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.
I decided to focus my cash game attention on FanDuel again this week. I talked about it a bit on this Solo Pod, but the bottom line is I’ve merely wanted to change things up. The scoring system (half-PPR, no bonuses) and pricing structure ($60K cap vs. $50K cap) certainly necessitates a change in strategy.
This was a messy slate because of the Ja’Marr Chase injury. It not only affected the QB decision between Joe Burrow and Geno Smith, but also the outlook on guys like Tyler Boyd and Trenton Irwin.
MY MUST PLAYS
* I almost never consider a D/ST a must. But on FanDuel, it is such a big decision weekly. That’s because there are no 300- or 100-yard bonuses, and it’s half-PPR. But D/ST scoring is the same as DraftKings. The D/STs are also clumped closer together in terms of pricing on FD.
So with all that said, I thought playing the Cowboys D against Tommy DeVito was a must. Especially since Dallas has one of the league’s best pass rushes and was facing Brandon Thorn’s No. 26 offensive line.
* Tank Dell would have been a strong play if Nico Collins (calf) was healthy. But Nico was out, removing a major target-earner from a potential shootout with the Bengals. So we had the explosive Dell in a potential alpha role with the Texans leaning hard into the pass recently. At just $6400, I was always playing Tank here.
MY WANT PLAYS
* This slate was really lacking elite QB options. No Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, or Tua Tagovailoa. I still wanted access to a big-time QB, and had Joe Burrow targeted for most of the week. But with Tee Higgins (hamstring) out and Ja’Marr Chase (back) in doubt, I was fine going down to Geno Smith. Although he’s really struggled, this $6900 tag was extremely cheap given the matchup against the Commanders. DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and JSN were all healthy – and the Commanders were the fourth-best matchup for QBs in our DvP metrics. They also recently traded away pass rushers Chase Young and Montez Sweat.
* I’d be lying if I said I felt good about Bijan Robinson. Especially given his lack of red-zone role on TD-heavy FanDuel. But he was borderline free at $6600 in a matchup against the Cardinals. And I did think there was some chance that Arthur Smith would capitulate to all the usage pressure on Bijan, Meanwhile, RBs I really liked such as Austin Ekeler ($9000) and Christian McCaffrey ($10500) were nearly impossible to fit at cost. So closing my eyes and betting on talent + matchup with Bijan made sense.
* Similarly, I’d be lying if I said I felt good about Tony Pollard. I talked a ton on this Solo Pod about all of Pollard’s issues this season. He isn’t being used as a $7800 player. However, I was willing to make an exception here for the spot. A three-down plus goal-line running back, no matter how bad, is always a good bet to succeed as a 17-point home favorite against the Giants.
* I thought the $6000 range at WR was fairly strong. I already mentioned Tank Dell ($6400) as a must. We also had Tyler Boyd ($6200), Marquise Brown ($6600), Christian Kirk ($6700), and Tyler Lockett ($6800).
I didn’t have a lot of conviction on this range. With Kyler Murray back, I expected the quality of Hollywood’s targets to rise. And given the target competition, the 24% target share he saw from Kyler last season should’ve been sticky. In this particular lineup, I did not have any extra money to get to Kirk or Lockett anyway.
* The last 3v3 I looked at was Aaron Jones, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Trey McBride vs. Joe Mixon, DeAndre Hopkins and Evan Engram. I knew the first side would be far more popular. We had that side around 0.9 points ahead in projection.
However, I really did not like this spot for Jones. The Packers had a team total of just 17.75, third-worst on the slate. I expected the Steelers DL to overwhelm Jordan Love and the Packers OL. Meanwhile, the Bengals had the slate’s third-highest team total at 25.5. Jones and Mixon were only $900 apart in price.
Of course, getting off ARSB in this potential shootout at the Chargers wasn’t comfortable. But on FanDuel, the 9-100-0 games at $8600 are nice but far from back-breaking. So I decided to veer off the “chalk” a bit, get off Aaron Jones, and go with the balanced team.
Week 10 Results
Another week, another close decision that I got wrong. This time it was the 3v3 (described above) that I lost by an unfathomable 32.1 points. And that’s not to just chalk this up to randomness or running bad. These 1v1s, 2v2s and 3v3s that I’ve been getting wrong all season are the entire game in cash. If I can’t get these right, I can’t win.
The only shred of good news is that I was down so bad after the 1pm games that I was forced to late swap before the 4pm ET games started. I did this in higher stakes games when my opponent only had Aaron Jones and Tank Dell to start, making it very likely they had the other side of the 3v3.
To be clear, I only late swap in head-to-heads when I know for certain I am buried and likely blocked as well.
The swap I made was Geno Smith, Bijan Robinson, Marquise Brown, and Cowboys D into Dak Prescott, Kenneth Walker, Brandin Cooks, and Seahawks D/ST. This gave me two sets of two correlated pieces to try to come back and get lucky. And I did. Here’s what it looked like:
Year-To-Date Results
Week 1: 132.7 points, won 51.5% of head-to-heads
Week 2: 126.34 points, won 63.6% of head-to-heads
Week 3: 166.98 points, won 59.8% of head-to-heads
Week 4: 169.12 points, won 75.2% of head-to-heads
Week 5: 107.62 points, won 5.5% of head-to-heads
Week 6: 140.22 points, won 49.1% of head-to-heads
Week 7: 124.98 points, won 51.2% of head-to-heads (FanDuel)
Week 8: 79.58 points, won 10.3% of head-to-heads (FanDuel)
Week 9: 113.88 points, won 56.3% of head-to-heads (FanDuel)
Week 10: 92.76 points (original team), won 8.2% of head-to-heads. 131.16 points (late swap), won 100% of head-to-heads (FanDuel)
* Note: Win percentages do not include ties.
