With about 1:38 left in the Buffalo v Tampa game yesterday, it was 4th and 4 for Josh Allen and the Bills. I was praying that the Bucs would stop them and end the game right there. The reason? Ja’Marr Chase had just caught his second TD in the SF v Bengals game, and I was sitting in 1st overall in a 120,000 entry gpp. However, it was not meant to be. Like last week, I couldn’t hang on, but I came pretty damn close.

I finished 5th overall and brought a few hundred bucks home, but in terms of my overall player pool, there were definitely some bad calls. Let’s take a look.

First of all, I owe anyone who reads my work an apology. As you can see, I played Rashaad Penny in my best performing lineup. Nowhere in my Week 14 writeup will you find his name. I made this call quite close to the 1 PM lock, and I simply did not get over to the Open Thread to let folks know that was the case. That’s on me. To be quite honest I was not all that enthralled with the play. I make about 50 gpp lineups every Sunday and use an optimizer to set them all up. I then go through them all because I have OCD and make determinations about what I have too much of or not enough of. In any event my optimizer was giving me too much JaMycal Hasty. Since Deebo was back in, I figured he’d be getting some RB looks, which he did. So…I tried to identify another cheap back who was in a half decent spot. I heard some reports that Penny would get first reps for Seattle, and against a bad run D in the Texans, I figured why not. In any event, I don’t like when others play players that they don’t recommend, so I apologize on that one. He was about 1.5% owned, and as such nearly every top lineup ended up having him.

In order to make that particular lineup work I had to come off Austin Ekeler. $4000 Hasty became $4800 Penny, and $8300 Ekeler became $6900 Chase. I then moved off the Browns D up to Seattle, which I wish I hadn’t done.

If you had told me that the Chiefs were going to put up 48, I would have played Mahomes and Tyreek everywhere. Hill was one of my more highly owned guys and at 12% ownership I am okay with that. Hill was one of the better leverage plays on the slate at that ownership. Hippo, if you are reading this, I am sorry I talked you off CEH. However, if I told you Williams and Gore would both have a TD in this game, would we have played CEH?

Josh Jacobs was probably my most highly owned player on Sunday. Between him and Hill, most of my lineups were sunk. The target share that went to Renfrow in this game was absurd. I thought for sure Jacobs would find SOME success on the ground and get more targets than he did. Of course, fumbling on the first play of the game didn’t help either.

I made a bad read on the ownership levels of both Amari Cooper and Cedee Lamb as both came in more highly owned than I thought. Not going to lie to you, I don’t make those up. I use the information provided to me by a few others, and now I have a bone to pick with some people, Cooper was my third highest owned player on Sunday.

I have regrets about Kittle. I just don’t like to chase and I was not expecting SF to lean heavily on Kittle as opposed to Deebo or their run game. Damn he looks good though.

I owned way more Metcalf than Lockett, but thankfully the above lineup featured Lockett. I still feel the Metcalf explosion game is coming. It may not be here until 2022, but it will be here.

Do not, I repeat do not, watch Taysom Hill when you have him in fantasy. How is this guy a starting QB in this league? 2 late rushing TDs bailed me out.

Paying up at TE was the way to go, but specifically to either Andrews or Kittle. I was fortunate that I landed on Andrews here, and I initially think I was fortunate Lamar exited the game. I am not sure Andrews is featured as heavily with Lamar playing a full game.

Jeudy, Hasty, Metcalf, Landry, Moore, Gibson, and most of all Robinson all did not have great weeks. Some were okay, but none reached their ceiling games. Combine that pool with not playing Kittle and playing roulette at the DST position made most of my lineups DOA. However, playing as many as I do does give me the chance to have 1 lineup hit. Two weeks in a row with this strategy and being in contention is the goal, so I can’t be too mad about the process.

Things start getting a little weird with Saturday games returning next week. I’ll work on the whole communication thing and try to make it three weeks in a row that there’s a chance to take down a gpp.