😡 Tilt On Your Own Terms

In this week's P.O. Box:

This was a brutal week for NFL injuries (four impact fantasy players were sent to IR) and I know it’s bummed a lot of fantasy players out.

It’s especially cruel when you feel like you’ve hit on a league-winning selection like Anthony Richardson or De’Von Achane, only to watch them get put on ice for a crucial stretch of the regular season and bring into question their late-season availability/effectiveness.

It’s got me thinking about two things in particular:

1. How we think and talk about our player exposures

2. How we sweat and tilt our portfolios

🤔 You draft teams, not players

Posting screenshots of exposures has become one of the more fun things about fantasy football.

Whether it’s victory lapping a large best ball position that is hitting its upside scenario, or scrutinizing how the top DFS pros handled a tricky RB in Week 5, exposure spotlighting is an objectively fun exercise and conversation starter.

But it’s ultimately useless.

Fantasy football—whether best ball, managed, or daily—is about lineups, not exposures.

Liam drafted an absurd amount of Gabe Davis in BBM2…and won the tournament with a team that didn’t have Davis.

Kerrane drafted a single share of Tyquan Thornton across all 150 of his lineups in BBM3…and won the tournament with the lone team that included Thornton.

It’s why I laughed when people said De’Von Achane or Wan’Dale Robinson was a “good” or “bad” play at their projected ownership in Week 5 DFS contests. A DraftKings roster consists of nine players, not one.

Yesterday on LOLz I asked Youdacao—arguably the most successful DFS player of all time—whether Achane was a good play or not. This was his response:

Btw, I explained my thought process on using both of the slate’s most polarizing plays on this week’s Pourtfolio Review, if you want to dig in further:

Seeing someone’s exposures simply gives you insight into their risk tolerance levels, but it tells you nothing about their ability to construct +ev lineups.

The same thing applies to best ball. I may think you are crazy for having 132 Najee Harris shares in Best Ball Mania IV, but it tells me nothing about your ability as a drafter.

I do get skeptical about massively overweight positions (in best ball specifically) because I’m doubtful that any one specific player can make sense on nearly every team, but that’s beside the point.

The takeaway, rather, is that it was very much possible to build smart lineups around a single player at a high clip regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the player evaluation.

I think the biggest selling point for overweight positions in fantasy is the “clean sweat” element. If you lock button a player in your lineups, it’s pretty clear what you are rooting for on a given Sunday. When you have spread out exposures in BBBM4 like me, it’s harder to know what is helping and hurting you without sifting through the individual teams.

😡 Tilting is up to you

Like so many things in life, fantasy is a balance of caring just enough to get enjoyment/fulfillment from the exercise (and to be good at it!) while not being so invested (both emotionally and monetarily) that your overall mood and mental health is impacted by the results and outcomes.

This balance can only be calibrated on an individual level and everyone needs to be honest with themselves about what level of tilting they can handle before it becomes detrimental.

In a recent post on his Substack, Mike Leone explained why he is working to remove tilting from his relationship with fantasy:

On a recent #ShipCast, Lord Reebs revealed that he didn’t even know he had a team in the BBM3 finals last year because he had no interest in sweating something outside of his control.

For some people, that’s a bridge too far and removes the fun of fantasy. But for others, it’s a necessary action to ensure better mental health.

I made multiple tweaks to my content schedule this year to help specifically reduce tilt (sometimes in the literal sense). These shifts have legitimately resulted in me having more fun this season…which let’s not forget, is the entire fucking point of this in the first place.

I know people enjoy having someone to commiserate with after a bad week, but I decided I no longer wanted to be the one providing that service and I’ve enjoyed this season much more because of it.

Even making slight tweaks to my Monday Morning GPP Review show, which is now an overall portfolio, err, Pourtfolio review, has allowed me to spend less time being miserable about losing lineups and more time celebrating the wins from the Deposit Kingdom community and getting excited about potential sweats down the road.

If you are down in the dumps this week, consider reducing your emotional (and monetary) investment. Or at the very least, shift your focus to the aspects of fantasy that are actually fun for you.

We need to continually remind ourselves that we are playing massive tournaments and contests where less than .01% of the field is going to walk away happy each week.

Sweating and tilting can be fun, just make sure you are doing it on your terms.

💎 Week 6 Hidden Gems for Battle Royale & DFS. Wrote about my favorite “scroll he eff down” plays for Underdog contests this week.

☕️ GPP Lessons, Underdog Tips & Hot BBM teams. On this week's Pourtfolio Review, we review our DFS lineups on DraftKings and explain how to evaluate your GPP play from a process perspective and debate whether punt plays are better for large-field or small-field contests. We then review a handful of winning lineups on Underdog and explain how GlueEater used ADP fallers to build a unique juggernaut that took down Battle Royale. We wrap things up by reviewing a handful of my best teams in Best Ball Mania IV, The Bulldog, and The Rotweiller.

🏆️ Fantasy Life roundup. Recapped Ja’Marr Chase’s explosion in Week 5, dissected three backfields in flux, and did a depressing roundup of all the impact players who were placed on IR.

☣️ $3M Downswings & DFS Collusion ft. Youdacao. We welcome high stakes DFS crusher Youdacao to LOLz to discuss his process, why DFS projections aren't better, how many hours he spends a week on research, his thoughts on sims, collusion in high stakes 3-mans, a tip for handbuilders, and the other pro he recommends studying.

💪 Swolecast: Draftkings Week 6 picks. Socrdave is back and ready to tour some gross plays.

🚢 #ShipCast: The Broncos' WR Mess & CFB Mania In CO w/ CSURAM88. The Ship Chasing crew is back for another #ShipCast to sweat the Broncos/Chiefs game. We get a quick death on a Javonte Williams rushing lower and debate which Broncos WR will score the most points rest of season. Stephanie Miller joins to recap Week 6 waivers, discuss the art of churning, and laugh about a Rashod Bateman incident on one of the teams. Later in the show, CSURAM88 joins to discuss the Broncos dysfunction, college football in Colorado, and to tilt/sweat/celebrate an insane bet he had on the Houston game.

🏀 NBA Best Ball 101: Underdog Strategy. Mike Zakarian from Team Hold joins us to talk some hoops and best ball strategy while drafting a Double Dribble team on Underdog.

📈 Injury Shakeups Galore! (+Usage Trends & Draft Tips). Drico & SackReligious review utilization and trends through Week 5 in the fantasy landscape to help you make the best decisions for waivers, drafts and DFS heading into Week 6. Topics discussed: the rise of Brock Purdy, Travis Etienne szn, it's finally Breece Hall's backfield, Emari Demercado, Tyjae Spears usage, the Bears backfield, Adam Thielen can't keep getting away with it, and Jakobi Meyers was a smash all along.

📊 Ship Chasing High Stakes Team Reviews & Week 6 Waiver Roundup. Steph recaps our high stakes teams and a wild week of waivers after all of the injuries.

We got 4 shows on tap before the Week 6 main slate kicks off…

🧩 Block Party: Week 6 DFS Plays & GPP Strat w/ JMToWin

⏱️ Off & On The Clock: Week 6 Draft Party w/ Badge Bros

🥃 DFS After Dark: Interview & DFS Build w/ Justin Freeman

🤓 Week 6 DFS Cram: Top GPP Plays & Hidden Gems

📺️ Underdog dropped a commercial. And Jon Warner put together the definitive screengrab thread:

😺 Meow Meow. Ian Hartitz lost in our Fantasy Life eliminator league this week and his punishment was to include “meow” in all of his tweets Wednesday:

💪 Gladiator Program. Nice rake back here for high volume UD players.

Need more newslettering? Fantasy Life newsletter drops every day: