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Week 4 Recap: Over Early, Under Later

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Author: Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

The betting formula for Week 4 of the NFL season was pretty simple – bet the Over in the early games (including Thursday night) and the Under in the late Sunday and Monday night games. Seven of these nine early games had more points than projected and the two that had under fell under one point short in both instances. Five out of the six late Sunday and Monday games were under with the Bills-Raiders game tying the over-under mark of 53 and the 49ers-Eagles game having 45 points scored and just being under by a point. So, if you went Over Early and Under Later, you would have won 12 out of 15 games. Not a bad week if you’re the gambling type.

What does this have to do with Dynasty Owner? Well, simple. Starting your players in the early games was far more likely to yield the scoring you needed to win your matchup this week than having a bunch of guys playing in the late Sunday and Monday games. Dak Prescott, the G.O.A.T. Tom Brady, Joe Mixon, Odell Beckham Jr., and Amari Cooper all had big games early in the day and likely led their Dynasty Owner teams to victory. All was not lost if you started guys who played later as one of the late Sunday game performances was even our Value Player of the Week and Aaron Rodgers lit up the Falcons defense on Monday night. However, on average, Dynasty Owners were better off having their Starting lineup populated with early game players.

This is our fourth regular season Dynasty Owner weekly recap article for 2020. Unlike last week, it was early Sunday (before dinner) when writing started, but the article still had to wait until after Monday Night Football was over to be finished up. Just like every week, this article will name a Dynasty Owner Player of the Week and a Value Player of the Week, highlight a player at every position who should have been one of your Starters and one who should have been on your Bench or Practice Squad. We’ll also look at what happened in the Dynasty Owner Match-up of the Week – one team had more early players and got a big advantage – and take our weekly look at the Chase for the Ring standings.

All stats are based on the Standard Dynasty Owner scoring system as outlined in the updated Dynasty Owner Constitution. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.

Standard Dynasty Owner scoring for kickers gives you 1 point for every extra point, while a missed extra point will cost you 1 point. It’s 2 points for a field goal of between 0 and 39 yards, 4 points for a field goal between 40 and 49 yards and 5 points for a field goal of 50 yards or longer. A missed field goal of between 0 and 39 yards will cost you 3 points, while a miss of 40 yards or more is a loss of 2 points. For the purposes of this article, ADP and Dynasty Owner ownership statistics were current as of October 5th.

Dynasty Owner Player of the Week

Our fourth Dynasty Owner Player of the Week for 2020 is: Dak Prescott

Four weeks and four different QBs as Player of the Week. This week, it’s Dak Prescott who was the runner-up to Josh Allen in Week 2, but scored 50.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points this week to edge out the G.O.A.T Tom Brady (46.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) and Joe Mixon (44.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) for the honor. Dak had 50.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (502 passing yards, 4 passing TDs, 12 rushing yards, 1 2-pt conversion, 1 INT, 1 fumble lost). He received the 4 point bonus for throwing for over 400 yards, but there’s no extra points for going over 500 passing yards. He lost 6.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points because of the INT and lost fumble and if he had been turnover free, he would have scored 56.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and set the record for points so far in the 2020 season.  Despite all of those TDs and fantasy points, the Cowboys trailed most of the game and Dak was never able to lead them to a clutch score and get those three extra points.

  • Week 4 Points: 50.3
  • 2020 Salary: $30,144,000
  • Cost per Point: $599,284

Congratulations to Dak on your third Dynasty Owner weekly honor! It’ll look good on his mantle with the Player of the Week honor from Week 1 of last year and Value Player of the Week honor from Week 11 of last year when his salary was only $680,848.

Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week

Because this is Dynasty Owner and we’re all looking for value from the players on our roster, we also have the Value Player of the Week. The fourth Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week for 2020 is: George Kittle

You might be asking how can George Kittle win this award? Well, the five-year, $75 million contract extension he signed back in August doesn’t take effect until the 2021 Dynasty Owner season, so he’s still on the books at a salary of just $674,572 for this year. Kittle wins based on his amazing 40.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy point performance (15 receptions, 183 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD, 8 rushing yards). This was easily the best TE performance of the year and earned Kittle the honor over Joe Mixon who had more points (44.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points), but at just over twice the salary ($1.36 million).

  • Week 4 Points: 40.1
  • 2020 Salary: $674,572
  • Cost per Point: $16,822

In a bit of a surprise, this is the first-ever Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week honor for Kittle and the first by a TE. Congratulations!

Players Who Should Have Been Starters This Week

Next, we look at those players who should have been in one of your Starters based on their performance in Week 4. We aren’t going to write that you should have started Dak Prescott or George Kittle because both of them should always be in your Starting lineup – especially after being Players of the Week. Instead, these are players who might be Free Agents or on your Bench or Practice Squad, but likely weren’t Starters in Week 4 when they should have been.

QB: Teddy Bridgewater (CAR) – 32.0 points

In his first three games as a Carolina Panther, Teddy Bridgewater averaged only 17.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game, so it wasn’t too likely that his Dynasty Owners would be starting him in Week 4. Even though he has a salary cap friendly 3-year, $63 million contract ($21 million per year for Dynasty Owner purposes) for a veteran QB, he is less than universally owned (87% ownership). This week against the Arizona Cardinals, Bridgewater had 32.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (276 passing yards, 2 passing TDs, 32 rushing yards, 1 rushing TD, 1 INT). This performance made him the #5 QB of the week so he should have been in your Starting lineup.

RB: Jamaal Williams (GB) – 18.5 points

With Davante Adams and Allen Lazard out for Green Bay, somebody was going to have to step up for the Packers passing offense this week. If you didn’t watch the game and only saw the highlights, you might not realize that Jamaal Williams was one of those players who stepped up (the other guy will appear soon). Williams had a career high 8 receptions and another career high 95 receiving yards in the Packers 30-16 victory over the Atlanta Falcons. He added in 10 rushing yards for a total of 18.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That’s almost as many as he had combined in the first three weeks (19.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). With all of the injuries at RB this season and Derrick Henry and James Conner on bye, maybe some Dynasty Owners with Williams on their roster had to put him in their Starting lineup. Congrats to you if you did since that’s where he belonged this week.

WR: Tim Patrick (DEN) – 23.3 points

It’s understandable that Dynasty Owners would be unwilling to put Tim Patrick in their Starting lineups in Week 4. After all, his QB was an undrafted rookie free agent (Brett Rypien) and his team (Denver Broncos) had to fly to New York to play on a Thursday night with little rest between games and little time for the new QB to prepare for his first NFL start. On the other hand, Courtland Sutton is out for the 2020 season, making Patrick a starter and the Broncos were playing against the Jets. Patrick ending up scoring 23.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions, 113 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD) and is now the #27 ranked WR in Dynasty Owner. He’s widely available (only 25% ownership), so not many Dynasty Owners were likely to have him in their Starting lineup this week. He’s also cheap ($750,000 in salary for 2020), so he could be on your Dynasty Owner roster next week.

Honorable mention to David Moore of the Seattle Seahawks. Moore is only owned in 21% of Dynasty Owner leagues, but does carry a fairly hefty $2.133 million salary cap hit. However, he did just score 18.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions, 95 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD) and had 14.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points back in Week 2. If you have a roster spot and salary cap room, Moore is more likely than Patrick to keep up his production for the rest of the season even though he’s not a starter. That’s because he has Russell Wilson throwing him the ball.

TE: Robert Tonyan (GB) – 33.8 points

Robert Tonyan had 33.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and wasn’t even the highest scoring TE of the week. However, he was easily the second highest scoring with 6 receptions, 98 receiving yards and 3 receiving TDs to earn his 33.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Prior to Week 4, he was the #24 TE in Dynasty Owner with 26.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, he had scored a receiving TD in each of the past two games, so he should have been owned in more than 74% of Dynasty Owner leagues. That’ll probably go up since he’s now the #2 TE in Dynasty Owner, behind only Travis Kelce, and his salary is only $750,000. If you were ahead of the curve on Tonyan and picked him up after your draft (his ADP is listed as N/A so nobody apparently drafted him), then hopefully you saw the depleted Green Bay receiving corps for this matchup against the dreadful Falcons defense and put Tonyan in your Starting lineup.

K: Randy Bullock (CIN) – 15.0 points

Randy Bullock had 15.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (FGs of 30 yards, 35 yards, 40 yards and 46 yards plus 3 PATs) in the Bengals first win of the 2020 NFL season. It’s not Bullock’s fault that the Bengals were winless as he had made 8 out of 9 FG attempts and all six of his PATs through the first three games. In fact, Bullock had two consecutive weeks with 10.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points before his Week 4 performance. He totaled 43.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points on the season and was rated as the #1 kicker in Dynasty Owner. He’s owned in 76% of Dynasty Owner leagues. If you need a kicker and have a little over $2.1 million in salary cap room, Bullock could be on your roster in the ones that he’s available in the Free Agent Auction. If you already had him, hopefully he was in your Starting lineup this week.

Honorable mentions to two AFC East kickers on bad teams who had really nice kicking games in Week 4. Jason Sanders of the Miami Dolphins had 16.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (2 FGs of 39 yards or less and 3 FGs of 40-49 yards) without attempting an extra point. Sam Ficken of the New York Jets was a perfect six for six on kicking attempts (4 FGs of 39 yards or less plus a 54 yarder and one PAT) for a total of 14.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.

Players Who Should Have Been on the Bench or Practice Squad

For every player who should have been one of your Starters but wasn’t, we have some players who probably were Starters, but were better left on your Bench or Practice Squad. Here are some likely Starters who should have been riding your Dynasty Owner Bench or hanging out on the Practice Squad in Week 4.

QB: Daniel Jones (NYG) – 10.0 points

Hopefully no Dynasty Owner actually stayed with Jones as their Starter this week after two consecutive weeks with less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8.2 points in Week 2 vs. Chicago and 7.9 points in Week 3 vs. San Francisco). On the other hand, many Dynasty Owners spent a draft pick in one of the first four or five rounds (ADP 44.2) on Jones, so they might not have given up just yet. Nobody has gotten rid of him as he’s still owned in all Dynasty Owner leagues, but maybe that’ll change after his Week 4 performance. He was better than the two previous weeks, but not by much with just 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (190 passing yards, 45 rushing yards, 1 INT, 1 fumble). The only starting QBs worse in Week 4 were two guys who were benched (Nick Mullens and Brian Hoyer). Dynasty Owners may have spent an insanely high price for Jones in their draft, but it’s time to put him on the Bench or Practice Squad.

RB: Kenyan Drake (ARI) – 3.5 points

Kenyan Drake did get injured in the fourth quarter of the Cardinals 31-21 loss to the Panthers, but he “earned” his spot on this list through his play in the first three quarters. He only racked up 3.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (35 rushing yards) to continue a decline in fantasy points from 14.5 in Week 1 to 11.5 in Week 2 to 8.9 in Week 3. Sadly, there may be a Dynasty Owner out there who paired his selection of Drake in the second or third round (ADP 30.4) with Daniel Jones in the fourth or fifth round. That’s even worse than having taken Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley or Michael Thomas because at least you don’t have to decide whether or not to start those three every week after drafting them so high. Drake shouldn’t have been in your Starting lineup in Week 4, but plays the Jets in Week 5 so his Dynasty Owners are left with another “do I or don’t I start him” decision this coming week.

WR: Calvin Ridley (ATL) – 0.0 points

If you had Calvin Ridley on your Bench or Practice Squad in Dynasty Owner this week, then let me be the first to congratulate you. If this were the 1990s, I would have suggested you make a cheap infomercial and go head to head with the Psychic Friends Network because nobody saw Ridley’s Week 4 coming after he was declared Active for Monday Night Football. Ridley was riding into the game on Monday night as the top WR in Dynasty Owner with 80.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. And he goes out and gives all of his Dynasty Owners the dreaded Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). He should have been on your Practice Squad this week. There nothing more to say than that.

TE: Mike Gesicki (MIA) – 2.5 points

The Seattle pass defense had been pretty dreadful in the first three weeks of the season, giving up 1,319 passing yards and 6 TDs, or an average of almost 440 yards and 2 TDs per game. Most of that production had come from WRs, but that’s still pretty bad and could lead a Dynasty Owner to put Gesicki in their Starting lineup for just that reason. Gesicki had been pretty good so far this season and was ranked as a Top 12 TE with 41.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which was another good reason to put him in your Starting lineup. Looking closer shows that most of his production came in a 27.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy point performance in Week 2 so he hasn’t been producing on a weekly basis. This week was one in which Gesicki should have been on your Bench or better yet, Practice Squad.

K: Greg Zuerlein (DAL) – 2.0 points The Cowboys scored 38 points in their Week 4 loss to the Cleveland Browns, but Dallas kicker Greg Zuerlein only had 2 PAT attempts in the entire game because the Cowboys were losing by 27 points in the fourth quarter and ended up going for 2-pt conversions after their last three TDs. Zuerlein made both of his PATs, so it’s not his fault that he only scored 2.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Dynasty Owners with Zuerlein on their roster saw the possibility of lots of points in the Cleveland-Dallas game and had invested a high pick in Zuerlein (ADP 178.0) so they were likely putting him in their Starting lineup. They shouldn’t have done that as he was better left on the Bench or Practice Squad (if you have 3 kickers) this week.

Dynasty Owner Matchups of the Week Recap

Just as predicted, it was a close one that went Reverse Kanga FC’s way as they picked up their first Dynasty Owner victory with a 140.3-134.5 win over Judge Jeudy. Congratulations to Reverse Kanga FC owner Wilson Davis on the victory!

Know what happened in this matchup? Reverse Kanga FC opened up an early lead by scoring 100.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the early Sunday games from just five players (Kyler Murray, Kenny Golladay, D.J. Chark, Dalton Schultz and Justin Tucker) to open up a 100.4-51.3 lead. Judge Jeudy relied on four players in the late Sunday afternoon games, including three players from the Buffalo Bills (Josh Allen, Devin Singletary and John Brown) to close the gap, but a paltry 9.7 point game from Robert Woods didn’t help. Reverse Kanga FC’s Starters put them up by 5.3 points and his Bench added the rest for the margin of victory.

Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

The Human Fund is back in first place in the Chase for the Ring as they flipped the standings with All Might who fell back to second place and apparently lost their weekly matchup as their record is 3-1 on the season. Wow!

Besides Keats McGee changing their name to Sweet Keats, there wasn’t a lot of movement in the Top 10 of the Chase for the Ring. Entchev is Homeless drops from #10 last week to completely out of the Top 25 this week, while three new teams (Rimmerworld Smegheads at #6, Kaptastrophe at #7 and Russell Wilson’s War at #9) move in and two other teams from last week’s Top 10 drop out (ShowMeThemCeeDee’s goes from #7 to #11 and HOUND457 goes from #9 to #12).

Conclusions

Hopefully you had more players in the early games than the late ones and were a winner in your Dynasty Owner game this week. It’s too early to tell if the same pattern will hold for Week 5, but check out the recap article next Tuesday to find out.

Please read the preview article which comes out on Friday throughout the Dynasty Owner season to see how my Week 4 recommendations did and who should be a Starter and who should be on your Bench in Week 5. Besides the weekly recap and preview articles, we will also have at least one article every week from one of our other Dynasty Owner writers: Chris Wolf (@ckwolf21), Matt Morrison – The Jerk (@Dynastyjerk) or Jay Poundsee (@jaypoundsnfl).

Hopefully, you didn’t miss the weekly Tuesday Live YouTube podcast with the creator of Dynasty Owner and Dynasty Owner O.G. Paul Gabrail, Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer and Seth Kerechanin, the voice of Dynasty Owner. If so, then head over to YouTube or one of the many other places (iTunes, Spotify, Spreaker) that you can watch or listen to it.

The podcast series with myself and Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer will continue with weekly videos that will be posted on the Dynasty Owner YouTube page as well. You can catch up with older videos and tutorials there as well. Tune in to learn more about Dynasty Owner, see how our predictions did and help you set your weekly lineup. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and make sure to “Like” all of the videos to help promote them. Dynasty Owner remains at over 500 subscribers on YouTube and gaining more every week. All of this great content is available to help you win your Dynasty Owner league and make your way into the Top 25 in the Chase for the Ring standings.

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