FAABulous Football Week 1: Viva Las Vegas
Welcome to Week 1
I don’t know about all of you, but this off season has flown by! I cannot believe we are just days away from the start of the NFL season. Last year I started a waiver newsletter, “FAABulous Football” and I am ecstatic to write this article at Legendary Upside every week. Expanding our in-season content to help subscribers dominate their fantasy leagues “one waiver add a time.”
This article is a bit different from your typical waiver column.
At the end of the article, I cover home league recommendations.
But there will be a lot of focus on high stakes, especially FFPC contests and strategy discussions. Much of the player discussions and analysis will be pertinent to other high stakes leagues and deeper fantasy leagues as well.
Another unique feature is that I will chronicle all the high stakes teams for Ship Chasing, discussing weekly performances of all the teams and actual waiver bids I make. I am not just giving you any generic run-of-the-mill waiver adds... but putting my money where my mouth is, and implementing these recommendations.
I hope you all had a chance to watch some of the FFPC Main Event drafts the Ship Chasers have done so far, it will make this experience that much more fun to follow along with. If not, I highly recommend going back and watching Pat Kerrane, Pete Overzet, and Ben Gretch draft these main event teams. These gentlemen offer a rare combination of elite strategy and intelligence intertwined with top-notch entertainment.
My journey for this NFL season begins in Las Vegas, where I will draft my own FFPC main event team live with the boys of Ship Chasing. Then we will get to watch the Thursday and Friday night games and live it up with the annual Ship Chasing party (come say hello if you are out there).
Because I am spending week 1 in Las Vegas, this article will be less detailed and shorter than the rest of the season. I am going to spend time discussing specific Week 1 strategy for FFPC teams and give a list of recommendations for Week 1 home league waivers. First, let's review the Ship Chasing high stakes teams I will chronicle this season.
The Ship Chasing Teams
This year the guys decided to lean into a theme for naming most of the FFPC Main Event high stakes teams… David Kitchenisms. There are eight Main Event teams and two $5,000 Big Payback teams that I will follow this year.
FFPC Main Event
The Main Event is FFPC’s flagship high stakes tournament with a $2k buy in and million dollar top prize. There is a maximum of 4,260 entries, consisting of both online and live drafters. This contest is the definition of top-heavy, so we will be swinging for the fences throughout. As a reminder, FFPC is full PPR scoring and TEP (people forget).
The season breaks down into three parts, regular season weeks 1-12, league playoffs weeks 13-14, and championship round, aka the sprint weeks 15-17. With the top two seeds from each draft, best record, and most points, automatically advancing to the sprint. The third and fourth-seeded teams can win a spot if they win their league championship. Once teams are in the sprint, it is cumulative scoring weeks 15-17 to decide the winner.
Another unique aspect of these FFPC contests is the ability to “sneak a peek” with the Thursday and Friday night games. Because there are drafts in these contests occurring after these opening games, all participants are allowed to retroactively start players from them after we know the scores. Smart and savvy FFPC drafters will strategize to maximize the advantage sneak a peek can offer through the waiver wire, which I will detail my approach for you this week.
Now let's look at the eight Main Event teams.
Live a Little is the team featured in the Ship Chasing mini-episodes. Pat, Pete, and Gretch enter a slow Main Event draft and record discussions for draft decisions and strategy as part of this series, which is available to Ship Chasing subscribers each year. This season, the team drafted out of the 6 spot went to battle with another well-known and beloved member of the Ship Chasing community, Gormanji, whose heavy WR piss teams are often lusted over by other Ship Chasers.
Top 2 Win It Win It is another slow draft team. The Ship Chasing guys teamed up with two other Ship Chasers, Erik and Eddie. This was not a streamed draft, however, this team did manage to get the influencer 1.01, which always feels good.
We Just Don't Know was the first team featured on a Thursday night Ship Chasing episode. The guys kicked off the year strong, drafting a team from the 2-hole with a couple of familiar faces, Conor O'Driscoll and Sackreligious from Stat Chasing, and our very own Legendary Upside.
Tree Branches was the next Thursday night draft, this time joined by the short king himself, Davis Mattek. The guys got a later position, pick 9, and ended up drafting next to another Ship Chaser and FFPC grinder, Frank.
Hear Ye Hear Ye is the team drafted with Rotoviz’s Shawn Siegele and was the next Thursday night featured live stream event. Another team drafted from the 9-hole, and it should shock no one to learn that the guys opted for a zero RB strategy in this one.
CrakRok was the grand finale of featured Thursday night drafts before everyone sails off to Las Vegas. This stream was easily the most anticipated of the year, with the crowds’ favorite political and NFL insider, dispensary owner, and entertainer extraordinaire CrakRok. This show was laugh-out-loud hilarious as always, despite the team getting stuck with the dreaded 12 spot.
Dairy Queen is the team I will be drafting with the guys live in Las Vegas, Thursday afternoon at 12:30. We got the 12 spot and are drafting with two other known Ship Chasers, Dr.Evil1996 in the 10 spot and JamesonPainter in the 5 spot. I cannot wait to see how the team turns out this year.
Caveish is the final main event team in the Ship Chasing portfolio this year. This is another live draft in Vegas on Friday afternoon at 1:30. The Ship Chasers will be joined by Serum114 for this draft, and drew the 2 spot. JTimber, a Legendary Upside subscriber, is also in this draft and drew the 7 spot.
The FFPC $5,000 Big Payback Teams
This is the only other FFPC high stakes contest the Ship Chasing crew is drafting this year. These two teams will be drafted in Vegas, however Mike Leone will be online because he could not join us this year.
These contests are within a self contained league divided into three divisions. The regular season is weeks 1-14, and the league playoffs are weeks 15-17. This format uses a victory points scoring system, in which six teams advance to the playoffs. The first three spots are given to the top-scoring team in each division during the regular season, and the three remaining teams with the most victory points are given the final three spots.
The top two seeded teams earn a bye in week 15, while the remaining four teams battle it out in an elimination round, axing the two lowest-scoring teams. In weeks 16 and 17, all remaining teams compete for the league championship, which is determined by cumulative points for weeks 16 and 17. The top prize is $25k.
Leone HS 1 will be drafted online on Tuesday, September 3 at 7:30 pm.
Leone HS 2 will be drafted Friday, September 6 at 9:00 am, where the Ship Chasers will be live, and Leone will contribute virtually.
Week 1 Waiver Priorities for FFPC
This section will be looking very different this week, as I want to spend time analyzing how to best take advantage of the sneak a peek offered in week 1. For FFPC teams that have already drafted, there is a Wednesday night waiver run.
I recommend prioritizing players from the Thursday and Friday games, if any are available, and would not drop any player from this game yet unless that is your only possible cut.
My other recommendation is to look and see if any of these team defenses or kickers are available to pick up on Wednesday (if you have a clear drop). For all the teams I am managing, I will remove players from the starting lineup in these games, then, if I don’t want to use their score, I can easily drop them and replace them on the Sunday waiver run. You can move players into your starting lineup after they play, but in order to drop players, they need to be taken out of your starting lineup and on your bench for the waiver run.
Below is a rough rank for priority players from these games I would look at on the waiver wire.
