Week 1 was an absolute beast with so many different slates, but let’s focus our attention on the Saturday DraftKings main slate, where I will go through some of the thought processes and decisions for my cash lineup. Also, it’s worth pointing out that the first couple of weeks of the college football season are much different than the rest from a DFS perspective. Early in the year, we are typically working with extremely soft pricing, large amounts of uncertainty in player roles, and having to handicap playing time in very high-spread games. As the season progresses and we get more data, we can become much more confident in our decisions. Let’s get into it!
Quarterback
The quarterback position was fairly straightforward all week, mostly due to the pricing structure, which seemingly had every viable spot priced up. I was locked into Chandler Morris at $6,900 all week due to the lack of other options under $8,000 and the fantasy-friendly environment the TCU vs. Colorado game provided. At the second quarterback spot, it basically came down to Joe Milton or Michael Penix, where I leaned toward Milton due to matchup and his dual-threat abilities. I also had a bit of concern that Boise State’s pass defense could slow down the Huskies.
Running Back
This slate provided a plethora of backs in the mid-$5K to high-$6K range, and I really did think it was clearly a three-RB week in cash (WHY DID YOU END UP WITH EMEKA EGBUKA IN FLEX THEN? More later on that). Braelon Allen was the priority play for me, as I thought his role in this improved offensive scheme was going to be absolutely elite and that his touch count was more secure than the others. I was very much considering Jonathon Brooks from Texas until an updated depth chart and reports came out Saturday morning that stated CJ Baxter would likely be drawing the start. I liked Quinshon Judkins the second best of the RB group, mostly due to what I thought was a guaranteed touchdown or two in this type of game, and I thought there was a good chance his backup would miss as well.
After slotting in Allen and Judkins, my last spot came down to Donovan Edwards at $6,200 or Bucky Irving at $6,100. I really was torn here because I love Bucky’s upside, but I thought he would be really challenged to get 10+ touches. I felt great about Edwards’ role, as I thought his teammate, Blake Corum, would not be overworked in the opener and there was a lot of hype around taking additional snaps at wide receiver. After choosing Edwards as my third RB, I made sure to play him at RB and not FLEX because his game locked first.
Wide Receiver
What immediately jumped out to me on this slate was how underpriced Tennessee wide receivers were, so Bru McCoy was a priority at his price tag of $4,800. The field agreed with that approach, as he was quite heavy chalk at 60%+ in most double-ups. I thought it was perfectly fine to go after another Tennessee WR in either Squirrel White or Ramel Keyton. I do not typically ever want to double stack in cash, but I felt the pricing inefficiencies justified the added volatility in results. In the higher salary range, I certainly thought Ryan O’Keefe at $6,100 was solid and Emeka Egbuka was certainly a stand-out value at $7,400 based on our expectations. At the lower range, Ja’Tavion Sanders and Luke Lachey were the two cash options in the mid-$3K price range. Going into the last hour before lock, I was a bit all over the place going back and forth on a few 2v2 and 3v3s (due to the shake-up with Texas RB). Ultimately, I decided to go into the initial lock with Bru McCoy, Squirrel White, and Ja’Tavion Sanders. That lineup left me $900, which I almost never do, but I thought it left me optionality for late swaps if any surprise news came out or I needed to make swaps. Also, pricing was loose enough with awkward pricing gaps that it was not a big deal to leave money on the table.
Late Swaps
Before the Ole Miss game locked at 2 p.m. ET, things were going quite poorly for my Tennessee WRs, and Donovan Edwards was not doing much at all. Then we got news that Ulysses Bentley, the Ole Miss RB, was good to go, so I thought that dinged Judkins very slightly in a game they could win by 50 points. With that news and after looking through my head-to-heads and double-ups, I thought I was becoming a very big dog to cash across the board. Considering I had $900 remaining, I decided to global swap Judkins to Emeka Egbuka in the FLEX position. I thought we could possibly get four quarters out of him and also considered his high-end ceiling to be higher than Judkins, who was likely to play no more than 2.5 quarters. After the late games locked, it became very apparent that the proper global YOLO cash swap should have been Rome Odunze, who was at the same price point, has similar upside, has a proven quarterback, and most importantly, was much lower-owned. A mistake was made there.
Week 1 Results
The quarterback position did not decide the cash slate, as all of Morris, Milton, and Penix were solid performers.
At running back, the Braelon Allen volume came through, as he ended up with 17 carries and a whopping seven targets. Those who still played Jonathon Brooks in cash got a bit bailed out by the fact he caught a long touchdown, and then CJ Baxter got hurt pretty early in the game, but he was certainly an OK play. Edwards ended up with 12 carries and four targets, getting stopped at the goal line multiple times en route to only 11 fantasy points in the early lock window. Bucky had five carries and two targets, which he magically turned into nearly 33 fantasy points. I certainly knew that was possible, but in cash games, I am almost always going to lean into the volume and live with the results.
At wide receiver, the biggest takeaway was that some of the situations were not nearly as “safe” as I assumed. The Ohio State passing game looked dreadful; they really could not even throw out wide to Egbuka or Harrison, as the duo of young QBs just opted for short throws across the middle. The Egbuka play ended up being an absolute disaster. Similar at Boston College, Ryan O’Keefe only had five targets and was fourth on the team in targets. While they may want O’Keefe to replicate Zay Flowers‘ production, he is just not the same level of athlete or player. Even further, the Tennessee touchdown variance was not favorable, and while the targets generally went to the receivers we were expecting, there was a shocking lack of big plays out of the passing game.
This week, you could not afford to miss at one of the three RB spots and unfortunately I had a dud in Edwards and a failed late swap with Egbuka. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. As you see in the largest-field single-entry double-up of the slate, I was nowhere near the cash line, but I am glad I went for a swap (although I think I made a bit of a process mistake on the players involved in the swap), as I still would have been far short of the cash line even with Judkins. I will eat my L and soldier on to next week. Thanks for reading!
Season Results:
Week 0: 87th-percentile lineup
Week 1: 12th-percentile lineup
