You don’t have to play cash games to understand why it’s important to grasp them. Players we consider for cash are the ones we believe are the most underpriced, have the best floor/ceiling combo, and feature a relatively tight range of outcomes.
In other words, these are the best plays on the board once price, slate context, and positional depth are accounted for. Those sound like pretty good options for GPPs as well.
The optimal GPP lineup will mix some of these cash-type plays with higher-variance options in correlated lineups. In cash games (where roughly 50% of the field gets paid out), we don’t worry about ownership, game stacks, or correlation. In large-field tournaments, our ACO (average cumulative ownership) should stay reasonably low. Please read this article and listen to Episode 619 of the podcast for more on large-field tournament strategy.
For more tournament content, check out our projections, Gary Hartman’s GPP Leverage, and Saturday’s Establish The Million with Drew Dinkmeyer and Mike Leone.
With all that said, these are our Top Plays considering the following factors: median projection, matchup, upside, and value. Ownership is NOT considered here. Generally speaking, these players are what we consider to be “head-to-head and 50/50 considerations”.
They are listed in price descending order (NOT ranked by “best play”). At the bottom, you’ll find suggested rankings by site once salary is accounted for.
QUARTERBACK
Josh Allen ($7,900 DK, $9,200 FD) – Coming off of a week to forget, Allen gets a prime bounce-back spot back at home against a Raiders defense that doesn’t scare you. Add in the fact that there is fantastic correlation on both sides of this game, and Allen does seem like the top spend-up cash option and an excellent high-ceiling play in any format.
Anthony Richardson ($6,300 DK, $7,500 FD) – FanDuel went ahead and priced A-Rich all the way up over Joe Burrow and only $100 less than top cash option Lamar Jackson, so he’s certainly more appealing on DraftKings. It was an impressive debut for the fourth overall pick, who not only showed off his dual-threat ability but was a more voluminous and efficient passer than any of us expected. He gets a great matchup with Houston in Week 2.
Daniel Jones ($6,000 DK, $7,500 FD) – Rating as our top QB value on DraftKings, Daniel Jones likely never wants to think about last Sunday night again but will get the perfect opportunity to get that Dallas beatdown out of his head in a strong matchup with the Cardinals. It’s important not to get locked into Week 1 results, and Jones is an ideal mid-tier/spend-down QB option for cash this week.
RUNNING BACK
We create the highest-quality NFL content
Our team includes renowned fantasy analysts Evan Silva and Adam Levitan, high-stakes professional DFS players, and specialists who cover niche areas that we believe are important to understand.
We don’t sell lineups or claim to have all of the answers. We do analyze what’s happening in a way that’s digestible and actionable, with a goal of preparing you to make the best decisions possible during the 2024 NFL season.
Read on to learn what’s inside our In-Season NFL subscription.
Full Details! » Already a subscriber? Log In