taking our community interaction to the next level.

2022 Team Tracking

Just as a refresher, in 2021 I sent 40% of tracked dynasty teams to championship games, winning two of them. While I'd love to say it was all due to my management, luck still plays a huge role in our favorite hobby and I don't see a repeat of 2021. That doesn't mean I'm not gunning for 100%, however. In 2022 I added three new leagues to be tracked, bringing my total to 13. In all seriousness, it's only one week and while some trends are worth investigating, we don't want to overreact, especially after a single game.

Following week two, I'm now 11-15, perhaps my worst start ever.  My two best championship teams from 2021 are now 0-4. My longest running league, the one that essentially founded DLF in fact, lost by .3 in week one followed by a 1.7 point loss in week two. I started Jerry Jeudy in favor of a Dak-less CeeDee Lamb and Lamb had a good game while Jeudy exited with yet another injury. Game over.

I always like to know why my teams lose, whether after only one week or after eight, it's a good idea to get 'inside' each loss and figure out if it was due to luck of the draw or injuries as opposed to bad build, taking too many chances with rookies or misplaying the matchups. When analyzing my teams, it would come as no shock to any of you that there are standard themes and builds I use (check the following section). My teams which took a loss this week are invested in players such as

In another league, I am now down to Baker Mayfield as my primary quarterback after losing both Dak Prescott and Trey Lance. In yet another league, I took an "L" with the second highest point total in week two, losing to the team putting up top points. It happens. The moral of this story is sometimes bad things happen to good teams. Heading into Monday night's games I was 11-2 and played against a lot of Stefon Diggs and Jalen Hurts while having players such as Dalvin Cook, Kirk Cousins and A.J. Brown going.

Looking at my teams, I still like how they're scoring and the build(s) so aside from the team on my third quarterback, I won't be looking for any trades.

Strategy and Trends

This is what I posted following week one:

Starting in 2021, I began a process of a mindful strategy shift, prioritizing young WR1 players as my core and mid-career veteran receivers as my production anchors with a corresponding RB-light approach as I like to call it. While I haven't updated my numbers-based research to prove out this strategy shift, it has been clear to me that the increased RBBC (running back by committee) usage continues to sap production from the position and when combined with injury potential, makes for a very high beta (risk) in your weekly lineup and long-term build. You just won't see WR1 players play 50% of a team's offensive snaps while rotating with the second player on the positional depth chart. It's the WR3s and WR4s where the greatest rotations take place.

As we saw in week one, we had some ridiculous usage and offensive production which badly impacted some of my/our expectations for the week. It happens every year in week one, but this year seemed much worse than expected. It's not until week three or so, give or take a week, that offensive schemes and chemistry start to develop and offensive units begin to 'click.' This is why we don't overreact to one week of statistical output, but that doesn't mean we don't adjust. As such, I most certainly will be adjusting my advice based on what we saw.

What I can tell you is that my rotation to top receivers already feels much better than my outgoing tried-and-true build methodology. It will take another year or two to complete the augmentation, and running backs are still important, but I feel much better about the shift.

Running back usage feels very different in 2022 and there's been a discernable NFL team shift in how they are rotating backs and even in play calling. Very clear to me here that this is now a wide receiver league and my move over the past two years to more of a receiver focus in my builds is going to pay dividends. In come weeks, I'll take a look at the breadth of scoring between the two positions and see what i find. Stay tuned!

Betting Lines and Props

I was 1-2 in week two, one yard short of being 2-1.

I took the over on Mahomes' 2.5 passing touchdown prop and his shovel pass which would have given him three touchdowns came up one yard short.

I also took the Bengals to cover on the Cowboys which wasn't that close. The Cowboys rallied behind Cooper Rush while the Bengals continue to have offensive line woes.

I also took the Bills to cover a large spread vs. the Titans and that panned out even better than expected.

I will try to update my week three picks later this week as long as I can get time to do research and have the Internet to post. Check back on Friday!

Lineup Advice Rules & Format

DLF continues to see amazing growth in our membership and each year I wonder how I'm going to keep up with all of your questions while also holding to a level of service and quality you've all come to expect from me. I've been VERY happy with my level of accuracy but, for that to occur, I need your help. Each question can take up to 10 minutes for me to research as I research up to a dozen different variables and trends. I do everything I can to get my answers correct. For that reason, I need you to read the following rules and guidelines to help me maintain efficiency:

• Please don't ask me to set your entire lineup
• Put "TNF" as the top line for any question involving Thursday Night Football games
• Please also make sure to tell me who YOU would be starting if not for my advice. It helps me to understand your gut feeling.
• Include your scoring format  (PPR, Non-PPR, etc.)
• Keep your questions as brief as possible - Story questions add a lot of time
• I prioritize questions involving the earliest (Thursday, etc.) games first. If I skip over your question, don't worry, I'll be back to it.
• It's easy to miss responses to my responses in thread. When in doubt, always post a separate new question

Lastly, I work very hard to get my advice correct and I do not mail it in. When I'm wrong, I feel every incorrect answer so, go easy on me! That said, the DLF community has been absolutely fantastic to work with which is why I'm still doing this after so many years.

Have a great week! Have an even better season!

Let's do this...