DraftKings Post Thanksgiving Fantasy Football Update

draftkings post thanksgiving 2015 fantasy football

draftkings post thanksgiving 2015 fantasy footballThis Week in DraftKings

Fantasy Alert. It’s a day after Thanksgiving and you need to get to work on your fantasy rosters. You will not have time in the morning and won’t be able to make proper decisions after three pounds of turkey and 12 Bud Lights.

If you know you won’t have time to set a good lineup for Turkey Day, just be smart and wait on Sunday’s games. I rarely play DraftKings on TNF anyway. Too much pressure to get my roster set during the week. Not enough time for mind to recover from the prior week of fantasy.

An 18 game NFL schedule would probably end my fantasy career early with the toll it takes on me weekly, just like the real players.

Let’s get to what happened last week on DraftKings.

If you took Devonta Freeman, you likely threw up when he went out of the game halfway through the first quarter with a concussion. Bad for Freeman, but the good news for you and me was the fact that the Falcons runner was owned by lots of Draftkings users, 31% in fact.

Same deal for bargain running back Charcandrick West who also left his game with an injury. He was a fantasy bust that was owned by 58% of users.

The top five scorers according to DraftKings Playbook included three QBs, one WR, and one RB. That running back was Thomas Rawls who scored 43.5 points to lead all fantasy players after he started for the injured Marshawn Lynch.

Rawls was only rostered by 1.8% of DK players! Fantasy sports is all about paying attention. Rawls has played well when given the touches. With Lynch out, it was clear that Rawls would get the opportunity to rack up points. And at just $3800, he didn’t need to score 43 points to worth drafting him.

Rawls was a great play in cash games and in tournaments. Look for him this week also since Lynch is now scheduled for abdominal surgery.

The biggest disappointments beside the injured runners I mentioned already? Gronk with just 5.7 DK points, Derek Carr and his WR Amari Cooper with just 8.96 points combined while playing lowly Detroit.

By the way, DraftKings Playbook is a great place to get DK specific stat knowledge weekly. If you’re good with numbers and creating formulas, you could create some equations from their lists of ownership percentages and who has scored consistently over the season. Just take a look back at the numbers for each week.

As for the newest Millionaire to be created by DraftKings? That went to Noles2148. See his lineup below.

draftkings fantasy football plays movie tv techHe, unlike me, paid attention to Rawls getting the start. He got a bit lucky with Cam throwing five TDs and made up for Charcandrick West going down by getting 20 points from the Chief’s defense. Noles2148 took safe picks with Amendola and Julio Jones, but got good production from Shady McCoy who was only owned by 4.6% of the field.

Once again the Millionaire Maker was won by going outside the box. Rawls was the big outlier, but Cam, Shady, and the Chiefs defense were nowhere near the normal draftees.

My personal best finish in a decent sized tournament this past week was 1600th out of 23,000 players. If I had just picked Rawls I would have made about $150 as opposed to $6 :(

Now it’s on to week 12 with three games on Thursday. This could be a whacky week of scores and late swaps. What are you gonna do to separate yourself from the field? Thomas Rawls will be a good play, but gone is the chance to use him as the outlier. Everyone knows now.

I’ll leave you with my DraftKings tip of the week.

Tip of the Week: Injuries suck for athletes. We know this, but selfish fantasy players like myself know that injuries can kill a fantasy lineup on Draftkings. I make sure and set a reminder on my phone so I can check injury news right before kickoff at 1pm on Sundays.

That keeps me from leaving in a guy that is a late scratch. But what about the 4 pm starts and the late game on NBC? Can’t forget those or you end up with Thomas Rawls sitting on the bench with piles of points that would have been enough to give me a win in my season long league.

It’s easy to get distracted by real life on Sunday afternoons.

The tip is to make sure your fantasy apps stay updated and that you set reminders on your phone that you can’t ignore. I mainly use my PC and laptop to set my rosters, but I need to go to my phone more on game day or risk losing simply because I didn’t pay closer attention right up to each kickoff.

Late swaps on DraftKings are also a good idea on SNF or MNF if you are way behind and need a Hail Mary. Better to swap players and take a risk on a guy with a high ceiling than to stick with a consistent player if you need 38 points to comeback in your matchup.