College Football Props of the Week: Week 4
Walter Waddell
Each week, I’ll review my single-entry lineup, as well as a couple of others. I will also track my success rates throughout the season. The criteria for the other lineups to make the article (and tracking) will be > 10% of my overall investment. This week, that included:
- My SE
- A small deviation from my SE
The goal here is to hold myself accountable for the decisions I make while also helping to provide a blueprint for long-term success in GPPs.
Throughout the year, I’ll emphasize the top 10% and top 1% hit rates. While profit/loss is at the mercy of significant variance at the top of tournaments, these hit rates stabilize much faster and can therefore paint a stronger picture of our performance. My cash rate is now quite strong, but it hasn’t resulted in any major hits. Hopefully, the positive variance is on its way!
The Single-Entry
Rather than go through my usual evaluation of the process of each aspect of my lineup, I’d like to discuss the lineup in the context of my Predicting NFL DFS Performance piece.
Let’s begin with the wide receivers – I found that mid-tier WR chalk is the best chalk there is, hence Mike Williams and Hunter Renfrow were the foundational pieces here. Interestingly, Renfrow and Brandin Cooks were both projected to have higher ownership rates than they wound up having (perhaps because of Mike Williams, but also because people went all-in on BUF – TB). Since the thesis is that the industry is great at forecasting WRs, perhaps early-week ownership projections are as predictive or even more predictive of success than actual ownership, which is more affected by roster construction priorities. I’ll look into this more!
Russell Wilson and Tyler Lockett were matchup-specific plays for me that paid off in a big way. I think a key point to make is that contrarian WRs should be used in combination with mid-tier chalk, not instead of him. The Lockett play wouldn’t have meant much if he was used instead of Renfrow, for example.
Meanwhile, Jared Cook and Austin Hooper continued the trend of chalk TEs hitting, though I sure wish my .8% Nick Chubb scored the first & goal touchdown from the 1-yard line instead of Hooper. This brings me to the running backs…
Boy oh boy were my RBs disappointing. In addition to these two, I used:
- Cordarrelle Patterson (good)
- Saquon Barkley (good)
- Ezekiel Elliott (bad)
The real kicker? James Robinson was a late-week “find” that took me off of Melvin Gordon, who was a correlated leverage pivot off of Javonte Williams. What would going to Gordon have gained me? Try this one on for size, with a Chubb – CLE pairing replacing Robinson – JAX:
This would have been 3rd for $2500 in the 166-person $200 Double Spy and 4th for $3000 in the 277-person $200 Double Spy (my two favorite SEs). Oof!
The bright side is that this build structure (following the rules laid out in Predicting NFL DFS Performance) showed immediate potential. It’s nice when all of the time and effort that goes into a long research project quickly shows promise.
