Borg’s Cash Lineup Review for Week 11 (Fantasy Football)

Every week I want to unpack part of the process in assembling my cash game lineup. The goal is neither to boast or wallow in “shoulda, woulda, couldas” but rather give a transparent look at my thought process for the week. Hopefully, this will help DFS 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.

For cash, I specifically play 50/50s, Double-Ups, and H2Hs on DraftKings. I’ll share my unfiltered gut reaction, my thought process behind this lineup construction, and at the bottom, I will post my weekly results including ROI and H2H record to stay accountable with you.

If you’re wanting to go back to the drawing board, we did an overview podcast before the season on Cash Game Strategy. I also published an article on How to Approach Each Position in DFS & Gain an Edge.

Week 11 Cash Lineup 

That’s a whole lotta snowflakes… Still waiting for one of those cool flames to emerge…

The Thought Process

Going into this week, there were a few consensus “best plays” within the industry hence some of the roster percentages that flooded my lineup. If you were fortunate enough to fade the KC-DAL and avoid injuries this week, more power to ya! Here was my thought process in constructing this cash game lineup regardless of the outcome:

• Early in the week, my favorite play on the slate was Davante Adams. Heck, I wrote about him in every single article this week for the DFS Pass. So how did he not end up in my cash lineup by Sunday? [Kids have I got a story for you!]
• The QB pool was quite small in terms of who I considered. Patrick Mahomes & Dak Prescott were values in my opinion at their salaries in the highest total game of the week. In terms of cheaper options, I only considered Cam Newton or Tyrod Taylor near the $5K mark. After toying with different constructions, paying up for Mahomes coming off a game with 400+ yards and five TDs felt like a solid move. It seems like the rest of the field felt the same way at 20+ percent, which is a ton for a QB.
• When we received news of Elijah Mitchell‘s doubtful status, Jeff Wilson Jr. felt like a must-play in terms of his price and workload for a run-first team. If you faded Jeff congrats, but the 49ers had a couple of goal-line opportunities that just bounced the wrong way:

The difference between a good game and a disappointment compared to expectations is…inches. Process was correct. Result was…just out of reach. pic.twitter.com/ZIXpnCmGhD

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— Andy Holloway (@andyholloway) November 22, 2021

• The biggest diversion point for my lineup construction was my RB2 spot. The elites (Dalvin Cook & Christian McCaffrey) were considered but A.J. Dillon seemed like such a smash play at his price. The Vikings were allowing the most expected points per rush attempt in the league. He wasn’t going to get game-scripted out (as evidenced by his six targets) and his TD equity was immense. Instead, all the TDs went through Aaron Rodgers this week. So here’s where Adams comes into play…
• Knowing the field was gaga over Dillon, I felt like I had to make a choice to play one of the Green Bay Packers. While I loved Adams’ matchup, in order for him to pay off at his price, I needed assurance of a 20+ point game. I created a Packers dichotomy for myself and ended up choosing Dillon and a cheaper Tyreek Hill (by $200). While Hill was fine, tying Hill to a dud of a game from Mahomes doomed my lineup.
• The other WR spots never felt like they were in much discussion. I knew Michael Gallup would be chalk at $4,200 but his opportunity (10 targets) and game environment made him a strong play.
• Tee Higgins is probably on your DFS naughty list after how much I’ve brought him up. We discussed on the Fantasy Footballers podcast recently how target shares can be deceptive and you saw the downside of that this week. Cincinnati controlled the clock with Joe Mixon and the Bengals’ passing attack busted for everyone.
• At DST, the only DSTs I considered were the Panthers ($2700) and Browns ($3100). While both were chalky, I settled on the team with the 2nd highest adjusted sack rate against Tim Freaking Boyle.
• I had Rashod Bateman in my lineup for most of the week but had to move off with news of Lamar Jackson inactive. This started the process of fidgeting with my WR/FLEX/TE spots.
• At TE, I looked at Cole Kmet and Adam Trautman for most of the week and eventually settled on Washington backup TE John Bates. He did his job 2xing as a punt TE.
• The one name in the lineup that might seem random was A.J. Brown because nobody was playing this guy. Part of that was the point to mix in upside for a player who was coming in strong in our projections. In fact, in terms of points per dollar, Brown was a top-6 play for us this week against the lowly Texans at home. Brown got hurt, the Titans lost, and we are all sad. My lineup was between Christian McCaffrey in the FLEX + a sub $4K option at WR or pairing Higgins with Brown. I liked both of the WR’s opportunities and upside to bake into a chalky lineup. Unfortunately, both busted while a CMC + Bateman lineup would’ve netted me an extra 14 pts surpassing the 100-point mark.
• You’ll notice that the cash line this week was a bit lower than most. Much of this is due to the heavy hitters this week (Jonathan Taylor, Joe Mixon, Justin Jefferson, Elijah Moore) all being rostered so low in cash. In other words, if you had them, congrats. The majority of the field ate the chalk (Mahomes, Dillon, Wilson, Higgins, Gallup) and didn’t reap the rewards.

2021 Results

I’m fortunate that on my worst week this year, I played a much lower overall volume of DFS this week.  It happens when you prepare your house to go on the market before moving to Arizona. Had to slow down somewhere and clearly I needed the relief. Somehow in my H2Hs a third of the people that had the pleasure of playing my poo-poo lineup scored fewer than 88 points.

I’m not super proud of my results compared to last year (cashed in 12-of-17 weeks) but the best part of DFS is you get to press reset and also calibrate your bankroll to your life happenings. This week we have a special Thanksgiving DFS Pod coming out on Wednesday which is one of the best DFS moments of the year.