Borg’s DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 16 (Fantasy Football)

As the regular season winds down, I need to be perfectly clear: the cash format becomes increasingly more difficult.

Every person is different but I tend to not play cash lineups late in the season for a number of factors:

• the best of the best DFS players are still around
• projected playing times are all over the place in the final two weeks
• conserving my bank roll for the NFL playoff slates

The Christmas and New Years festivities also condenses my time to analyze each slate.

This will be my final cash review article of the 2025 season. I will still share my thoughts on the podcast but this will be the final write-up.

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 16 Cash Lineup

Draft % and cash lines this week will be from DraftKings’ $2 Single-Entry Double-Up with roughly 3,000 entries. Normally I do the $10 entry but I realized I never entered the contest so here ya go!

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The Thought Process

Cash Locks (In My Opinion)

• In our Week 16 DFS Best Plays (which comes out on Saturdays for DFS Pass subscribers only), I shared the pool of players and this week was blatantly obvious who the top plays were.
• I knew Jacoby Brissett would be played by most of the field so it was an easy click. However, we did mention some of the downside of everyone assuming he would go off. I faded Jacoby in tournaments and did NOT end up starting him in season-long leagues. Call this an emotional hedge but in cash, he was the play by almost 70% of the field.
• I loved the stud RBs this week so trying to fit in one or both of Bijan Robinson or Jahmyr Gibbs was at the forefront. I wrote in the Tournament Takes article: “Bijan needs 28+ points to pay off this price tag. I’m fully confident in his workload…” He scored 29.8.
• Harold Fannin Jr. was my preferred TE play all week long. The two TDs was a nice outcome but I thought more would play Kyle Pitts. I guess every one was scared off once we received news of Drake London playing.
• I knew DK Metcalf would be in my lineup from Day 1. The pricing stood out when I brought him up in our First Look article on Tuesday.

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 knew I wanted a Lion in my cash lineup. The question was whether I could run with Amon-Ra St. Brown or Jahmyr Gibbs. I chose Gibbs based on how the backfield workload has skewed his way since Dan Campbell took voer.
• The 3RB build was likely going to feature one of the cheap $5K RBs: Aaron Jones, Michael Carter or Kenneth Gainwell. I chose Jones with his matchup against the hapless Giants. Despite Jordan Mason leaving the game early, there was more on the table for Jones.
• My WR selections were a bit unmeasured. I didn’t really care to go dumpster diving for another cheap option late in the weekend. Tre’ Harris was the punt play earlier in the week and despite Quentin Johnston being active, I still ended up playing him. The pricing worked but I also think his role has grown to being much more over the last month. The 4-for-54 outcome was beautiful at the price point.
• Michael Wilson had been on such a heater and maybe I left him in just to stick it to my Falcons. I wanted some correlation with Bijan but in hindsight, I would’ve preferred Courtland Sutton, Chris Olave, or Jameson Williams if I was being stricter on this lineup.
• I did not have a preference this week at DST. Paying up for the Texans or Bills seemed to be the strategy by the field. It simply came down to pricing between the Titans or Jets. I had no idea NYJ would be that popular.

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.

• I went a bit off the board at WR this week which normally would be sub-optimal. However, the chalk failed at that position.

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.