Your Week 15 DFS/Betting Guide from @BalesFootball

I didn’t win $2 million this past weekend at the DraftKings Fantasy Football Championship, so I guess I’ll keep doing this blog now. My lineup finished 97^th out of 180 for $25,000, which turns out to be #notgood. I broke down why I selected the players I did and explained why it was all their fault and definitely not mine at all—not one ounce—that I didn’t win.

However, the ultimate result for me was fairly good—probably a top 20% outcome or so—because I swapped equity in my seat with a few other guys who ended up doing well. So basically their lineup beat mine and now they have to send me a lot of money for it, which I personally think seems like a whole lot of fun. My performance in championship events has quietly been outstanding for someone who hasn’t come even remotely close to winning just because I’ve gotten so lucky with swaps.

Just to show you the variance in these things, one of my best friends and co-founder at FantasyLabs, Peter Jennings (CSURAM88), finished 10^th for $100,000. He had Brandin Cooks, who had a late touchdown called back. If the touchdown stood, Peter would have won $500,000. So basically if one ref’s view is blocked and he misses a call—or maybe he doesn’t get enough sleep the night before and just isn’t as sharp in catching the penalty—then Peter makes a whole lot more money.

Some highlights from the event were 1) Nate Silver showed up, 2) Smitty said he was going to come but ended up not, and 3) I made a prop bet with poker player Joe Ingram that he can’t write and publish a 40,000-word book by the end of January.

Prop Bets

I love prop bets as a motivational tool because pretty much everyone acts a whole lot differently when they have something at risk. Joey is crazy motivated—he won a bunch of money playing the most poker hands ever in a 24-hour period (and I think in a month, too)—and now that he has money on the line with this book prop, I think he can probably make it happen.

This bet got me thinking about ways I could use props to do things I don’t want to do, one of which is work out more. So I’m going to create some sort of challenge that will be really difficult to do and then put a bunch of money on it, which creates a win-win for me because I’ll get in shape no matter what.

I’m thinking I’ll do something like I need to bench press 225 pounds maybe X times and run a sub-7:00 mile by June or something, which will force me to try to gain strength without just going full Bartolo to make it happen. Message me on Twitter if you want in after I figure out the exact goals.

Week 15 DraftKings Player to Target

Drew Brees at ARZ ($6600)

My player to target last week was Aaron Rodgers against the Seahawks, and he averaged nearly 11 yards per attempt and threw three touchdowns. My choice of a stack for the championship came down to Rodgers/Jordy and Rivers/Tyrell. I would have gone with the Packers if Luke Kuechly had played for Carolina, and then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here in the cold in Philly eating Lunchables and writing this blog. Fuck that’s depressing.

I like Brees this week because no one plays him on the road for no real good reason at all. He’s been better at home in his career, but that’s most likely due to playing indoors on turf—which is where he’ll be in Arizona this week. The Cards’ defense has good overall numbers, but they’ve also given up 28 points per game the past month and a half and I think this game has the highest probability of any to turn into a shootout.

One option you have with Brees is to not stack him with anyone at all because he spreads the ball around so much, but I kind of like pairing him with Brandin Cooks given that Patrick Peterson will likely shadow Michael Thomas and Tyrann Mathieu (if he can return to action) will be on Willie Snead in the slot, freeing up Cooks to face off primarily against Arizona’s weakest corner in Marcus Cooper (or Justin Bethel if Cooper can’t go).

tl;dr The Arizona secondary is banged up and Drew Brees is Drew Brees.

Week 15 DraftKings Player to Avoid

Taylor Gabriel vs SF ($5600)

This is a perfect storm of angles I don’t want when rostering a wide receiver. A price increase for a player who has overachieved recently. A huge favorite unlikely to throw late in the game. A lack of targets (more than six in zero games this year). A short, light receiver who is very unlikely to continue his touchdown rate. Relatively high tournament ownership. I will have almost zero Gabriel exposure.

Bet(s) of the Week

SD +3 vs OAK

The truth is that the loss of Melvin Gordon really shouldn’t cost the Chargers all that much in terms of expected points—maybe a point, at the most—and the Raiders are the luckiest team in the NFL to be 10-3. Based on their points scored and allowed, the most likely record for Oakland right now is actually 7-6. And guess what? It’s the same for the Chargers. So you have a team that’s overachieved by about three wins facing one that’s underachieved by about two, and needing to travel on the road to do it.

You can probably wait to make this bet because Oakland is currently getting 80% of the action. The fact that the line hasn’t budged suggests sharp money is on San Diego, but I don’t anticipate the line getting any worse for the Chargers.

Read of the Week

Smitty makes fun of me on the podcast for basically never having an extremely firm stance on any player or game. Part of that is because—and let’s just face the facts here —I’m just not as sharp as guys like Stephen A. Smith who have super strong takes that never turn out to be wrong.

But the other part is that almost nothing in life is certain and almost everyone—including myself—severely underestimates the role of randomness. I honestly think if I could play out my life 10,000 times, in about 20% of those lives I’m a complete loser without a car who barely leaves the house and just mumbles shit about how incredible Kenny Britt could have been if he ever had a quarterback. Just so happens that’s this life, but you get the idea.

The Drunkard’s Walk is a really good introductory book to chance and probability. I actually think it’s one of the best books you can read if you want to make better DFS lineups and bets, even though it has relatively little to do with sports. Super easy to read and I pretty much guarantee it will change how you think about decision-making if you haven’t really studied randomness.

bales + 3 Tags