Borg’s Cash Lineup Review for Week 14 (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 14 Cash Lineup

Note: Roster percentages shown from NFL Massive $25 Double-Up [Single Entry] with 8,000+ entrants. This contest gives one of the better sample sizes for cash in my opinion.

The Thought Process

I won’t lie… the results of this week were incredibly disappointing for a number of reasons. I’ll highlight how I constructed this lineup and some of the “box-out” thinking I did moving away from some of the more popular plays of the week.

• Early on, I only ever considered two QBs in my pool: Taysom Hill and Cam Newton. However, the problem I ran into was my overwhelming adoration for the spot for Alvin Kamara at RB. With Mark Ingram declared out, I figured Kamara was an easy bet for 20+ touches. He was my locked-in cash play from early on. He ended up seeing the most carries of the season, hit the 100-yard bonus, and finished as the RB2 on the slate. It was nice to see Kamara back in the swing of things.
• Back to QB… The Falcons defense has been bad (trust me) and the matchup with Cam felt like a safer play than Taysom with a finger injury. The conversation honestly came down to who do I want to play: Taysom + Austin Ekeler or Cam + Kamara creating a binary decision wholly around the Saints running game versus the Jets. I knew the field would like Taysom but I didn’t know it would be 55+ percent. Cam scored an early rushing TD and through the 1st two quarters, Taysom had four points. Kamara was well on his way to a 100-yard game so I was sitting pretty thinking I had gained leverage on a ton of cash lineups failing. Taysom was so so bad for most of that game. Ugh.
• While my final total looks rough (and it does), through the 1st three quarters of the early games, I was cruising in my 50/50s, especially with the Browns DST. I only ever considered the Browns ($2700) and Panthers ($2800). The savings didn’t really matter much to me. In my mind, the defensive line of Cleveland was in one of the best spots on the slate. In the Best Plays article, I wrote “The Cleveland defensive line already is an elite unit but the Ravens offensive line is dealing with a number of injuries on their front.” They moved to be an elite play at a lower roster percentage and responded with a solid output at least letting me withstand some shortcomings of my RBs.
• My pool of RBs was kept relatively small between Kamara, Austin Ekeler, Leonard Fournette, Antonio Gibson, Josh Jacobs, and Jeff Wilson Jr. At $4,400, Wilson was cheap but there were too many paths to failure. After siding with Kamara over Ekeler, Gibson emerged as a must-play given his recent spike in opportunities and J.D. McKissic being out. You can see how I sided with three workhorse RBs (Kamara, Gibson, and Jacobs) because the competition in the backfield was non-existent. However, constructing my roster this way was based on touches but not necessarily upside. Before the slate locked, I mentioned to a close friend that the downside of this lineup is one of my RBs failing and I pointed at either Gibson or Jacobs being the ones most likely to sink me. It also didn’t help that both were in the early games making it impossible to late swap. Gibson was the chalkiest player on the slate and he failed massively including a fumble that all but deflated any hopes I had to compete this week.
• Over the course of the weekend, Mike Williams became a CORE play with Keenan Allen out. His target share, salary, and opportunity to catch a TD felt too strong to ignore despite his popularity. I don’t regret playing him at $6,000. Jamison Crowder also felt so cheap ($4700) given his role and matchup in the slot with New Orleans. He was played by over a third of the field for a reason. With Elijah Moore being placed on injured reserve, I never really
• Tight-end is potentially where this lineup shifted the most. Travis Kelce and Austin Hooper were the only TEs I considered throughout the week until Saturday afternoon when we received news of T.J. Hockenson being placed on the COVID List. Brock Wright (who?) caught my eye solely for the cash savings ($2500) but also likely because I remember seeing him catch a TD the previous week. Dropping down $900 from Hooper to Wright gave me the cash savings I needed to get up to Tyreek Hill. While Wright did 2x on his salary as a punt play, Hooper’s goal-line TD obviously was a major difference-maker as the chalk TE hit 14 points.
• I thought Tyreek was a must-play on this slate. I toyed around with the idea of other high-priced WRs and for a moment had Ja’Marr Chase in there because of the major conviction I had that he would go off. (If there is a silver lining, I played him in a ton of GPPs as my Bold Call of the week) However, once the KC game got out of hand it was clear my cash lineup was in trouble. It was definitely a worst-case scenario for the KC passing game.
• Josh Jacobs was a solid correlation play in my mind alongside Tyreek. His passing downs work only increased to the point of seeing 8+ targets in back-to-back games and at $6,200, he felt so dang cheap. Any early fumble-six was a kick in the groin knowing Tyreek’s ceiling was immediately lowered. I
• Looking back at this lineup, my biggest mistake was not listening to my internal downside conversation. There were paths to failure for Crowder, Mike Williams, and especially at RB. My Achilles heel in cash is that I don’t mind going away from the crowd. Sometimes I just can’t copy and paste what I think everyone else is doing. Taysom Hill was that guy this week I faded. And I partially despise him because of it.

2021 H2H Results

After last week’s bonanza, my cash lineup came back down to earth. But thus is DFS. Hopefully, this article helps you each week fine tune your process. H2Hs allows you to not take on total loss. At this point of the season, I also have increased my tournament exposure splitting my formats to a near 50 percent for cash/GPP.

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