Know Your Opposition
If you want to finish at the top of the standings in a mid-to-large field GPP, your roster has to stand out from the crowd. Studying a list of projected roster percentages is a helpful first step, but it lacks the context of how the most popular players fit together under the salary cap.
To gain some insight into how the majority of entrants will allocate their cap space, so you can spend yours differently, let’s think about how the public is most likely to attack roster construction at each position.
Slate Overview- Week 18- Motivation
Week 18 historically has been one of the most difficult weeks of the season, as trying to figure out which teams are still motivated compared to which teams are concerned about their tee times next week is always something to focus in on. The way to approach this week is certainly to target teams that have something to play for, but you also shouldn’t completely avoid players who have been eliminated. In Week 18 last season, four of the top five running backs were from winning teams that had at least seeding to play for, but at the wide receiver position it was a little less clear as three of the top six had something to play for and the top scorer of the week was 36 year-old Danny Amendola who had 113 yards and 2 touchdowns for the Texans.
The way to approach this week, is realistically treat it like any other week with a few exceptions. There are some teams that you should just outright avoid, based on teams that are resting their starters or in talent evaluation mode. Looking back at the last three seasons, there has been one guy who has been a beneficiary of the team resting players that finished in the top 5 of running backs which was Darwin Thompson for the Chiefs in 2020.
So, while you shouldn’t go crazy and stack the games where the teams are resting their players or have no motivation, that doesn’t mean you should completely avoid it either. If there are players as a one-off that are such great value that help you build out the rest of your team, then by all means go for it, this week those players could be the likes of Jonathan Williams or Greg Dortch.
One additional thing to note, this is shaping up to being the lowest scoring week of the season. The highest projected game total from the sportsbooks this week is just 43 points and there are 8 games that are projected to score between 40-43 points. This opens up opportunity from a GPP perspective, simply because there is not that one game that you have to have a piece of in order to feel competitive. The slate is essentially wide open.
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