This article is going to focus on breaking down of a few DraftKing / FanDuel / Fantasy Draft cash game plays and lineup construction for NFL week 2 Sunday main slate. GPPs are still a big part of my game, but the majority of my action will be cash games H2Hs each Sunday as we get a lot of volume and variance in NFL. This article will dive into how I will approach week 2 cash and a few core plays I am looking at getting into my lineups.
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DraftKings
Deshaun Watson – $6,300 or Jimmy Garoppolo – $6,000 – I am listing two quarterbacks here as I wanted to talk about both of them a little bit. Jimmy G is going to have more ownership than Watson just with how bad DET looked and how good Jimmy G did last year. He was up against one of the best defenses in the league last week in Minnesota, so he is due to rebound against a DET defense that got curb stomped by the freaking JETS. I like him here a lot and is a great cash play, however I am leaning Watson as my main cash play for two reasons. The first reason is Tennessee has the #25 ranked pass defense last year and did not due much in the off season to shore that up. Kenny Stills took the top off that defense twice last week for two big TDs. Watson did not look great against NE, but Belichick always schemes his defense to take away the teams best option (Hopkins). It did not help that Fuller did not play to stretch the field to open it up for the TE and running lanes for Miller. The reason I lean Watson over Jimmy G is his rushing ability. He ran 8 times for 40 yards last week and those add up pretty quickly. Watson also put up 4 passing TDs and 1 rushing TD against this same team last October before he was injured. I also like that people have such a recency bias in DFS when they look at what they did last week. This is such a great get right spot for Watson and we get him at such a discount. I will probably be making two cash teams this week and Watson is going to be in my main lineup.
James Conner – $6,700 – I hope you had him in your cash games last week! He was a cash game lock and I talked about either going all in or fading him in GPPs last week and I was very happy I took the option to go all in. He is still priced too cheap with the number of touches he is going to get in this matchup (25 – 30 IMO). He gets a fantastic matchup and still priced about $1000 too cheap before I will get a little uncomfortable rostering him. He is a cash lock on every team I make this week (as long as Bell does not report) and it is not every close. Do not over think this pick even though he is not $4,500, he is still a great play.
Emmanuel Sanders – $6,200 – We are going back to the well with Sanders this week. I hope you listened and plugged him into your cash games last week at the low price of $5,000 as he absolutely crushed that price point. He is going to continue to get targets in the slot and he is much like Conner this week at RB where I am just going to steam him until his price reaches a point I don’t feel comfortable and just plug him into my cash team. He saw 87% of the snaps last week and had 11 targets. A great article that xBenJamminx put out is the NFL Week 1 Trending Usage Report that highlights some great info to use when making decisions in your lineup construction. I do need to hit on Quincy Enunwa $4,700 a little bit as he will be a lock if Jermaine Kearse does not play this week, but all reports it looks like he is practicing and will play.
I also like Jarvis Landry $6,300 this week with his 91% snap share and 18.5% target share last week as you see below. He is also in the juiciest matchup against a Saints defense who got torched by Tampa Bay.
George Kittle – $3800 / Jared Cook – $3,600 – Yes I am putting 2 TEs here as they are both very cash viable and wanted to speak to the point of running 2 TEs in GPPs. I have ran double tight ends in cash games in years past when pricing is really tight, but the week has to dictate that. I don’t believe you need to do it this week, but running both Kittle and Cook in GPPs does free up a bunch of salary and will make your lineup very unique. The only time I honestly would ever do this is when both tight ends are under $4k and it gives you the cash to spend up at a stud you want on a tight week. I like that in GPPs this week as Kamara, Julio Jones, and Antonio Brown are all very expensive but I want a piece of them. Give it a look when constructing your lineups this week in GPPs, as it will make your lineup not only unique, but also give it some upside as both of those tight ends have 20 DK point upside at a low cost.
Cash Game Approach on DK – This week the cap is a tighter than week one, so paying up for QB and expensive running backs do make it hard on you when constructing your cash lineups. It is early in the week still, but the lineups I have constructed have more of a balanced RB / WR appeal right now and not paying up for the likes of Brees / Kamara as the value is not hitting me in the face. This could change as the week goes on so check back in my VIP slack channel to see if I have made any changes, but a more balanced approach is how I am approaching it this week and punting TE.
FanDuel
Ben Roethlisberger – $7,600 – One thing we know over the years of data with Big Ben is never play him on the road and with the weather last week it was an easy decision to fade. Steelers have the 3rd highest implied team total this week at 28 points and are at home this week. Big Ben is in a great spot against KC who is not the same Chiefs defense of old. They let Philip Rivers put up over 400 yards in the air and 3 TDs last week, and I can see Big Ben putting up similar numbers this week at a discounted price. I also like Jimmy Garoppolo $7,300, Deshaun Watson $7,400 and Alex Smith $7,100 as cash game plays as well this week.
Alvin Kamara – $9000 – I will have my shares of Kamara over here on FanDuel this week as he is cheaper than his price on DK and the pricing is much softer to get him in your cash lineups. There is not a lot to be said about him, as he does everything for the Saints with Ingram suspended, the team should also be pissed off that they got smacked in the face by the Bucs last week. You can go with so many runnings backs in cash this week and I would again recommend putting 3 RBs into your cash games with the new flex spot on FanDuel. His numbers from week 1 jump off the charts with his target, touch, and util %s, as you can see below.
James Conner – $7,000 – I went into this in the DK section, same applies here. Lock him in.
Antonio Brown – $8,900 – There is not a whole lot to say about AB this week as he should be the guy you pay up for at WR in cash games. If Big Ben is going to have a big game you know AB is going to be a part of it. He saw 20% target share last week in a bad weather game and should be looked at often this game. I like almost all of the high priced WRs this week in Michael Thomas $8,800 (dealing with an illness but should be fine game day), DeAndre Hopkins $8,400, and Julio Jones $8,500. I would feel comfortable putting any of those guys in my cash lineup as you can’t afford two of them, but AB and Michael Thomas are my favorite. Here is a quick breakdown of week 1 target leaders.
Cash Game Approach on FanDuel – I don’t think you need to spend up at QB this week as we did last week with Brees. There are plenty of great options in the 7k range that allow us to pay up for those stud running backs and get us one stud wide receiver to go with some mid range values. I would spend down at TE this week as guys like Kittle and Cook are way too cheap for the value they bring to their teams and our fantasy teams. I will keep streaming defenses against that awful Bills team, even when they are at home. One thing you might notice is I wrote up 3 PIT guys in this article. When I write up these plays, it doesn’t mean you should just plug them in, but they are plays that I like. I don’t like to play that many players in cash on one team and would rank them Conners > AB > Big Ben if looking at who I like from most to least.
I did not have a great GPP week 1 as Hogan killed my great tournament lineups, but this is why I stress playing cash games heavy. I still had a very good week on FanDuel even though I did not smash any tournaments.
Fantasy Draft
I highly recommend if you do not have any action over at Fantasy Draft that you run over there this weekend and start playing. The GPPs have such a great flat payout and the competition is not as strong IMO. You can see last week I had a great week 1 and dominated cash games. I am going to add a few cash game plays I am looking at for Fantasy Draft this week in my article and if you like it please let me know and I will continue to add them going forward. Below is a screen shot of my NFL week 1 Fantasy Draft weekend.
Christian McCaffrey – $12,800 – Ownership should be low on him with the subpar fantasy game last week. I had him in my cash games over on this site and still put up 222 points, so he did not kill my lineup. He gets a great matchup against ATL who lost two of their best defenders in Deion Jones and Keanu Neal last week. Jones is the field general on that team and just a guy that ATL won’t be able to replace. This bodes well for McCaffrey in the passing game where I think he can excel more than he did against Dallas. I have no problem going back to the well here and at a deflated price. He saw 85% of the snaps, so that is not a concern moving forward.
Todd Gurley – $16,900 – You will notice I am a little RB heavy here, but one of the great things about Fantasy Draft is we can play 4 of them! He is $1,100 less than Alvin Kamara $18,000 and I like both of them a ton here. You can get them both in your lineup pretty easily if you punt WR. Fantasy Draft only makes you play 2 WRs and with scoring more like DraftKings with 1 point per reception, I would rather target 4 runnings backs in my cash games and especially ones like Gurley / Kamara who catch the ball a ton out of the backfield.
James Conner – $13,100 – He is in every cash build I am building on every site. I just wanted to give him a mention here to show he is a cash lock even at $13,100.
Cole Beasley – $7,100 – This is probably not going to be a very popular play, but he say 8 targets for 7 receptions and 73 yards. I will take 14.3 points at this price all day long. I think he is going to be relied on in the slot early in the season until Hurns and Gallup can build a report with Prescott. He opens up your lineup to go at those expensive RBs and if we can get 5 – 8 targets a week out of him at this price he is worth a look.
Cash Game Approach on Fantasy Draft – I think I am going back to what worked in week 1 and that is to get 4 running backs into your lineup, then fit in a cheap QB, WRs, TE. That seems to be the optimal way to approach lineup construction in cash games this week while I have been tinkering with builds.
Keg Stands
I not only want to bring you my cash game approach, but I want to talk about how I approach my tournament builds when doing MME (mass-multi entry). I really did not know what to title this section, but shoutout to “jeffreypcoffman” in VIP slack who thought Keg Stands was gold! Running with it buddy! You really need to take a stand when building MME and focus on a core of 3 – 4 guys who you are going to go extremely heavy on (60% or more). If you don’t do this, it is hard to make a great profit each week. Last week for an example I locked James Conner into 100% of my 150 lineups and was 60% > on Sanders and Kamara. It is not always easy to make these decisions, as if one of them flops you are going to have a bad day, however I am ok with that risk to fit in some of the lower owned plays around the core. These players don’t always have to be value plays, as you you can make a stand on different salary range plays. The core last week was on 3 totally different salary range players. Conner was a lock (don’t recommend doing it that often) because he was so cheap and had the best ability to smash his value, but Sanders / Kamara were in great spots to hit or exceed their value even at their respective price points. This core allows me to take chances on some players that might make you feel a little less comfortable. I have always said that you should feel a little uncomfortable when building your MME lineups as you need a few of those low owned plays to go around your core to hit. You do not need to be contrarian on every single play to hit. I think some folks who come over from the MLB world tend to bring this approach and it just does not work that often. Now make a “Keg Stand” on your core and sprinkle in some FitzMagic (I was not on this play last week…sad….) to try to win that $1,000,000 each week!
(I know he plays for Tampa Bay Bucs, but I could only find this image on an awesome T-shirt!)
Before I Go…
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