Lineup Advice, Team Tracking & Strategy – Week Nine

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Bye:  Browns, Cowboys, Broncos, Giants, Steelers, 49ers

Week Nine

Another bad bye week on tap and by the time you read this the NFL trade deadline will have expired and, perhaps, we have some intriguing acquisitions. In fact, just as I'm typing this, I got an alert of Detroit shipping T.J. Hockenson to the Vikings - the rare intradivisional trade!

As I peruse the top scoring players list, I'm seeing the running backs coming back into focus. The usual suspects of course, Alvin Kamara, Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey, Travis Etienne, Derrick Pollard and of course D'Onta Foreman. Yeeeah, somewhat tongue in cheek. I think the point is clear here:  When surveying WR1 names and then looking at top scoring running backs, it's not often we have big rotation at the receiver position. That's not to say that all WR1's put up big games, but a down game doesn't threaten their role generally or suggest they will have another down game next week. But at the running back position, a big game, injury or change of circumstance week over week can have dramatic impact on touches, volume and even role. Again, this is why I'm prioritizing receivers over running backs.

Unless you have one of those leagues where the trade deadline is non-existent, something I'm firmly against in fantasy, chances are yours is approaching quickly. Again, remember my mantra:  Be the best or be the worst, don't be mediocre. It's very easy to get locked into years of mediocrity. Make the trades to put you over the top but if your team doesn't have it and is more than two or three years away in your estimation, trade away the Derrick Henry, Cooper Kupp and Travis Kelce sorts to the contenders for pick and/or player combinations.

Remember, bad things can happen to good teams. Keep your wits about you, avoid knee-jerk reactions and don't get  "cute" with your lineup decisions.

2022 Team Tracking

Just as a refresher, in 2021 I sent 40% of tracked dynasty teams to championship games. While I'd love to say it was all due to my management, luck still plays a huge role in our favorite hobby and I don't see a repeat of 2021. That doesn't mean I'm not gunning for 100%, however. In 2022 I added three new leagues to be tracked, bringing my total to 13.

I'm one of those coaches who is always looking at, not only the current week matchups, but future weeks as well to determine who I'm facing during tough bye weeks and in hopes of facing tougher competition on their bad bye weeks. This year is yielding disappointing results, not so much about my bye weeks but because those I'm facing aren't missing significant players in most cases. So I guess I'm going to have to truly earn my victories. When looking at my subpar week seven record (6-7), there just wasn't much I could do to change the results. I did cost myself a win with a poor star/sit decision but not significant enough to change my thinking. Sometimes it helps to look at your losses, get inside them and find there's just not much you could do. You just got beat. It may be because of injury, bye, coaching decision or any other number of reasons outside of your control. Looking forward to week eight, I was more concerned because I had Patrick Mahomes across many of my competitive teams and losing him is a big loss. I don't like having a poor week and then seeing Mahomes on bye to follow. Two bad weeks in a row finds me considering fantasy cricket instead. Is that a thing?

Anyway, funny thing happened on the way to week nine. My week performance was 11-2, bringing my overall record to 64-40. Now we're cooking with gas. It's not often I have good luck in Monday night games when needing points and I had two games riding on Donovan Peoples-Jones and Amari Cooper. In on league I needed about 9.5 from DPJ and in the other, I needed a combined 20 from him and Cooper. Thank you to both!

As I reach mid-season, I always look at my standings within the league and within my division to determine the strength of my teams, determine needs and survey potential trades. I'm always looking to be first in my division, or, second and within striking distance. Invariably there will always be a number of my teams fading due to lack of performance, injury or even bad build. Let's review how this Dirty Baker's Dozen of 13 teams has performed through eight weeks.

Of my 13 teams, 11 look to be playoff bound with the other two now playing for draft position. For those two teams, in both cases, there's not much way I'll be competitive with the performance of the overall build, injuries and too much work to be done. In fact, one of the these two teams is my longest running dynasty league that helped found DLF and I've spoken about it before. This league is the one where I don't prioritize winning as much as I do assembling my favorite players and draft picks, my two favorite parts of fantasy football. This is the team I watch and root for on Sundays so I have a team to focus on. And of course, drafting rookies is the most fun aspect to me in dynasty so I'll trade productive veterans for draft picks to maximize my fun. The downside is that this team will always struggle to be one of the top teams, but when it does get there, it should be a monster due to my build. I'm very excited about 2023 and beyond. Losing Javonte Williams, Cam Akers and dealing with the Najee Harris lack of production was just too much to overcome this year. But last week I traded away Harris in return for Chris Olave as you may recall. I also have what appears to be two top-five 2023 selections.

I'm very pleased to have 11-of-13 teams clearly in the hunt for the playoffs though, two of those 11 teams are punching above their weight due to injury. One of those teams has lost Breece Hall, Ja'Marr Chase, Treylon Burks, David Njoku and Rashod Bateman to injury, has Najee Harris as my lead back and just lost Irv Smith as well. In fact, looking at the week nine lineup options in this league, I can't field a starting roster. This was a team I took over as an orphan and I wasn't going to be tracking it here this year but thought it would make for good material and it had a chance. I'll have to pull a rabbit out of my hat to remain in the playoff hunt.

In my other non-playoff team, I'm 3-5 and the team really isn't even that good. I like the build for the future and looking for another couple of draft picks or young players as it's a young team.

Strategy

This is what I posted in week one:

Starting in 2021, I began a process of a mindful strategy shift, prioritizing young WR1 players as my core and mid-career veteran receivers as my production anchors with a corresponding RB-light approach as I like to call it. While I haven't updated my numbers-based research to prove out this strategy shift, it has been clear to me that the increased RBBC (running back by committee) usage continues to sap production from the position and when combined with injury potential, makes for a very high beta (risk) in your weekly lineup and long-term build. You just won't see WR1 players play 50% of a team's offensive snaps while rotating with the second player on the positional depth chart. It's the WR3s and WR4s where the greatest rotations take place.

Nothing changing in my positional views or prioritization. I'm still building through receivers, deemphasizing running backs, ensuring I have a top eight quarterback and doing my best to find the next tight end on the waiver wire. As a general rule I do NOT trade for tight ends. Too much turnover in the position and I'm always looking for the next Gronk, Kittle, Kelce, Andrews or Waller for free. It happens almost annually. Throw a lot of darts and hope one finds its mark.

This week especially, be sure to evaluate the NFL trades that have happened, find the players who are moving up from players that were moved ahead of them on the depth chart and take a stab. In many cases, the best think you can hope for on the bottom of your fantasy rosters is simply for a player to get a chance. If he produces, great! If not, cut  bait and move on.

Good luck this week.

Join our Discord Server

We've added a new service! Every Sunday morning, you can join DLF's new Discord server to ask those last minute lineup advice questions, or anything else which may be on your mind. In the very near future, we'll cut off lineup advice on Saturday night and use this Discord channel to ensure your questions aren't missed Sunday AM. This new channel is taking our community interaction to the next level.

Lineup Advice Rules & Format

DLF continues to see amazing growth in our membership and each year I wonder how I'm going to keep up with all of your questions while also holding to a level of service and quality you've all come to expect from me. I've been VERY happy with my level of accuracy but, for that to occur, I need your help. Each question can take up to 10 minutes for me to research as I research up to a dozen different variables and trends. I do everything I can to get my answers correct. For that reason, I need you to read the following rules and guidelines to help me maintain efficiency:

• Please don't ask me to set your entire lineup
• Put "TNF" as the top line for any question involving Thursday Night Football games
• Please also make sure to tell me who YOU would be starting if not for my advice. It helps me to understand your gut feeling.
• Include your scoring format  (PPR, Non-PPR, etc.)
• Keep your questions as brief as possible - Story questions add a lot of time
• I prioritize questions involving the earliest (Thursday, etc.) games first. If I skip over your question, don't worry, I'll be back to it.
• It's easy to miss responses to my responses in thread. When in doubt, always post a separate new question

Lastly, I work very hard to get my advice correct and I do not mail it in. When I'm wrong, I feel every incorrect answer so, go easy on me! That said, the DLF community has been absolutely fantastic to work with which is why I'm still doing this after so many years.

Have a great week! Have an even better season!

Let's do this...