Borg’s DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 1 (Fantasy Football)
And we’re off!
The first week of the DFS main slate is in the books and we all… don’t know ball. For real, only two of the 15 games entering MNF hit the over and the scoring across the board was quite tame.
No player scored over 30 fantasy points so far in Week 1.
This is the first time zero players have scored 30+ points prior to SNF and MNF in Week 1 since at least 2000.
— NFL Fantasy Football (@NFLFantasy) September 7, 2025
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 about DFS Cash Game Strategy and creating Player Pools. I also published older articles on DFS Strategy for Beginners and another entitled: How to Approach Each Position in DFS & Gain an Edge.
Week 1 Cash Lineup
Draft % and cash lines each week will be from DraftKings’ $10 Single-Entry Double-Up with roughly 4,600 entries. This is a slightly elevated price point from the $1, and $5 double-ups and I think gives a solid idea each week of double-up roster percentages.
Does your lineup look similar? Or maybe 80+ % of it look like mine?
I went into this phenomenon (which really isn’t) in the Discord but thought it was worth reposting here if you are freaking out or curious how you arrived at some similar names.
The Thought Process
Cash Locks (In My Opinion)
- In our Week 1 DFS Best Plays (which comes out on Saturdays for DFS Pass subscribers only), we share the pool of players and this week was blatantly obvious who the top plays were.
- Drake London was my pick in Best Plays as the locked-in play of the week. With Darnell Mooney being ruled out, I felt like he was going to see 15+ targets. He saw 15 but only caught 8 of them and ended with a shoulder injury.
- Emeka Egbuka was the free square and with 70% of the field playing him, he felt like a “duh!”. Two TDs is a wild outcome but he played the Falcons so… maybe it was expected.
- David Njoku was going to be the most popular TE on the slate. The matchup and his pricing said I was willing to lock him in knowing my opponents would have him as well. Cross out the TE position and figure out the other spots in my lineup to battle it out was my thinking.
- James Conner‘s workload and pricing as a near TD favorite made him a must play for me.
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.
I have a spreadsheet where I compare different lineups using an aggregate of projections (ours in the optimizer and two other sites) and finally arrive at a final lineup. Here is what I finished with:
- Let’s talk through why CMC was not in my cash lineup despite what I shared on the podcast. We record our Friday DFS & Betting Podcast every Thursday afternoon. We often get asked on Friday afternnon why we don’t have so-and-sos injury included and you can see why our tone about CMC was different than the utter panic that ensued all weekend. I wrote in Saturday’s Best Plays: “We bumped him down in our best plays rankings, and if you want to rid yourself of the stress, we see 4-6 guys that are all viable at their price points given their juicy workloads. With this recent injury news, his roster percentage will certainly come down with many not wanting to risk it. (Borg: This means I likely will play him if everybody is scared.)“
- As much as I love CMC and have him everywhere in my redraft leagues, I made the call of playing him in tournaments (which helped me recoup a ton of my cash losses on the week) knowing the field likely was not gonna play him in cash. Normally, my contrarian self would just buck the trend and play him but I knew my Sunday would be jam packed. Friday was a double-header for my boys opening weekend for baseball and (get this) they both had games on Sunday starting at 1:00! Yup, I was at the ball-park until almost 5:00 on Sunday afternoon. I knew I wouldn’t have the time or focus to late swap from CMC in the late window. (We won all 4 games this weekend!)
1st game of Fall Ball season ⚾️ pic.twitter.com/2BysLTZ4nL
— Kyle Borgognoni (@kyle_borg) September 5, 2025
- I wish I could tell you a better part of my process but playing Ja’Marr Chase early rid me of having to go back and forth sweating late swap options. Spoiler: he did not do so hot.
- At RB, I had CMC, De’Von Achane, Jonathan Taylor and Chase Brown as the RBs I stressed about. As I got up to the elite Bengals WR, Brown was crossed off. Taylor became a GPP cornerstone for a lot of builds and I was left with Achane’s massive target share in a game I thought would be competitive.
- I wouldn’t say Tetairoa McMillan was an absolute lock but as the week progressed, it felt tough getting away from him at $5,200. His target share was likely going to be near 25% (it was 26%) and that projected quite well. I had my top-4 WRs in my Best Plays chart on my team, a feat that I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to make happen in cash. The only other WRs I considered this week: Brian Thomas Jr. ($6800) and Jerry Jeudy ($5400).
- I struggled with Trevor Lawrence versus Jayden Daniels. Fitting in a stud like Chase was ultimately what led to the difference.
- DST was my final decision and while PIT was my #1 play, I honestly can’t stand paying up at the position most weeks. I knew the roster percentages would be flat.
What Did the Field Do
My goal in this section is to discuss the pool of players used the most in cash style contests. You can compare the roster percentage, DK outputs, and how much of their salary they X’ed this week.
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.
- Paying up for Chase and abandoning CMC ultimately doomed my lineup. Welp, that’s how it goes on a slate where the chalk condensed and the chalk failed. 1v1 or 2v2 decisions make-or-break your cash lineup.
- Playing the NYG > HOU and SEA was probably bad process looking back.
- Playing Lawrence to get the salary savings was in hindsight not needed. There was already enough value on the slate so paying for a too cheap Jayden Daniels as QB1 on the slate was a mistake.
2025 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 $10 Double-Up from DraftKings.
| Week | Cash Line | DK Pts | H2H Win% | Note |
| 1 | 115.38 | 105.42 | 5% | Chase Pay Up Flop |
Yep, Week 1 cash was baddddd. However, I purposely play a much, much smaller volume of cash in Week 1 to build in this variance. Here was the slack message I sent in our Slack chat.
Hours and hours of analysis only to deposit $30 to DK. DFS is a funny game.
Stay tuned in for the First Look article for next week which comes out on Tuesday and previews the Week 2 main slate.
Comments
I feel good about the process. Literally missed the cash line by less than a point. Went Lawrence, Brown, Achane, Connor, London, Egbuka, BTJ, Njoku, Texans. Lawrence and BTJ obviously were a let down, but maybe the delay had something to do with it. Thanks for all the great information!!
I enjoyed this article I won this week where it mattered but definitely leaned into some of what you mentioned. Had I not and went with my gut I would have cashed more.