Borg’s DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 10 (Fantasy Football)

Week 10 DFS was a gift to me in so many ways. The approach I took was quite simple where I played 90% cash and very few tournament lineups.

I don’t always adjust my volume in weeks but I wanted to get back to the basics of what I feel like are my strengths reading a slate.

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 11 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 10 DFS Best Plays (which comes out on Saturdays for DFS Pass subscribers only), I shared the pool of players who I was working from for cash lineups and building blocks of tournaments.
• From the beginning of the week, we talked about Aaron Jones being the best points-per-dollar play on the slate. He was the most popular player and my RB1 in my rankings due to the matchup and his workload. The Vikings offense never really got things going but
• Whenever you see someone as the “cover boy” of the Best Plays article, that means they are most definitely in our final lineups. Josh Downs was played by nearly 60% of the field as his rapport with Joe Flacco along with Michael Pittman being out made him an easy cash lineup mainstay this week. I highlighted his league-leading 40% TPRR against 2-high safety looks on the podcast and Pace of Play article as a reason to also play him in tournaments.

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.

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• At QB, I only really considered Brock Purdy ($6500) or Justin Herbert ($5200). Both salaries felt palatable but Purdy won out thanks to their team implied total and the matchup against the Buccaneers. I tried to play around with combinations where I saved the $1300 but the lower tier of WRs felt like the most comfortable place to be in. I didn’t need the savings like I thought I would.
• With Aaron Jones locked in, I truly was looking at a 3RB build knowing there were a number of strong options the field might consider. The expensive guys (Saquon– $8300, Kamara-$8100, CMC-$8000) all were quite tempting when I started to tinker with lineups. The workloads were secure with Saquon facing a Dallas run funnel defense, Kamara likely touching the ball 25+ times, and CMC reportedly seeing 20 touches in his first game back. However, based on roster percentages, I wasn’t worried about getting buried by Saquon or CMC. Those two fell by the wayside as tournament plays for me.
• The decision point of Kamara versus Bijan Robinson was arguably the most important one on the slate. I knew Kamara would be much more popular so there was risk associated with taking the Falcons RB. He’d been a top-12 RB in four straight games and the workload between Robinson and Tyler Allgeier was starting to widen over that span. I try not to let any of my fandom come into play for DFS. In fact, in the past, I’ve mostly stayed away from playing Falcons removing any emotion into the process and just letting the weighted opportunities and projections dictate decision points. However, the offensive line advantage of ATL > NO was looming large in my mind. It was such a big data point that I dished this out as my Bold Call of the Week in Best Plays:

• I also reasoned that playing known Falcon killer Taysom Hill ($4000) at TE would (hopefully) siphon some of the Saints red zone rushing production away from Kamara. While I do love Cade Otton ($5500) in all his glory, he was my TE3 on this cash slate behind Travis Kelce ($6000) and Taysom. If I had all the money in the world, Kelce is who I wanted to play as I was somewhat fearful of the field play 2TEs with Taysom AND Kelce. However, that was not the case as Kelce came in around 5%.
• At WR, we highlighted the expensive tier on Friday’s podcast as plays we wanted to fit in, but not necessarily essential based on how we thought the field would build. Justin Jefferson ($8800) is always a player you are worried might bury you but as the weekend progressed, it became evident that he was going to get squeezed out as too pricey despite a plus matchup against Jacksonville. Garrett Wilson ($7200) and Davante Adams ($7000) both projected as excellent plays but there was fear of guessing the wrong Jet in your cash lineup. The same could be said for Deebo Samuel ($6900) as the 49ers options in cash were plentiful. Whenever you see 3-4 options from the same team and they are all above the $6.5K range, you can bet they will cannibalize each other’s roster percentages.
• The middle tiers were full of guys like Khalil Shakir ($6000), Ladd McConkey ($5900), DeAndre Hopkins ($5300), Jauan Jennings ($5100) and cheaper Bucs options like Jalen McMillan ($4200) and Sterling Shepard ($4100). The Bucs WRs got squeezed out as the punt options on the slate were projected just as well. Shakir got a boost when Amari Cooper was declared out but I preferred McConkey knowing the Chargers passing attack with Herbert would carry some roster percentage.
• The punt options on this slate unlocked lineups this week. Adonai Mitchell ($3400) and Mack Hollins ($3300) were the cheapies I was most interested in. I sided with Mitchell as the more talented of the two and I was betting on the Colts passing game to see a ton of volume with Joe Flacco under center. Mitchell’s TPRR numbers were also something I’ve tried chasing for a few weeks as he’s been targeted a ton when he’s on the field.
• With Aaron Jones + Bijan in the lineup, the hardest point was figuring out which RB I would play in the FLEX. I liked the versatility of deciding between James Conner ($6500) and Breece Hall ($7600) as late swap options IF the Bijan call did not work out. They were a chance to get off the chalk IF Bijan failed knowing I had salary to work from. In the late window, the only guys that I thought would carry major roster percentage in cash were Conner, Hall, the Jets WRs, and some Chargers.
• There were a lot of different avenues this week and once you start down a path, it sometimes can be hard to properly assess if this road was the right one. The 3rd WR spot + FLEX was something I played around with for awhile.

• As you can see, I kept running into a problem where I didn’t know where to allocate my money. With $400 left over, I couldn’t

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.

• The week felt mostly mistake free although the CHI/NE decision at defense is one you definitely could analyze in a couple of different ways. I put very little thought into DST, to be honest.

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.

A clean sweep week is just what the doctor ordered!

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