JudasIscariotTheBird

In that best ball contestI mentioned, the guy currently in the lead is a YouTuber that I kind of follow. Imagine being in his situation, or any of the dozen players that have a shot of overtaking him.

...are you asking because I already waste a lot of time here? It was all spaced out over 4 months. The team that made the finals was drafted in early May. Underdog even had a silly little promotion where if you could semi-prove (by posting to twitter) that you were doing cardio while drafting for 7 drafts, they would send you a t shirt and "something extra." The extra wound up being getting rake back on any subsequent cardio drafts you did. So I was getting paid something like 3 bucks an hour for rowing on my rowing machine and annoying my few twitter followers with screenshots of drafts they don't give a horsefeathers about. Even if my team in the finals takes last (and that's nearly infinitely more possible than first, at this point) I'll still have enough in the account to max out again next year. Oh, and there is a fair amount of strategy for best-ball, specifically top-heavy best ball contests, that differ from season long with rosters or daily fantasy. I can go over some of it some other time, if anyone cares to go into it.

How is a team assembled in this format? And how many play? I also need these details. Assuming it’s salary cap based. Would love to join next year. I need best ball formats in my life. Tough luck on Hurts. You have a draft just like a season long draft with 11 other randos. It's .5 ppr format, no yardage bonuses. Each week 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE and one non-QB flex count for points. Draft is 18 rounds. For the first 14 weeks you are matched up against the teams you drafted with, and the top two advance. Then you get put with 9 other advacing teams for week 15, only the top team advances. Grouped with 15 others teams for week 16, only top team advances, and then its the final week, 17, with 469 others teams. You can do the math to figure out how many entries that is, total. This year, a million was also given to the team that scored the most points in the regular season. Draftkings runs a similar contest at 5 and 25 dollar entries, but they are full ppr with yandage bonuses, and the draft is 20 rounds long. There are also two different options for type of draft: fast or slow. Fast drafts give you about 20 seconds for your pick, while slow drafts allow 24 hours, until the season approaches, when allotment starts getting scaled down so the drafts can actually complete.

So a year ago I lucked out huge and made the finals of a million-to-first best-ball contest on Underdog fantasy, won 5k by taking 23rd, and decided to let it ride and enter a similar contest 150 times (at 25 bucks a pop) over the summer. This year its 470 teams making it to the final, first gets 2 mil, second gets a mil, third half a mil, and more swiftly falling off after that. I advanced slightly above average into the playoffs, but then advanced slightly less than average into the semis, which meant I only had two shots at the finals last week, and one of those teams had Hurts and Mariota at QB, so only one decent shot. I was on a boat in the Galapagos all week and missed the games and all news of them, but when I got reception on Wednesday, somehow the team with zero points at QB managed to beat 15 other line ups and make the finals. And now that Hurts seems to be unhurt again, I'm live! I don't think I'll be able to catch the games Sunday as I'll be en route to Quito for most of the day, but if some of these players blow up, I might make some cash. My team isn't a very unique line up comepared to the field, but the triple Hurts stack is fairly rare (getting AJ and Smith on the same team, specifically) so if Hurts explodes, I don't need as much to go right to do well/win. Hurts/Mariota Ekeler/Rhamondre/D'Onta Forman/Mattison/Pierce/CEH AJ Brown/DeVonta Smith/Waddle/Jakobi Meyers/ Kendrick Bourne/Nico Collins/Laviska Shenault/Mooney Kittle/Goedert ...just now read that Hurts is unlikely to play. Super deflating.

Sanders going missing really hurt me. Probably cost me thousands of dollars.

I'd lean Darnold, but it's kinda a toss up between him and Mayfield.

Just looked up week 16. Dak faces the Eagles, Lawrence faces the Jets, and Brady faces the Cards. I'd save Brady for week 16.

Yeah, Dak and Lawrence are a fair amount better than all the rest of your options. Unless Dak has some insanely better matchup than Lawrence for week 16, I'd go Dak this week.

Who you going with this week? Been doing some research this am and I'm leaning with.... Deshawn Watson vs. the Ravens Miles Sanders vs. Bears Keenan Allen vs. Titans Pickings are slim at WR now. Everyone is a hit and miss fantasy guy each week. I could change to Michael Pittman, but he's really been disappointing this year. Indy's line might be worse than the Bears. I'm guessing Matt Ryan wished he retired. I could go with Devanta Smith at WR, but I still want to stay away from teammates in the same line up. I still have quite a few RB options if I decided to put Smith in there vs. the Bears. Stevenson, A. Jones, Pollard, Elliott, Montgomery to name a few. If this were a contest that rewarded you for having a top line up, I'd worry about uncorrelated plays like RB-WR on the same team. But this is the exact opposite. I wouldn't go out of my way to do it, but I'd actually be looking for opportunities to do RB-WR on the same team. It makes it more likely for you to land in the middle of the remaining entries, which is a win. Sanders-Devanta seems like a great play to me.

He fell from a great height. If that isn't enough, a security guard (from another country) ALSO fell from a great height, but he didn't die... EDIT: Looks like the reporter's cause of death hasn't been declared yet, I just misread an article.

Zactly. This is the job of managers for countries with talent. Could he have screwed it up any harder, within reason?

I drafted David Njoku to start the season and dropped him after 2 or 3 weeks of basically nothing. Since then it's been a revolving door of terrible numbers while Njoku has actually been pretty good. Pitts owner who had a great stable of RB and tried like hell to pull off a Kelce trade but couldn't. Every week is an adventure now. Only good thing is next week still doesn't matter for me. Then in week 16 it starts to count. I'm in three season-long leagues, and got a bye in all three. One of them is just largely pythag luck, tho. A Kupp, Chase, Pitts, Bateman, CEH start to the draft doesn't seem league-winning, at this point.

In related news, my alma mater is in the Div 2 National Championship game next weekend. When I first got there, the football team was a joke, with all of the cheers revolving around losing being ok. By my senior year, they were qualifying for the playoffs, and recent years had them making it to the semis occasionally. It will test my pirating resources to see if I can find a stream next week.

Seems sudden for bronchitis? Really weird story either way.

Sports are still pretty cool, part from the Cubs, of course.

If you want to snag a TE and hope they have a role when week 16 and 17 comes around, I think Trey McBride makes sense. He's getting all the snaps at TE, and Kyler has tended to favor targetting TEs. He just hasn't been getting the targets thus far since Ertz went down. I think it makes more sense holding a guy like him (or Okonkwo, etc) than White, whom you could probably grab anyways if Hurtz gets hurt. I have two TE, currently Geisicki and Knox. They play two bad Ds in GB and Chicago week 16. So I'm okay with them for now, but watching like 6 others. Higbee is the big one who I had for a while and has gotten quite a few targets and should have a decent matchup for playoffs. Theres a half dozen guys I flagged to watch for, but I think I'll take my second choice at TE over a second choice on the waiver wire at QB if Hurts went down. It's gonna be a crap shoot no matter what at TE. I may drop Moore after this week for a 3rd TE. He's starting in flex due to byes this week, and he's been kind of a deep/sleeper keeper hold for me all yeat, but in all likliehood not a keeper option I'll use next year. And he's like WR5 for me. Ah, ok. I'm in a pretty competative 14 team league. I'm somehow in first, and Moreau and McBride are the TEs I have rostered...

If you want to snag a TE and hope they have a role when week 16 and 17 comes around, I think Trey McBride makes sense. He's getting all the snaps at TE, and Kyler has tended to favor targetting TEs. He just hasn't been getting the targets thus far since Ertz went down. I think it makes more sense holding a guy like him (or Okonkwo, etc) than White, whom you could probably grab anyways if Hurtz gets hurt.

Weah played pretty well overall, but in the 55 minutes of play that Gio had this World Cup, he created a LOT of chances. You and I didn't watch the same games.

Honestly, since Gregg isn't going to play anyone up top that isn't a "Striker" on the official roster, there's nowhere to put him. The 11 is built around MMA, you're not going to take off Pulisic, and Weah has been really dangerous over and over. Now, when we see our midfield and/or Weah get tired, we should see subs earlier, and they should be Reyna and Aaronson - Aaronson first if we have a lead, Reyna if we are tied or behind. I'd prefer to give the ball to the guy who starts for Dortmund and dribbles like Maradona. Don't care about position. It's the coach's job to make it happen.

Zimmerman and Ferreira in the starting 9 but no Gio. Why can't we have good things?

Holy horsefeathers I forgot about the BS yellow. That THAT ref gave him a yellow on that is just infuriating.

"...they were bad." -Lalas