I play around 50% 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 unique slate because we actually got very impactful and surprising late news. I thought Brian Robinson (hamstring) was good to go, but he was a late scratch leaving Austin Ekeler very much in play… despite yet another loaded RB slate.
MY MUST PLAYS
* It was a perfect storm for Chris Olave. Rashid Shaheed was out, Derek Carr was back, and the Saints were facing the NFL’s worst defense. The $6100 tag was at least $800 too cheap. I actually preferred Olave to Drake London straight up.
* Kendre Miller and Jamaal Williams were both out for the Saints run game. Rashid Shaheed and Bub Means were out for the Saints pass game. And Derek Carr was back, and the Saints were playing the Panthers. We had Alvin Kamara projected for an absurd 22.9 points on DraftKings, 1.8 clear of any other RB.
* I was thinking about playing Chase Brown all week given his increasing role and home spot against the lowly Raiders. Then Zack Moss (neck) went down in Friday’s practice, leaving the entire backfield to Brown. His $5900 tag did not reflect this upgrade in role and the matchup, we had Brown projected for the 7th-most points among all RBs on the slate.
* Regular readers know my preference is to pay down at tight end. The floor/ceiling combo is rarely worth spending up. So I was thrilled to jam in Mike Gesicki once we learned Tee Higgins (quad) would miss again. As I noted in this data, Gesicki’s targets per route run and target share are very strong when Tee misses. That makes sense, has he lines up as a WR on an overwhelming majority of his snaps.
MY WANT PLAYS
* Before the Brian Robinson news, I looked at lineups with Kyren Williams and De’Von Achane in the flex. I still really liked those guys, but didn’t want to pass on the pure value of Austin Ekeler. It’s typically a bad idea to pass on a $5300 RB thrust into a featured role – as long as that RB is good in the pass game and the offense/QB play is good. The Commanders had a healthy 24.25 implied team total against the Giants.
* The big decision came down to Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Giants D/ST vs. Jayden Daniels, Drake London, and Titans D/ST. I know the Dak/CeeDee side felt better, but I was pretty adamant about not playing both Dak and CeeDee in cash here.
I think these situations need to be taken on a case-by-case basis. In this case, we’re talking about a very expensive QB/WR combo. We’re also talking about an offense which has frankly been inept for the last month. I thought both Dak and CeeDee were fine plays, but priced roughly right. I also liked the under in the game, as we talked about on Last Minute Livestream. And so I knew that if I played both Dak and CeeDee here, my whole week would come down to how the Cowboys fared. And given state of the team, that wasn’t something I was comfortable with.
Meanwhile, with Ekeler as the feature back I expected a more pass-heavy approach from the Commanders – clearly good for Daniels. And from a salary-based value perspective, we only had London 0.4 behind Lamb. In fact, the Daniels side of this 3v3 was 0.9 ahead in our base projection and 1.6 ahead in ceiling projection.
The fact that I could get to Titans D/ST here instead of Giants was the icing on the cake. We had Titans as the best D/ST play on the slate against the Patriots woeful offensive line.
* I certainly expected Jameis Winston to come back to earth against a good Chargers defense. However, our DvP data still had this as a neutral matchup for WRs. And at just $4300, there was plenty of room for error on Cedric Tillman. Especially considering they are scheming him first-team looks, and he won the game for them last week – I felt really good about the opportunity he’d have. Tillman was the only WR under $5300 I considered for cash.
Week 9 Results
I was really happy with the way I handled Dak-CeeDee stuff on DraftKings. But when you lose Drake London plus Chris Olave to injuries, it’s going to be very hard to have a big day. I’m thrilled just to book a small win.
As for FanDuel, the late news on Ekeler pulled me off a Kamara team which is frustrating. I think not playing Kamara just to get to CeeDee Lamb was probably a mistake. I also think Commanders D/ST over Bengals D/ST was a mistake as well – Bengals at home against Gardner Minshew is probably a better spot than Commanders on road against Daniel Jones, even with Andrew Thomas out. The other 1v1 I got wrong on FD was Calvin Ridley over Jakobi Meyers. That one was really tough, I decided to go for the big play upside of Ridley but I could certainly make a case the matchup/environment was much better for Meyers.
YEAR-TO-DATE RESULTS
Week 1 DraftKings: 147.38 points, won 98.6% of head-to-heads
Week 2 DraftKings: 116.94 points, won 21.1% of head-to-heads
Week 3 DraftKings: 109.3 points, won 54.8% of head-to-heads
Week 4 DraftKings: 146.28 points, won 75.3% of head-to-heads
Week 5 DraftKings: 143.06 points, won 83.5% of head-to-heads
Week 6 DraftKings: 134.12 points, won 50.1% of head-to-heads
Week 7 DraftKings: 93.14 points, won 28.2% of head-to-heads
Week 8 DraftKings: 173.16 points, won 96.3% of head-to-heads
Week 9 DraftKings: 170.86 points, won 65.2% of head-to-heads
Week 1 FanDuel: Did not play
Week 2 FanDuel: 143.24 points, won 75.2% of head-to-heads
Week 3 FanDuel: 111.88 points, won 71.9% of head-to-heads
Week 4 FanDuel: 120.92 points, won 41.9% of head-to-heads
Week 5 FanDuel: 130.22 points, won 71.4% of head-to-heads
Week 6 FanDuel: 133.36 points, won 80.6% of head-to-heads
Week 7 FanDuel: 100.04 points, won 65.0% of head-to-heads
Week 8 FanDuel: 122.36 points, won 70.4% of head-to-heads
Week 9 FanDuel: 132.1 points, won 52.0% of head-to-heads
* Note: Win percentages do not include ties.
