Cracking FanDuel Week 14

Devin Knotts's Cracking FanDuel Week 14 Devin Knotts Published 12/09/2023

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE:

Update: 9:13 AM EST

Some key injury updates:

  • Taysom Hill and Rashid Shaheed both appear to be out for the Saints, while Derek Carr will start. This is great news for Alvin Kamara and Chris Olave who should be in a fantastic spot.
  • Trevor Lawrence will start for the Jaguars this week after being questionable with a sprained ankle. This should help the entire offense, but especially the wide receivers as C.J. Beathard likely would have elevated Evan Engram based on Beathard's track record in San Francisco throwing to the tight end.
  • Joe Flacco will start for Cleveland. Amari Cooper is intriguing at just $6,400, but with Rashee Rice at $6,300 he's a better play this week.

There is no change to the Primary Cash Lineup this week, unless some surprise posts later this morning.

SITUATIONS THAT STAND OUT TO THIS WEEK ON THE MAIN SLATE

    • San Francisco (vs SEA) – 28.75 points
    • Kansas City (vs BUF) – 25.0 points

Week 12 Recap

Week 13 was another easy week for the Primary Cash Lineup. The lineup finished in the top 25% of all cash lineups, as we are now approaching the full-season break-even point if you’ve been playing this all season. If you are not familiar with the full-season break-even point, this is where we’ve essentially clinched a non-losing season which is right around 10-8 for the year. By my accounts we are somewhere in the neighborhood of 9-4 or 8-5 depending on your results

Winning in DFS is really difficult since the decline from the peak in 2016/2017. Back then, most lineups were built by hand, where today it seems about 70-80% of rosters are built by optimizers, sites giving out advice, or duplicative lineups which you’ll often see. This means that for the most part, you’re competing against the best of the best each week.

I appreciate all of you who read this article. There is still a lot of work ahead to close out this start to this season. The goal for this season is to win out every single week. If we could end at 14-4 that would be an incredible way to end the season with a seven week winning streak.

Total points scored- 120.66

Week 14 Challenging Week:

It seems as if we’ve had more difficult weeks than not this season, but here we are again in Week 14. This is an incredibly difficult week as a number of the teams that we typically like to target are not on this slate such as Philadelphia, Dallas, and Miami, while also seeing mid-tier running backs in difficult matchups while the top-end running backs are prohibitively expensive.

This creates a unique scenario where you’re going to have to sacrifice something. You can go up to a Christian McCaffrey or Alvin Kamara which should add a floor to your lineup, but also needing to sacrifice at least one roster position for a player who is highly risky such as Parker Washington at $4,100. Or you can look at a more balanced approach with taking multiple players such as Rachaad White, Bijan Robinson, Chuba Hubbard, or Javonte Williams which are players who are in difficult matchups or have struggled with consistency this season.

For me this week, I'm planning on taking a chance with the rookie in Parker Washington and getting the upside of McCaffrey. Look, it's likely going to be risky, but I believe taking Chuba Hubbard or Javonte Williams has the same risk as you're needing a touchdown and they're less than 50% chance to get there, whereas McCaffrey has about a 50% chance to score multiple touchdowns this week. If Washington can get me 6-7 points, that would be a massive win.

Injuries Create Opportunity:

The Sunday Morning Update is going to be critical this week, even more than most weeks as there are a number of situations that are still undefined.

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