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. I make one cash lineup for DraftKings and one for FanDuel.
Each week, I’ll review my cash-game lineups 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 a very clean slate. There were no shaky injury spots and no weather. The NFL has also gotten to a point where I’m playing three RBs in cash almost no matter what, especially while the RB pricing remains loose on both sites. And we had a punt TE on DraftKings, setting up for a slate that suited me well.
Note: Unless stated otherwise, the discussion below is about DraftKings.
MY MUST PLAYS
* Christian McCaffrey proved he was healthy by racking up 31 touches in Week 1 and emerging pain-free. So the $7500 tag was laughable, regardless of who is playing QB for the 49ers or who they are facing. CMC has one of the most fantasy-friendly games in the history of the NFL. He was our highest-projected skill player on the slate, 1.1 points clear of No. 2 Ja’Marr Chase.
* We could certainly poke some holes in Harold Fannin. He’s not an every down player and had a more difficult matchup against the Ravens. But in cash, getting to spend just $3100 at tight end opens up the entire slate. I wasn’t going to think twice on Fannin after he was a featured part of the gameplan right out of the gate in Week 1, and was such an insanely productive college player.
MY WANT PLAYS
* I thought four quarterbacks were in play for cash on DraftKings: Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Justin Fields, and Drake Maye. The tags on Allen and Lamar were cheap relative to last year, but both were in division matchups. I didn’t want to force it on DK, where I’m typically looking to spend down at QB. On FanDuel I’m looking to play elite QB more often, and was always playing Lamar this week.
One of the last 2v2s I looked at was Justin Fields/Saints D/ST vs. Drake Maye/Rams D/ST. I thought that was very close, but we did have Rams D a massive 2.8 points clear of Saints. And Rams DL vs. Titans OL, which was without JC Latham, was one of Brandon Thorn’s mismatches of Week 2. And Cam Ward, a rookie, is going to be mistake prone.
* My WR pool for cash was pretty big. I was willing to sort other positions first, and see what fit at wideout. Even with cheap QB and cheap TE, I knew expensive WR was going to be impossible given what I wanted to do at RB. So as much as I liked Ja’Marr Chase, CeeDee Lamb, and Puka Nacua as cash options… they weren’t going to work.
Getting Patrick Mahomes’ No. 1 WR at just $5200 was a fine cash play even against the Eagles, so Marquise Brown was an easy click. I looked at some teams that had Ricky Pearsall or Calvin Ridley, but in the end I had the money to get into the higher part of the mid-range. Jaxon Smith-Ngijba could lead the NFL in target share and was $6000 – an ideal kind of cash play. And Tee Higgins is someone I don’t typically love playing in cash because his range of outcomes is so wide. But at $6100 against the Jaguars, he was my favorite in that range.
* Getting RB right remains the key to cash. I only had five RBs in my cash pool on DK: McCaffrey, De’Von Achane, Chase Brown, Jonathan Taylor, and James Conner.
As noted last week in this space, Achane’s talent/role/usage combo is absurd. He played 33-of-36 snaps with Tua Tagovailoa last week – we simply don’t get workhorses who are as explosive and so strong in pass-game as Achane. It’s CMC-esque. So despite systemic concerns around Miami, they were actually favorites to beat the Patriots, leaving Achane as a comfy click.
Chase Brown’s role had grown slightly worse than Jonathan Taylor’s. I knew Brown would lose pure pass-downs to Samaje Perine, whereas Taylor played every single first-half snap in Week 1. But I leaned into the better matchup for Brown, home against the Jaguars. As for James Conner, I would’ve been happy to play him with his 2024 role. But I was a hair worried that Trey Benson’s usage could even grow more off of his Week 1 performance.
Week 2 Results
I was happy with most of my decisions this week. The highlight was thinking rationally about the Dolphins situation and not fear-mongering my way off De’Von Achane. I was also happy I identified JSN as the kind of mid-range WR I want to play in cash.
As for FanDuel, I thought the big 3v3 was Derrick Henry, Tyler Warren, and Calvin Ridley vs. Tony Pollard, Trey McBride, and Tee Higgins. We talked about this one a ton on Sunday morning shows, I honestly thought it was a flip and we had it roughly even in projection. Was fortuante to come out ahead on that one, as I never would’ve thought Derrick Henry would fail in this spot as the Ravens won 41-17.
YEAR-TO-DATE RESULTS
Week 1 DraftKings: 111.32 points, won 37.0% of head-to-heads
Week 2 DraftKings: 145.40 points, won 76.5% of head-to-heads
Week 1 FanDuel: 114.22 points, won 92.3% of head-to-heads
Week 2 FanDuel: 119.00 points, won 95.2% of head-to-heads
* Note: Win percentages do not include ties.
