Cracking FanDuel Week 2

Sunday Morning Update:

Check back each Sunday Morning around 9:30 AM EST for any final thoughts or updates to the article.

Week 1 Results- 0-1 (Thanks to FanDuel for the refund)

We have fairly and unfairly criticized FanDuel over the 10 years of this article, but this time we are going to give them accolades. Props to FanDuel for making the disastrous Week 1 right. FanDuel had a massive number of outages once again in Week 1, but did the right thing, which they have not always done throughout their history. They refunded all net losses in bonus cash.

So, even though we got a refund in bonus cash, I'm still counting Week 1 as a losing week for accountability purposes. I could count it as a tie, but that would be disingenuous to the overall results of the season. I was lucky that FanDuel provided a refund, but that doesn't change the fact that the lineup has some major issues and holes to figure out.

The reality is that Kyler Murray's injury killed any chance the Primary Cash Lineup had the second the 4PM games kicked off. The primary lineup ended the week with 98.22, needing about 20 points from Kyler to cash in most 50/50's. Ladd McConkey's injury only made things worse, but the damage was already done.

The Good:

• Including Ladd McConkey was the right play. McConkey was great with 16.7 FanDuel points before leaving with a shoulder injury. He was the one piece of this offense to be excited about going forward.
• Chris Olave and Jahmyr Gibbs were extremely chalky, so it's hard to take too much credit for that one. However, even at 74% for Olave, that means 26% of the rosters didn't have him, which is encouraging for future weeks.
• The fade of Justin Herbert was accurate. There was no reason he should have been 53% rostered. He finished with 14.26 points, which isn't horrendous, but people were talking about him as a slam-dunk play against Arizona.
• Fading Omarion Hampton. Did not see Omarion Hampton going off at 65% in 50/50s. We liked him in this article, but we had concerns about him and the usage he would get.

The Bad:

• It's hard to say starting Kyler Murray was a bad move, but getting concussed early in the first quarter was just bad luck.
• The swap from Ashton Jeanty to Saquon Barkley in the Sunday Morning update was catastrophic. The lineup would have survived if I'd played Jeanty instead of Barkley. Barkley started the game strong but did little in the second half, finishing with just 83 yards on 15 attempts.
• Ja'Marr Chase having 2.2 points at 66% rostered was tough. The smart play would have been to play both Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs instead of Chase, and I'm setting a reminder in my phone for next year for Week 1 to "DO NOT PLAY JA'MARR CHASE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES". Chase has averaged just 39 yards in Week 1 over the last four seasons.

Week 2 Strategy:

Week 2 is always one of the most difficult weeks of the season. The trick is finding the balance of the offseason compared to Week 1. We spend the offseason thinking we know what will happen during the regular season, but once Week 1 kicks off, we seem to throw all of that out the window and overreact. This isn't to say Week 1 should be ignored, but it should be balanced with what we thought would happen in the offseason.

Players getting Overhyped: