Your Week 13 DFS/Betting Guide from @BalesFootball
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The big news from Week 12 is that I qualified for the DraftKings Fantasy Football Championship—180 lineups, $10 million in prizes, $2 million to 1st place. That was the big news in my world, anyway, because I’m a selfish asshole.
It’s also big news for Smitty because, if I take down even ONE million in two weeks—just one single million—I’m going to buy the kid a new suit. I’m not saying Smitty can’t dress. I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that at all.
This is fine.
Smitty told me DraftKings is sending him to the championship to film funny stuff for Barstool. Being engrained in both of these worlds—nerdy daily fantasy sports and whatever the fuck it is that’s going on here that we all love—I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is going to be a complete disaster. Can’t wait.
DraftKings Player to Target
Matt Ryan vs KC – $6800
The more I analyze quarterbacks this week, the more I like Matt Ryan in tournaments (I don’t know how you can get away from Drew Brees in cash games). I was originally concerned about the potential pace of this game, but it’s currently the third-highest-projected in Vegas and there’s some decent chance the Chiefs will get down and be forced to throw early. There might not be a ton of incomplete passes to stop the clock since Alex Smith hasn’t thrown the ball more than 10 yards downfield in seven years—that’s a real stat, look it up—but I created a model to project team plays and Atlanta is at least near the middle of the pack in that.
The bigger positive for Ryan is that the Chiefs’ pass defense is really poor. At FantasyLabs, we track how many points defenses allow to each position above or below what should be expected based on DraftKings salaries, and Kansas City comes out dead last in that metric against passers this week.
DraftKings Player to Avoid
Sammy Watkins @OAK – $5500
Watkins had 80 yards in his first game back from injury last week, but that came on just three targets and 25 total snaps. Those latter two numbers should increase this week, but Watkins is nowhere near safe enough to play in cash games and I’d argue there’s no way his upside—which will be limited unless he gets back on the field 50+ snaps—will be worth the relatively high tournament ownership. Watkins will also face a tough cornerback in Sean Smith; he could draw D.J. Hayden when he moves into the slot, but he’s done that on just 21% of plays.
Bet of the Week
TB +4 at SD (and game OVER 47)
I actually think the Bucs have a really good chance to beat the Chargers straight up in San Diego. These teams are rated exactly the same in DVOA, which typically would translate to a three-point spread. Tampa Bay’s defense played lights-out last week, but San Diego’s offense is dramatically different from Seattle.
The play projection model I’ve talked about has both teams above the 75th percentile in projected plays, which equates to a very fast-paced game, and I just don’t think there’s any way for San Diego to stop Mike Evans without leaving themselves extremely vulnerable elsewhere.
Barstool Poker
If you recall from a few months ago, Nate challenged Pres to play poker and they were on the verge of making it happen. You might remember Nate said he got an investor to back him so they could play high stakes, which was actually me. I have no idea if Pres is good at poker, but without much information about either him or Nate, I thought it was a good bet since 1) Nate said he played poker professionally and 2) Pres probably doesn’t care about losing $10k all that much.
Anyway, this is just me using this blog as an opportunity to try to put the pressure on to make this happen.
Read of the Week
Sam Hinkie’s resignation letter. I’m a huge Hinkie fan and recently re-read the letter he wrote to investors when he resigned from the Sixers. I think the letter is pretty dope, but if you play DFS, give it a read and apply each message to daily fantasy sports. I think you’ll uncover some useful insights, primarily centered around how to think about risk and uncertainty.