I play around 60% of my action each week in “cash games.” Cash games refer to any contest in which roughly 50% of the field gets paid out, such as head-to-head, double up or 50/50. I try to get as much head-to-head action as I can every week and then supplement that with other cash games.
Each week, I’ll review my cash-game lineup in this space. Sometimes I’ll lose, but hopefully I’ll win more often. Either way, I’ll post it here and give you my thought process.
This was my favorite slate of the year on DraftKings for cash. At long last, we finally had a loosely priced slate thanks to Tua Tagovailoa’s return, Jameis Winston starting, the Bucs WR injuries, and the matchup for the Broncos. We didn’t have to jam in a bunch of flimsy plays with wide range of outcomes, as we have for much of this season.
MY MUST PLAYS
* Tyreek Hill’s price of just $7000 reflected Tyler Huntley at quarterback. However, Tua Tagovailoa was back from his latest concussion, just in time for a plus matchup at home against the Cardinals. The foot injury that left Tyreek with a “questionable” tag was a concern, but he was expected to play as of Friday, and this insanely cheap pricetag left a ton of room for error.
* I wasn’t going to play an $8500 Ja’Marr Chase considering he’s been out-targetd by Tee Higgins in every game they’ve played together this season. But then Higgins hurt his quad in practice Friday. At that point, $8500 for Chase became too cheap and he was easy to fit given how loosely priced this slate was.
* Mike Evans (hamstring) and Chris Godwin (knee) both went down on Monday night. That left only Cade Otton as a comfortable/reliable target for Baker Mayfield. This came in a great spot, home for another potential shootout with the Falcons. And Otton was just $3500, in the punt TE range.
I think given Jameis Winston starting and the matchup with the Ravens, you could have easily made a case for David Njoku at $5100. But Otton was a lock, so the only way to play Njoku in cash was double-TE. Which is not something I like to do unless really forced by pricing.
MY WANT PLAYS
* As usual this season, it was a very strong slate for running backs. I considered six to be in the first cut: Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry, Breece Hall, JK Dobbins, De’Von Achane, and Javonte Williams.
I did think Breece was the closest to a “must” at $7300. He’s separated in a big way from Braelon Allen ever since Nathaniel Hackett was stripped of playcalling duties, is excellent in the pass game, the Patriots were a fine matchup.
I also really wanted to play De’Von Achane on full-PPR DraftKings. We know he can shatter a slate on low volume when priced at just $6200, and when Tua was healthy early this season Achane was a featured member of the pass game.
And then Javonte Williams was underpriced at $6000 simply due to matchup – the Panthers came into the game giving up an outrageous 0.7 more TDs per game than any other defense in the league.
Going to battle without Dobbins, Big Dog, and Saquon obviously didn’t feel good. But I thought the latter two would be lightly owned in tournaments, and got exposure to them there.
* Speaking of the Panthers defense, the Broncos had an implied team total of 26 points for this home game. For reference, that was 2nd-highest on the entire slate behind only the Lions. Bo Nix is also an excellent runner – he came into this game on pace for 619 rush yards and 7 rush TDs. Add that up and although it didn’t feel great, I was fine leaning into our massive Nix projection here.
* We had at least four solid options at the cheap end of wide receiver. And nothing in the mid-range I really loved. So it was a no-brainer to punt one of the WR spots in order to afford Tyreek + Chase and three smash RBs.
I thought the options were Jalen McMillan ($3700), Andrei Iosivas ($3600), Jake Bobo ($3300), or Cedric Tillman ($3300). If I had the money I likely would’ve gone with McMillan or Yoshi. But in this lineup, I only had exactly $3300. Given how much I love Jameis downfield aggression and how much I (and all NFL teams) love to attack this Ravens secondary, Tillman was the choice over Bobo. Note that Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins were both out, adding to the elite matchup for Tillman.
* There were some really strong defenses this week for both QB play and OL/DL Mismatches, but they were all expensive-ish. I wanted to play one of Broncos (Bryce Young), Chiefs (Gardner Minshew), Jets (Drake Maye), Ravens (Jameis Winston), Chargers (Spencer Rattler) or Texans (Anthony Richardson).
But this team had no room to find $700 in salary cleanly. And I wasn’t going to rip up a team I really liked for a D/ST change. So I took the cheapest viable option in the Falcons – at least we knew Baker Mayfield would drop back a ton and could be some mistakes without Godwin/Evans.
Week 8 Results
I don’t have the data to back it up. But my gut is that the looser priced the slate is, the better I do. This week was no different as I had my best results since Week 1. I was happy with my decision to lean into the projection on Bo NIx, and also to not force in an expensive D/ST. These slates where we can comfortably play cheap QB, cheap TE, and cheap D/ST aren’t ones I want to overthink.
YEAR-TO-DATE RESULTS
Week 1 DraftKings: 147.38 points, won 98.6% of head-to-heads
Week 2 DraftKings: 116.94 points, won 21.1% of head-to-heads
Week 3 DraftKings: 109.3 points, won 54.8% of head-to-heads
Week 4 DraftKings: 146.28 points, won 75.3% of head-to-heads
Week 5 DraftKings: 143.06 points, won 83.5% of head-to-heads
Week 6 DraftKings: 134.12 points, won 50.1% of head-to-heads
Week 7 DraftKings: 93.14 points, won 28.2% of head-to-heads
Week 8 DraftKings: 173.16 points, won 96.3% of head-to-heads
Week 1 FanDuel: Did not play
Week 2 FanDuel: 143.24 points, won 75.2% of head-to-heads
Week 3 FanDuel: 111.88 points, won 71.9% of head-to-heads
Week 4 FanDuel: 120.92 points, won 41.9% of head-to-heads
Week 5 FanDuel: 130.22 points, won 71.4% of head-to-heads
Week 6 FanDuel: 133.36 points, won 80.6% of head-to-heads
Week 7 FanDuel: 100.04 points, won 65.0% of head-to-heads
Week 8 FanDuel: 122.36 points, won 70.4% head-to-heads
* Note: Win percentages do not include ties.
