Borg’s DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 4 (Fantasy Football)

I often share that each week in DFS is its own multiverse; you cannot compare what happened last week and use the same exact criteria in evaluating your decisions.

However, some weeks feel crystal clear in the approach. As I’ll outline this week, it felt like 4-5 plays in cash were essentially “made for you” by the NFL scriptwriters.

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 4 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.

The Thought Process

Cash Locks (In My Opinion)

• In our Week 4 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.
• Another week and another chance to pay a too-cheap Christian McCaffrey. Before this weekend, he was on pace for 437 touches. Hopefully Kyle Shanahan doesn’t break our dude but until then, he projected as BY FAR the best RB on the slate averaging over 40(!) weighted opportunities per game. Not playing CMC in cash would’ve felt wrong.
• I also had Chargers rookie RB Omarion Hampton locked in. I highlighted him the week before as a buy-low opportunity and I played him in tourneys against the Broncos. The fact his salary was still below $6K was absurd with Najee Harris being placed on IR. On workload alone, he should’ve been $1,000 more expensive.
• Maybe you didn’t feel the same, but there was no chance I was passing up Tyler Warren this week. He was my cash lock: “He is going to be a chain-mover this week against the Rams who utilize single-high safety looks 61% of the time. Warren averaging a robust 13.6 yards per target against that look, the highest among all qualifying TEs. He leads all pass catchers in YAC and his salary remains tenable in the $4K range. He will be one of the most popular TEs and yet I don’t want to mess around with the other options in cash.”
• Explain to me NOT playing Puka Nacua this week. We wrote in Best Plays: “We expect cash builds this week to have CMC + Puka together as the pay up spots.” He is leading the planet in every imaginable receiving category and was still priced below $8K. Apparently there were Jabronies trying to get cute in cash including a couple of people in my H2Hs not playing Puka. Why?!
• Those four felt like locks this week to me. I get going for a cheaper option at TE (Brenton Strange) but I wrote “Beyond being an absolute dawg, Tyler Warren is too cheap for his role as THE YAC leader among all WRs and TEs in the NFL. If you have the money, we advise prioritizing Warren given the IND/LAR game environment.” There was no way I was going into a DFS street fight without him and maybe that was too firm of a stance. Or maybe it wasn’t firm enough…

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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• QB felt pretty tough this week. I knew the field was going to side with a bunch of $5K options along with Jaxson Dart. I fiddled with lineups featuring both Drake Maye and Dart knowing the field was likely going to be split between them. Dart’s salary savings ($1000 cheaper) was tempting and I
• At WR, the cheaper $5K options were popping as cheap target monsters. Every one knows I have a soft spot for Chris Olave, who was tied with Puka for the league-lead in targets going into this weekend. I felt 85% sure he was going to make the final cut given his $5100 salary.
• The other WR spots were a bit tougher. I considered A.J. Brown, Drake London, Jakobi Meyers, Keenan Allen, Sterling Shepard, and Parker Washington. I’ll get to that final name in just a second…
• Beyond locking in Hampton and CMC,  Beyond him, the other elites (Bijan, JTT, & James Cook) all were on my radar in cash.
• I preferred to NOT play Hampton and Skattebo in the same cash lineup, as we detailed on the podcast. He was the player I faded on this slate: “The price tag on both sites is very tempting but the matchup against the Chargers is not. LAC ranks 4th versus fantasy RBs, 9th in yards before contact allowed and we can’t just copy and paste what Skattebo did last week with a new QB under center in his first NFL start. I likely will diversify my RB exposures but come in underweight on the Skatman.“
• Jonathan Taylor was on my radar but I took a firm stance against him this week in DFS. I wrote up in Tournament Takes: “I’m not in love with this road matchup this week against a Rams defense that ranks #1 versus fantasy RBs, 8th in yards after contact & carries the lowest missed tackle rate.“
• I really, really liked Bucky Irving and Ashton Jeanty this week. It pained me to NOT include them in my cash builds. Bucky was my Slate Breaker and cover boy for Tournament Takes: “His price tag ($6900) makes him a great early window option to roster giving you early information that can dictate how you want to handle the chalkier options in the late window.” I wrote on Jeanty: “I’m a big Ashton Jeanty fan this week as the field focuses on his inefficiencies thus far and not “what does a a $6.4K RB who is seeing 18+ opportunities per game in a dream matchup have to do to pay off”?”
• I wish I could’ve fit in 3 RBs but I sided with two WRs in the $5K range and a TE who profiled better than all of the WRs in the $4K range. That meant punting at FLEX was on the table, something I did not love doing. In hindsight, this was likely a mistake in my strategy but I ran into a great outcome at a position I usually ignore…
• I normally preach against locking into a DST in the mid to upper $3K range but this week was tough. In our roster percentage report, the three most popular DSTs projected are all pay up options. That is not a normal occurrence in DFS. I honestly was afraid of running into one of those ceiling performances in cash between HOU, DET, and BUF. I also liked NE, who we picked in our Survivor Pool.
• I knew TEN was a tempting option down at $2,300 as a punt play. The theory was if I stay with HOU, I could have massive leverage on those TEN lineups. I wrote about the Texans: “Don’t start with the Texans but if you want a high floor option and you have the salary, they feel like a slam dunk at home against Cam Ward. He ranks dead last in completion percentage and is on pace for 85 sacks taken“
• This build was not orthodox by any means. Ending up on Parker Washington was probably a bit absurd but in my mind paying up for HOU was more valuable than dropping down to TEN and ending up with a middling Tre Tucker or sacrificing somewhere else in my build. I could not give up Tyler Warren at TE nor one of the studs (CMC or Puka).
• When I weighed my lineup, I realized the key decisions were the following:
  • QB- Maye vs Dart
  • RB- Did James Cook or Skattebo go off?
  • WR- I had the 3 chalky WRs
  • TE- Did Tyler Warren fail? Or did Brenton Strange match him in raw points?
  • DST- Did the TEN punt play pay off?

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.

• Parker Washington looked like a hot fart until that punt return TD.
• I’ve never been a Jakobi Meyers guy so I felt a bit stupid siding with him over Jeanty as my Raider for the week.

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.

If these trends continue… It’s a nice reminder that Week 1 can mess with our emotions and we end up double-counting what happened in such a small sample size.