UFL Top Plays: Week 5

Editor’s Note: We may not write up every player we consider to be a top play. Be sure to consult the chart at the bottom of the page. This page will be updated, if necessary.

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 or game stacks or correlation. In large-field tournaments, our ACO (average cumulative ownership) should stay reasonably low. Please read this article and listen to Episode 237 of the podcast for more on large-field tournament strategy.

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.”

QUARTERBACK

Case Cookus ($7,700) – There is indeed some risk that the Stallions turn to QB4 J’Mar Smith at some point, but we find that unlikely. Simply, Cookus should be under center for most, if not all of Birmingham’s offensive snaps as an 11.5-point home favorite against a bottom-feeding defense that has struggled to limit fantasy production through their first four games. Cookus himself has been a productive spring football QB in previous stops, completing 62.7% of his passes for 6.5 YPA and a 2:1 TD-to-INT ratio with the USFL’s Philadelphia Stars before making the most out of a terrible situation with the Memphis Showboats in 2024.