Borg’s NFL DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 15 (Fantasy Football

It was a big week in DFS world here.

• Betz came to Arizona for his first time at Fantasy Footballers HQ.
• We did a livestream on Friday breaking down the 3-game Saturday slate.
• Heck, I even let him interact and play board games with my kids.

Didn’t win the Milly, but the AZ trip was a success 🙌🏻 pic.twitter.com/H1FzNaWycC

— Matthew Betz (@TheFantasyPT) December 19, 2022

The question is: did it help or hurt my DFS process?

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.

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.

We do the work. You dominate your draft.

Get the 2023 UDK

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 15 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.
• Like many in the industry, I loved this spot for Alvin Kamara. The salary + opportunity against the Falcons felt like a must.
• After missing out on my favorite WRs (Davante Adams & Justin Jefferson) the previous two weeks, I made a vow that I would do whatever I could to make sure Ja’Marr Chase was in my lineup. Was he expensive? Yes. But the role recently was off-the-charts since returning from injury. Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd‘s statuses improved throughout the week but I tried to let that not deter me from Chase. He is an alpha and I wanted to roster one.
• I couldn’t imagine playing a different DST than the Broncos this week. They were the clear cash play from my First Look article against backup Colt McCoy at home. Eventually, he was knocked out, and that turned into “should-be-in-the-Arena-league” Trace McSorley. Their price + matchup made them a lock and the most popular play on the slate. Don’t overthink things, folks.

Gut-Wrenching Decisions

• The QB grouping was strong this week with three price points (Hurts- $8200, Herbert- $7200, Dak- $6200) all stair-stepped for cash lineups. Based on my lineup constructions, I wanted to value pure volume so Herbert felt like the safest of the bunch. He also was easily stackable with Keenan Allen or Mike Williams.
• RB was a tough place to navigate through. The expensive RBs (Austin Ekeler– $8500, Josh Jacobs– $8100, & Derrick Henry-$8000) all looked like absolute game-wreckers that I was terrified to not have in my lineup. Based on paying up for Chase and Herbert, I mostly stuck to the lower-priced guys. Tony Pollard ($7100) was as high as I was willing to go while Miles Sanders ($6200), Isiah Pacheco ($5900), and Latavius Murray ($5100) all were on my short-list.
• I had a great back-and-forth (in-person) with Betz about Zonovan Knight ($5400), who did project well at his salary. However, Pacheco’s team-implied total (31) felt too strong to pass up and he was my dude early in the week. I stuck with my initial gut reaction from early in the week and played Pacheco.
• At WR, my pool outside of Ja’Marr Chase was fairly small considering I had at least two spots (+ my FLEX). Keenan Allen is always on my radar as a safe PPR option. Stacking him with Justin Herbert just made sense despite the fact Mike Williams was $500 cheaper. As the week progressed, Chris Moore slowly became an easy cash play especially after his great performance last week. Fading him in GPPs? Sure. But his role and the Kansas City matchup had him at 6+ targets in my projections as his floor.
• Nelson Agholor started out as the cheap WR to roster until Jakobi Meyers and Rhamondre Stevenson started to turn the corner Friday in their practice report statuses. The only other WR I considered was Zay Jones. I know it’s simple but between his price, his role + the DAL/JAX matchup, it felt like a perfect mix. Three-TDs were way out of the realm of what I thought was possible.
• When I’m assembling a cash lineup (especially in a PPR format like DraftKings), I will “count up” my targets as a floor projection. Between Chase (8), Moore (6), Allen (8), and Zay Jones (6), I had 28 targets to start from. The TDs were really only counted on from Chase but this led me to lean into a 4WR build instead of my normal 3RB.
• At TE, I never really considered paying up for Kelce. Punting the position has become the norm and the options were clear to me. Greg Dulcich ($3400) had the plus matchup against Arizona, Chig Okonkwo ($3100) was a bit cheaper in a solid role, and Cade Otton ($2900) had led the position at routes run over the last two weeks.
• My final decision came down to a simple 2v2 swap: Tony Pollard +  Cade Otton or Keenan Allen + Chig Okonkwo. I would’ve had to FLEX Pollard and thus had zero late swap ability. Call it selfish but I instead went with the ability to pull the rip cord in the late window and played Keenan, who I love immensely.

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’ve received some negative feedback about who my “locks” are each week and Alvin Kamara surely lived up to that again. But it’s always in hindsight that we can make these type of judgments. I probably would’ve played Kamara 9-out-of-10 times knowing the matchup and any chance I can get to take advantage of my Falcons. (Yes, I know. It’s a sick, demented way of coping with your favorite team).
• Getting up to Hurts definitely was the doom of this lineup in H2Hs. I knew he’d be popular but I also failed to see the downside of Herbert throwing two INTs, no TDs, and 13 fantasy points.

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.

Interesting week because H2H-wise, I didn’t come out great but I cashed in my 50/50 and double-ups. For the weeks you do miss the cash line, it’s nice to have the safety net of H2Hs. Regardless, felt great about where I landed this week with a profitable outcome.