The Costanza Method: Playing Fantasy Football the George Costanza Way, Week 7

I've had pneumonia for more than a week now, which means that, yes, while I was putting in major work on the Interstate Highway System, I was developing a deep and abiding fondness for corticosteroids and, simultaneously, experimenting with the sort of shelf-stable energy cocktails available at gas stations. Experimenting in abundance.

Just a few hours before that 12-hour tour de force (the Dora, Nemo, and "Baymax" DVDs should be in the recycling bin by the time this goes live), I could barely accelerate out of bed, much less out of my in-laws' driveway at 100-plus miles per hour. I made it through just fine, though, and now I'm home. It's cold as hell and my sweatpants have holes in them, but I made it! I really did! What a great accomplishment that is, to drive a car for a while and then, later, put the experience on a sports blog.

If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough;
If you get knocked down, you gotta get back up.

Plenty of folks would say the Costanza Method is dumb, I'm guessing, based on how the official fantasy analysis usually goes. For our part, at least, we sure as hell got knocked down in Week 5. Which means that, in Week 6, there was nothing to do but get up and do it again.

Does that make sense? No. Nothing makes sense. A DraftKings analyst saying he didn't want to draft DeAndre Hopkins (26.6pts) because he was already leaning on fellow Texan Arian Foster (18.17pts) doesn't make sense. ESPN's Matthew Berry touting any player in daily fantasy, which is a catch-all term for contests of chance that generally require real money be wagered on all-too-real sports outcomes, as "a safe…play" doesn't make sense. The new film Rock The Kasbah—well, come on, enough said. If you wanted something that made sense, you wouldn't have read past the part where I admitted a dependency on weird rest-stop energy drinks.

Last Week's Fistpumps and Faceplants

Cam Newton, 21.76pts - 11th QB +
Marcus Mariota, 8.76pts - 23rd QB --
Arian Foster, 22.2pts - 6th RB ++
Knile Davis, 3.5pts - 55th RB --
Ronnie Hillman, 17.5pts - 9th RB ++
Gio Bernard, 14.3pts - 11th RB +
Danny Amendola, 20.50pts - 12th WR ++
Odell Beckham, Jr, 19.1pts - 14th WR ++
Anquan Boldin, 18.2pts - 17th WR ++
Julius Thomas, 20.8pts - 4th TE ++

What does make sense, though, is how massively we killed it on our picks the last go-round. Granted, I did all of the prognosticating, and you just sat there and nodded, but still—this is a hell of a run for us. It may look obvious in retrospect that these players would thrive, but remember that Odell Beckham, Jr., was missing practice, Cam Newton was taking the shakiest 4-0 team of all time into Seattle's rageful maw, and Danny Amendola was considering getting fitted for a pair of little LEGO claw hands to improve his grip.

Point being, if you went with my gut on a couple of the guys from last week's column whose names didn't rhyme with "Meyton Panning," then not only did you put up some nice totals but you did it with players that weren't on a lot of other rosters. Other than the warm embrace of a dear friend during times of need and stock in Tesla Motors (whoops!), scoring points with underused players is the only thing in this world with any damn value whatsoever!

Sam Bradford, QB, Eagles - $6,100

The Eagles are like Norm Macdonald to me right now: I don't remember them always being this funny, but damn it if at this very moment they are not the most hysterical things in the world. Maybe you have to reach a certain age before you think a highly touted, quick-paced, genius-level offense committing four turnovers in a blowout win and "The Moth Joke" are funny. I'm not sure. All I know is that I can't stop laughing.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, QB, Jets - $5,200

When considering the wisdom of the contrarian worldview, look no further than the Patriots' imaginary blowout against the hapless Colts last week. The Colts didn't win, of course; if not for the World's Most Idiotic Sports Fart, maybe they could have come a bit closer. The Jets will also not win, and in so doing may well release a few ill-timed farts of their own. As good as having Gronkowski and Brady and Belichick is—and I trust that it is a hell of a lot better than rooting for the "Bullshit Football" guy, as I do—they're still handing out points and yards like they're porno booklets in Vegas. Hey, points and yards—that's the stuff we like! You can keep the booklets, though. Thanks. I already have a lot of booklets.

Le'Veon Bell, RB, Steelers - $8,400

Paying this much for a running back not named Devonta Freeman seems almost as outrageous as the fact that Devonta Freeman is somehow having the season he's having. Even as the Falcons' frenetic toter evolves into the NFL's one and only TerrorBack, shaving riverboat-size holes in opposing defenses like somebody put caffeine pills in his jetpack, there are other, more … human running backs in the league who are playing "OK," or even "sometimes fine." Bell is one of those guys, and I think Freeman's ascendance means that the Steelers RB is primed to become a value.

Shane Vereen, RB, Giants - $4,300

Chris Johnson, RB, Cardinals - $4,300

T.Y. Hilton, WR, Colts - $6,500

Andrew Luck may talk like Andre the Giant, but his performance to this point in the season is more reminiscent of Andy Sorenstein, the chubby neighborhood kid you stiff arm on the way to work every morning. Donte Moncrief may have come on in that weird way that WR2s seem to do when their quarterbacks are in a malaise, but the considerably more talented pass catcher to his left has managed just one cheapo TD all year long. I like him to get well against the Saints' pass defense. I also think young Andy could put up some decent numbers against the Saints pass defense.

Amari Cooper, WR, Raiders - $6,500

A good thing to do when putting together your DFS roster is to check out the OPRK (Opponent Rank) column—but not because it offers you any actionable advice, since the data behind that ranking is not public (if by some chance it is, I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway). Most people are going to use it, though, in a game attempt to avoid what appear to be the stingiest defenses, in favor of the more egg-whitey, puffy ones. To me, this is the equivalent of paying attention to the "past results" on a roulette table. Stop trying to win this rat race.

This week, Cooper faces the Chargers, who lead the league in, um, being the guys that are ranked No. 1 on the DraftKings computer machine. Football Outsiders, on the other hand, which is a place where very smart people type on calculators all day, has the Chargers ranked at 15th in DVOA versus the pass. You can figure out what all goes into that formula and maybe Aaron Schatz will give you a job, or you can just use Amari Cooper in your fantasy lineup, like I am going to do. Your call.

Pierre Garcon, WR, Washington - $5,000

Mike Evans, WR, Bucs - $6,400

Come on with this guy by now, right?

Antonio Brown, WR, Steelers - $7,900

This is, in part, a bet that Pittsburgh will not be trotting out Landry Jones to start his first professional game in Arrowhead Stadium. It's a gamble that you will, in all likelihood, have more information on by Sunday than we are dealing with at press time, but it seems that even in the worst-case scenario, Brown's recent mini-swoon could depress his attractiveness to a point that he conceivably becomes a counterintuitive play.

Waiting on a damn phone call is one of the more frustrating things to do in the Year of our Lord 2015, and taking one is even worse.

It's worse still because the solution to this thorny issue has already been devised: it is called voicemail, and it died out roughly 70 years ago for reasons unknown to me or to anyone else. It was perfect! You called about the thing, the guy you wanted to talk to was taking a nap or yelling at the microwave or whatever, he called you back later and got your voicemail while you were trying to explain to the kids how come you can sometimes still see the moon in the daytime, which is a thing I do not know and never will. What was wrong with this system, exactly? It has the perfect amount of perceived and expended effort. You don't have to install a keyboard that will turn your mangled words into sensible utterances algorithmically. All you have to do is talk into the bottom part of the phone. Simple. Elegant.

Now we live in a hell where every ring of the phone is an emergency: to find the phone, to pretend we are normal humans who do this type of thing all the time, to summon the courage to entertain another individual's coughs and spurts blared into your inner ear for God only knows how long. By the way, we killed off alarm clocks, too, so this is also how we wake up in the damn morning. In a world of Garfields, we've made our phones the Odies. Congratulations to everyone. Here are your Call-Ups.

Derek Carr, QB, Raiders

Brian Hoyer, QB, Texans

These two may have some discount-rack, generic-sounding names, but they nevertheless have been hanging around the top of my league's QB scoring the past couple of weeks. For Sunday, ESPN's composite ranks have them each in the low 20s; this is below Joe Flacco, I'll point out, who at this point I wouldn't trust to start my car, much less a football game. This seems wrong. I'll roll with Brian Hoyer, I think, unless someone invites me to do anything cooler this weekend.

Danny Woodhead, RB, Chargers

Please stop ranking him so low! He's good! I don't know why—taking that pill from that CBS show that is somehow not already canceled is one theory, midichlorians is another—but the guy is good! Mostly at catching the ball, granted, but as that is one of the three or so things you can do in football, it counts

Doug Martin, RB, Bucs

Willie Snead, WR, Saints

There's really no way to figure out which receiver is in what position for the Saints on any given week, or who will draw the most targets. The best I can figure is, the Colts couldn't stop a version of Julian Edelman that, by the end, was karate chopping more passes than he was grabbing, and they made our Amendola pick look pretty decent, too. Now it's time to make the Colts earn your respect by playing unknown 1950s bluesman Willie "Steamboat" Snead against them.

Martavis Bryant, WR, Steelers

Leonard Hankerson, WR, Falcons

I'm taking a wait-and-see approach with formerly stout pass defenses like Seattle and Kansas City, but Tennessee has shown more than enough already. My Titans are a triumphantly awful 32nd in efficiency against opposing team's No. 2 receivers, and until the Falcons convince Roddy White to come out of the damn tree house and get some dinner before he catches a cold, Hankerson is the guy in that spot. Conservatively, I'm penciling Big Leo in for 70 catches and 80 TDs.

Ben Watson, TE, Saints

Despite the Colts' many failures, which they were cranking out like grocery store pumpkins in Week 6, the game plan they deployed to stifle Rob Gronkowski worked fairly well. However, Ben Watson is not Rob Gronkowski, so I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he were allowed to breach the sidelines and ask Coach Pagano himself what the coverages were going to be. I wouldn't be surprised if Pagano told him, either.