DFS Top Plays: Week 2

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 watch this episode of the podcast for more on large-field tournament strategy.

For more tournament content, check out our projections, Sam Brott’s GPP Leverage Article, and Saturday’s Establish The Million show 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

Patrick Mahomes ($7,000 DK, $8,700 FD) – Mahomes had 291 yards on 10.4 yards per attempt against the Ravens and now faces a worse defense in Cincinnati. We know Andy Reid will throw the ball regardless of script, so the 5.5/6-point spread isn’t much of a concern. With Xavier Worthy now in the fold to provide downfield explosive plays — something K.C. was lacking in 2023 — Mahomes should post simply gaudy passing numbers.

Jayden Daniels ($6,200 DK, $7,900 FD) – Daniels had 16 carries for 88 yards and two touchdowns en route to a massive Week 1 fantasy outing. The passing wasn’t always pretty for the second overall pick, but that rushing workload gives him legitimate top-flight fantasy upside every time he takes the field. The Giants just got picked apart by Sam Darnold, providing hope Daniels can improve on his 184 passing yards total from last weekend.