This week we’ve got line-ups to recap for this week (13) and last week (12) including earning a first cash of the season this week! We’ll go through the prize winner first before briefly touching on week 12’s line-up.

Week 13

We picked a second top-performing wide receiver in Davante Adams who continued his insane volume against the Chargers. He turned 12 targets into 8 for 177 yards and 2 touchdowns. I think there’s a pretty strong case for playing Adams every week for the rest of the season given his combination of crazy volume and efficiency.

We took a pair of San Francisco 49er pass catchers, George Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk, expecting them to need to pass to keep up with the explosive Dolphins offence. However, the 49ers defence played a lot better than expected, containing the Dolphins to just 17 points.

To compound the issue, Jimmy Garoppolo broke his ankle in the first quarter leaving 7th round rookie Brock Purdy to play QB. He wasn’t bad in his first career start, throwing for 210 yards and 2 touchdowns but unfortunately it mostly went the way of McCaffrey and Deebo.

At running back, Gus Edwards was a major disappointment but again injuries played a part. Lamar Jackson’s early knee injury let the Broncos tee off on the run and dare Tyler Huntley to beat them through the air. Gus managed just 12 yards on 6 carries, and was second fiddle to Kenyon Drake as the Ravens were playing catch-up all game.

Brian Robinson was a bit more successful. We expected a lot of volume against the Giants, and it came through with Robinson earning 21 carries and 2 receptions. All that was missing was a touchdown for it to have been a great day for the rookie.

It was a great day for the Browns Defence. I was expecting opportunities for sacks and takeaways against the Kyle Allen lead Texans, but I didn’t expect this big a game. The Browns scored touchdowns via punt return, fumble return and interception return to post the top defensive score of the week.

All in all the line-up totalled 171.60 points which was good enough for 63rd place and a profit of £4.86 from a £1.70 buy-in. It was still a decent way to the first placed score of 204.56

Week 12

Final Thoughts

It’s great to get the first cash of the season this week and it feels like it had the potential for more if things broke right. Ultimately, that’s what we need to happen to win big, we need everything to break just right. But with the right players we hope to maximise the chances of that happening.

It’s interesting to compare the composition of the two teams. When we had success in week 13 we did have some players with high ownership but bar Davante Adams they were all at 13% or below. This gives us a better chance at a unique roster and a chance to win overall.

On the other hand, the losing week 12 roster had Drake London at 3% and the rest of the team all at 15% or above. Obviously, with a couple of players had big scores this team may have made the money, but it would likely be one of many. If we’re aiming for 1st and a huge pay-out, this many high ownership players aren’t the way to do it.

Moving forward, we definitely need to consider who is likely to be the popular plays and ensure we don’t have a huge number of them. Hopefully, we can add another cash this week.

We’ll return later in the week to cover some early thoughts on the Week 14 schedule. To make sure you see when the post goes live follow me on twitter @ThinkingFantasy