Borg’s NFL DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 13 (Fantasy Football)

I won’t lie… most of my DFS attention this week was filtered towards winning the Fantasy Faceoff contest on Friday’s main show. We had to lock in our lineups by Friday morning which left me quite tilted once news about Najee Harris broke the other way. I queued up the segment for you here:

Did I win? Sure.

Did it feel glorious? Not really.

Jason having three players injured along with Andy spinning the wheel of shame is not quite the drama you might’ve been looking for.

Let’s turn to Week 13’s cash lineup which I hemmed and hawed over Sunday AM with Betz.

The goal of this article is neither to boast or wallow in “shoulda, woulda, couldas” but rather give a transparent look at my thought process for the week. Hopefully, this will help DFS 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.

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For cash, I specifically play 50/50s, Double-Ups, and H2Hs on DraftKings. I’ll share my unfiltered gut reaction, my thought process behind this lineup construction, and at the bottom, I will post my weekly results including ROI and H2H record to stay accountable with you.

If you’re wanting to go back to the drawing board, we did an overview podcast before the season on DFS Cash Game Strategy. I also published an article on DFS Strategy for Beginners and another entitled: How to Approach Each Position in DFS & Gain an Edge.

Week 13 Cash Lineup

The Thought Process

Let’s work from early week locks to where I made my final decisions.

Cash Locks (In My Opinion)

• In our DFS Best Plays article (which comes out on Saturdays), I shared the pool of players that were basically locked from the beginning of the week.
• The WRs this week was fairly easy to start a lineup. Amon-Ra St. Brown and Garrett Wilson ended up being the two most popular WRs on the slate and they both smashed. Other than getting cute, I can’t understand why someone would’ve gone away from them in cash formats.
• I mentioned how Austin Ekeler was “locked in for me this week. Yes, he’s expensive but he is the Chargers’ offense and his TD equity is just too good in a game with a 50.5 total. The Raiders also allow more RB receiving yardage than any other team this year. He had 15 targets last week and based on the insane pace he’s on this year, we expect double-digit receptions almost every single week which seems like a pure cheat code on DraftKings.” The results weren’t there as the Chargers’ offense routinely sputtered with Justin Herbert being under pressure which felt like every single snap.
• At QB, I only ever considered Joe Burrow or Trevor Lawrence for $1000 cheaper. And by consider, I mean I never put anyone else in my lineup other than Burrow. The passing volume and game environment made him a must-play for me as my QB1 in my ranks.

Gut-Wrenching Decisions

• David Montgomery was one of the players I thought would be a cash lock for me. I loved his price ($6200) and opportunity but also was intrigued by Aaron Jones in the same exact game. By Saturday evening, news had progressed that Joe Mixon looked extremely doubtful to play. Perine’s salary ($6000) was by no means a gimme but we knew the Chiefs were especially inept at stopping pass-catching RBs all year long. The game environment made him a top-tier play as we updated our Best Plays. Perine ended up being my RB2 (when factoring in salary & projections) ahead of Montgomery and a must-play at that point. Normally I don’t love stacking a QB with an RB but this was an exception given his pass-catching profile.
• My WR pool consisted of one elite play (Davante Adams), the aforementioned chalk guys (Amon-Ra St. Brown & Garrett Wilson), my guy Keenan Allen, the Jaguars WRs (Christian Kirk & Zay Jones), and a cheap punt play (Skyy Moore).
• With Ekeler already locked in and Adams becoming cost prohibitive to this build, I toyed with Moore as a punt option but I knew his floor was a full-on goose. The allure of having my WR1 (Wilson), WR2 (Amon-Ra), and my WR3 (Kirk) in my lineup was too juicy. Zay Jones might’ve been an appealing option for many but the combination of popping up on the injury report and his inconsistency throughout his career made me want to not chase last week’s monster performance. I felt like I had three locked-in WRs this week that I was excited about and they all three came through in big ways.
• At TE, Foster Moreau has been a fixture for the last month in my cash lineup. It ain’t pretty but he gets the job done at his price point. At $3600, he was starting to increase where other options (Hayden Hurst) also came into the conversation. I loved, loved, loved this spot for George Kittle ($5000) for high upside. But when we received news of David Njoku being out, Harrison Bryant also came into the picture. The drop from Moreau to Bryant production-wise didn’t feel that drastic.
• In my opinion, I could care less where I ended at DST. The Steelers, Broncos, and Titans were the only options on my radar. Their projections felt the same so it came down to how much salary was needed.
• The hardest decision was figuring out what to do at my FLEX position. I found combinations where Nick Chubb felt like the missing piece despite a higher price tag. The Browns should’ve clobbered the Texans and Chubb felt like a cinch for 100+ yards and a score. But Kirk felt like the better PPR option at WR so I met in the middle making sure I had a more balanced build outside of my Bryant punt. Kittle’s mix of salary + upside + my own ego felt like a better use of my resources considering I already had a Jaguar on my roster thus eliminating Zay Jones. Take out the position and Kittle profiled as a FLEX option with double-digit points with room to be the TE1 on the slate. I also never really considered Bam Knight because of Wilson’s presence on the roster.

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.

• Being obsessed with George Kittle‘s upside this week was probably a bit misguided once I started putting my final lineup together.
• Dropping from the Broncos to Titans definitely had more downside that I realized.

2022 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.

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Week	DK Pts	H2H Win %	Note
1	147.02	65%	All the Chalk Hits
2	106.90	46%	Trey Lance Pain, Mark Andrews Salvage”}”>Trey Lance Pain, Mark Andrews Salvage
3	122.86	77%	Mack Hollins FTW”}”>Mack Hollins FTW
4	90.26	10%	Jonathan Taylor Nose Dive”}”>Jonathan Taylor Nose Dive
5	208.06	100%	This Lineup Could Do No Wrong
6	134.26	32%	Mike Evans Let Down”}”>The Mike Evans Let Down
7	194.64	93%	Joe Burrow + the Top-3 RBs”}”>Joe Burrow + the Top-3 RBs
8	—	—	OFF for Family
9	162.92	83%	Justin Fields Goes Bonkers”}”>Justin Fields Goes Bonkers
10	138.18	34%	Kamara & Waddle Let Downs
11	83.2	19%	Not a Single Flame in Sight
12	142.9	48%	Josh Jacobs Soul Crusher”}”>The Josh Jacobs Soul Crusher
13	157.54	69%	Burrow + Perine Doing Work

A solid week slowly working through the news, adjusting to ins-and-outs, and finally arriving at a lineup that was resilient.