I play roughly 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.
This was a very tough week because Derrick Henry, Davante Adams, and Cooper Kupp were all tremendous plays. But it was very difficult to fit even two of them in given cost. The slate was also shaped by the Darren Waller situation, which I’ll discuss below.
MY MUST PLAYS
* Chris Godwin was a rock solid play at $5900 when Antonio Brown was in. Once AB was ruled out, Godwin became a must. The Bucs have the NFL’s highest pass rate over expectation, Brown joined Rob Gronkowski on the sideline, and the Bears are easier to attack out of the slot.
* I’m not sure what DraftKings was thinking on Darrell Henderson’s price. He had clearly secured the true bell cow role for Sean McVay, getting full-blown Todd Gurley prime usage. Now DHendo got a home game against the Lions. He would have been in play at $8000, but was priced at $6600.
MY WANT PLAYS
* I never consider any D/ST a “must.” But this Texans team has expansion-level talent and they were on the road against the high-powered Cardinals offense. That projected for a ton of Davis Mills dropbacks in known passing situations. While teams facing the Texans have typically been $4000 or higher — the Cardinals D/ST was $3100. In any other situation, I would have punted D/ST (as I almost always do) with Eagles ($2300) or Giants ($2500).
* The tight end spot was extremely interesting. I was all set to play either Ricky Seals-Jones or Mike Gesicki. The latter was obviously an elite play as you get to play a WR in your TE spot for $4700 with DeVante Parker and Will Fuller out.
But the Darren Waller ankle news that came down late Saturday really caught my eye. I was desperately looking to save money, the Eagles are best beat through the air and over the middle, and Foster Moreau was a solid pass-catching prospect. By late Sunday morning, I thought there was a 60-40 change Waller would sit. So given late swap, I thought it was worth the risk to start with Moreau and then reevaluate. If Waller was active, I planned to go down to Eagles D/ST and up to Cole Kmet.
* Speaking of saving money, Rashod Bateman was clearly underpriced for his role. If you followed Week 6 closely, you knew the talented first-round Bateman immediately stepped into Sammy Watkins’ role and drew six targets on 22 routes. I would have been OK to go down to Tyler Johnson if I needed the $400, but preferred Bateman as the punt. If I had an extra $1500 lying around, I would have gone to Tee Higgins.
* I got anchored to Calvin Ridley early in the week. And maybe that was a mistake — I’m still clinging to last year’s ridiculous aDOT/target share combo. I thought about coming off Ridley once we knew CBs Byron Jones and Xavien Howard would play for the Dolphins, plus Russ Gage was back for the Falcons. The other options were Leonard Fournette or Brandin Cooks. But I thought Ridley’s ceiling dwarfed the others.
* Chuba Hubbard had out-touched Royce Freeman 46-4 the previous two games. I expected that to continue in this spot, a good one against the injury-ravaged Giants. I would have preferred getting up to Uncle Lenny for $300 more, but I didn’t think it was a priority at all. The only other option I considered at RB was down to Miles Sanders at $5100, but I wasn’t confident that the recent Sanders-Gainwell usage was sticky.
* One of the last 2v2s I had was Jalen Hurts and Derrick Henry (with Tyler Johnson) or Lamar Jackson and Cooper Kupp (with Rashod Bateman). I went back and forth right up to lock. In these spots, I typically lean toward the RB in cash as the role is more secure — there aren’t other options to steal usage. But I felt better about Lamar Jackson’s floor and Kupp’s role this season is incredibly unique. Bateman was also clearly better than Johnson, the No. 3 WR merely filling in. We had Kupp as the best salary-considered value on the slate, and in the end I didn’t want to fade that.
Week 7 Results
Picking the right “stud” had a ton to do with the results this week. I was fortunate in two ways there — I landed on Cooper Kupp, AND Derrick Henry grossly underperformed his expectation relative to game flow. The other key for me was playing Foster Moreau. There was some risk, but based on the Adam Schefter reporting I was comfortable projecting Darren Waller out — and having a backup plan if it didn’t go that way.
Year-To-Date Results
Week 1: 124.86 points, won 70.5% of head-to-heads
Week 2: 92.88 points, won 5.7% of head-to-heads
Week 3: 151.52 points, won 63.8% of head-to-heads
Week 4: 104.92 points, won 8.1% of head-to-heads
Week 5: 187.08 points, won 82.7% of head-to-heads
Week 6: 147.98 points, won 82.3% of head-to-heads
Week 7: 163.38 points, won 88.1% of head-to-heads
