After week 1 I mentioned how important it was to revisit your results when you lose. I think it is equally important to review when you win. Last week was one of my most successful cash game weeks I have had as such I wanted to walk through one of the lineups that caused that successful week.
First of all, my cash game strategy currently involves playing about 60% of my bankroll at Fanduel and 40% at Draftkings. This helps me vary my player pool due to different salaries and scoring at the different sites without diluting my winning percentage. I also play 3 different lineups at Fanduel and a 1PM only lineup. This is all very consistent with my recommendations in my bankroll article. With that in mind let’s get to my specific lineup strategy that score 149 points and placed in the top 5% of lineups.
There were three players that I identified as key players that I played across all of my lineups
The first two I mentioned in this very article last week was Donald Brown and Steve Smith. Including those two guys as my go to guys in tournaments despite their high ownership showed how much I really liked them and that they would be keys to cash games too.
Donald Brown was basically a failure only scoring 7.4 points when he needed 12.6 to reach value. Luckily outside of my kicker and defense he was the only one that didn’t reach value. But part of the reason I liked him so much was how high his floor was. This was the absolute worst case scenario for Brown and he still almost got to his value. As for Steve Smith I chronicled all the reasons I liked him last week but the biggest two were the Panthers defense and the free Dennis Pitta targets. I said I could see Smith racking up stats similar to Antonio Brown’s 10-90-2 line from the week before. He actually beat that!
The final guy I was all in on was Antonio Brown. This was due to the fact that he is the safest wide receiver in the league getting 5 catches and/or a TD in 25 straight games now. That’s some floor. He’s been a staple of my cash games lineups so far and was a key target in my season long league drafts. He also had a very favorable matchup against the Buccaneers where the Steelers were expected to score 26 points.
The next big play was pairing Jimmy Graham with Drew Brees. I don’t typically like to pair my QB and TE in head to head games but I had Drew Brees rated as my number 1 QB play of the week. This was due to such a favorable matchup against the Cowboys. The Saints had the second highest point total of the week and teams had been passing on the Cowboys all season long. In fact, if you adjust for score of the game and opponent teams are passing more on the Cowboys than anyone in the league. My only concern was that the Cowboys have been controlling game tempo with their run game as they are the most run heavy team in the league. Once the Saints fell behind in the first half I still had no concerns because the game script was now in their favor. If you recall my game plan is to spend on quarterbacks and take their safer points and this is what taking Brees accomplishes.
Jimmy Graham was my number 3 play of the week. Unfortunately, my number 1 play of the week was Larry Donnell and could only be played on Thursday. Antonio Gates was my number 2 play but with this lineup that used Lamar Miller instead of Matt Forte I had the money left over for Jimmy Graham. In my preseason article I said in cash games you should spend lower on favorable matchups at tight end since tight end points are often TD dependant unless you are paying up for Jimmy Graham. This was a combination of both as Graham had a favorable matchup against the Cowboys.
Golden Tate was my third favorite play at wide receiver given how often teams have been able to pass on the Jets and how pass happy the Lions have been. I also figured the Jets would put a lot of focus on Calvin Johnson but given that he was banged up all week that the Lions might be game planning more passes to Tate. In fact I have been running out Tate every week during the first four weeks. This will probably be the first week he isn’t in a lot of my lineups.
The final major piece was Lamar Miller. I liked this matchup because there wasn’t really much competition for the Miller on the team and I expected the Dolphins to lead the game and would be running out the clock. My hope was that Miller would be involved in the scoring on the way to building that lead. Luckily he did score twice because he wasn’t the running back running out the clock in the fourth quarter.
As for defense and kicker, I went with the Lions against the Jets because of the havoc the Lions line can cause and how inaccurate Geno Smith and went with Robbie Gould due to his cheap price. Neither worked out ideally but at least they performed reasonably.
Fanduel GPP plays
Below are my weekly GPP plays at Fanduel. Throughout the season I will be employing strategies mentioned in Week 1 about contrarian plays. My goal will be to highlight players owned less than 10% to give you a contrarian option unless the player is such a good value that you should play him anyway. But remember that if you think a player will score three times their salary at a higher rate than their ownership level they are still a good buy. It is also important to remember you don’t need to go contrarian on everyone one of your positions. Additionally I will take the approach outlined in my preseason article about the best approach to allocating money in my lineups. In this article, I showed that in general it was best to spend on studs at wide receiver and to a lesser extent quarterback and save your money at running back and tight end.
Nick Foles ($7,900) 4% owned – The Eagles are projected for the fourth highest point total of the week at 27 points. Given their offensive line and running game woes I would expect the majority of those points coming through the air. At first glance the Rams pass defense looks ferocious having allowed only 187 yards per game. But if you start to peel back the layers you see they have faced the Vikings, Buccaneers, and Cowboys. All three of those teams rank near the bottom of pass identity so these teams aren’t trying to pass on anyone, not just the Rams. Even though teams are hesitant to pass on the Rams they are still giving up 8 NYPA verse a league average of 6.5. I think a stat line of 250-2-15 is a very conservative estimate and that alone almost gets him to value. The only problem is I don’t like any of the particular stacks to go with Foles but I might give Zach Ertz a shot.
Khiry Robinson ($4,900) 8% - I might as well pick Khiry Robinson one more week before Mark Ingram returns from his injury. Robinson continues to disappoint mainly because he hasn’t gotten a touch down and loses playing time when the Saints are behind since he isn’t a pass catching back. Even Travaris Cadet was playing ahead of him on passing downs last week while the Saints trailed as Robinson played on only 30% of all the snaps. This time I expect the game script to be a lot more favorable for Robinson as they are 11 point favorites over the Buccaneers with the highest projected total of the week. Robinson’s yards per attempt haven’t been a problem so if he can just punch in one of those scores I feel pretty comfortable he will return value.
Reggie Bush ($7,000) 5% - Since I have selected Robinson nearly every week I figured you might want another option too. Bush makes for an intriguing play because Joique Bell has a concussion and is currently not expected to play this week. In addition to Bell’s injury there is a high probability that Theo Riddick could miss the game as well. If both are out Bush should be a true workhorse. We have seen this at times in Bush’s past and while he couldn’t always hold up for long he could put up RB1 points. This week isn’t a very favorable matchup against the Bills which will keep his ownership low but if he is on the field for most of the game I want a piece of an offense slated to score 26 points.
Julio Jones ($8,800) 6% - Julio Jones is one of true every week plays and when you can get him into your lineup at only 6% owned he is a great value. The Falcons are the second most pass happy team when adjusting for scoring margin and opponent which is consistent with my preseason projection when I projected them to be number 1. Jones has been the big benefactor of all those passes averaging 7-112-.8. So far this year teams have been a little hesitant to pass on the Giants but when they do they have good success averaging 7.4 Net Y/A. The Falcons won’t be afraid to test the Giants and it should result in a big day for Jones.
Julius Thomas ($8,000) 3% - Just in case we have forgotten since they were on bye last week the Cardinals have been one of the worst defenses against the tight end in the NFL over the last year. They have been a little better so far this year giving up 6-81 to Antonio Gates and 7-81 to Larry Donnel before playing a Vernon Davis free 49ers. But I think Julius changes all that. Peyton Manning is the best in the league at finding mismatches and the cornerbacks on the Cardinals are as tough as they come so the path of least resistance is going to be to find Thomas. Thomas is the highest cost tight end this week but with a projected total of 28 it wouldn’t surprise me to see Thomas haul in two TDs.
