Last week was about as awesome as it gets for this format! We galaxy-brained our way into avoiding Tampa Bay and Cleveland, who accounted for about 50-75% of the entries depending on the contest, and Minnesota got the win for us as a small underdog, and that’s a team we certainly won’t want to use again in the future. The only recommended team that lost was Baltimore, which unfortunately was the team I had left in the high stakes contest I was still alive in, so that was a shame to go down like that, but overall I’m in a great spot across tons of contests where I now have about 10-20% of the remaining entries with so many going down with Tampa Bay and I barely touched them even in my large MMEs.
This week, I highly doubt we see as many eliminations. This might be the easiest week all year for people to fill ride massive favorites. As of Tuesday afternoon, we have 6 teams that would be one of the clear optimals in a normal week. We have 5 teams essentially favored by 10+ points, and a few of them are surely available to you. Teams like SF, PHI, HOU, and JAX are likely available to the majority of the field because they simply haven’t been the biggest favorites in a week yet this season. I’ll get to ranking those teams in a moment, but first let me address the Seahawks. If you have Seattle available it’s because you just joined a new contest starting this week, or you horribly mismanaged your entry. Either way is fine, but you should definitely use them now. After a string of three straight weeks where they were an optimal choice, they were expected to have no more usable weeks, and then Daniel Jones got hurt and the Colts have no backup plan (see Phillip Rivers unretiring after 4 years out of the league). Now Seattle once again finds themselves the biggest favorite of the week, as they just keep pulling matchups with horrendous backup QBs. They might be a decent pick in Week 17 at Carolina, but that Panthers team keeps pulling off upsets so I don’t think you want to be saving them for that. It’s definitely time to use them if you have them available.
One thing I’m going to start including in every writeup for the next couple weeks is that Week 18 is extremely unpredictable right now so we shouldn’t worry too much about it. We can pretty accurately forecast spreads for Week 16 and 17, but by Week 18 we’re going to see teams resting players and it’s going to move spreads significantly. Teams that were expected to be favored may end up being 10 point underdogs if they rest all their key starters. This means we’ll probably find ourselves with some easy picks that we weren’t expecting to be able to make, and for that reason I’d heavily prioritize using the best plays in Weeks 15-17 rather than saving anyone for Week 18. If it works out to save a team like Philly or Buffalo, that’s probably helpful as they’ll likely need to win their last game, but I still wouldn’t prioritize it as much as saving good picks for other weeks.
Looking at the 4 teams you might feasibly have available, I think you want to make sure to save Houston for next week when they host the Raiders. They should be the biggest favorites of the week, and you’ll really need them in that matchup because Week 16 is tougher than this week, so I’d save Houston no matter what. Before the Daniel Jones injury, SF was going to be the clear best pick this week, but now they might have some value against Indy in Week 16. That’s a pretty variant situation though, as it’s possible Phillip Rivers goes full blown Joe Flacco and is actually quite competent running that elite offense. For that reason, I’d rather just use SF now against the Titans. If choosing between Philly against Washington next week or SF against Indy, I’d probably go with Philly even though they’ve been a disaster. I’m also more comfortable picking SF this week and I’d like to see Philly get things turned around a bit this week before I take them. They feel like a bigger risk to blow this week’s easy game as a huge favorite than SF does. That being said, they’re still a fine pick because the Raiders are awful and we have to trust Vegas that they are enormous favorites. Their defense is too good to lose to Vegas barring some pretty unusual plays in my opinion. The strategy here isn’t so much about nailing Week 15 winners though, it’s about setting ourselves up for the next few weeks. The best team in that regard is the Jaguars. They are massive favorites against the Jets, who may not have a real quarterback this week, and their only other good matchup is Week 18 against the Titans. They will probably need to win that game and won’t be resting starters, but we don’t know that for sure, and other teams could still end up being favored by more in Week 18, so the Jags are the clear best team to use now.
Chicago and Dallas are also quite useful this week in formats where you need multiple picks per week. Even though they aren’t the biggest favorites on the slate, you have to keep in mind that winning these contests will require you to use a significant number of teams. There will be other chances to use the Eagles, Niners, Jags, and Texans, but there are no other predictably good spots for the Cowboys and Bears. If we prioritize advancing this week by using bigger favorites, we could find ourselves forced to pick a much smaller favorite in a future week. If I need two picks this week, my favorite combo is Jaguars and Bears. There’s no other matchup where the Bears will be useful, and they are -425 as of writing this. I don’t think their ownership will be too crazy because there are 5 teams with much better odds, but surely some people will realize that Chicago can only be used right now so it would be smart to use them here. Dallas will likely be favored in other matchups, but probably with shorter odds. If you’re feeling bold in a contest with 3 picks, you could pair them with Chicago and Jacksonville, but I think that’s a pretty contrarian move because using SF or PHI is a lot safer.
In Loser’s contests, I think we absolutely have to use the Colts. They are in shambles now without a QB, and while they could have decent future value now, every passing week could bring them closer to a solution at QB. There’s no reason not to use them at Seattle, who is a massive favorite. We need to save the Browns for next week, and personally I’ve already used the Titans Raiders Jets Cardinals and Vikings. That forces me to use the Lions or Chargers this week, and I’d much prefer the Lions because I dont want to back the Chiefs to win a game right now. I think I’m in no position to pass on the free square in the Colts, and it would take a very unique entry with all the bad teams still available for me to suggest passing on the Colts here. If you have one of those bad teams available, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to use them, but I also like saving them and just using the Lions here, as the Rams are such a dominant team that this is our only chance to use the Lions. They will be favored in every other game the rest of the way barring an injury to Goff, so I like taking them here to avoid burning a team that has future value.