The DFS cash process is not for everybody. The GPP bros look at the toil and say, “why spend so much time on something that fails to payout so little?” Others strike it up to luck or bemoan the fact they’ve guessed wrong far too often.
The goal of this article is neither to boast nor wallow in “shoulda, woulda, couldas” but rather give a transparent look at my thought process for the week. Hopefully, this will help DFS & Betting Podcast listeners and DFS Pass subscribers get a deeper window into the ups and downs of playing DFS and help you in your selections each week. On Tuesdays, Betz and I review our cash lineups, and this week we’ll give some common overreactions we see and hear.
For cash, I specifically play 50/50s, Double-Ups, and H2Hs on DraftKings. I’ll share my unfiltered gut reaction, and the thought process behind this lineup construction, and at the bottom, I will post my weekly results including the cash line and H2H record to stay accountable with you.
If you want to go back to the drawing board, we did an overview podcast before the season on DFS Cash Game Strategy + Creating Player Pools. I also published an article on DFS Strategy for Beginners and another entitled: How to Approach Each Position in DFS & Gain an Edge.
Week 7 Cash Lineup
Draft % and cash lines each week will be from DraftKings’ $25 Single-Entry Double-Up with roughly 5,000 entries. This is a slightly elevated price point from the $1, $5, and $10 double-ups and I think gives a solid idea each week of double-up roster percentages.
The Thought Process
Cash Locks (In My Opinion)
- In our Week 7 DFS Best Plays (which comes out on Saturdays for DFS Pass subscribers only), I shared the pool of players and this week was blatantly obvious who the top plays were.
- Drake London felt too safe at $6,900 to try and cute get elsewhere. He led the NFL in targets per route run inside the red zone at an astounding 42%! The game environment, his target share, and the fact the Seahawks were missing people in the secondary made him an elite play below $7K. I wrote: “Expect his salary to rise $500+ next week.” Spoiler: It’s only $7200 against a Buccaneers he’s destroyed the last two times.
- Chuba Hubbard was played by most of the field for obvious reasons. He blended an elite workload with a palatable price in a 50+ game environment. The game failed hitting the under but he did eventually fall into the endzone for Carolina’s only points of the afternoon. If you played Chuba, he isn’t what decided your cash lineup.
- It was always Geno Smith. Sadly, the Seahawks QB was set up far too well against my Falcons. I took Seattle on the podcast to win and Geno’s price + passing efficiency showed out. 33% rostered for a QB in Double-Ups is quite hefty. While we didn’t quite get the volume we wanted thanks to Atlanta pooping the bed at home, he finally broke through the one TD barrier. Geno’s output looks even more valuable considering the highest priced QB (and next in line for chalk) Jayden Daniels was knocked out of the game.
- CLE DST might be a weird place to lock in early but as I always proclaim, this is usually the last place I look for cash lineups. A majority of the time (80+ %) your DST will not decided your outcomes in this format. GPPs is a different story but the Browns as a chalky salary saver was all about what it afforded me at other positions. It didn’t look great giving up a CIN special teams TD on the opening play but CLE was mostly irrelevant to the cash conversation.
Gut-Wrenching Decisions
My goal in this section is to discuss the pool of players I considered for cash and how I arrived at my final lineup.
- One of the bigger decision points on the slate was whether to execute a 3RB build or not. I struggled with this decision for most of the week. Besides Chuba Hubbard, the other RBs I considered all week were Kyren Williams ($8100), Kenneth Walker III ($7300), and Tony Pollard ($6300). I’m sure all three of those were in your pool as well. You could easily make the argument for all three and all of them showed up in our RB Best Plays ranks.
- Kyren’s TD prowess made him safe but expensive. It came down to paying up for Kyren or finding a little more cash to get up to one of the elite WRs. Kenneth Walker was my slate breaker on the podcast and I called for 3 TDs in my bold predictions. He got to two but another was called back for holding. We’ll take it! As you’ll see, he was part of the coin flip decision at the every end before lock. His illness status didn’t weigh that heavily and I decided to lean heavily into him for tournaments.
- Tony P was the one I begrudgingly ended up with knowing that I made an emotional hedge in tournaments.
- There were a lot of different routes to go for WR but all week I wanted to pay up for one of the elites: Justin Jefferson ($8500), Amon-Ra St. Brown ($8300), or Malik Nabers ($7500). Based on how the slate was setting up, you couldn’t likely force in both Kyren AND one of these elites.
- The MIN/DET matchup looked like the best on paper to go off and the passing games for each profiled as smash spots in my Pace of Play article. In the First Look article, I highlighted Jefferson’s insane splits at home reminding Betz of it all week long leading up to lock:
- Here were the routes I forecasted in the Best Plays article for cash:
- Drake London + Elite WR (JJetts, Amon-Ra, Nabers) + Sub $5K guy (Tre Tucker/Whittington/Juju)
- London + Middle Tier (Diontae/McLaurin/Mooney) + Juju + Another Cheaper WR in the FLEX
- The Browns WRs (Jerry Jeudy & Elijah Moore) did NOT make our top-10 list. At their price points, it made sense but Njoku was locked in our lineups early on.
- Perhaps the cleanest read I had on the slate was what to do with Juju Smith-Schuster. I wrote extensively about ways to move off him in this week’s Tournament Takes article: “At $4K, it feels like someone at DraftKings totally forgot about during KC’s bye week. We look back at the game log from Week 5 and see 7-for-130 against the Saints. Despite popping up mid-week with “hamstring spasms”, it seems the field is blindly heading right back towards a receiver with a history of vanishing.” My texts with Betz were pretty blunt and although I had him as a viable cash play, I decided to outrightly fade him in tournaments as well.
- I ended up saving $1,000 from Juju with Jalen Coker, a rookie UDFA WR for the Panthers at the stone minimum of $3,000! He outpaced Jonathan Mingo in routes last week (30-12) and with Diontae Johnson banged up, I figured the 6’3 rookie could garner even more playing time. We know Carolina is going to throw a ton and the Washington secondary gives up yards in bunches. His salary made him cash viable and a potential skeleton key for rosters unlocking weird combinations the rest of the field won’t have access to. I got weird and while 2 points might seem laughable, Juju managers begged for that. Coker allowed me to get up to Jefferson at the end of the day.
- I won’t lie the end result of Travis Kelce in my FLEX was not something I set out to accomplish for most of the week. In my mind, Kelce was the leverage on Juju lineups and a chance to. I had zero clue how much he would be rostered in Double-Ups (1%???) and in hindsight, Brock Bowers would’ve probably been a safer and cheaper play. I leaned into his projection of 16.5 (I take an average from our sites and multiple others) knowing that I had late swap ability with Kelce as well as my Panthers players.
- Here were the final two lineups I was deciding between: Nabers + Walker or JJetts + Kelce. Both had star appeal but the latter was projected a little bit better.
Mistakes Were Made …
Every week I’ll highlight my biggest mistakes which range from not weighing low-end outcomes to assuming, to not thinking, and ultimately moving away from plays I started with. We’ve all been there… stay water. Don’t try to justify yourself or make things sound better than they were. You made a decision, now deal with it.
- Blindly playing Kelce at the end was probably a bit wild. It was fortunate that Juju goose egged. Luckily, the 2TE builds emerged victorious across the board and the outcomes from Justin Jefferson helped insulate some heavier losses.
- Chuba + Tony were two chalky RBs on the road as heavy underdogs. Playing both of them together was probably irresponsible in highlight.
2024 Results
Each week I’ll post my head-to-head (H2H) win percentage here to give you an idea of what type of week I had. Keep in mind there are varying price points, competition, and players who take my H2Hs in the lobby that have no rhyme or reason. The volume of my H2Hs differs each week due to my feeling of the slate and my weekend activities with my family. Every week I will also post the “cash line” from the $25 Double-Up from DraftKings.
| Week | Cash Line | DK Pts | H2H Win% | Note |
| 1 | 125.98 | 113.08 | 23% | Engram Failure |
| 2 | 128.84 | 139.04 | 88% | Godwin Life |
| 3 | 112.38 | 116.14 | 80% | Charbs |
| 4 | 139.02 | 139.02 | 46% | Hold the Line! |
| 5 | 134.46 | 134.36 | 63% | 0.1 Pain |
| 6 | — | — | –% | Beachin’ |
| 7 | 102.38 | 111.48 | 73% | Njoku Bomb |
| AVG | 128.14 | 128.33 | 65% | — |
Through 7 weeks, it has been a solid year thus far. I felt like I’ve had an overall good read on cash slates being able to parse through what the field will do and adjust each week. I still find the cash process quite rewarding. If you need to press reset, I recommend this article:
The DFS Process: Weekly Strategy & Schedule (Fantasy Football)
from Fantasy Footballers Podcast https://ift.tt/WbzA9dn
No comments: