Borg’s DFS Cash Lineup Week for Week 9 (Fantasy Football)

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 8 Cash Lineup

Draft % and cash lines each week will be from DraftKings’ $25 Single-Entry Double-Up with roughly 7,000 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

Every week I’ll move from where I started on Tuesday to where I landed on a Sunday.

Cash Locks (In My Opinion)

• In our Week 9 DFS Best Plays (which comes out on Saturdays for DFS Pass subscribers only), I shared the pool of players that were basically locked from the beginning of the week.
• Dak Prescott ($6500) was in from get-go this week as the top QB. The Eagles defense is arguably the clearest pass funnel in the NFL with opposing offenses averaging 39.8 attempts per game heading into the week. Jalen Hurts was briefly on the radar but it was a Dak week for me and we made that clear on the podcast and locked in as my QB1 in Best Plays.
• Demario Douglas ($4000) was the popular cash play of the week and despite my rant on the podcast Friday about despising when a middling talent gets steamed up, there was little reason to ignore him at this price point. Did I full-on fade in GPPs? You betcha.
• At WR, it might sound wild but I locked Ceedee Lamb ($8200) on Tuesday. The stack with Dak was appealing but the matchup and his insane usage (41% of the targets the week before) made him too good of a play to pass up. In the First Look article on Tuesday, I made Dak and Ceedee the cover boys. Using our Stream Finder tool, it’s clear how much of a smash spot this was as the Eagles rank dead last in schedule-adjusted fantasy points allowed to WRs since Week 4.

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’ll start with RB where there were legitimately six different guys I shuffled through this week. Alvin Kamara ($8100), Saquon Barkley ($7900), Josh Jacobs ($6900), Rachaad White ($5600), Rhamondre Stevenson ($5400), and Devin Singletary ($4300). A 3RB build was shaping up to be my preference early on.
• I was pretty set on Jacobs by Friday even messaging Betz: “I think Josh Jacobs might be my top RB”. The pricing on both sites ($6900-DK, $7500-FD) was soft considering the workload was 22 opportunities per game. I had a pretty good run-out for Josh Jacobs seeing two TDs and sitting on the doorstep of the 100-yard bonus. The game script despite having a rookie QB went in his favor and the play-calling was all Jacobs. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, “the Raiders, under new play-caller and interim offensive coordinator Bo Hardegree, called a designed rush on a season-high 58% of their plays against the Giants.“
• The emergence of Devin Singletary ($4300) later in the week gave us one of the true values on the slate. Was he a good play? Meh. Was the field likely to play him in 50+% of their lineups? In my mind, it felt likely. I considered briefly the opportunity cost of moving on but the WRs in his price range didn’t really excite me.
• Based on my RB rankings, I really wanted to fit in either Saquon Barkley or Alvin Kamara. That’s not a shock to anyone who was playing DFS this week but I had a nagging thought all week that I couldn’t shake: it feels like Kamara is not a guarantee. His salary went up almost $1K and while he was a lock the week before, I had this reoccurring thought I shared on the podcast: “he is competing with three other RBs on that team“. Obviously, Kamara is the most talented and a PPR machine but the combination of Jamaal Williams, Kendre Miller, and Taysom Hill does bring more variance than people might realize. Saquon’s opportunities are off-the-charts and while I normally hate playing two RBs in the same game, Jacobs and Barkley’s passing work kinda negates that rule. I sided with Kamara for fear of getting buried on a full PPR site. It was quite the struggle as I messaged the following to Betz: “I’m tempted to NOT play Kamara… i think im playing Kamara in cash… and fading in GPPs (nervous face)“. This was the emotional hedge I made. Was it good strategy? Probably not but that’s where I landed.
• At WR, with Ceedee and Pop in, I really only needed to fill one more slot. A.J. Brown ($8600) was my top WR play but his price was squeezing the life out of my lineup. The middle tier of Chris Olave ($6300), Zay Flowers ($5700), and Terry McLaurin ($5600) were attractive. I also briefly considering punting with either Wan’Dale Robinson ($3500) or Noah Brown ($3100) but I hate when I have lineups with two WR spots that are honestly wishful thinking. Sorry, but Pop Douglas was never going to be an elite play.
• Olave was my favorite and I knew I wanted to jam in a Saint in my lineup with one of the highest team-implied totals of the week. IT felt like an either or: Kamara or Olave. I wrote to Betz on Sunday when I was sweating this decision: “I know Olave is risky but I just don’t really want to play Kamara“. I have a long-standing love for Chris Olave. He was my “my guy” in 2022 as a rookie and I try to bang the table for him whenever I can. However, this was another case where I emotionally hedged by playing Olave in GPPs (and one of my main home leagues) and siding with projections and the field. Did I wimp out? Maybe.
• At TE, Logan Thomas ($3500) was my guy for most of the week. Why? He was cheap and with Curtis Samuel out, I figured he would see enough short-area targets to be fine in cash. This week was different where you weren’t really worried in cash about TEs burying you. In tournaments, geez the Cade Ottons (btw Dart Throw in Pace of Play article), Dalton Schultz, and Cole Kmets of the world went ham. Who knew running 12-personnel out there in DFS was the key to victory in Week 9? Why did Thomas not end up in my lineup? Once I locked in McLaurin, it was hard for me to want to play two Commanders. It wouldn’t have been egregious but Sam Howell isn’t exactly the most dependable player in the league. He is this generation’s Blake Bortles which can be super fun or destroy your week. With a mostly chalky build (in my mind), I wanted to build in a bit of upside, and with Drake London out, I had the extra cash to add Kyle Pitts ($4100) to the squad if I also went down at DST.
• Pitts was my 1st Falcon in cash all year and early on, it looked like I made a brilliant move getting slightly different than the field. However, Arthur Smith had different plans instead choosing to deploy his true TE1 (Jonnu Smith) as the main focal point of the offense.
• At DST, I cautioned from locking in a team early in the week. Chalky DSTs under $3K are what makes life worth living in cash. In Best Plays, I wrote: “Let this be the last piece of your puzzle but the Patriots and Giants are stupid cheap considering the QBs they face and the sacks on the table.” Any DST playing against Sam Howell has a “sack-based” floor but I honestly didn’t really care. Even playing my Giants DST against Josh Jacobs didn’t bother me as I figured rookie QB Aidan O’Connell was good for 3+ sacks.
• Here is the final lineup decision I was making basically weighing if I wanted to play Olave or Kamara in cash.

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• I went with the higher projections and weighted opportunities while also adding my first Atlanta Falcon of the year in cash. (Call me pessimistic) It ended up not mattering at all which is comforting.

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.

• Not going with my gut was painful right from the get-go. I shielded myself from my own emotional investment in Chris Olave and decided to go with the crowd and play Kamara.
• Devin Singletary, in hindsight, feels like such a square play. The five passing TDs went to C.J. Stroud and company but Singletary saw 75% of the snaps, 77% of the rush attempts, and two carries inside the 10. It didn’t work out but the usage was comforting to know he wasn’t a reach.

2023 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.

It’s been a pretty hot streak over the last six weeks with most of my 2v2s turning out quite well. My personal goal is to stay within my means and bankroll despite having a solid week in cash and a profitable year.