The Daily Spin – NFL Cash Game Edition – Week 2

Much like Week 1, Week 2 of any NFL season has a very specific feel to it. I like to call it the ‘overreaction week’. It happens every year and I am as guilty of it as anyone else. We see what happens in Week 1 and our brains immediately decide that this is how the rest of the season will flow. The Packers lost 38-3. Aaron Rodgers should retire! The Packers should have traded him! This team is a bust! The Eagles crushed the Falcons. Jalen Hurts is a stud! Dwyane Wade says he is a winner! There are about 20 different areas where something like this is happening. Beware of your tendencies when dealing with this type of issue. It is easy to fall into the trap and blind yourself to certain opportunities that pop up if you are paying close attention. While some of these things may become trends, do not race to judgment too quickly. Stick with your process of how you do your research and how you evaluate players and you can avoid this trap.

So what did I learn in Week 1?

The biggest lesson was not a new one for me. I wrote about it skeptically in my column and yet, I could not get myself to change course. I let myself get pulled into the chalk plays of Kyle Pitts and Elijah Moore, knowing full well that there was a good chance that they could bust. What kills me is that I really like Corey Davis last week, but really wanted to fit two stud RBs into my lineup (Kamara and CMC) so I thought a min salary play in Moore would be okay. Even then, I normally would not have played him, but with Jamison Crowder and Keelan Cole both out, I thought he would be thrust into an expanded role right away. Davis had a great day. Moore caught one pass for -3 yards. This is what happens when you pay too close of attention to the rest of the industry. Sure, Rondale Moore had a good game for the Cardinals, but he doesn’t have a rookie QB and he’s surrounded by far superior talent. In Week 1, I would rather be a week off and let a player shine than to jump in too soon when there was plenty of other places where I could have found value.

The other play that hurt, but less than Moore was in using Kyle Pitts. He’s been hyped up beyond belief after being drafted early in the first round by the Falcons, but as I even mentioned in my article, rookie TEs rarely come in and contribute in a big way immediately. Pitts was not the exception. Now, it may be that he does get on track soon and becomes more of a threat, but taking a wait and see approach would have been wise. He did see eight targets so he was involved, he just did not do much, catching four passes for 31 yards in what should have been a favorable matchup. Had I simply paid up $200 for third year TE TJ Hockenson, the best pass catching option for the Lions, I would have been richly rewarded. This does not mean that we need to abandon Moore or Pitts moving forward, but it is likely prudent that we take more of a wait and see approach with them, rather than bypassing players with known roles in their respective offenses. Note this for Week 1 next season. It is easy to get pulled into this mistake and there is some comfort when the player is chalky, but this is avoidable and we can improve on this in future years.

Nothing else in my column or my lineup were a problem. Davante Adams underperformed badly, but I have no problem with the decision to use him. There was never a circumstance where I saw the Packers getting railed the way they did. Even in most scenarios where they lose that game, it is rarely a blowout. This game was so bad, we did not even get garbage time in the 4th quarter as the game got so out of hand that the Packers pulled their starters. After the last few seasons where Adams has been nearly automatic for 100 yards and a TD in games like that and the Saints were reeling in the secondary, I can’t find fault in playing Adams. He was not very heavily owned, but he rated out at the top of my model and I was able to fit him in with two stud RBs so I did not think I was sacrificing much in playing him last week. I needed 8 catches for 100 yards to get me over the cash line last week, but only got 5 for 56 so fell just short.

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