Borg’s NFL DFS Cash Lineup Review for Week 6 (Fantasy Football)

How did that chalk taste everyone?

Going into this weekend, the plays in cash were quite clear. We knew who the field was going to play making this one of the tigher cash slates in recent memory.

The question is: did you survive? One wrong move likely buried you behind a mountain of roster percentages in the afternoon slate. It made it even tougher to pivot and use late swap.

The goal if 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.

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 6 Cash Lineup

The Thought Process

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

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Cash Locks (In My Opinion)

• In our DFS Best Plays article (which comes out every Saturday), I shared the pool of players that were basically locked from the beginning of the week.
• I did not consider anyone else at QB this week other than Josh Allen… and it looks like the field felt the same way too. Stacking him with Stefon Diggs was cost-intensive but felt like too safe a stack in the best game environment on the slate. I never waivered on them.
• Imagine not playing Rhamondre Stevenson this week… It felt way too easy given the matchup. I’m shocked he wasn’t in 100% of lineups.
• There was so much value that opened on this slate that also pigeonholed some of my decisions. I wrote in the best plays “I can’t imagine building a lineup without Eno Benjamin this week. He’s the free square at $4600 and yes, everyone will have him. It’s chalk I’m willing to eat.“

Gut-Wrenching Decisions

• Knowing I had Rhamondre and Eno locked in and wanted a 3-RB build, there were a few candidates I shuffled in my lineup throughout the week: Saquon Barkley ($7700), Breece Hall ($5800), Kenneth Walker III ($5600) and Darrell Henderson Jr ($5100).
• It realistically came down to the final three after plugging the BUF stack in my lineup. I loved Hall the most but (honesty here) I have him on my main home league team. It was simply a classic “happiness hedge” that won’t show up on most DFS strategy tutorials but subtly comes into play from time to time.
• It came down to Walker and Henderson. News came out about Henderson potentially having limited touches from recently signed Malcolm Brown and Ronnie Rivers. Who?! Here is how I talked it out with Betz finally deciding I didn’t want two RBs in the same SEA/ARI game.

• At WR, Tyler Lockett ($5600) was pretty much in from the beginning until he popped up on the injury report on Thursday with a hamstring issue. But the weirdest part was him being completely off the report on Friday. I went from “he’s off my board” to “oh, that was random… carry on” with my lineup. In hindsight, it looks egregious but Lockett was arguably our best points per dollar WR with his salary not even changing after going for 30+ DK points the week prior.
• I knew I wanted a Buccaneers WR so I labored between Mike Evans ($7000) and Chris Godwin ($6100). Taking a stance with Mike Evans felt brave in the moment. I knew that would be the major breaking point for my lineup and whether I would hit the cash line or not. In theory, the lower roster percentage gave me some room to gain on the field knowing how condensed the chalk was. But it was a double-edged sword.
• The other WRs in my pool: Christian Kirk ($5800) and Rondale Moore ($4200)
• My final lineup decision came down to what I wanted to do at TE. I loved Mark Andrews the entire week including mentioning him as my “slate breaker” of the week (presented by Moon Boots) on Friday’s podcast. The main issue was fitting him in while maintaining a 3RB build I felt comfortable with. Adding up the projected touches made me side with the punt play of Zach Gentry to make my lineup work.

• Projections-wise, the top one was coming in better and this bottom one would’ve made me play two Cardinals which felt a bit risky. Not having Diggs in the lineup also was a deal-breaker.

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.

• Evans over Godwin hurts badly. My contrarian ways sting when they don’t hit.
• Not moving off of Darrell Henderson Jr. in the late swap window. Honestly, I thought he would be chalkier than he was and while he did 2.5x on his salary, a ceiling-type game was what I needed so pivoting to another player at that price point was probably the rip-cord parachute decision I needed to make.
• Notice that I did not include Deon Jackson ($5200) in my decisions. The Jonathan Taylor inactive was a big deal but I had a hard time believing he was a much better play than Henderson. The sad reality is that I had $100 leftover to get up to him.
• Believing in the Cardinals offense feels like a weekly mistake.

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.

This ended a mere three points off the cash line in double-ups and 50/50s. Ouch.

A giant downfall from the previous week but also one that was foreseeable knowing there was little room for error. If there is some reason for a silver lining, one of those H2H wins was against one of the better DFS experts in the industry (although it was by 1 point).